Change Management: Transforming from Caterpillar to Butterfly

The Caterpillar is happy at this state

Spring time in Kuwait and the butterflies are filling the air for more than a week now. Many of us forget that the beautiful butterflies were caterpillars. The caterpillar is slow moving worm that many of us would not even touch. When the time is right, the caterpillar select a place to build a cocoon around it and start the transformation process. During the transformation the caterpillar would not regret its decision and stop, go back or change its mind. The process continue until the full transformation takes place. The caterpillar use to be  expert in synchronize its legs to move from one place to another. Now the caterpillar is a flying butterfly that does not old experience to move since it can fly fast form one point to anther.

Transformation process in the Cocoon

Many companies are having average performance and would like to change to compete for the top spot in their businesses. Hesitation take place while the transformation effort is in progress or when facing the first unexpected obstacle. The company would have three choices: 1) Enforce the change with full support for top management, 2) Continue the change effort with average results just to save face, 3) Abandon the change effort quietly to go back to the comfort zone. If the caterpillar does not change it will remain as a caterpillar for the rest of its live while the rest of the caterpillars had transformed to butterflies and flew away.

The end result

The caterpillar use to be happy at the state it is in but after sometime it realizes that it is time to change and move to another state. The caterpillar would know when is the right time, so it builds the cocoon around itself and get busy transforming, no hesitation and no regrets. The caterpillar would finally emerge from the cocoon as a beautiful butterfly and stay as a butterfly. The change is from a slow-moving caterpillar that needs tree branches for transportation to a flying butterfly that move from one flower to another.