Nametags! We Don't Need No Stinking Nametags! Part Deux

Let’s analyze the nametag situation from our last entry. What message did the nametags send to the employees? We are different. What message did changing the nametags send to the employees? We are only different if the employees say so. Now, the employees of this company will not take anything else seriously. And why should they? All they have to do is complain and they will get their way. But the ones complaining are the vocal third that will complain no matter what you do!

Never let the resistant third decide your culture.

The truth is up until now; this resistant third probably has been running your culture. These are the first steps you are taking to take control of the culture. They are not going to want to give up that control so easily.

What we will say about the conference center management staff in this story is that they had their heart in the right place. Management was trying to be empathetic to the voices of its employees. This is not something tried by most companies, so we will give them credit for that. The mistake they made was who they were trying to be empathetic towards – the resisters. This is the wrong third to cater to. Remember in the “Casting” chapter, what did we say to do with someone who does not like the new plan? Either recast them in another role where they will be more comfortable or move them on. The saddest part to this story is that the most vocal opponent to the nametag quit five days later anyway. If the conference center would have stuck to its plan…

Be open to resistance. Do not form the secret “culture police” whose job it is to find the resisters and convert them with any means possible or snuff them out. Let everyone know that they are entitled to their opinion and you are happy and willing to listen. Keeping it out in the open like this actually diffuses a lot of the resistance.

For the resistors, speed is their worst enemy. As we stated earlier, SPEED, SPEED, SPEED. (You see there is a reason we use a bus as our analogy many times!) Actually, resisters are not trying to slow you down to mess you up; they are trying to slow you down to give themselves time to formulate a plan. If you slow the pace of change, then they are winning. The slower the change rate, the more dangerous it is for you. Keep the pace up to a speed that only allows the resistors to play catch up. When you achieve this, their impact will be minimal. This will keep them off balance and destroy the resister’s campaign.

The most important thing we can leave you with is this – You must get to the heart of your culture to change it. It is very easy to get a culture to change its mind (as we saw with the nametag story); but, it is very hard to get it to change its heart. Your employees will always take the path of least resistance for themselves. It will be some time before they will take on this new vision as their own.