Samsung chairman Lee Kun-Hee once quipped that Samsung needed to, “change everything except [their] wife and kids.”

Bold statement. Easy to say. Hard to live out. Even harder to lead others in.

Three ways to evaluate change:

1. Comfort test – Does this just make me uncomfortable or do I have some data point, moral persuasion, or experience that disconfirms a proposed change?

2. Measurement test – Can a proposed change’s effect be measured? After X days of doing Y activity we hope to see Z result. Try. Assess. The key, of course, is to define your criteria before running the test.

3. Capacity test – Will making this change affect my ability to make other necessary changes? Perhaps I am only getting at a symptom and not a root and need to consider making other changes first.

Bonus: Opportunity cost test – Can I afford not to do this right now?

I like the way Gary Hamel put it in a speech I watched. “The job of the leadership team is to make change more palatable than staying put.”

How do you decide which changes to embrace?