Organisational transformation is often described as moving from 'start' to 'end' through one complex, messy and challenging stage. Caterpillar -> Cocoon -> Butterfly is the key metaphor: the caterpillar digests itself into a 'soup', from which the butterfly emerges, perfect.

Metaphors shape our thoughts, thoughts shape our conversations, and it is through conversations that we enact change. A grasshopper metaphor is more helpful than the butterfly one.

The grasshopper doesn't go through a single shift via a pupa soup, it goes through a series of moults as it grows. The first few don't have wings. The third and fourth generally have tiny wing pads, before wings appear with the fifth. Each stage is a different nymph; collectively they're called instars.

If you line them up, they look like this.

Grasshopper growth stages: a better metaphor for organisational change

Change happens little by little, only slightly different each time

Big bang change doesn't work, despite how often it's forced onto teams. Thinking of a series of 'change instars' allows us to think of different ways:

One project tries new methods. If it works, roll out to three. Then to all.
One team adopts a new approach. Learn, iterate to four more. Learn again and continue until the whole is transformed.
Focus leadership development on one skill at a time. Support everyone to be better in defining objectives. Then improve everyone's ability to give feedback. Then, coaching.

It is too slow, this stepwise approach? Maybe for some. But slow and working is better than fast and failing. And stepwise doesn't have to mean slow. One roll-out per fortnight is about twenty in a year. That's lots.

A legible story

It would be really hard to describe a butterfly to a caterpillar. It would be even harder to persuade it to dissolve and pupate. I imagine the caterpillar arguing, saying 'no, i'm not ready! I like munching leaves! what's the point of flying anyway?'

Suggesting to teams that they dissolve into tiny bits, with the promise of emerging totally different, will not build enthusiasm, just resistance. Why not make an easier story?

A series of five little changes is easy to explain. This month we are going to _____. Once we're all pretty comfy with that, we're going to do _____. Next year, we'll be ____.

Grow wings slowly, or, don't be alarmed that the wings grow slowly

The butterfly emerges with full, beautiful wings. A small moment in the sun, and it can fly. Lovely. But that's not how change implementation works. When transformation is run that way, the result is a tired, demotivated and confused butterfly that won't fly anywhere.

Each stage of the grasshopper moves closer to wings. At the second instar, you can see the tiny patches that eventually grow into wings. By the fourth instar, little wings are present but not yet fully grown. This is how change works.

The first go at something new is patchy. Doesn't really help you fly. But the wings are there - look, they're starting to grow.

What confidence you can give your team, that the little patches growing now will become wings a little later?

Continuity of practice

Every grasshopper nymph is doing basically the same thing. Eating, moving, growing. With each instar, it does the same things only more. Successful change in an organisation involves finding the little things that need to grow, and nurturing them to grow more, slowly and surely.

Instar contains 'in' and 'star'

A gift to internal comms teams: puns and metaphors abound. What a lovely expression for an Internal Change Champion: In Star.

e.e. cummings

My favourite poet wrote r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r:

He expresses the essence of a grasshopper. In the penultimate line, the word ‘become’ is interspersed with the made-up word ‘rearrangingly’; this sounds like the day-to-day experience of organisational change!

He insisted lower-case be used for his initials, and always used "i" rather than "I" for the personal pronoun. He explained that he didn't want to self-aggrandise with a capital letter when "you" and "they" take a lower-case initial letter; either be like German, where every pronoun is capitalised, or don't do any.

I self-consciously adopted this, and will still write "i" within sentences. In an interview when i was 22, one of the panel asked me about it in my CV directly. I explained, and he collected £10 from the head of HR. He'd called it as referring to e.e. cummings, the HR guy assumed i'd missed an English lesson.

A while back on LinkedIn there was a spate of 'what's your most on-brand personal story' posts. I think this comes in number 2 for me: a combination of rigour (consistent rules, please!) and values (i am not more important than you) stubbornly running counter to accepted practice.

Fin

This is my first of the 'newsletter' format. Brickbats and bouquets are welcome, please do 'like' or 'comment'. A round of applause if you can think of a 'change life cycle' pun

There'll be more words in a fortnight. Until then, happy hopping.

Paul

Think 'grasshopper' for Transformational change