The Ordinary Days that Lead to Big Change
My son’s last day of high school just happened. Wow. I know it sounds cliché, but it truly feels like not that long ago when I dropped him off at Kindergarten.
How is it that these milestones feel so distinct, even if it is actually just an ordinary day? What about all the other days that had more activity, more drama, more achievement, more ups and downs? All those days, through the years, feel more like a blur on a day like today.
It made me wonder about our life in organizations. About whether we feel the intensity of events when we are in the middle of them, when they are happening. We usually remember the launch, the reorg announcement, the all-hands where someone finally said what needed to be said out loud. But the months of quiet, grinding work that actually led to the big milestones? Those blur together – even though that’s usually where the real change was happening.
Think about the last time your team went through a significant shift. What stands out? Probably the kickoff meeting. Maybe a tense conversation on pilot day when things still felt stuck. Or the day the new process launched. All the days in between those milestones – the dozens of ordinary Tuesdays where people slowly got better at the new way of working – have likely already dissolved into “around that time, when we were figuring out the new process.”
This is the challenge: if leaders only register significance when it announces itself – a launch, a crisis, a visible win – they can end up managing by milestone instead of managing through the days when their support, direction, feedback, and hands-on involvement make a real difference. The unglamorous middle gets less attention precisely because it doesn’t feel as important. But under-attending during this period is how good change initiatives quietly stall. Nobody notices until the milestone moment arrives and the result isn’t what they hoped for. Looking at this through the lens of the classic William Bridges Change Model, it’s in that Neutral Zone – between Endings and Beginnings – when we have the biggest opportunity to lead.
My son’s school built milestones into the calendar for us. First day, last day, graduation – endings and beginnings built in. And I have shown up for all of them. But what we are truly celebrating today is getting through all of those ordinary days, some of which are not ordinary by any means if I look back more closely.
As leaders, we tend to focus on milestones as well, and it serves us well to work towards them and celebrate them. However, we need to remind ourselves of the importance of showing up on those ordinary days, those hard grinding days, and the days of small wins. Those are the days we are actually celebrating during these big milestones.
That’s the heart of what we work on in Kwela’s Leading Change workshop – not the big, visible moments of change, but the long unglamorous parade of ordinary days. In the workshop, we invite you to reflect on your own change and transition experiences – the good days and the not-so-good days – and develop insights on how to be more intentional and present for the changes that lie ahead.
Laura Villacrusis, Partner
laurav@kwelaleadership.com
