Crawl to Fly

In order to relate the abstract character of Change let us look at the caterpillar.

When people look at its transformational change into a butterfly they can see three things.
A caterpillar(A), a cocoon and a butterfly (B).
When we talk about what CHANGE means in relation to the caterpillar and its surroundings, it is a phase shift between 2 states. From a cAterpillar to a Butterfly.

In between these two states something happens. A magical transformation occurs inside of the specially designed change vessel.  The end result of the CHANGE process is very visible because we can SEE the difference between the crawling caterpillar and the flying Butterfly.

When we move away from the butterfly and try to articulate what change means to organizations, we tend to see planned transitions that create a shift in behaviour. For instance, a new way of working more efficiently or adapting company culture to a new inclusive mindset.  It could even be as simple as cutting costs. All of these challenges need to be solved by changing the behaviour of the workforce… usually within an impossible timeframe and with as little disturbance to the primary process. An impossible task that ALWAYS repeats itself and is ALWAYS met with resistance because it can get messy and complicated.

In order for humans to change as a group, we sort of learned to work together in order to facilitate & realize our desired changes. But there is a very human problem. Everyone has a different stake and a unique perspective they want to have heard before they start talking about working together. This is where visualization swoops in and takes all prizes!

Making an abstract term like CHANGE visible helps you to explore, gage, map, control & manage a changing environment. Once all of the elements are on the table you can start to see the real challenge, which is not making change visible!  The biggest challenge is to make people see, understand and relate to what you are changing and why.