Un-managing change
10 lessons
from Obamaland to the design of large scale behavioural change in
organizations. Viral Change™ in action
series
10 reflections on the
conditions for large scale change as
practiced by Viral Change™
by Leandro Herrero
[2]
Let me introduce you to Walter. Walter is a 91 year old World War II Veteran from
Maryland who can be found with a cell
phone in his hand in a video in one (or
many) of the Obama campaign sites. He is fighting a new war. His ammunition
consists of a laptop and that cell phone. He is in his house and is calling
people from a list shown in the laptop’s
screen. I suspect neither the laptop not the cell phone is his. He is following
a script (also on screen) and is calling people of his age (more or less). One
of the first things he says after hello, I am Walter, is ‘I am voting for
Obama’. I will deal with the significance of this expression of ‘intention to
vote’ in another post.
Walter is campaigning. He is talking to his peers. He is not
talking to 20 or 30 year
olds. He is engaging with people (from the list) who from the other side may
hear and feel Walter as being ‘one of them, ‘somebody like me’. Technically (for
us in the business of large scale change, Viral Change™ ) he is exercising
‘peer to peer influence’.
The power of peer to peer is underestimated in organizations.
Not that it is unknown, after all we all have heard or used the expression
‘peer pressure’ but this is where the ‘curiosity’ stops. People don’t know what to make of it, and,
incidentally, it always sounds bad…
Now get yourself a copy of the Edelman Trust Barometer. The
Edelman company produces an excellent annual report on trust (organizations,
industries, geographies…) and year after year, with some minor variations, the
lowest source of internal organizational trust (for the purposes of ‘believing’
what’s going on with your company) is the CEO. Let’s be kind. It means the top
hierarchy, not that absolutely charming and well mannered CEO who is on TV from
time to time. The highest source of trust however (with a glitch in favour of ‘academics’ last
year) is ‘people like me’, that’s it,
people like you and me, one of us, our horizontal tribe, the ones we talk to
everyday and talk football or cricket or baseball, take the children to similar
schools, more or less same age, ‘my mates’;
you may be one rank above me or two, or below, but that does not really matter
around the water cooler, or the cafeteria, or in the car park. My peers.
And here is the beauty ( and the trick). If my super-Vice-president
comes to me and tells me that we have to go South, I will say OK, and perhaps I
may even ask why, but, I’ll go South. He thinks South is good. The CEO thinks
South is good. The Strategic Plan says that South is good. I am not sure about South. Actually I think
South is a lousy option. Why South for goodness sake!?
f you, my peer,
mate, water cooler friend, car park talker, school run share, last night
football absorbed, tribal member, colleague in the same division, free mutual
psychotherapist and somebody ‘I do know well’ comes to me and in the middle of
a football, or school or holiday or
dreadful journey conversation say to me, ‘by the way, we really must go South’,
my brain may be suddenly aroused out of the unexpected and I may even have one
or two questions such as ‘ are you on something?’ but the chances of me
believing that, at the very least, South is now a very reasonable, maybe even
extraordinary destination, are very very high indeed, a few hundred points
above the same message coming from my Super Vice-president. I expected him to support South, I did not
expected you to let me know your belief in South with the same sincerity as our
twenty other conversations. Call it trust (Edelman does) or legitimization or
comfort to me, South is very credible.
If on top of this you say to me not only that ‘we really
must go South’ but that you are actually going South yourself, the chances of
me doing the same are even higher. And most of this process may even be
unconscious. Our mind has a wonderful Reverse Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in the neuronal system and we may even end up ‘really’, ‘seriously thinking’
that North was really very very silly after all. Psychologists call this ‘cognitive
dissonance’ which is a fancy name for saying
that we tend to produce comforting feelings to our decisions even if
they contradict our previous thinking (‘I am terribly late, well the concert was
not that good’)
The power of peer-to-peer is formally called to arms in
Viral Change™ programmes whether inside the organization or in the public
arena. One of the sub-chapters of the
book Homo Imitans reads ‘ youth to youth, granny to granny’ to make the point
of this transversal power. Decades of traditional management have largely
ignored this in favour of the top down, hierarchical, cascaded down tsunami of
information and guidelines. In terms of behavioural change, and large scale
behavioural and cultural change in particular, the score is Peer to per 10, top
management nil. Obama campaign managers have understood this. Walter
understands this. Walter is thrilled to be asked. The 78 year old young fellow
at the other end does not mind to hear from Walter. Walter is, at that crucial point of human interactions, more credible than Obama himself.
Nothing in our traditional view of the organization let alone
the supreme representation of the corporations’ plumbing system, the
organization chart, says anything about the Walter-to-Walter mechanisms. In
fact, they are ignored. The emphasis is you to your direct reports, your direct
reports to their direct reports and so on. Ditto in public sector, societal campaigns.
Traditionalists work doctor to patient, social worker to dysfunctional family,
priest to immigrants, and community leaders to gang members. Viral Change™
activists work recovered patient to patient, ex-dysfunctional family to
dysfunctional, settled to immigrant and ex-gang member to violent group in the
streets. Viral Change™ Activists 10, Traditionalists nil. OK, 1, or 2, or 3, in
a good day.
In Viral Change™ we reinvent
the organization chart, we work with Walters and we orchestrate bottom up,
grass-roots, polycentric leadership, change of ways of doing, fixing of
problems, and shaping of new
cultures. The CEOs, C-anything of our
client organizations in Viral Change mode love Walters and are thrilled that
Walters are the real leaders. Obama
loves Walter.
NOTES
Viral Change™ is described in two books, Viral Change™: the
alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in
organizations (2006,2008) and Homo Imitans, the art of social infection. Viral
Change™ in action (2011) by Leandro
Herrero
Viral Change™ Global L.LP. PO Box 1192, HP9 IYQ, United
Kingdom
+44 (0) 1494 730999
ukoffice@viralchange.com
Viral Change™ is a trademark
