Trish's Blog

There is a question that terrifies some workplaces more than any budget cut or policy change. It is only six words long, yet it has the power to expose habits, unsettle comfort zones and shine a light on thinking that has not been updated in years.

When was the last time you said, “What if we tried it differently?”

Most organisations claim they want innovation, yet many fall apart the moment someone suggests doing something in a new way. The air shifts. Eyes flicker. People start clutching the safety blanket of “how we’ve always done it.”

It is amazing how quickly a team can shut down a possibility simply because it arrived dressed in unfamiliar clothing.

Weird Wisdom® invites you to pause in that moment and feel the discomfort instead of running from it.
Comfort with uncertainty is part of the practice.
Treating mistakes as growth is part of the practice.
Holding the contradiction of wanting safety while craving progress is part of the practice.
And questioning norms is, frankly, the whole point.

The most noticeable resistance often comes from people who believe their experience alone makes them the gatekeepers of what works. Experience is valuable, but it can also become a prison if it stops you from imagining what could be better. Some of the most outdated processes were created by very smart people who simply stopped asking the kind of questions that keep thinking alive.

“What if we tried it differently?” is not a threat.
It is an invitation.

An invitation to stop protecting systems that are quietly draining energy and creativity.
An invitation to consider that a new approach might not destroy the work, but strengthen it.
An invitation to let your team step out of the suffocating loop of same thinking, same outcomes.

If that question unsettles you, good.
Growth usually does.

If it excites you, even better.
That is the spark of leadership, regardless of your job title.

So here is the challenge.
Choose one area of your work where things feel stale, frustrating or endlessly repetitive. It could be a meeting structure, a client process, team communication, onboarding, decision making, anything. Ask yourself and your team:

What if we tried it differently?

Not as a rhetorical gesture. Not as a hollow brainstorming exercise.
As a real question that deserves a real experiment.

Progress rarely arrives through the front door waving a banner.
More often, it slips in quietly through a question that dares to interrupt the routine.

So ask it. Often.
Your work will not stay the same, and that is exactly the point.