Change tends to draw people into creating fortifications- walls, forts, moats and fences. Are they for keeping things out or protection? Do they create hilltop fortresses of safety or islands of isolation? Of course the answers depend on which side of the fortress you are on, inside or outside. On whether you stand to gain or lose by being on either side.
Change management practitioners must be adept at gaining entrance to the fortifications, introducing something of value and leveraging that to agreed upon relaxation of the barrier- maybe a time when the gate is open, maybe an elimination of the guard on the tower and in a perfect world open doors and a symbol left to illustrate possibility.
I get the wall thing.
But from my external perspective, especially when I have gained access in both directions, that wall is a daunting thing. Look at this post picture. Look at your organization. Are your walls this intimidating? As a leader with, I hope, the ability to have this view, think of the resources needed just to manage the fortification.
Or better, think of the resources you would have if you could prevent the building of the fortification in the first place.
This gets to the core of what I see as the problem with change management and organizational operation and strategy- wrong perspectives, wrong approaches. In our analogy what typically happens is that the walls get stormed (the core of the resistance perspective) or they get strategically breached. The first wears everyone out (by endlessly addressing symptoms) and the second creates an insidious kind of fear (spies are everywhere).
What to do then if you are a leader faced with existing or about to be built fortifications?
Well you might want to create an opening to your own fort as a start…
- Find out why there seems to be a need for protection and separation and address that need.
- Use an external resource who can move freely through the gates, in both directions.
- Use a sentry who is responsible to both tribes (potentially fraught with problems, but also a good succession builder).
- Evaluate resource needs and efficiency and balance the two (you will find a lot of the fear under the heading, “resource”).
- Be careful of creating the fortifications before they think about it- think committees, “hub and spoke”, functions etc.
Know always that fortifications are obstacles and barriers not protection and security.
Be conscious that fortifications are effective (in a bad way) barriers to the growth and development of people.
Get the gates to open. The walls and the forts can still be there to contain and corral energy and resources.