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Deploying the Easy Button. There’s a Right way & a Wrong way.
I’d like to make a case for the Easy Button because there are times when you can and should use it to your advantage. Now pay close attention. I said use it, but I didn’t say use it for yourself. Perhaps first we should revisit what we already know - the premise of the famous Easy Button. Who is it for? Well, it’s for anyone who has to do something that they really don’t want to. Why don’t they want to do it? They don’t want to do it beacause they think it’s going to be hard. If you’re striving to be your best at work, then you should avoid the easy button personally. It’s beauty is in it’s ability to persuade others who are resistant to progressive and positive changes in your workplace. The ultimate power of the Easy Button is it’s ability to lure someone to take action, because it will be “easy”, as opposed to doing nothing at all because they think it will be hard. Sometimes it’s simply a case of someone thinking “This will be an easy way to get so-and-so off my back.” The really neat thing is that once the resistant person gets involved (by taking the Easy Button), your opportunities to get them fully on board with the program increase substantially. They’ve opened the door for you to ask for more. Sometimes you need to hand them another Easy Button, sometimes you don’t. People who get involved and who are recognized and truly valued for it, seldom need another “easy-in”. If you’re human, then you’ve probably been resistant to some type of change before. You may have been handed an Easy Button yourself at one time. Maybe you didn’t even notice. The person handing it to you may not have known it either. You probably made it through a really tough transition that would have been impossible without an easy way to get started. You can help people around you make it through tough changes too, by conciously giving them an easy way to get started. It’s a lot more convincing than telling someone they have to commit all or nothing, right now, on-the-spot. This can be really useful when you’re dealing with a situation where incremental change would be the ideal way to go- but you simply don’t have the time. This could be your condensed version of incremental change. What you need to realize, however, is that this way is going to take a lot more personal involvement from you because some folks will have to be coddled along. There are always some that do. It’s just that now you have to coddle faster, which is an interesting feat to be sure! That’s just the truth. There’s no shame in it either. We’re all human with diverse personalities, strengths and weaknesses. That’s why we build teams - so we can pull a bunch of different types of people together. This way we get the best of everything on our teams. Make the Easy Button a part of your arsenal for affecting positive change at work. If you learn to do it deliberately and effectively, then it will be a truly rewarding and ethical approach to helping folks through the tough times that every company or department faces. Just remember: Don’t use it yourself. Do offer it to others to be used as a stepping stone to a better place at work.
