Bee trapped in bonnet. Write…

Quite often I go to big meetings to do with changing things. Almost invariably these meetings have lots of people sitting on chairs in rows – sometimes for hours. The people at the front talk; and the people in the rows (mostly) listen.

I struggle to think of a worse way of promoting change.

Change in organisations is about encouraging people to work with other people to do things differently. If we sit them down – doing little but (if we are lucky) listening and pretty much isolated (because rows are like that) – we just can’t expect them, immediately afterwards, to leap up and start dancing a new dance.

Of course change programmes are made of more than just big meetings; but it really doesn’t help if the set pieces send exactly the wrong message.

We only change our behaviour when we feel something – inspiration, commitment, connection, fear. We don’t change just because we know something new or even because someone else is excited. Big meetings can be big opportunities to share understanding, to initiate connection and… to stir feeling.

We should use them differently. We should make them the change we want to see.

(Here are some ideas.)