… to let someone else change things.

One of the most awesome things that we’ve learned from opening up the development process, the feature requests, bug tracking and shortly even community participation is that we are no longer the change agent. Given that we sink our money, sweat, tears and blood (if you haven’t spilled blood into a gadget or computer you are not in IT) it’s a little unbelievable that we don’t call the shots but really - we don’t - our partners do.

What’s the hardest thing to do? After begging for money and meeting the bills or deciding which projects to scrap? Firing people and making large changes to the structure of the company, offerings, portfolio.

No matter how great or positive the change may be, it will piss someone off.

Not because it hurts them directly, but because they will feel like they have been left out and their input, feelings, thoughts or concerns never made part of the process. It’s one thing to dismiss someone, but to not even ask. That hurts people.

So the lesson in transparency is to involve people in the process. Let them know when they are doing great. Let them know when they suck. Stay open about what is doing well, what is doing terrible, which team members are kicking ass and which ones are just dragging it behind them.

So when things change… they aren’t a shock and nobody is surprised. Prepared, hopefully.

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