You are making my head spin

I love the idea that we can do ONE THING a little better every day to make our lives richer, easier and happier. And here comes the but.

When we are constantly making tiny changes, are we considering the impact it has on others?

I was recently talking to a coaching client who was having difficulty keeping up with the many changes their manager made to programs, projects, templates and processes. Feeling exasperated, they told me, "It's making my head spin."

These tweaks didn't offer much - if any - additional value to the outcome or the impact. But it meant that their team constantly and needlessly had to adjust how they worked. Sometimes more than once in a single day.

They had to seek permissions in different ways, update documents on their website, adjust the expectations and requirements of stakeholders, or collect data and information in new ways that needed a great deal of additional work.

Now, no one wants to ignore better ways to work. But there needs to be some consideration of the impact downstream. How will it affect those who need to make this happen? Is it worth the changes required? And who is this actually serving?

How do you see the need to balance consistency, continuous improvement and transformative change?