Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Reacting to the tenor of the times, scholars and commentators are focusing on what could be called the “muddle in the middle”. Society seems to be like a child attempting to jump a puddle and instead landing kersplash in the middle. Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kantor writes about change being hardest in the middle. “Everything looks like a failure in the middle. Everyone loves inspiring beginnings and happy endings; it is just the middles that involve hard work,” she observes.
This aptly sums up the status of the Rethink RevolutionTM, which is the subject of this website. The little used word misoneism, fear or hatred of change, is often at the root of the malaise involved in the muddle in the middle.
Professor Kantor wrote this in the Harvard Business Review:
“All new initiatives-big new government directions, business turnarounds, new venture start-ups, new products, or internal process changes-can run into trouble before reaching fruition. Troubles increase with the number of ways the initiative differs from current approaches. The more innovation, the more problems. Problems tempt people to give up, forget it, and chase the next tempting rainbow. But stop the effort too soon, and by definition it is a failure. Stay with it through its hurdles, make appropriate adjustments, and you could be on the way to success. Though some ideas are dead-ends, many simply need mid-course corrections.”
Consultant Ellen Lubin-Sherman, writing in HR Magazine, says employee morale is in a free fall with the economy, a dispiritedness called recession fatigue. She cautions that companies are not going to be positioned for the uptick if their employee base is exhausted, dispirited, alienated, disengaged.
Her advice, “Don’t sugarcoat the situation. Get them to feel there’s an optimistic side. Simply listening to employees combats recession fatigue.”
Professor Kantor observes, “Those who master change persist and persevere. They have stamina. They are flexible. They expect obstacles on the road to success and celebrate each milestone. They keep arguing for what matters.”