I was listening to John Nagl, an ex-lieutenant colonel in the US army, and now counter-insurgency expert speak today about the lessons of the past in this  area, and how what the British did in Malaya could teach us useful lessons in Afghanistan.   He said that you could not be successful without doing two things:-

• You need to look after the local population and their needs
• You have to learn from what is happening on the ground and adapt to their adaptations and change

The first is about respecting the environment / system in which you are working.  The second is about learning from it.  Both of these lessons work equally well and are just as relevant in corporate change programs as they in the mountains of Afghanistan.  If you don’t look after the people’s needs and if you fail to adapt you approach to your environment then you are never going to succeed.

“Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”   Martin Luther King Jr.