Over a period of several years at a large corporation I tested different approaches to "benign" change as I was watching dark clouds duke it out at the SVP leve

Over a period of several years at a large corporation I tested different approaches to "benign" change as I was watching dark clouds duke it out at the SVP level above us. The way to move things was to propose an opportunity that was infectious (aka the person pitching it could see benefit to passing it on) and to spread it widely fast, so it works like a trend everyone is talking about, rather than a one sided push. If everyone thought it was their idea, things moved. The organization seemed to work like an organism - every new idea was treated like a foreign body. Rightly so, because when you have that many jobs at stake, the wrong idea can get the whole business sick. The projects that went through acted like a virus in that environment... until they reached the political cloud. At levels below VP, we operated as a relative meritocracy. At levels above that, power was limited, so for someone to win others had to lose. If you wanted to push an initiative above that level, you had to bet on the right SVP. At that point you start seeing them play out the House of Cards mutiny style in action: the "Piss sideways to avoid splashing and to lessen the noise" kind. Needless to say, I left to do a startup.