It's Okay to Get Cold Feet!

Getting cold feet

Hitting a wall

When working with many local government officials or trying to advance projects as a private sector partner, I often encounter situations where "someone" gets "cold feet."

Things do not move forward when you get cold feet or "hit a wall."

As I wrote in the note above, the government is surprisingly an "irrational organization." Unlike private companies, they often do not make decisions from a management perspective.
Because the wall you hit is irrational, it is difficult to know how to achieve a breakthrough, which makes things tough.

Wanting to rely on someone

When you are about to get cold feet after hitting such an irrational wall, you want to ask someone for help. Depending on the organization and the structure at the time, or the prevailing mood, even if you try to rely on someone, you might be met with a cold attitude like "I'm busy," "That's your problem, isn't it?" or "That has nothing to do with us."

Wanting to give up

When you cannot find a solution or feel there is no one around to rely on, you might give up, thinking "It's impossible for me anyway," or you might want to shift responsibility to others or society, saying "Is that my job?" or "I want to do it, but [excuse]."

Nothing changes unless "someone" moves

Even when consulting with local governments that are said to be advanced in the world, they say they are the department that "oversees" and has no authority, and that the actual hands-on work is done by the facility management division, which they cannot reach or allocate manpower to. Even though it is clearly stated that they will "proceed across the entire agency without being bound by existing plans," they are completely bound by the "past to the present."
From the perspective of the department in charge, the logic works that "we are full with daily operations and have no room to look at the whole picture," or "if the overseeing department understands it, they should do it themselves."
In other words, no matter how cool things are written in the plan, nothing will move if there is no one to actually "do the work."

In an organization, each department has its own jurisdiction, but what is important for moving things forward is "filling the gaps" between each administrative division, and being a person who can do that.

Because you "move"

If you don't move, you won't get cold feet

For people or cities that don't even get cold feet, that might be even worse.
If you rest on your laurels because past policies worked somewhat well, cling to them forever, or run away from facing reality as mentioned above, you won't even encounter the opportunity to get cold feet.

A certain local government that I have been supporting for the past two years or so experienced a dynamic mindset shift due to their own actions at the end of the last fiscal year, and this fiscal year they have shifted gears and started seriously considering various projects, including those involving executive staff.

Just when I thought that quite essential and full-scale discussions had begun and things had started to move with great enthusiasm, the usual tropes like "who will do it," "why change the way we do things," and "is it necessary to do it now" unfortunately resurfaced, and they began to get cold feet.

However, this time, the cold feet are completely different from the previous situation.
Previously, they were just imagining things and getting cold feet (pretending to) "before starting to move," but this time, it became "real cold feet" because they had started to move.

Finding out "why you get cold feet"

This local government asked to postpone the review schedule because they were getting cold feet (i.e., they couldn't have a good discussion even if they gathered the stakeholders), but it is the opposite.

If it is a "realistic case of getting cold feet," you can understand who is opposing or obstructing you and for what reason. You can also analyze why you are getting cold feet yourself. That is what is important.
In this town, there was a time when the basic plan for a roadside station faced fierce opposition from the assembly due to the financial burden. Since it became clear that the assembly's concern was the "financial burden on the town," we were able to shift to a "completely self-sustaining roadside station" as a countermeasure.

If you understand "why you are getting cold feet," you can see the countermeasures.

The real battle begins after you get cold feet

The real battle begins after you get cold feet.
It is over the moment you stop thinking or give up on taking action because you got cold feet.
Ending it there is what we call the "low consciousness" type.

At the same time, those who don't even get cold feet but blame others or just pretend to be doing something are the "high consciousness only" type.

It is meaningless if you don't take action, like the "low consciousness" type or the "high consciousness only" type, and the town will decline due to that chain of inaction.

As long as you keep taking action, it's okay to get cold feet! If you are taking action, unexpected things will happen frequently, which will shake you up. If you encounter such a situation, it is only human to get cold feet. I don't think that is anything to be ashamed of.
What is important is your reaction when you get cold feet.

Since "getting cold feet" is a reaction to moving forward, you can find a breakthrough somewhere by unraveling the causes of your cold feet one by one.
Even in the review of a project currently underway that is consuming a vast amount of time and manpower, when we hit a wall and started to get cold feet, the person in charge at the secretariat raised concerns such as, "Is this really the right way to do it?" At the same time, it seems they also intended to have it reviewed in parallel by a separate organization.

Even at this time, by spending a thorough amount of time having serious discussions with the stakeholders, we decided to move forward with a shared understanding while making course corrections where necessary.

Getting cold feet is not all bad. As professionals, what matters is the result.
At Machimirai, we will proceed by facing these serious processes and various matters head-on.