Hi! It’s Hylke(Yuka) again. Are we nearly done with changing yet? ;)

Have you ever tried to force a lock with the wrong key? You can pull harder, curse the door, or spray WD-40 until you're blue in the face, but all you achieve is a bent piece of metal and a lot of frustration. In organizations, we often do the exact same thing: we try to ‘fix’ teams with a new method or a stricter protocol, while the mechanism of the culture simply won't turn. In this week’s Campfire stories, we stop forcing and start looking for the key that actually fits. Let's dive right in.

The Navigator’s Loop: Dancing Between Two Worlds

Real change is not an isolated event, but a natural movement that happens every day at the coffee machine. To lead this, you must be able to switch between two perspectives. First, you go ‘native’ (Emic): you immerse yourself in the world of your team to understand how they order their reality. You learn the language, the jokes, and the unwritten rules without immediate judgment.

Then, you step out of the bubble (Etic) to translate those gathered stories into strategic insights. Does the current way of working still match the ambitions of tomorrow? This continuous cycle of understanding and doing ensures that change is supported organically rather than imposed from above.

Why We Cling to the Familiar

In psychology, famously described by Daniel Kahneman, we know the ‘Endowment Effect’: the human tendency to value what we already possess more than what we could potentially gain. This is the heart of what we often call ‘resistance.’ Employees aren’t fighting the new strategy; they are fighting to preserve the certainties and craftsmanship they have now. It is an expression of loyalty to the existing order. Once you stop fighting this voice and start seeing it as a source of information about your company’s soul, the blockage disappears. Change is no longer something you ‘undergo’ but something you shape together.

The Strength of the ‘Cocoon Phase’

We often want a transition to be fast and seamless. We nail everything down with project plans and false certainties. But from anthropology, we know that true growth happens in the ‘liminal phase’: the awkward in-between. Think of a caterpillar in a cocoon; it is a fluid, confusing state where the old form has dissolved but the butterfly isn't visible yet.

According to systems thinkers like Donella Meadows, this is the moment when a system is most receptive to new information. Right in that confusion, our collective learning capacity is at its peak. As a leader, your job is not to immediately crush that uncertainty, but to provide a safe bedding where the team can discover the new path themselves.