Leadership Nudge® 295 – The New Play is Complete admin February 12, 2020

Leadership Nudge® 295 – The New Play is Complete

The Industrial Age play is Continue. In other words, keep doing the same thing until you are forced to change. Today’s work requires more thinking, more creativity, more learning. The new play is Complete. When you see the work in small chunks you can make small changes and avoid massive corrections.

Learn More

You can read more about the “Complete, Don’t Continue” Play by reading Chapter 6 in David’s NEW book, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say — And What You Don’t, available now.


When Henry Ford started building the Model T in 1908, he built essentially the same car for almost 20 years. By the 20s consumer tastes had changed, the general wealth of the country was a lot higher, and the Model T was feeling old and tired. It required a six month retool. This allowed General Motors, being led by Alfred Sloan at the time, to catch up to Ford, who had had an unassailable lead. Why? Because the Industrial Age play is continue. Continue the production line. Continue whatever it is we’re doing until something forces us to change. The new play is complete. See the work in small chunks. Complete does a couple things for you: 1. It allows you to celebrate – Hey we completed this section. Now we celebrate.” 2. It allows you to reflect and course correct in many many small ways as opposed to one massive correction (after going out of business.) Old play  Continue. New play – Complete.  

Learn more by reading the IBL Blog here – Now we Complete, instead of Continue