Column Judith Witte: On the road

Anyone who has ever walked one of the routes – the Caminos – to Santiago knows that every day follows more or less the same rhythm, yet no two days are alike. The landscape, the people around you, and the places where you eat and sleep are different every day. But there is more to it than that. While the path beneath your feet is constantly changing, and you continue to move forward step by step at your own steady pace (sometimes perhaps retracing your steps because you took a wrong turn … or for another reason), something bigger is happening. That change is far less visible. And it does not stop when you finally find yourself, emotional, standing in the square in front of that imposing cathedral. Beneath the surface, it continues to simmer. The remarkable accumulation of changes large and small, experiences and encounters has set a transition in motion.

In change management, ‘change’ is sometimes defined as ‘a specific event, a visible or measurable intervention’. That is the blister on your foot. Or the introduction of a new technology. ‘Transition’, on the other hand, is described as ‘the psychological and behavioural process that employees and other stakeholders go through in response to a change’. The underlying principles change. That closely reflects the Camino mindset.

Our world is ‘in transition’ in many different areas. Things are simmering, shifting and shaking. Wars, heatwaves, wildfires, earthquakes and mudslides dominated the news this summer. The visible and tangible effects of climate change – and concerns about the future of our planet – call for radical changes in many areas, including the way we grow, trade and prepare food around the world. Changes in what we eat and what we choose not to eat, or eat less of, as well as in how we use the energy and raw materials available to us. Can we make it more sustainable? More efficient? Fairer? And, well … can we make it taste better too?

Questions like these have been driving what we call the ‘protein transition’ for many years. In our search for innovation and change, we have made major strides over the years. Sometimes we have had to take a few steps back because product developers realised they had taken a wrong turn … or for another reason. Either way, we learn as we go. From one another and from the experiences we gain along the way.

The full transformation – in other words, a fundamental overhaul of the way an organisation or society operates – has not yet been achieved. But we are on the right path!

Judith Witte
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