Organizations invest in the growth of their employees every day. With expensive education programs, extensive change projects, important conferences on the latest developments, and, of course, training sessions and retreats for managers…

This usually happens because ‘something needs to change’:  Things aren’t going well, there is not enough of this or too much of that, it’s too busy, too quiet, too full, too empty, too skinny or too fat.  Something has to change...

And so a project is created. A program, a process, a series, a reorganization, a merger - you name it.  A consultant or trainer is hired to guide the process, because it’s important that everything is done right. A lot of effort is put into it with the best of intentions. There is a clear vision and the mission is in place. The core values are well-defined. All that’s left to do, is transfer all this onto the shop floor, because that’s where it needs to happen...

The shop floor, where people do their best to help achieve the organization’s goals. Sometimes they’re successful, sometimes they aren’t. And so they need to change, because then everything will get better.  The employees start receiving communications along the line of: ‘We’ are going to do things differently. ‘We’ are going to change. ‘We’ will do so with passion. And entrepreneurship. And innovation. And collaboration.

Management is happy; everything seems to be going well. We have thought of everything. We’re on the right track. We know where we’re heading.

Meanwhile, the employees are left thinking: ‘This isn’t about me....’

Does this ring a bell?

Everything changes continually. In fact; things cannot NOT change. It’s nature. It’s the same when it comes to organizations. We notice how hard it is when we try to ‘change something'. Something that is already changing, naturally. But we don’t see that process of natural change.

Change and growth happen in the cracks of the day. Implicitly, of people’s own accord, because they want to. People don’t want to be changed. They just want the space to find their own way, to go where they were heading anyway. Just like children who don’t plan the moment they will learn to walk or ride their bicycle. It just happens. They start when they’re ready. With trial and error. They cry when things go wrong and they ask for help when they need it.

If we consider employees as ‘children who learn and develop naturally, in the cracks of the day’, we would have less frustration in management. There would be less control, less power to make people move in a direction that is not their natural one.  And if someone’s natural way doesn’t match with where the company is heading, it makes sense for that person to leave. Simply, because it is no longer working...

Growing in the cracks of the day. There is no other way.