"Yet it moves..."

While it’s quite unlikely that the great Italian physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei actually said these words, they do symbolize his defiance of a world that was neither willing nor able to accept a radical change to the established order. Of course Galileo’s story is hardly unique; cultures have always struggled with change. In fact, many would argue that the very purpose of a culture is to provide people with a sense of identity, stability and purpose in complex world, i.e. to shield individuals from change.

Galileo would undoubtedly have approved of the way many companies in today’s business world approach the concept of culture. After all, his work was based on a similar paradigm: that the world is an orderly and predictable place that can be understood with the right model. Companies often end up viewing their own culture and its ways of working in this mechanistic way; assuming that by acting on their leadership they will naturally initiate changes in the larger workforce. There are dozens of models in the world of change management that work this way, but by trying to ‘fit’ an organization into a particular change model they end up depicting culture the same way Galileo’s skeptics saw their universe; as a static and unmoving system.  

Perhaps a more useful way to view culture is to use a term that we hear a lot in fields like artificial intelligence and chaos theory, where complexity rules. That term is ‘emergent properties’ which describes how a complex system or pattern can arise from a lot of relatively simple interactions. Change management expert Richard Seel puts it this way:

“Organizational culture is the emergent result of the continuing negotiations about values, meanings and proprieties between the members of that organization and its environment.”

Like Seel, SamSari likes to think of organizational culture as the result of these daily actions, a complex conversation that emerges from the simple interactions each of us has with our colleagues in our everyday work. In our change model, the key to changing mindsets and attitudes within a culture is to change this conversation, to focus on the stories, symbols, rituals and routines unique to the organization and to apply our energies there. Unfortunately, the majority of change programs tend to be focused not on changing the conversation, but on other ‘mechanistic’ features like organizational structures and reward systems. Given that a recent McKinsey and Company survey estimates that 70% of these programs fail, is it safe to assume that it’s time for a change of perspective?

Download the PDF version here!

While it’s true that leadership can play a big role in developing the right strategy and building momentum within the ranks, the fact is that true change in any organization is dictated by the actions of beliefs of the front line workforce. They are the ones that make up your organization’s particular culture, and culture is never easy to change. In the end, culture eats strategy for lunch. Your workers determine the fate of your strategic initiatives, implementation only occurs when the majority is compelled to act.

In light of this, many organizations are realizing the power of changing the way they communicate change; taking less of a ‘top-down’ approach and instead focusing on creating a ‘bottom-up’, grass-roots style movement that seeks to address resistance rooted within the organizations core culture. This involves empowering the front line workforce itself to participate in realizing and implementing strategic vision, to truly ‘be’ the change that your organization seeks.

The tools for this kind of ‘bottom-up’communication are already in the hands of many key personnel in the front line workforce. Using cloud based software, mobile applications, social-media and other ‘crowd-sourcing’ technology it’s now possible to create communications campaigns that are driven by the front line workforce itself. At SamSari, we’ve seen some recent successes in using just this kind of bottom-up approach. It’s real employees speaking out about what’s really happening in ‘the trenches’ . It can be risky, and we’ve noticed that leadership needs to play a big role here in ensuring that this communication is genuinely constructive. However, when done right, it seems clear that bottom-up communication can be truly effective when it comes to mobilizing the majority and harnessing the wisdom of the crowd.

Read more on the subject!
4 levels of employee engagement

4 case studies on bottom-up engagement

Primary causes of negativity in a workplace?

Click here to download this newsletter as a pdf.

As you prepare to take a well deserved break this vacation season, we’d like to send you off to the beach or the countryside with a few good books that we hope will keep change ‘on the brain’ over the break . So here are SamSari’s five recommended reads for summer 2010—each exploring a unique perspective on change.

Recommendation #1 Daniel Målberg - SamSari Client Manager
Freakonomics:  A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by S. Levitt and S.J. Dubner

Often described as a ‘melding of pop-culture with economics’, this startling collection of insights from a pair of trained economists demonstrates the power of re-examining seemingly ordinary systems and routines from a fresh perspective—a must for any large organization undergoing change.

Recommendation #2 Sarah Stilwell – SamSari Project Manager
Making the Connections by Bill Quirke

Companies know that communication with their people is important. However, the road to incoherence is paved with good communications. Internal communication is often less than the sum of parts, because the parts do not fit together. This book looks at what a business needs from its people to succeed, what gets in the way, and the role of communication in helping to bridge the gap.

Recommendation #3 Paul Gladden - SamSari Creative Director
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

In this fascinating read the award winning New York Times journalist looks at the sociological phenomenon of tipping points in modern culture, or "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable”. The implications for large organizations looking to transform to their own cultures are clear.

Recommendation #4 Anna Gilliam - SamSari Learning Designer
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert

This fascinating memoir chronicles the author's trip around the world after major life changes, and what she discovered during her travels.  A thought provoking look at one woman’s struggle to overcome the obstacles to true change.

Recommendation #5 Johan Bisenius – SamSari Production Manager
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

After the disappearance of his beloved cat, a man finds himself following a chain of events that prove that his seemingly mundane boring life is much more complicated than it appears. With its ensemble inexplicable events and unforgettable characters this excellent novel is at once a thrilling summer read and an intimate reflection on the joys and perils of undergoing profound personal change.

Feel free to share your own recommendations with us via a comment here in the blog. Enjoy the summer!

Click here to download this newsletter as a pdf.

