WORKPLACE CHANGE and THE LEGEND OF SISYPHUS
As a workplace change managers, we've often felt a peculiar kinship with Sisyphus, the figure from Greek mythology condemned by the gods to an eternal task.
For those not up to speed on their Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the legendary king of Ephyra (now Corinth). He was infamous for his craftiness – at one point, he even managed to chain up Thanatos (Death himself), temporarily preventing anyone on Earth from dying. When he finally crossed the line by revealing Zeus's romantic escapades to a river god, the king of gods decided enough was enough. His punishment? The original endless task: pushing a massive boulder up a mountain for all eternity.
Each day, Sisyphus would push his boulder up the steep slope, his muscles burning, his determination unwavering. And each day, just as he neared the summit, the boulder would slip from his grasp and roll all the way back down. The gods, in their infinite wisdom (or perhaps infinite sense of irony), had created the world's first exercise in futility.
WORKPLACE CHANGE
In workplaces, businesses often find themselves living their own version of this myth. Instead of a boulder, they are pushing new behaviours up the mountain of organizational inertia. And just like Sisyphus, change managers sometimes wonder if we're the subject of some cosmic joke. We can spend weeks engaging with people and discussing how they are working now and exploring all the benefits of changes in behaviour. Everyone seems engaged, the change is working, success is within reach... and then you return a week later to find that Wally from Sales& Marketing has convinced the entire department to go back to their previous behaviours from 2005.
This regression to familiar patterns is as natural as gravity itself. Humans are creatures of habit, and like Sisyphus's boulder, the pull of established routines is a powerful force. We see this in countless scenarios: meeting protocols reverting to previous informal patterns, people staking out ownership of shared spaces when they are out of the office, people conducting loud Zoom/Teams meetings in the open plan with no concern about the impact they are having on others…
BUILDING SUSTAINABLE CHANGE
However, unlike poor Sisyphus, we aren't doomed to eternal failure – though it might feel that way during particularly challenging implementations. The key lies in understanding that sustainable change isn' tabout a single heroic push up the mountain. Instead, it requires building a different kind of landscape altogether. This means:
Creating resting places along the slope – interim goals and achievable milestones that allow new behaviours to stabilize before pushing further up the mountain (and give us a chance to catch our breath).
Establishing guardrails – support systems and processes that prevent complete regression even if some slippage occurs
Recruiting multiple pushers – developing change champions throughout the organization who understand the change benefits and maintain momentum.
Most importantly, we need to reshape the mountain itself through cultural transformation. When we successfully alter the organizational landscape, new behaviours no longer feel like an uphill battle but become the natural way of working.
The legend of Sisyphus reminds us that change management isn't about achieving a perfect, permanent transformation in one mighty effort. It's about persistent, intelligent effort: learning from each setback, adjusting our approach, and gradually creating an environment where positive change becomes the path of least resistance.
Perhaps then, the real lesson isn't in Sisyphus's punishment, but in his persistence. Each morning, despite knowing the challenges ahead, he began again. As change managers, we too must maintain our resolve, learning and adapting our approach with each attempt.