Are you as frustrated as I at the number of people doing nothing but hanging on to see what’s going to happen?  How about the leaders who keep telling us how bad things are going to get?  To make matters worse, the message is not to grab yourself by the bootstraps and be the solution.  It is to sit back and wait for the government to do something for you.

It’s time we each take responsibility and get going.  It’s tough out there, no one is denying that.  But nothing is more destructive of the human spirit, the American spirit, than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself waiting for someone else to make it better.  In the infamous words of Flight 91…

LET’S ROLL.

A couple of weeks ago there was a story in the news.  Seems a soldier home on leave received a gift from his girlfriend.  The gift was a parachute jump, his first.  This soldier dutifully completed all the required training and readied himself to leap from the plane.  This was to be a tandum jump which meant he was strapped to the belly of an experienced jumper.  After jumping from the plane, the soldier was merely along for the ride; the professional would pull the ripcord at the appropriate time and steer the pair to a safe landing.

Sometime after exiting the plane, the soldier felt something was wrong.  They were free-falling, maybe a bit too long.  In what had to be a moment of concern (to say the least) he realized that after jumping, the person to whom he was strapped was dead.  He was on his own, a few thousand feet in the air, racing to the ground at terminal velocity, about 250 miles per hour.

I am happy to report that this is not a disaster story (except for the poor trainer).  Our soldier managed to find and pull the rip cord and figure out how to steer himself and the attached limp body to a safe landing, avoiding a few houses along the way.

In your business, are your employees empowered to think and respond to events that are happening around them.  Are they comfortable making decisions when confronted with unexpected circumstances.  It certainly takes some training but they can’t be trained for every event.  They need to be able to think for themselves.  Had our soldier looked around and waited for someone to give him permission to pull that cord, we’d be scraping him up with a puddy knife.

Can your employees prevent your company from going, “SPLAT”?

What a day! Regardless of your political point of view, the peaceful transfer of power that is the cornerstone of the American political system is something to celebrate and watch with awe. In few other countries, and certainly none with the power of the United States, does the government pass from one person and party to the opposition without significant strife. In most countries it occurs at the end of a gun. So whether or not you are a supporter of President Obama’s policies, today is a great day for democracy.

For leaders, this is also a day to observe how people react to change. We will see tears of joy and tears of fear. We will see celebration and grieving. Some will see the coming greatness while others see the coming Armageddon. In these times of change, leaders are responsible for managing the change process and the emotions it elicits. The supporters of the change will see only the benefits and they will refuse to see, or are simply blind to, the potential pitfalls. Those who don’t support the change see only the failure lurking on the horizon. They are incapable of accepting that the change offers opportunities for growth and improvement. If the leader fails to manage this process properly, the result will be a failure to grasp opportunity and serious damage to the culture of the organization.

It’s been 16 years since the United States had an inauguration that was truly celebrated. Midterm inaugurations don’t carry the same anticipation that accompanies a change of presidents. Bush came to office in 2000 amid the trials and tribulations of the Bush-Gore debacle, settled only by a divisive Supreme Court decision. So it’s been since Bill Clinton took office in 1992 that we’ve seen a celebrated change of power, something few of us can remember. The youth so pivotal to the outcome of this election were elementary school children at the time. There was no internet, I-phones, laptop computers. Wow!

So business leaders, executives and supervisors alike, should step back for a moment to observe and learn a few things from this change process. It is your job to marshal change through your organization. While the affect of your actions may have little impact on the country, the impact on your organization is no less impactful, the emotions and expectations of your co-workers no less real. You will create anticipation as planning for the change takes place. When the “change” is to be shared with the team, there will be expectations created by the listeners. Too much hype and the announcement is a let-down. Too little and the impact becomes magnified and distorted. Either way, they will watch to see what follows the announcement either clamoring to get on board and yawning and exclaiming, “Same story, different week.” “Wait a minute and this too will pass.

It is too early to draw conclusions about the new president’s inauguration address. But when change management is your job, watching what the nation goes through and learning from the observations will make you better and more effective at moving your organization into uncharted territory.