I am convinced that people generally like changes, who doesn’t?
Who likes to spend his holiday at the same location every year? Eat the same food every day, watch the same movie or read the same book over and over again? Of course there are exceptions, but generally speaking, people like changes. The thing is, people like changes if the changes are for the better.
Then comes the change program, which is not a bad thing. However, the change program is often focused on changing organizations, behavior, culture, which means changing people. The solo existence of such a change program can imply that there is something wrong or unwanted that needs to be changed. This fact alone can create a natural resistance to change.
There is a negative connotation of the word “change”. Changing is often perceived as replacing something with something else. Which releases fear of losing the current status quo which in many cases is result of years of experimenting and adapting.
The word “Improvement”, on the other side, has a far more constructive connotation. It’s based on the idea of building upon something that already exists, finding ways to further develop.
I believe in most cases there is not much wrong with any employee or organization. There is also nothing wrong about having inefficient processes or structures to improve.
Every company has different kinds of people, and that’s wonderful.
Instead of trying changing employees to comply to corporate expected behaviours, why not learn to complement each others strengths and weaknesses?
No one should be forced to change, however, everyone can improve (if he or she chooses to do so).
Therefore, change less and improve more.
3 Comments
Well, every improvement is also a change. I am not sure if this differentiation is useful at all. If changes are done in a good manner (with change management) then in my eyes there is nothing bad at all about it.
I have seen it many times. The new boss joins the Company and the first Thing he does is to Change the organization. New Departments, new Office layout, new ways of working. And that is seen as the solution of all of our Problems. The employees already frustrated just follow what is requested by the new boss but dont understand or believe in what is done. It seems that in a certain way, when a new boss joins a Company he or she alway highlight how everything is so bad and Need to be changed. This is a almost instinctive behavior which drives me crazy every time. Why can we not continue from where we are Right now? Build up on what exists. Make more out of all the Things we know and do. Destroy less and build more.
Hello Mario, Hello Sang. Thanks for the comments. That was the idea from the text… Build more based on what each company has. That’s the whole idea of Kaizen / CIP. But somehow it seems that this often forgotten and we start replacing things… Even the ones Wich work fine…