Transformation can be compared to steering a sailboat in turbulent water and stormy winds. If you are on a course to some destination and the wind is blowing with full strength, you must make a number of critical choices. If you head into the wind, you’ll lose speed and direction although you probably can ride out the storm. If you let the wind carry you too far, it might blow the boat over, and if you let it go a little less far than that, it may well drive you off course. If you decide to hold rigidly to your course at all costs, you may experience that the winds rip the sails or even break off the mast. Remember the movie “The Perfect Storm*”.
A good sailor knowing these choices works with the wind.
The feel for steering an organization is quite similar. To keep the course several essentials must be provided:
- A clear destination, or vision.
- Landmarks, or intermediate checkpoints.
- Accurate, detailed maps or scenarios.
- A clear knowledge of the condition and capacity of the boat or the organization.
- The ability to get the best performance out of the boat or the organization.
However, this isn’t enough. It’s people who drive all the essentials mentioned above. It is the human force that can fuel or foil all the decisions to be taken with those essentials.
Although processes and technology can leverage transformation, nothing happens without people; and it is human resistance that needs to be addressed first for anything else to flow.
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*Film that tells the story of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing vessel that was lost at sea with all hands after being caught in the Perfect Storm of 1991. The film stars George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, William Fichtner, Michael Ironside, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane, Karen Allen and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. It was released on June 30, 2000, by Warner Bros.
