Liberating Disciple

(Another of the work posts I wrote)

A multinational organisation I have inside knowledge of used to have a concept called "Liberating Discipline". Although on searching to check this, I discover some of the countries knew the same concept as "Liberating Rigour". Call it what you will, the intent was the same.

"the term “liberating rigour” is used to stress the importance of standardising and simplifying where it is possible. This releases the creative energy to those areas where it really brings value to consumers."

or perhaps you could say "Don't sweat the small stuff...... it's all small stuff"

Basically the idea here is that the things that can and should be standard, common, and simple really should be. By making them so, you remove the need to continually ask "how" everytime you need to do a particular thing as it is standard, simple, and there are templates and guidance that you just follow.

The real seller in this concept is that in standarising the "boring" stuff, the bread and butter, the tasks that are effectively a commodity and need doing but do not, in themselves, require a bespoke approach....

by doing that, you free up a whole shed load of time to do the interesting things, the things that make a difference. And sometimes that is a virtuous circle where the time you free up allows you to improve, simplify and/or standardise other areas.... which frees up more time

It is such a no brainer that you have to wonder that they needed to include it in a change campaign and articulate what it meant, to convince people it was the right path.

To quote someone else's blog on this concept:

It meant that we need rigor to perform, but we have to ensure we use rigor TO liberate. That means the right type of rigor, in the right dosage, applied in the right way.

Habits require discipline. But once built, they free us, as we don’t have to fight ourselves to do the right thing. Our energy, physical and moral and even mental and emotional, can then go to performing, not trying to talk ourselves into doing what we need to.

If you want to be ‘free’ to speak a language, dance, run a marathon, understand Goethe’s Faust, you have to first engage in the ‘rigor’ of practicing the fundamentals of the language, building up aerobic capacity and muscles, cultivating a sense of rhythm and movement, deeply reading critical commentary as well as Goethe’s monumental play. Only such rigor frees us to be able to engage these aspirations.

(the other concepts were "Passion for winning" and "Connected Creativity"