The first new guest blog of the year by Marjon Oosterhout. On the importance of patience in culture change. Or ‘Slow time’ as we like to call it nowadays.
“A little impatience can ruin a great plan”. This is a quote attributed to Confucius. I’m pretty sure in his time the term change management didn’t exist. Yet Confucius must have understood one of the key success factors for change: Patience.
This is particularly true for culture change initiatives. I see so many organizations starting culture change initiatives, often with a kind of big bang. They expect to the see people change almost immediately. Typically between one and two years after the kick-off the change is being changed. Either because a new (change) leader takes over or because leadership hasn’t seen enough progress.
It’s a bit like growing crops. Image that a farmer, after preparing the soil and sowing the seeds would expect to be able to harvest immediately. That in his impatience he would start ploughing the land again, just at the time that tiny bits of green are appearing, It’s pretty obvious he would never get to the point where he would be able to harvest.
Culture change should also start with the groundwork, making sure the seeds of change land in fertile soil. Next follows the period of patience, being open for and celebrating he first small successes. Removing the weeds that can overgrow the young sprouts. This means actively rewarding the new behaviors as well as visibly not tolerating undesired behaviors.
Only when you persist with patience the new behaviors and the new culture will grow so strong that they’ll dominate. Unfortunately statistics suggest that the majority of change initiatives are killed at the time the sprouts are starting to grow. The only difference with the farmer is that the seeds of culture change take much longer to germinate than seeds
of most crops!
www.marjonoosterhout.
(RM-AMIconsultancy)
