Changing a Culture, One Epiphany at a Time

by Stephen P. Hawrysh

At the last Cutter Consortium Summit (April 2001, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; http://www.cutter.com/summit/), Cutter Consortium Senior Consultants Lou Russell and Tim Lister did an outstanding presentation on IT organizational transformation. During the panel discussion, I said that changing a culture takes about 9-18 months. Senior Consultant Doug DeCarlo told the story of putting up a bird feeder in his backyard and how frustrated he got when raccoons, squirrels, and even a bear ate from the bird feeder. Then his son explained that what they had was not a bird feeder, but an animal feeder. Doug had an epiphany about the feeder, and his frustration went away. He compared this to how a person's perspective on a culture changes in an instant, not over a 9- to 18-month period. As I sat at the conference, I thought, Doug is right -- but I also knew that I was not wrong.

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Changing a Culture, One Epiphany at a Time 8 August 2001