Michael Victory
105 lines
6.6 KiB
HTML
105 lines
6.6 KiB
HTML
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<p class="eyebrow">A short read · The human side of change</p>
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<h1>Are you above or below the line?</h1>
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<p class="hero-sub">The one question that decides whether a new system sticks in your shop — or ends up as another binder on a shelf.</p>
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<p>You've seen it happen. You bring in a better way of doing things — a new system, a documented process, the right tool. It works in the demo. Everyone nods in the meeting. And three weeks later, half the shop is quietly back to the old way.</p>
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<p>It almost never fails because the system was wrong. It fails because of what happened in people's heads when they were asked to change.</p>
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<h2>The line</h2>
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<p>Picture a line. <strong>Above it</strong>, a person is open, curious, willing to learn — “huh, show me how that works.” <strong>Below it</strong>, they're closed, defensive, and mostly interested in being right — “we tried that before,” “that's not my job,” “nothing I can do.”</p>
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<p>Everybody crosses that line a dozen times a day. The veteran asked to share what he knows. The supervisor handed a new process. You, when a customer changes the order for the third time. None of it makes anyone a bad person. It's just where they're standing in that moment — and it decides whether the next conversation goes anywhere.</p>
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<p class="pull">A new system asks people to change. Whether they're above or below the line when you ask is the whole ballgame.</p>
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<h2>The blame game</h2>
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<p>When a shop spends most of its time below the line, you get a pattern so common it has a name — the blame game. Someone plays the <strong>victim</strong> (“nothing I can do”). Someone becomes the <strong>villain</strong> who gets blamed when it goes wrong. And someone plays the <strong>hero</strong>, swooping in to fix it — and quietly burning out.</p>
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<p>It feels like just how people are. It isn't. It's a habit, and habits can change. The work is helping people step into a different set of roles: someone who <strong>owns</strong> the outcome instead of waiting, someone who <strong>calls it straight</strong> instead of blaming, someone who <strong>builds others up</strong> instead of rescuing them.</p>
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<h2>Why this is the part that matters</h2>
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<p>You can have the best system in the province. If the people who have to use it are below the line when you roll it out, it won't take. And if they're above it — curious, trusted, part of the decision — even a rough system gets better every week, because people are actually working on it instead of around it.</p>
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<p>That's why we don't treat the technical work and the human work as two separate things. Capturing what your best people know, and getting your shop to actually adopt it, is one job with two halves.</p>
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<p>The human half of this work is what our sister practice, <strong>Open Communications</strong>, is built for — change that sticks, led with rigor and soul. <a href="https://opencommunications.consulting">See the human side →</a></p>
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<p class="reassure">Working on the systems side first? <a href="continuity-audit.html">Start with a Continuity Audit</a> — find out exactly where your shop is exposed.</p>
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<h2>Want to talk it through?</h2>
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<p>No pitch — just a straight conversation about your shop and whether we can help.</p>
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<a class="btn" href="mailto:michael@opencommunications.consulting?subject=Above%20or%20below%20the%20line%20—%20Shop%20Wisdom">Email Michael</a>
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<a class="btn ghost tel" data-p1="778" data-p2="985" data-p3="6736" href="mailto:michael@opencommunications.consulting">Call 778‑985‑OPEN (6736)</a>
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<p class="contact-promise">The first call is free and commits you to nothing.</p>
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<p class="footer-call"><a class="tel" data-p1="778" data-p2="985" data-p3="6736" href="mailto:michael@opencommunications.consulting">778‑985‑OPEN (6736)</a></p>
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<p class="footer-legal">Shop Wisdom and Open Communications are practices of Open Communications, owned and operated by Michael Victory · British Columbia, Canada</p>
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