The Messy Nature Of Doing Things That Matter

Understanding is not something just happens. Clarity is not something that is magically arrived at. It is a process. I hate it when people, and particularly leaders, act as if there is a straight line to clarity.

Figuring anything out is not always a clear path. There are mistakes to be made. Depending on how we react to it, there is failure that muddles our feet on the journey.

The commitment to figuring is necessary for every leader’s success. More than, leaders must love mess. No innovation ever takes place in perfect order.

Stuff has to be blown up. People’s comfort gets messed up. Shattering the status quo is messy. Sometimes clarity is about reducing. It is about editing things, getting rid of the unnecessary or the clutter. That too is messy. There has to be unrest before tranquility.

Nothing great can be built without a mess [Click to Tweet]

This applies to both life and leadership.

Art is beauty created in a mess. It doesn’t matter what you work on, if it is going to be beautiful it must come from a mess. No machine works beautifully without someone’s hands getting dirty from time to time.

Epiphany is not as mystical and magical as people sometimes make it. It is a messy journey to clarity, beauty, to changing world. To changing the world.

Doing things that matter is not going to be perfect. Without imperfections there would be no appreciation of beauty. This is true both in what you ship and the processes of shipping whatever you do.

Leaders must give room to those they lead to be messy. To break stuff. To let chaos rule to some extent. Trying to restrict and control every aspect of every transition and innovation, is asking for more trouble than you can handle. It is also a stifling of innovation.

This also means that when you’re solving problems you must face this fact: you might not get it right on the first attempt. You’re not likely to be perfect out the gate.

This shouldn’t stop you from pushing the boundaries of the status quo. It should not stop you from leading. It must not stop you from doing things that matter to change the world. Embrace the messy nature of doing things that matter. Be bold. Be /ˈherətik/.

[Photo Credit: gabrielsaldana]