No pain, no change

A few months ago, I had a conversation with my counterpart at ABB, discussing about Knowledge Management in my company and his. As I marveled at the cultural change under way at ABB, he said that he had been helped by the crisis that the company had gone through.

A crisis helps, because the barriers between departments start to crumble as people ask themselves: "What do we do now?"

This reminds me of what my most admired OB professor Manfred Kets de Vries used to say at Insead

The only drive for change in the business world is pain

Developing a collaborative working environment coming from a rigid bureaucratic hierarchy is probably the biggest change a company can undertake. So unless there is a very good reason to go down that path, it won't, no matter how hard you try.

That's something we, collaborative leaders, should meditate more often.