Recipe for Change - a simple one

Some say changing an organization and its culture is a huge effort and is very difficult. Big organizations need the implementation of complex systems at a huge cost. Some say that you need to implement many different protocols so people know what to do and an overall control system so you know they follow the protocols. Some say it is necessary that consultants do the change work so that senior leaders can do their job as usual. Some even talk about change management.

I say that what you need is a recipe, a simple and easy to do-recipe that everyone could learn to use, a recipe that creates a different body language which tells people about a different approach and way of working. What you also need is the big commitment from the senior leaders to do the work and to hang in there when things get uncertain, which they always are when change comes. Which they in fact always are, because change can not be managed.

So you take this recipe and do just as you do with any recipe or manual you use when you want to learn something new. You follow it to the point when you make the cake for the very first time. Then you learn how it originally tastes and what are the features of that special cake. Then you start experimenting to make it your own cake, adapting the recipe to what you have at home or what kind of occasion you make it for. It becomes so easy for you to make the cake that you share the “easy cake” recipe with many others and it becomes a natural piece at your coffee tables.

My thesis about the recipe comes from many years of experience of facilitating meetings with a different body language, showing people that there are other ways of working that promotes a different approach. Those meetings are participatory, inclusive and invites people´s creativity and responsibility. They work from the values that people are valuable, wise and want to make a difference. Adults are fully capable of making well-grounded decisions and taking responsibility for them. Just reflect a second - what are underpinning values of the meetings you attend?

Changing the culture and approach in an organization requires a commitment from the senior leaders and a change of meeting methods so the organizational body language changes. It takes about 20 days to start the process and share the recipe with internal facilitators. After that it is a part of the daily ongoing work, naturally implementing itself while at the same time adapting the recipe so it fits the organization. At the same time the people nourish what is already working fine and cleanse what is no longer useful.

The recipe has a name – it is called the Genuine Contact© program. My dear friends Birgitt and Ward Williams are the originators of this recipe and I was lucky they shared it with me.