Your Context is Always Changing

You can have a great vision. You can have a great plan. But if you’re not tracking your context, it doesn’t matter.

One of the most underrated things in change implementation is that as soon as you start making changes your context changes.

Sometimes the impact is immediate. Sometimes it’s delayed. But it will happen.

The plan needs to change because the context changed.

Sometimes it will even warrant a change in goal / strategy.

Adjusting is not failure. It’s necessary for success.

I think this is one of the things that is not talked about enough in system theory. Systems theory often talks about knock-on effect. The impact of A on something that wasn’t immediately obvious.

But often times they weren’t obvious because they didn’t exist under the original context.

Risk management is a good example of this.

Assessment is done under particular conditions. It’s valid. And then the conditions change.

Because that’s just how life / the world works.

An assessment needs to be done again.

And put it on repeat.

The good news: It keeps people employed.

The bad news: It can feel repetitive and frustrating if you bring a “but I’ve already done this” mentality to it.

So next time you’re thinking about making a change (or even when your not making a change) remember that your context will always be changing and you need to track these changes and determine what the impact is.