Page 116 - Make Work Great

Growing Your Crystal

tionships. Now, all you have to do is repeat the process with everyone
else, right?
Yes and no. You’ll certainly want others to join your crystal. But
the idea of repeating Chapter 4 over and over again, trying to “sell”
everyone around you on the idea of becoming part of your crystal,
should make you nervous. For one thing, you don’t want to spend
your days as a culture salesperson. For another, no matter who you
are, there are people in your workplace who will be oblivious, unre-
ceptive, or even hostile to your attempts to role-model any new pat-
terns or precedents. Certainly, you should practice overtness and
clarity with them as best you can. But trying to use the tools from
Chapter 4 to produce changes in their behavior is setting yourself up
for failure and frustration.
The good news is that you don’t have to. Allowing the willing ones
to attach themselves to your crystal is enough.

Multiplication of Infl uence
As soon as you add the fi rst person to your crystal, your part of
the pond begins to freeze. You’re no longer a culture of only one.
Instead, you’re using the multiplicative effect of the crystalline net-
work to your advantage. You’re broadcasting your new precedents to

an expanding audience, and your influence on the cultural patterns
around you will grow accordingly.
Consider your potential reach—the number of people to whom you
can role-model—when you’re working alone. Your ability to demon-
strate new patterns of interaction is limited to those with whom you
have direct links. And let’s face it, some of those people will be more
receptive than others. Instead of worrying about the diffi cult ones,
Chapter 4 asked you to focus on the easiest one and to add him or her
as the fi rst new member of your cultural crystal. Figure 5.1 shows the
initial scope of your direct infl uence, along with your fi rst addition.
When you consider the size of your overall organization, this might
not look too promising. But remember that your fi rst addition has

104