Get jiggle with it

Happy Friday,

My wife and I took couples golf lessons, and they wrapped up this past week. Now my wife and I don't have any particular interest in golf, but it is one of the popular activities here, so we thought we should at least give it a shot and see what the fuss is about.

Our instructor was an older gentleman who made golf look easy. He would show us what to work on, then demonstrate it, and even though he couldn't stand steadily due to nerve damage in his feet, he was better than most of us could dream of being.

He would then patrol around to each of us and offer small adjustments. Every time he did something interesting would happen.

We would hit our shot perfectly.

Then we would resume hitting the kind of shots that prove we needed lessons.

The tweak he would offer was a small "jiggle." A small tweak that would break us out of our routine and help us continue to refine.

Jiggling is a well-known technique in the change management and consulting space. The premise is really straightforward: Make a small change anywhere to get things moving again.

Most of the time, we can't admit this is what we're about to do to our client or bosses because it sounds crazy and reckless to admit we're going to purposefully introduce some chaos. Yet, it provides immediate change and results that you can build on quickly.

A jiggle is a surprisingly useful technique to keep in your back pocket when you realize change is important. While a jiggle itself only lasts a moment, it breaks people out of their existing patterns enough to create a new one if you're quick.

For our golf lessons, this would look like our instructor providing a small bit of advice, we'd hit a perfect ball, and then he'd mention the more complete set of instructions to work on. The jiggle broke our habit, and then we could work to incorporate a more lasting set of changes.

In particular, he'd jiggle me by saying, "Relax your hands." Then he'd tell me that my actual problem was that I was leaning back too far.

That's the jiggle. As silly as it sounds, it works great. If you try it, let me know how it goes.

Sincerely,

Ryan

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