From the earliest days of the cinema, when filmmakers first began attaching soundtracks to film sequences to create the first ‘talkies’, audiences have been utterly captivated by the power of the motion picture. When it’s done right film has the unique ability to immerse the viewer in a world of sight and sound, and as advertisers soon discovered, deliver a compelling message to a large and widely dispersed audience.

Fast forward a hundred years to the information overloaded present, where the business world finds its internal and external communication channels often drowned out by the sheer volume of messages coming  from the world wide web and multimedia broadcasting. Previously restricted by relatively slow broadband speeds, film and video have been on the rise as faster connections have opened up a world of new possibilities. Websites like YouTube have created ‘viral video’ sensations, connecting millions to a single idea in seconds. And this rising tide of information and video is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg: according to a recent study by Cisco, consumer IP traffic is expected to reach two-thirds of a zettabyte – that’s a trillion gigabytes - by 2013. Of that traffic, 90% is expected to be video.

At SamSari, we’ve watched this trend take shape as more and more companies begin to use video as the dominant vehicle for communicating both to the outside world and internally with their own employees. In our view, when it comes to branding and positioning, employee engagement, leadership campaigns and other strategic initiatives, the power of video to create immediate emotional connections is a truly effective way to get your frontline workforce engaged and involved in the effort straight away.  We see film as a multi-purpose tool that can be used to create a sense of urgency, rally your workforce around a new strategy, or share inspiration and best practice examples from throughout the organization. Whether it is a fast paced interview with  key personnel, or a dramatic production illustrating organizational values, you can count on the power of film to leave a lasting impression.

As we make our way to the Year of the Zettabyte, we will  be watching this trend and helping our clients to make better use of this tool in their large scale transformation efforts.  These days, it’s always best to try and stay a step ahead of the technology, especially when it affects the way your organization communicates. As we say at SamSari, change may be inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be unmanageable!

Want to read more about film as a tool for effective communication? Click on the links below for some inspiration!

A summary of Cisco's report on IP traffic in the future.
Alfa Bravo - a blog about online video and digital media business development.
Story of Stuff - a cool combination of animation and film.

Do you know of other inspirational websites? Leave a comment in the comment field and share your tip with other readers!

Click here to download this newsletter as a PDF.

2009 was a pivotal year in many ways. As they move to transform their organizations, leaders and other decision makers are learning that implementing new strategies and new ways of working can be a challenging process. As a Change Agency, SamSari aims to take as much of the guess-work out of change as possible, seeking out new tools and processes to help our partners and clients drive transformation within their organizations. This year we’ve looked a diverse range of solutions, from storytelling and webinars, to better learning design and expert modeling that can help guide your business from the early stages of change all the way to the goal of successful implementation. These are the kind of solutions every business needs to stay engaged and competitive in today’s increasingly complex business world.

Next year, we will begin to release ‘From the Change Agency’  as a quarterly edition. It will continue to be available at our website, where you can also find all of our previously published monthly issues from 2009. We always welcome your comments and feedback you may have and look forward to seeing you in 2010!

For now, we’d like to wish you and your organization a happy holiday season with a special thank you from SamSari, and present to you a donation made on behalf of all of SamSari’s clients, friends and partners that reflects our commitment to greater corporate social responsibility. Read more here.

When Anna’s team originally won her organization’s first annual Regional Marketing Competition, she admitted to her colleagues that she felt a little nervous about it. “At first, I was elated.” says Anna, “Winning our regional competition brought attention to the work we’ve been doing here in our own market and gave a lot of support and credit to our hardworking staff. But I also thought, OK, but how well are we going to measure up against our colleagues when we move on to the international level?”

This morning, she has an answer to that question. It is a bright morning in Cairo, through the picture window on the south wall, sunlight streams into the display area where Anna’s team presents her region’s winning idea. As her colleagues from competing regions circulate through the room, she and her team take turns presenting their new marketing concept for attracting and retaining a more loyal customer base. After taking a tour of her own around the space, Anna has the opportunity to hear presentations from other regions. Afterwards, her earlier look of concern seems to vanish from her face. “You know, the most exciting thing for me about this competition is no longer if we win or not, it’s the sheer number of great ideas I’ve seen today. I’m thinking about the huge potential for our region if we could manage to implement even a few of them.”

Anna’s organization is by no means unique in harnessing the spirit of competition to help identify and spread the use of best practices within the organization. What is unique about this particular marketing competition is that it is being implemented as a part of a large scale transformation of their sales and marketing strategy. In this case, Anna and her team’s winning idea was developed not just to improve customer loyalty in their region, but builds on the entire organization’s wider strategic initiative to become a more customer-centric business. Of course, this is just one of any number of creative approaches that can be used to communicate change and get peo

ple engaged. You are limited only by your own imagination!

At SamSari, we work with companies just like Anna’s every day as they focus on one of the more challenging phases of the change process, the part where people begin actually living the change in their daily work. When the goal is turning new behavior into the status quo, i.e. sustaining change, people need to work with a series of short term ‘wins’ or acheivable goals like those set out for Anna and her team in the marketing competition. Short term wins establish a pattern of positive action and help reinforce and institutionalize that behavior over time. It’s this kind of sustained change that is the ultimate result of any successful transformation effort.

On her flight home, Anna takes a moment to reflect on the events of the past few days. “I know that we came in fifth place behind some of our colleagues from much larger markets, and forgive me for resorting to cliché  here, but there is really no other way to describe how I feel than to say that we’re all winners. I mean, I’ve already overheard some of our team discussing ideas for next years competition.This energy and effort is now a part of our company culture. For me, that’s first place.”

Do you want to download this month's newsletter as a PDF? Click here!