Change Tolerance: try, Try Again

Change tolerance refers to the amount of control people feel they have over time

,as well as their openness to change and innovation. In business, this applies to the wayemployees may prefer certain rules and structures, and how an organization handles reward and punishment.

Peter Bregman of Bregman Partners isa change management and leadership development consultantheadquartered in the U.S. He was recently working with a client in Mexico, helping them select a new CTO to help define their web and internet strategy. Bregmanwas asked by his Mexican client to sit in on an interview with a candidate for that position who was from the U.S.

Following niceties and general discussion, the candidate began talking about his background in the technology arena. It was impressive. He had been on the staff of many well-known successes and failures. He spoke at length ona couple of the web-based strategies he had worked on for other organizations, and went into detail about how and why some of them failed. He even talked about the amount of money that was lost in those failures. He positioned each story with what they had done that was right and what they had done wrong.

Clearly to Peter, the candidate was well qualified and appeared to have an adequate grasp of the challenges faced by his client. At the conclusion of the interview, Peter asked the client what he thought of the candidate. He was amazed to see the generally negative reaction his client had. When Peter asked why, the client exclaimed,How could we hire someone who had failed so often?

Peter explained to his client the role of failure from the candidates point-of-view. Clearly he saw success and failure within the same light. They were both part of the learning experience. The candidate had catalogued the errors as things not to repeatusing them as a learning experiencewhich is why he talked about them during the interview. His perception was that as long as he learned from his mistake, it was a valuable experience and worthy of being cited in a resume.

Peters client looked at him in astonishment. He couldnt fathom being proud of failures. His risk-averse culture saw failure as a disgrace with no redeeming value. Failurewas something to hide because onewould never fully recover from it. Peter explained the American adage, If at first you dont succeed, try, try again.

People in change averse cultures take much more time making decisions and undertaking new ventures. To them, failure is something to be ashamed of, even when it brings with it valuable lessons. In contrast, in the change tolerant, risk-taking culture of the U.S. high-tech industry, a learning experience is information that can be put to good use. Success is preferable, but failure is not a shameful act.

The discussion here is a great illustration of the process of change between change tolerant and change averse cultures. Change tolerant cultures tend to view change and, even risk, as a manner of moving forward and building. When they look at opportunity, they predominantly see the lavish rewards of success. On the other hand, change averse cultures see change as risky and to be undertaken only after all potential pitfalls have been accounted for. When they look at an opportunity with risk, they see the embarrassing potential of failure.

by: Kevin James

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