Driving organizational culture change through small wins

The power of small wins – Driving organizational culture change through small wins

The best win is the one that proves the future is possible

The power of progress is fundamental to human nature, but few leaders understand it or know how to leverage progress to boost motivation.

When leaders think about progress, they often imagine how good it feels to achieve a long-term goal or experience a major breakthrough. These big wins are great – but they are relatively rare.

Based on the article “Change management and the power of small wins” (Power of small wins for successful change management) there have been a lot of discussion in various LinkedIn groups. The many responses included rich and varied perspectives and opinions on change management and organizational culture.

Below several distinctive views, illustrated by direct quotes from the LinkedIn discussion threads – unfortunately it was not possible to acknowledge everyone who made helpful contribution.

Sometimes we can feel weighed down by the many and complex challenges of the change process. Far better to break it down to achieve wins along the way.

Stephen Selby:

I agree and some people find change difficult and having a small win can demonstrate to these people that the change is good and it does work.

John Giesen:

I think it is essential to see change in this way. To truly embed change there needs to be trust and in my experience trust comes when people can see the change in the company. It is not a one way street.

Urban Knutsson:

The small wins are what makes improvement continuous. The whales are big and discontinuous, which is also needed, but also a lot more disruptive. People dislike disruption …

Boudewijn Roubroeks:

Organizations can not make changes. People can. Organizations are rational, logical creations. People are emotional beings. They are opposites as long as we do not follow the path of nature. Big changes in nature are mostly devastating. Nature changes mostly in many small steps. Hence Torben Rick is right when he says that only small steps work if one wants both organization and human to Thrive whilst in the process of change. Thanks Torben!

The power of small wins – Driving organizational culture change through small wins. The power of small wins – Driving organizational culture change through small wins

Jose Santiago:

Torben, i have to agree with you. Starting with a few they each bring their own and so the small changes gain traction and it happens, maybe not quickly, but it happens.

Michael Smith:

I agree. It is important in any change initiative to have these milestones set up to gauge positive progress. Once achieved, celebrating is most important. This celebration also allows a chance to focus on the next milestone. It is important that these milestones are always in the “line of sight”. It will build momentum.

Talkline Sekt Cuvée 2.500.000 Kunden – Celebrating 2.500.000 customer

Ian Pratt:

The best win is the one that proves the future is possible, sell it like crazy and life becomes easy

Simone Guest

Small steps and celebrating wins are so important but I would like to add a focus on maintaining those small wins. Often we move on to the next milestone and forget about making the change stick …. and people by nature fall back into old ways. Keep the small steps build incrementally and don’t forget to focus on maintaining the successes.

Short URL & title:
Driving organizational culture change through small wins — https://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/uuy
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