Beware the Kraken of despair, he splashes, crashes, claws the air,
Resenting change, he tears his hair,
He mopes and cries and screams and shares
His misery for all to see.
Just left alone he’d rather be.
“Oh leave me to my lethargy!”
He doesn’t like to change at all,
“What served me well is good for all!”
The fact the seas are getting warmer
he ignores and hopes the former
hierarchy will last forever,
Never changing. Never. Ever.
Never. Ever.
So it’s been one of those days: great conversations, talk of change, explorations in the Social Age, at the end of which i find myself standing on an overcrowded train, sketching whilst trying not to fall over.
One thing stuck in my mind: David talking about the octopus of an organisation. Some tentacles are gasping hard to the rocks of the past. Some are flailing in the present. Some are stretching forward to the future.
It’s a conflicted octopus.
Change can never be forced: sure, you can change the team, the environment, the technology and the rewards, but true change is internal. You can only truly change an organisation by co-creating the shape and co-owning the change.
Anything else and the Kraken of despair may reach out for you, with clammy tentacles, waiting to drag you back to a watery demise.
julianstodd
Julian Stodd's Learning Blog 
I would buy a Kraken of Despair soft toy. Perhaps you have seen the bacteria and virus soft toys sold in medical school stores? Same sort of concept. Ideally, please make them in a small shed on a farm in a sustainable business. thanks Leanne
I will see what i can do Leanne. So not sewn by small children in a shed at the bottom of the garden then? Or better still, handmade by robots? I’ll get straight on it…