What Lions and Maasai teach us: tips for embedding organisational culture change

What do lions and the Maasai have to do with organisational culture change? Err, actually quite a lot.

Over the last week, I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s This is Marketing (well worth a read – just in case you were wondering!), where I stumbled on an incredible story of behaviour change and the role of status.

The lion population in Africa has been decimated in recent decades, with an estimated 20,000 lions left on the continent. But over a century ago, this number was closer to 200,000.

A key reason for this steady decline has been humans and while destruction of habitat and poaching have taken a toll, one of the biggest causes has been an enduring, cultural tradition carried out by those who have lived in the greatest proximity to these creatures.

The Maasai tribe are a semi-nomadic, indigenous group that have settled in Kenya and Tanzania for centuries. In that time, they have lived side-by-side with lions and that relationship has been complex to say the least. For Maasai, lions are both feared and admired: a threat to their livestock and a symbol of strength.

It’s for this reason that lion hunting has been an entrenched pastime in their culture. For young Maasai warriors, it is a rite of passage to singlehandedly kill a lion, earning status and helping to consolidate their identity in the tribe.

It’s precisely this reason, a failure to recognise the inextricable link between action and status, why so many traditional efforts have failed to deter this practice or shift long-held cultural beliefs with sensitivity.

…That is until the Lion Guardians set out on a mission to achieve something extraordinary: conserve lion numbers by thinking critically about humans' relationship with status.

Instead of fighting against the Maasai or showing a disregard for a sacred rite of passage, they approached this problem with curiosity and respect. They took the time to better understand the Maasai culture and the very reasons why this rite of passage was important to the Maasai community.

They also realised that to truly protect lions, they needed to involve Maasai in the conservation effort.

It was no longer change being done to the Maasai, but with them. Sound familiar?

Today, the rite of passage is no longer hunting and killing a lion. Instead, it’s protecting one. The Maasai warriors track and name lions and use radio telemetry to perform censuses and help warn herders when lions are close. They have become lion guardians.

This initiative succeeded because rather than try to reason with the Maasai, Lion Guardians recognised that lion hunting was a way for young warriors to earn status. They focused their efforts and demonstrated that Maasai could still achieve this by saving lions rather than killing them. This helped to develop a new cultural belief and rewrote a cultural narrative around what it actually means to be a Maasai warrior.

As someone who has spent a fair bit of time in East Africa, this story really struck a chord and holds some powerful tips we can all consider when it comes to embedding organisational culture change:

1.    Understand the role of status in behaviour – Change efforts often fail because they don't consider the deep-rooted motivations behind behaviours. In the case of the Maasai, lion hunting was tied to status, not just tradition.

2.    Work with, not against, people – Effective change happens when it's done with people, not to them. The Lion Guardians succeeded because they involved the Maasai in the conservation effort rather than imposing an external solution.

3.    Respect and understand cultural context – The initiative succeeded because it acknowledged the Maasai’s beliefs and values rather than dismissing them. This shows the power of deep cultural understanding in driving meaningful change.

4.    Reframe rather than remove traditions – Instead of eliminating the rite of passage, it was reframed: young warriors could gain status by protecting lions instead of killing them. This highlights the importance of reshaping narratives rather than outright rejecting them (because the latter often leads to a LOT of resistance!)

5.    Narrative change is powerful – Organisational change is more successful when it rewrites an existing story in a way that aligns with people's identities and values, making it easier for them to embrace new behaviours.

6.    Sustainable change requires ownership – The Maasai were given ownership of the conservation process, making the new behaviour self-sustaining rather than externally imposed.

By using these strategies, Lion Guardians have helped to turn the tide on lion hunting and boost conservation efforts in the region – and long may it continue!

If you’d like to find out more about this amazing initiative, check out: https://lionguardians.org/ 

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How are you using these strategies to embed change in your organisation?

If you’d like to explore how we can help you embed successful change, reach out for a free discovery session by emailing us at hello@makeitstick.uk