The Quilt of Change

    Organizational change and personal change require the recognition that we are all sewn together as if we were quilts. Culture determines change. - Erie Chapman

   A year ago something strange happened in my life. After four decades of marriage, my wife couldn't take it anymore. The "it" she couldn't take was (fortunately) not me, but my closet. We're fortunate enough to have separate ones, but the mess in mine had gotten too much for her. She hired a woman to reorganize the space from stem to stern.
   When I arrived home, she stood back and awaited what she assumed would be my shout of joy to see my closet so beautifully organized. It was, I must admit, an amazing sight. Two drawers contained those plastic dividers that look like French windows without the glass. Inside each diamond-shaped space, a pair of socks was folded neatly.  Shirts were soldiers lined up for review. Pants hung respectful distances from each other. I could go on, but you can see the picture. The place looked to me more like a store than my closet. The room had been transformed. But had I changed?...

    After I got over the shock, I began wondering where certain things were. Everything had a new location. My closet was simultaneously a neat and tidy sight and a land completely unfamiliar to me.
   Does changing structure change the people operating in the new structure? The answer is not as decisive as some would like. All of us have great capabilities to adapt to change. We also have endless inventiveness in circumventing changes we don't like.
   For example, a year after the transformation of my closet, it's neater than it was before the change but not nearly as neat as the day the new setup was installed. The "Organizer's" system was established by her to fit her picture of neatness. It requires some effort to use her system the way she designed it. First and foremost, to use the system effectively, I must feel motivated to make sure ever piece of clothing is placed into the right diamond, slot, hanger or cubicle.
   I don't want to give the impression that my wardrobe is that big because it isn't. Odd as it may seem to the legions of neat and tidy, here is the truth. For people like me, making sure the right shirt is on the right hanger in the right part of the closet is a low priority. I'd rather spend those precious seconds and minutes on something else. The system I had before The Organizer arrived was working fine for me. Consider the reverse. What if I had gotten the silly notion to walk into my wife's closet and dismantled and rearranged things the way I thought they should be? Would this have turned her into a messy person? Of course not.
   Thousands of organizations seek to force change by changing systems, simultaneously ignoring the interests and patterns of the people who must use the system the right way in order for it to work. It takes a marriage of systems and group participation to create successful cultures of loving care.      Tyrants can seek to force change. Anarchists can seek to destroy structure. Success lies not at either extreme but somewhere along the middle.
  Organizational change and personal change require the recognition that we are all sewn together as if we were quilts. We are pieces of matter woven by God's love and the forces which shape our eartly lives, both internal and external. As you see from the images in this reflection, quilts can be a set of different linked squares or they can appear as an almost seamless tapestry. In all cases, a good quilt is a marvelous thing, supplying warmth on a cold night, offering the beauty of color the feel of texture. And something else. There is the comfort of knowing that the quilt was, in most cases, made by a human being or group of human beings, carefully stitching together each element.
   Consider the image of the quilt as you engage with your team. Invite them into system design and you will not only get a better system, but one that will work because the staff will want to make it work. It is their energy of the entire team that determines the success of a system. And that is why culture determines change, not leaders.
   But you knew that already, right? And you knew I thanked my wife for her valiant effort to organize part of our world. And you know I appreciated her effort as well. After all, our life together is a quilt made up of forty squares, each one holding its own beauty and pain, each one sewn together by a shared life.