Changing your organization with the Stomach Flu

The Christmas holiday is always a time to meet with family and friends. This year was no different for me and my family. I had 2 of my daughters come home from school, one toting a fiance, (A blog for another time). Late night games with the older kids, early morning games and movies with the little kids. I wish they would get on the same schedule. The second half of our Holiday was spent at my parent’s house in Southern California. We arrived late on a Monday and my sister and her 5 kids where staying with my parents for a couple day overlap with us. Imagine all of those kids and adults in one house. Lots of fun lots of games, great conversation, and the spread of the stomach flu. Isolation was out of the question. Too many people and too little space to control it. It traveled like wild fire.

It started early Tuesday morning with one of my sister’s kids. Zero sleep for her and her husband. It quickly infected two more of her kids. Before noon on Tuesday 5 people were worshiping at the porcelain throne. Thankfully none of my kids had gotten it. We had can of Lysol  and anti-bacterial soap all over the place. We were fighting off this horrible unseen creature named viral gastro enderitus. None of my kids got sick on Tuesday and Wednesday was looking good. Until about 3pm on Wednesday when my youngest a 5 year old boy named David told me he stomach was feeling funny. With in 30 seconds we had a mess to clean up and a very sick little boy. 45 minutes later the next victim my 6 year old son. By 9 o’clock that night 3 more kids had already fallen to this nasty virus. My wife and I were the clean up crew and knew it was just a matter of time. By Friday morning when we were heading back to Northern California everyone but myself and my oldest daughter had or were still being effected by the stomach flu.

Of course the 500 mile 8 hour trip to Northern California took 11 hours because we had to stop several times. We were well equipped with throw up bags, ginger ale, and wet wipes, but we could only drive so far before we needed a break. In a very daring move my oldest who had not gotten sick taunted the virus when we stopped for lunch. She ordered the greasiest lunch she could find on the menu and said she wasn’t going to get sick. With in an hour on the road after lunch we had to pull over. It was like the virus heard her taunting and made her pay.

In the end this fast acting virus infected 30 people within a week including all of my kids, my sister and her kids and about 5 other families. So what does that have to do with anything about change in an organization? Let’s take a look.

Many of the effective changes to culture or process in an organization happens organically. It is very much like a virus. It replicates and spreads quickly and without prejudice. So let’s look at some key aspects to this virus and how it might be mimicked in organizational change.

1. It must spread quickly - When you have a change you want to make to an organization make sure that you can get it to spread quickly. Sometimes if you phase in your change it never takes hold in the organization. You may need to break up a large change into smaller chunks that are more acceptable to the org. We don’t want to kill the org we want it to be stronger after the change.

Have a plan in place. If you have multiple locations make sure that the change spreads in all locations at the same time. Otherwise you can easily get push back from one location that had not been “infected” yet. Make sure you find out who is most likely to spread the change around the most. Just like the virus attacked the youngest in my family first. You know the ones that don’t wash their hands and touch everything. You need to find the people in your org that evangelize the changes and aren’t afraid to spread it around.

2. It must overwhelm defences - Find out who has the lysol and overwhelm them with the change. Everytime you have a change there will be people that will push against it. It is human nature to keep things the same. Change is hard for people and the longer something has been the same the harder it is to change. So find out who is subverting the change and bring them on board. Let them know that the change will benefit them in the long run. If that doesn’t work then you need to surround them with peers and friends that have already been infected. And last measure and least desireable is to mandate it from above. Work with their manager to help them understand the benefits of everyone getting on board. Again last resort is to do this.

Another way of overwhelming an organization with change ties into spreading it quickly. The fast the better. Hit them fast and hard. Make sure that you have your supporting documentation, evangelists, and marketing talking points ready for the change. If you are in the middle of the change and still trying to come up with this you are too late. You need to make sure that you disseminate the information as fast and as in depth as possible. you need to overwhelm the organization. They need to see that the change is inevitable.

3. Close proximity increases the spread - I am sure if I didn’t take my family down to my parents house we would not have gotten that flu. We had to be exposed to it. We had to shake hands, eat dinner together, have fun together. This is the same in your organization. You need to get personal with your organization. They need to know that you have the best interests of the organization first. You need face time with your team and the key players of the team both your evangelists and your taunters.

If your organization is multiple geographies. Which in large organizations tends to always be the case. You need to make sure that you spend time in all of your locations and you need to get evangelists in all of your locations to help spread the change. You also need to identify the taunters and understand their concerns to help them overcome thier resistance to the change.

4. Infect the taunters - My daughter thought she had it beat. She tempted the virus and in the end the virus got her. You need to find out who in the organization will be or currently is most against the change. Identify and then use the overwhelm techniques described above. It is best to surround them with people they trust that have already accepted the change. Don’t leave this to chance. You need to work hard and see how the change is spreading and identify them quickly.

5. Make it viral not bacterial - Doctors have told me that if I have the virus it just needs to run its course, but a bacterial infection can be fought with antibiotics.  So what are the antibiotics of organization change. One of the most effective is upper management. Make sure you have upper management support for the change. Make sure that they stand up for you when the taunters come to them and complain that they don’t want to change. If upper management won’t stand or waffles on the change then the change is at jeopardy of not infecting the whole organization and you get bifurcation of the org. This then starts the multi-camp yours and mine mentality that can destroy an organization.

Another aspect of viral infections is that the host cells are used to produce more virus. You need this to happen with your change as well. You evangelists are key to this. They need to recruit more people to push the change in the organization.

Of course there are always those that will one to get their flu shot to prevent from getting the virus. Just like a virus your change needs to be able to mutate to infect the org. Good luck trying to figure that out. That is what makes you a great change agent.

Good luck infecting you organization with change. Remember if you don’t want to get the stomach flu yourself. stay away from people that have, wash your hands often and keep your hands away from you mouth. BTW, I was the only one in the house that didn’t get the virus. I think it was just dumb luck.

DWP