Consulting and speed …
carynvanstone July 6th, 2007
The last couple of weeks have been a lively experience of speed and change - and how one can be the enemy of the other. I am often excited by the presence and need for speed, and at the same time, I often feel I (and clients I am working with) am disabled by such demands.
I am sat at a laptop in sunny California, in Mountain View to be precise. On holiday for a couple of weeks enjoying a break from both the grim British weather (which seems to be practically biblical at the moment!) and the demands of organisational life, and enjoying the slowing down.
I spent the last full week of work before holidays in New York, speaking with a couple of clients about new pieces of work. One of these clients, a large global financial corporation with whom I have worked many times, has been working “hard and fast” at changing their culture to become more innovative and human - for three years, without much effect. We spent a good afternoon talking about their desire to de-mechanise their workplace, to replace their complex policies and procedures with the more natural sense-making that comes from human relationships, quality conversation and the application of intelligence. But, they ask, can they do this through a series of workshops in 120 days? I had to say, that for a company of 50,000+ employees, the answer is “no”. So we continue to talk about what might work … if they can slow down in order to go fast….
That evening I watched the sun set behind the skyscrapers of the Financial District from my hotel room on the 35th floor overlooking the WTC site. My first visit to New York was 15 days after 9/11 - an amazing and truly awe-ful time to be in that city. Since then I have been back many times, but the last was around 18 months ago, when I also had the chance to overlook the site from one of the tall buildings. What is amazing is that nothing appears very different today to that last visit 18 months ago, although building work is constant (and noisy!) from 7am till 6pm, every day. I am sure that much has changed, but it is not apparent to the untrained eye.
But, the work is there, rebuilding hidden foundations, reconstructing an infrastructure that will support something new. Impatience and desire for speed and results makes me want to see the building going up, to notice how change is happening…. but that would be a false change… it would be the equivalent of a set of high profile workshops in 120 days…
My clients and I need to have this same patience. We cannot simply build something new - there is over a century of infrastructure that needs to be attended to - the well embedded ways of thinking that lead to the mechanisation and proceduralisation of the workplace. The foundations of a new way of working may take some time to rebuild, and be invisible for a while.
- Culture change
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