Beware: Organizational gravity

Organizational gravity.  or′gan·i·za′tion·al  ɡrav?dē/.  Noun. The powerful and invisible force that pulls constantly against change and silently enforces a company's status quo.

It is hard for an individual to change an ingrained habit or behaviour, we can take this as a given. Thankfully, much thought and study has been devoted to the challenge of individual transformation and what is required to help a single person alter themselves. The advice can be boiled down to this: Figure out what change you want to make and then force it on yourself until it sticks.

Earlier this month, my ski instructor helpfully advised that teaching my body to make a simple technique modification would take “900 turns” and then muscle memory would kick in.  If not on the slopes, we can all try and heed the advice that it takes 60 days to form a habit. Or for the budding experts, we can pay homage to the theory that it take 10,000 hours to become great.

But scaling these rules-of-thumb so they apply to organizational change is tricky. Does it take two people working together twice as long to form a new habit, say 120 days rather than 60? If 500 people are accustomed to working in a particular manner and want to change, how many wash-rinse-repeat cycles are required for a transformation to hold?

Only constant, deliberate focus moves the needle and with even the slightest distraction organizational gravity will pull apart the changes and you will find yourself back at square one feeling a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

So learn to recognize these signs that organizational gravity has you in its clutches:

1. In times of stress, old habits return. The litmus test of organizational change happens when things get intense. Does everybody apply equal focus to change + challenge, or is the change forgotten and the challenge approached using the old-school methods?
2. The first people to lose focus are the most senior leaders. Leadership ADD is the best friend of organizational gravity. If the folks at the top can’t concentrate on a change for a significant period of time, it is doomed.
3. In times of calm, everybody declares victory. This is the hidden killer that strikes when everything feels right, when the transformation seems complete. That’s when human nature allows us to get complacent and slowly — almost invisibly — the positive work is undone.

It can all be a bit depressing, but persevere. And enjoy a bit of Bill Murray to get you through.

Angus Frame is a Digital Media Executive living in Toronto.