Patience with New Things.

We have just recently switched from a printed church newsletter to an e-newsletter. We were simply following a trend to try to go digital whenever possible. Board meetings, annual meetings had already gone to a paperless format so this last week I labored with the new software to create our first edition of a paperless newsletter.
Along the way I was reminded of numerous leadership principles that are so easy to take for granted. While I admit they are all elementary, I felt like I was back in leadership 101 learning them all over again.

The idea of an e-newsletter was easy. Finding the right software, the right publishing service, and the right e-newsletter management site was more difficult. Having done some research, I settled on resource and began the process of setting up an e-newsletter.

Writing the articles was easy. Learning how to enter pictures, text, formatting on the new software took time. Learning the intricacies of formatting the pages and imbedding hyperlinks took time.

Sending the newsletter was easy. Doing it well the first time was a challenge. After three drafts, and input from my chief editors (an office manager and an administrative assistant) I thought we were ready to move ahead and publish. I was eager to see the finished work (that tendency we all have to want change to be quick and easy). Thinking we had arrived at the place of perfection, I clicked the send button and promptly sent out a draft copy instead of a corrected copy. ARGH!! So two days later I found myself writing an explanation and encouragement for others to be patient with the change and forwarded a corrected copy of the newsletter.

So what was I learning again? Just the basic stuff of change.

- Change is never easy. It always requires hard work.
- Change won't happen without a few snags along the way. No matter how hard we try we will always fail to foresee every detail, we will always make mistakes along the way.
- Change will always challenge our patience. Leaders see where they want to go and they'd like to get there NOW. Patience in change begins with leaders.
- Change is a process. First attempts always lead to tweaking the system, adjusting the plan, editing the process. When things go wrong leaders don't blame others, they assess what's needed and continue to move forward.

Leaders lead. . . especially when it comes to change.