Sometimes a phrase scrapes against me and I just know it's going to leave a mark forever. This is one, it's already a thing I say, pretty soon I'll think I invented it:

"It’s just change management. It’s not complicated; it’s just hard."

It's from The Atlantic's magnficient piece about the engineers and engineering behind the Obama campaign.

It reminded me of this video about Jerry Seinfeld writing a joke.

The main thing - it takes a lot more work than you might imagine.

And of this piece (and almost every piece) about Teller, of Penn and Teller.

"Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect”

Lots of things are like that. They're not complicated. They don't require brilliant, innovative strategies, they're just hard. They require more work and more effort and than anyone might reasonably expect. The best managers create organisational room for that to happen.