A professional acquaintance shared the expression "CAVE Dwellers" with me. CAVE means "Colleagues Against Virtually Everything." Of course, CAVE Dwellers do not include those who rationally and respectfully oppose a particular change.
If you have a vivid visual model of a very different future for you, your family, or your organization and you practice goal setting you are probably a change agent. You can relate to CAVE Dwellers-you've met many. When you contemplate leading a change, expect the CAVE Dwellers to come out early on-and in large numbers relative to the size of the group that would be affected, or thinks they would be affected, by the change. These opponents are usually not a minority, at least initially in a change process.
Cave
Niccolo Machiavelli, the Italian politician and writer, forcefully characterized the intensity of negative reactions to possible change and the challenge of effecting substantive change when he said: "There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiators have the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one."
My experience suggests that the dynamics of a successful change effort follow a stretched out "S" curve. Picture time on the horizontal axis and cumulative progress toward change on the vertical axis.
Change starts slow in the "can't be done stage," accelerates in the "now we see how to do it stage," and slows in the "we're still against everything stage." The last stage is dominated by the few remaining CAVE Dwellers.
When the change is successfully accomplished, almost everyone claims "I was for this from the beginning" and a few of these go on to say "and it was my idea." Meanwhile, a small group of change agents are already working on the next major change fully aware that a new group of CAVE Dwellers are ready to come at them.
CAVE Dwellers Cave
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