Change Like Rubik's Cube (2006)
An article about the use of the Change Monitor during a merger of the social service departments of three municipalities. The merger was like looking for the solution of Rubik's cube: everything changes at the same time and all changes are interdependent. The Change Monitor helps to discuss how the civil servants experience the changes and to find out what is necessary for completing the merger.
Original Dutch reference: Lensink, B. (2006). Veranderen als Rubiks kubus. Change, 6, 13-15.
The merger of the three municipal social services departments in northeast Groningen was the product of years of political decision-making. But on 1 January 2006 it finally came about: the municipalities of Loppersum, Appingedam and Delfzijl consolidated their social services departments into a single organization known as Intermunicipal Social Services (or ISD Noordoost for short). As the various offices had remained open for business during the planning phase, it was only on that first of January that the decision became physically tangible on the work floor. The new organization moved into a single building in Delfzijl, but everything else was supposed to remain the same. And yet that was only the first of many changes to follow. The uniform surfaces of Rubik’s Cube were in disarray. Every change is another turn of the cube. One by one, every little square ends up in a different place, and nothing is like it was before.