Are you frustrated by lack of impetus in culture transformation? There's probably a very good reason, but you might not want to hear it. Nothing personal, it's just an endemic quality of human nature that has everyone sitting with their arms folded while you try to extract that modicum of enthusiasm that would get everything moving. This is 'in-house inertia' and there's no way out - fire-fighting is likely to continue until you open the door to a brand new route and let go of the chains that entrap engagement.
The reason why many decision-makers, leaders and CEOs don't want to hear about in-house inertia is that they're loathe to admit their home-spun facilities aren't good enough. They miss the point entirely - you could have Tony Robbins as your HR Director... the effect would be the same if you instructed him to deliver a training programme to your staff, who would never have seen him as a positive-thinking guru at all, they'd be seeing him as the HR director, and that's a different animal. People become wedded to their idea of who's who in the company matrix and you won't shift that for love nor money. In fact you can waste a lot of both on trying to muster enthusiasm from in-house deliveries.
Relationships are based on first impression, so it follows that every employee has a fixture list of hierarchy and the persona of each person based on their position in that list. Gossip can have a great effect on how people view each other. Many will say with determination that they take folks as they find them, but it's hard to shake off the insistent repetition of long-standing reputation, whether or not it's truly deserved. Honeymoon period typically lasts three months, after which the habitual behaviour of the most promising personnel is destined to dive into a common denominator of least resistance, where they follow suit in doing those things that don't serve anyone well and cause problems everyone wants deep down to see the back of.
To stop this rot in its tracks, you have to bite the bullet and bring someone in from outside. Whoever you choose to deliver your message, ensure they understand it's your mission that's important. You need bespoke design in the end game, tailored to where you want to go, otherwise the most innovative of programmes can be wasted on energising people without a clear direction. To really create synergy, everyone needs to know where to anchor their alignment. For engagement to work in the long term, people have to share a goal so that positive progress has a platform to work from.
In-house inertia is not an indictment against the quality of your training programme, or the capability of your facilitators, it's a problem that people have with familiarity and contempt. For technical education and systems proficiency, there is no barrier to learning from well-versed personnel within the corporate community, but when it comes to life skills, everyone knows best unless they can be convinced otherwise. We're all embarking on our own learning curve, and for progress to gain traction in terms of continuous improvement, there has to be an open-mindedness, a bit of fun in anticipation, fresh growth and new ground to be broken in seeking ways out of the box a company builds for itself once it reaches a certain size.
If your company employs between 25 and 75 staff, and is based in those Shires across Middle England, you could always have a chat with me.
kathy@worldlinetraining.com
