A Change Case Study: Part 2

In yesterday’s post I wrote about a technique that one hospital used to help shift their culture.  The technique was called the 10/5 rule and it encouraged employees to make eye contact with one another when approaching within 10 feet and say hello at 5 feet.  I wrote about what made this an effective approach and what we could learn from this successful example.

Earlier this week, I was reading book about energy in the workplace when I came across this paragraph:

“A local hospital recently undermined its staff’s mutual connections by implementing what is called the ‘5-feet 10-feet rule.’ . . . One unintended consequence of this rule is likely to be that people will regard the smiles they receive as mandatory and therefore false.”

Wait a minute!  Does this mean the very idea I was just lauding is actually backfiring?  Does that mean it’s a great example or a terrible idea?

In reality, I think this is a beautiful illustration of a phenomenon I call the change gap.  The change gap is the term I use to describe the vast divide in understanding that occurs between the people who come up with an idea and the people who are ultimately affected by that same idea.

In the case of the 10/5 rule, chances are that some people (those working on changing the hospital’s cultures) saw the concept as being a helpful vital behavior – one that would encourage employees to connect, relate to one another, and eventually build relationships.  Other people in the organization may have first learned about this rule as being “yet another mandate” from the top of the organizations. It’s no surprise that some people may interpret the mandate through a cynical lens and feel that it requires them to “be fake just to keep management happy.”  

This presents an important lesson about change: there is always a change gap. The only way to close the gap is to communicate.

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll explore techniques for closing the change gap.

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