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When something is broken at work, business process, behavior, business strategy, systems… the list of choices seems endless, your first instinct may be to solve it. Of course, you quickly discover this is not always easy or smooth. The indignation of your seeing a problem that everyone seems to be ignoring is replaced by the frustration of not being able to solve it.

If you are not fostering change, you are not being a leader. However, this is a case where “less” is actually “more.” Meaning, you don’t want a long list of things to change on your daily checklist. That will spread you thin and if you are fatigued, you will not have the strength to build the coalition needed to drive change. Getting people to agree seems to be 80% of the effort. Then solving the problem is another 80%. Wait… that is more than 100%, but you get the point. It is a lot of work to drive meaningful change.

Forget the crusade, pick your spots, buckle up, and knuckle down. Target only the high ROI change efforts. If it takes time, so be it. After all, you are doing your best.

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English is a funny language, you can express yourself, but at the same time confuse and obfuscate. Take for example the statement, “I am doing my best.”

This can have two meanings:

• You are doing the best you can under the circumstances. The situation is tough, there are many challenges, you lack resources, and perhaps the skills. Unless something dramatic happens, your performance is unlikely to improve.
• You are operating at the highest levels that you can. You could not do better no matter how hard you try. This is the point you want to be as much as possible. It is brutally hard work to get to this point, but so satisfying and fulfilling, you don’t mind doing it again and again.

This is more than a play on words. “Doing your best” is a clear metric to see how you and your co-workers are performing. Each meaning has a different set of actions that will follow, so make sure you are targeting the right meaning.