I was sitting minding my own business on Manchester Picadilly Station a few days ago (oh, the exciting places I get to for coaching assignments!) when an obviously ‘Chinese’ looking young guy came and sat alongside me. Well, as Manchester has one of the biggest Chinese communities in the UK, that was no real surprise. What DID however surprise me was when he pulled out his mobile phone to ring someone and this perfect Manchester accent emerged from his mouth.
Now what really surprises me about that is that I was surprised. I live in Bradford and am perfectly at home with young people with obviously Asian heritage speaking in a broad West Yorkshire accent – I don’t even notice what some might hear as a vocal incongruity, indeed the potential for noticing would be in an Asian under 30 years old speaking in an Asian accent!
Our brains are designed to notice difference, so the incongruity of the Chinese Mancunian is perhaps not surprising. But what is the process, and what are the consequences, of the incongruous becoming the norm?
Whatever the process, this is a challenge faced by anyone brought into an organisation to stimulate change. While we are outsiders we notice all sorts of things about the organisation, and the behaviours of its’ players, that the insiders miss because they have become habituated. In time, we risk ‘going native’ and ourselves becoming habituated to all those ‘weird’ behaviours we have been employed to point out and change. A change agent has a limited life in any organisation.
So, what have you stopped noticing about your world? And what are the consequences?