The Crayon Test

Somewhere along the way, most of us stopped using crayons. Nobody held a ceremony. Nobody sent an email announcing that our coloring days were over. We simply moved on.

In Observations at the Speed of Life, I wrote about how much I once depended on crayons—and how easily I eventually lived without them. I also remembered discovering in kindergarten that I was color-blind. My son later became my unofficial color consultant. He still knows more about what matches than I do.

Here's my mentoring point: Change doesn't always take something away. Sometimes it frees us to do something different.

The trouble comes when we spend all our energy defending the familiar. In organizations, I hear variations of “We've always done it that way.” Usually, that means the method was once useful. It doesn't prove it is still the best method.

Think about something you haven't questioned in years. Is it still serving you, or are you hanging on to an old box of crayons because you liked the colors?