How are you going to introduce the Interaction Method into your organization? You can’t go charging into a meeting tomorrow and say, “Hold it, everybody, we’re going to change the way we run our meetings!” People and organizations don’t like sudden changes. Don’t set yourself up for certain failure by rushing off and trying to change your meetings without a plan.
Groups and organizations are changing, living systems. A great deal has been written about systemic change. Instead, here are some guidelines we have assembled after working with a wide variety of organizations.
- People don’t change unless they want to or have to—and why should they want to these days? There’s already too much change going on! Until members of a group or organization recognize and agree that they have a serious problem and understand the consequences, they won’t even consider changing.
To want to change, people either have to have some kind of negative experience, a crisis where things don’t work the way they used to, or a very positive experience where things work much better than they usually do.
- People have to see payoffs for changing, both for their organization and for themselves. If there isn’t something in it for them, if their lives aren’t going to be easier or more interesting in some way, then whatever change occurs is not likely to be lasting.
- Nothing is more convincing than success. If you can find a way to begin with a little success and keep building, you’ll have a much easier time of winning people over.
- The old argument about which must come first, attitudinal change or behavioral change, is a waste of time. We have seen it work both ways. We have seen some people start behaving differently without being convinced that the new behavior is going to make any difference, only to discover that the new way does work (like the manager who says, “I don’t believe consensus is possible, but I’m willing to try”). And we have seen others who wouldn’t change their actions until they were totally convinced by some intellectual argument.
- If you introduce an innovation into only one part of an organization, the system as a whole will tend to protect itself from the threat of change by isolating and detaching itself from the element of “newness.” The body will reject a new transplanted organ unless you specifically deal with the antibody reaction; similiarly, if you introduce a new teaching technique to only one teacher in a school, the other teachers will become suspicious and tend to reject the changing one. Unless the system as a whole understands what is happening, unless fear of the unknown is dealt with head on, rejection is inevitable.
To counter this effect, your objective should be to work with several parts of the system simultaneously, and provide ways in to see what is happening and to participate in the changed for the rest to “buy in.” People must be constantly invitedways so that a we/them gulf doesn’t open up.
- Like certain chemical reactions, the process of organizational change may have to reach a critical mass in order to maintain itself. This is really another way of looking at the rejection problem. One or two isolated people who change the way they do things in a large organization may meet such resistance that they will succumb to the pressure and drop out or return to their old ways. Once there are enough people with the same ideas to support and reinforce each other, to provide each other with the positive strokes one needs for survival, there may be enough collective energy to sustain the innovation and recruit other supporters.
7. Above all, lasting positive change takes time. Things don’t happen overnight. If you push too hard and too fast, you may create waves of resistance. Take your time. Don’t burn yourself out. Be patient.
How do these generalizations translate into specific strategies that you can use in your organization to change the way meetings are run? Again there is no one “right” or “best” way. Changing your group or organization is a problem, and you may have to try several ways. We believe in being pragmatic: If it works, fine; if not, try something else. A lot depends on your organizational situation and your present role in the meetings you attend.
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