From formal to informal, from control to chaos

What would that look like?  View this email in your browser   Howdy Remember last week I said there is an old, hard way of organizing ourselves and a new, easier way? The change won't happen when you adopt new tools. The change will happen when you adopt new behaviors.    What are those new behaviors? I just started working on this list, and I'm dying to share it with you. Old way: Formal Structured committees, officers, meetings, notes, reports New way: Informal Get-togethers, self-organized, idea exchanges, action Old way: Control Issuing orders, commands, follow-ups, accountability New way: Chaos Trying, acting, talking, duplicating, starting, stopping, retrying, repeating, learning Old way: Few Officials, appointments, selections, committees, officers, back rooms, the old guard New way: Crowd Lots of people, everyone, anyone who wants to  Old way: Decide Pick winners, eliminate choices, cut off options, streamline, one "best" way  New way: Test  Experiment, test, try, fail, succeed, partly fail, learn, revise, give up on some things, get better through experience Old way: Isolated Meetings with no public attendance, gatekeepers, qualifications, prerequisites, requirements New way: Connected Out and present in the community, participating, listening, involving Old way: BIG Large projects, big costs, hard to do, long term, difficult to stop New way: small  Tiny businesses, small steps, little failures, small successes, easy to do, short term, easy to quit if not working Old way: Failure is bad Hide failures, don't talk about them, be embarrassed, remind people of their failures to shame them New way: Failure is good Learn from failure, celebrate good tries, look for lessons, let things go quickly that aren't working   If this scares the heck out of you, that's OK. But know that it's coming. This is the way all things will be organized, sooner than you think. Are you ready to let go?    Keep shaping the future of your town,  Becky PS -  What's coming next for rural communities? Here's your first chance to sign up for our Small Town Trends webinar (that's more like a conversation) with you coming up in January. This will be a good one to get a group excited about your future.        Like this idea? Boldly share:  Share Tweet Share Forward to friend Pin for later  Unsubscribe New email address? Go here to update your profile. Want to refer a friend to get these weekly emails? Send them to sign up here. You received this email because you signed up for our email newsletter at one of our websites. (We are Becky McCray and Deb Brown, and our sites are smallbizsurvival.com, beckymccray.com, needalittleadvice.com and saveyour.town) You get the regular newsletter and notices when we offer products and services to help you shape the future of your town. SaveYour.Town PO Box 8 Hopeton, OK 73746 Add us to your address book   Powered by MailChimp   Did someone forward this to you? Sign up to get your own.