There’s something special about music, isn’t there? If you’re into live music, you’ll know the feeling: standing in a crowd of thousands, everyone singing the same words, creating a shared memory together. It pulls at everything – the successes, the births and deaths, the marriages, the losses, the failures and the comebacks.
But what makes music so compelling? Is it deep lyrics or a catchy beat? Either way, it needs a rhythm that fits the tone of the song and keeps the listener with it from start to finish. I’ve come to think the same is true of change. Whether a change sticks depends less on the big idea and more on whether it holds a rhythm people can stay with.
I often talk about ceremonies and artefacts. Ceremonies are the meetings, connections and moments of coming together that support the new way of working. Artefacts are the documents, boards, technology prompts and anything else that help embed it. But recently I’ve been thinking there’s more to it than that. It’s about the constant hum, the underlying beat, of committing to the change and doing the things until they stick. I’m reluctant to use the word “embedded”, because it implies a fixed end state. What I really mean is the point at which the new way of doing things simply feels like second nature.
There are plenty of models and theories about how to get there, but the real difference is that underlying rhythm. Are you letting go of what you did before, even when it gets tough? Are you settling into the new way methodically and applying it with discipline? Everyone loves a remix, but only when the parts fit together. Play the old track and the new one at the same time and you just get noise.
So what does this mean in practice? Here are a few things I look out for when going through change:
Where is the discomfort? Be explicit about it, talk about it and ask the tough questions. If someone is only half-in, there’s a good chance they’ll end up dancing to a different tune.
What’s the culture of discipline? There’s a whole other post to be written about the quality of discipline, but how good is the organisation or team at sticking to what it says it’s going to do?
How good is the system? I don’t mean whether they use Office 365. I mean where the friction is in the wider ecosystem. Is it decision-making? An unclear strategy? Find the instrument that’s out of tune and make fixing it a priority as part of the change.
What’s the temperature of the team? There’s no point putting on an absolute banger if nobody wants to hear it. Read the mood and the appetite, and if people aren’t quite ready to dance, explore what it would take to get them there.
Launching a change is the easy bit. It’s the drop everyone remembers. But what makes a track stay with you is the groove underneath it. Keep the beat going long after the launch, and one day you’ll notice nobody’s counting anymore. They’re just dancing.