Change happens simply as time passes by. It is our environment changing, it is the people around us becoming more experienced, it is getting older, it is us becoming more experienced, and it is things and tools growing older.

All of this, and more, requires adapting our thinking.

Some may already be routine. Things growing older and needing to be replaced can be a simple cycle. But changing something easily leads to new choices, or new habits to be learned.

Other changes may require much more attention for us to even become aware of them.

Becoming used to social media for example is something many of us grew into. It seems like an easy choice to join one and leave the other aside. But there is more to it as it also means that the way we connect has changed, that there are many more channels to be managed, that the pressure to be connected seems to be ever-growing, and that it takes time out of the day.

It leads to the idea that whatever comes on top needs to be added on top of our activities. But as that isn’t possible, silent trade-offs are happening.

It’s easy to switch on the smartphone, but it’s difficult to switch it off.

Said differently:

It’s easy to be busy, but it’s hard to take time to do nothing and simply be present.

What gets lost on us, is that doing nothing can be the time needed to step back and reflect on what is important or on what it is, we want to do.

The thing is, that a busy leader most often will be doing the job his team could do better than the leader himself. It’s time where no one does the job the leaders should do. Integrate the change as it happens in a meaningful way into the way their organization does its work. That is, do the work no one did before.