Change Is a Collective Undertaking
When you’re working with Colombians on any significant change — a restructuring, a new direction, a major decision — don’t try to drive it alone. Change in Colombian culture is a collective undertaking. The first move is always relational: bring the right people in early, consult widely, build a shared sense of ownership before you announce anything. The person who presents a fully formed change plan and expects people to simply comply will find quiet resistance and slow implementation. The person who involves trusted colleagues in shaping the change, who makes people feel their input genuinely matters, who builds a network of people who feel ownership — that person will see real movement. Change that flows through relationship networks carries momentum that no memo or directive can generate. The network is your most important change management tool.
Recursividad: Find a Way Through
Colombians are masters of what they call recursividad — finding a way through when the official path is blocked. If you’re trying to make something happen in a Colombian context and the formal channel isn’t working, don’t stop. Someone in the room knows another way. Someone knows the person you need to call. There’s an informal channel, a workaround, an alternative approach that will get you where you need to go. Colombians are culturally attuned to this kind of creative problem-solving; it’s not a workaround for them, it’s how things actually get done. The mistake is to insist on the official process and wait for it to work. The smart approach is to ask: what are the actual conditions here, what resources do we actually have, and what path actually leads to the outcome we need? That’s the recursivo mindset — and it’s a genuine competitive advantage.
Protect the Core While Adapting the Surface
When you’re proposing change to Colombian colleagues, frame it carefully: what is being preserved and what is being changed. Colombian change culture has a deep conservative core — the relationships, the identity, the fundamental values of the team or organization are not up for negotiation, and proposals that seem to threaten these will meet significant resistance even if the surface logic seems sound. The most effective change framing is: “we’re keeping what matters most while adapting how we do it.” The person who says “we’re transforming everything” will face headwinds. The person who says “the core of what we are stays exactly as it is, but here’s what we’re changing in how we operate” will find a much more open door. This is not about managing perceptions — it’s about actually understanding that some things genuinely should not change, and honoring that.
Change Needs Someone Behind It
If you want a change to actually happen in a Colombian context, you need to answer one question before anything else: who is behind this? It’s not enough that the change makes logical sense, saves money, or improves processes. The question Colombians are asking — consciously or not — is whether the right person or people have authorized and endorsed it. In organizations, this means the senior leader needs to visibly champion the change, not just sign off on a memo but actually show up, talk about it, and make clear that it matters to them personally. In family contexts, it means the respected senior family members need to have been consulted. In civic contexts, it means the change needs a legitimate institutional or moral authority behind it. Find the right sponsor, involve them genuinely, and make their support visible throughout the process.
Face It with a Good Face and Keep Moving
Colombians have a cultural expression that captures their response to adversity: “a mal tiempo, buena cara” — in bad weather, wear a good face. This isn’t denial and it isn’t pretending things are fine when they aren’t. It’s a specific cultural orientation: when things go wrong, when change is imposed, when circumstances are difficult, the valued response is to maintain composure, keep functioning, and keep moving forward. The person who falls apart publicly, who stops investing in relationships because things are hard, who signals collapse — they are failing a cultural expectation. The person who acknowledges the difficulty, maintains their relationships, and keeps showing up — that’s the Colombian cultural model of resilience. In change processes, setbacks will happen. The way you respond to those setbacks — with continued forward movement and maintained composure — determines whether you maintain the trust and engagement of Colombian colleagues.
Hold Plans Firmly and Outcomes Lightly
Colombians bring genuine effort and commitment to change processes but hold their outcomes with a characteristic openness. “Como Dios mande” — as God commands — reflects a real cultural understanding that complex situations have their own dynamics that exceed human planning and control. This is not fatalism; Colombians plan carefully and work hard. But they don’t assume that effort guarantees outcome, and they stay genuinely open to how processes actually unfold rather than insisting that they unfold exactly as planned. When you’re working with Colombian colleagues on a change process, don’t be surprised if the plan adapts significantly as it meets reality. Don’t interpret that adaptation as failure or lack of commitment. It reflects a sophisticated understanding that actual conditions matter more than stated plans, and that the person who can adapt their approach to actual circumstances is more likely to arrive at a good outcome than the person who insists on executing the original plan regardless of what’s happening.
Personal Transformation Is a Deeply Honored Story
One of the most powerful motivational frames in Colombian culture is the personal transformation narrative — the person who changes their circumstances through sustained effort, education, discipline, or entrepreneurship. The cycling champion from a mountain village, the first-generation university graduate, the entrepreneur who builds something from nothing — these are cultural heroes. When you’re working with Colombian colleagues on change that requires personal development, skill-building, or significant individual effort, tap into this narrative explicitly. Help people see their own transformation as the story — not just the organizational outcome or the project deliverable. Colombians respond to language about personal growth, becoming something new, and the possibility that sustained effort genuinely changes what is possible. The change that also transforms the people involved is more compelling than the change that merely changes the process.