An inspirational story from Robert Paterson’s Weblog – Why Change is so difficult – The Story of the Fosbury Flop

Imagine we are back in the late 1960’s and you are a high jump coach trying to convince an elite jumper to switch to the Flop.

“You must be joking – I go over backwards! I will break my neck!”

It took 10 years for the Flop to be adopted and then it was only the kids coming up who had nothing to lose who adopted it. Why if the Flop could deliver another foot of height was it so long in being adopted? This surely is the same issue that we face today as some of us talk about inserting conversation into organbizations.

“The problem with something revolutionary like that was that most of the elite athletes had invested so much time in their technique and movements that they didn’t want to give it up, so they stuck with what they knew,” Fosbury said.

He said it took a full decade before the flop began to dominate the sport.

“The revolution came about from the kids who saw it, and had nothing to lose. The kids who saw it on TV and said, ‘Gosh, that looks fun — let’s do that.’ Grade school kids who didn’t have coaches who would say, ‘No, you stick with the straddle.’ ”