Centaurs: Organisational Change Management and horse riding.

Centaurs: Organisational Change Management & horse riding.

Part of the problem with organisational change is perception. People see it as something you do, like driving a car, or riding a bicycle. It isn't, though, like that, it's more like riding a horse. 

If the horse wants to make a dash for home, or throw you into the ditch, that's what it'll do. 

You have to help the horse see things your way, and agree to go where you want it to go, and you have to be aware that horses get tired, and need feeding, because, if you don't feed them, rest them, and give them time to play, they become sullen, resentful, uncooperative and, eventually, die.

It's also best not to walk behind a horse - with organisations it isn't alway obvious where the behind is. [though you might guess]

If you wish to be good at organisational change, you need the equivalent of riding lessons - and, if you've learned to ride a horse, you'll know that riding lessons involve lots, and lots of practice.

You also learn that you can't ride a horse on autopilot. You have to be one the horse and aware of it's every twitch and mood. You have to be fully engaged with the horse - with top riders, the horse and the rider seem to be one creature, with one mind. 

Some believe that that is where the myth of the centaur came from - seeing horses ridden so that they looked like one creature, part horse, and part man.

That's the aim. To be like that, when you work to change an organisation.