The Change Process–Like A Plow?
written by Sandy - November 29th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
A message from Sandy. I read where someone made reference to the change process as a plow. Do you have the image of a plow in your head? Are you thinking about the pulling, pushing, resistance, and steering? When you focus on organizational transformation all four of these things come into play.
PULL
The pull comes from the organization’s desire to change. The power of the pull is dependent on your desire, willingness and commitment. You have all those things………..now imagine a chihuahua pulling the plow. Would you achieve the same success in the same time? Probably not. How about if the plow was pulled (not pushed or steered). What would happen if the oxen were left to their own devices? The plow might fall over, or they could get bored, or get stuck. The importance of the pull is that it is nearly impossible to achieve change without some amount of pull, while at the same time pull by itself is not enough.
PUSH
Now let’s consider push. Keeping in mind, if there is no pull, then no matter how hard we try to push, we’re not going to achieve success quickly. Imagine a cruise ship, their default mode of propulsion is from the rear—push. It takes a long time for a ship to change direction. Now imagine adding a tugboat at the front of the ship. While neither push or pull by itself is enough to make a significant change quickly, working together they can effect the change more quickly.
Now with pull and push working together, you get a linear motion right? Next we consider resistance and steering.
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