“To improve is to change,” said Winston Churchill. “To be perfect is to change often.”
“Old Winnie,” as King George VI used to call him, had it right. Whoever said that the only two constants are death and taxes didn’t give enough thought to the most certain constant of them all: change – and obviously didn’t consult with Churchill on the matter. Old Winnie would have straightened him out in short order.
Then again, when the death-and-taxes axiom was pronounced – how many years or centuries ago? – we didn’t look at change the way we do now.
What’s changed about change?
In days of yesteryear, change – real significant change, civilization-changing change, as opposed to, say, painting your living room or even most day-to-day inventions – was generally an isolated event, followed by a lull, and then superceded by another event. Some of those events were significant, like the incandescent light bulb and the assembly line; most, though, had less impact on the world.
What they all had in common was that they were interventional. A condition that needed change or healing would be detected, a remedy would be devised and implemented, and an ultimate evaluation to determine success or need for more intervention was rendered. At that point, it was time to return to things and get on with life or business.
This can be likened to going to the doctor – not when you’re well, but when something’s wrong. Doc analyzes the situation, makes a diagnosis, prescribes an intervention (rest, drugs, therapy, surgery), defines an observation period, and then pronounces things OK (you hope). What was the change? The intervention.
Why was it prescribed? Because of an emergent need. This is the way most of us go about our lives – and the way most organizations go about their business. Companies that were good at this, survived; more didn’t than did. But the tenuous state of waiting to react to change whenever it occurs, that is the inherent problem.
“Change is the law of life…”
John Kennedy said it better than anyone else (as he often did): “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” If JFK were alive today, he’d put it this way: get out ahead of change and create it so you don’t have to react to it. He’d also agree with Churchill about changing often. In fact, he’d surely be talking about continuous change. Which brings us to…
Holistic Change
The old paradigm of change, from a 1970s textbook said: “Organization development is an effort planned organization-wide, and managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization's processes, using behavioral-science knowledge.” There’s so much wrong with this, as we see it now, that we don’t need to discuss it.
Fast forward to the graduate leadership classes I taught until 2018: “Organization development is continuous growth and improvement, creating and supporting an environment which nurtures change, not as a linear intervention, but as a natural state of being.” This excerpt is from the section on holistic change: the biggest change in change. With this principle agreed upon, the question then became, how do we become a holistically changing organization. Here are ten offerings.
The Ten Pillars Of Holistically Changing Organizations
- Desire, respect, and enjoy change.
- Look at time as an ally, not a deadline.
- Emphasize team learning over team building. (Learning leads to building.)
- Engage in continuous coaching and peer mentoring.
- Develop simulations. They create opportunities for risk-free mistake making.
- Create and participate in dialog groups. The more diverse the better.
- Cross-pollinate human capital, intellectual capital, and other resources.
- Foster leadership at all levels.
- No one is a spectator. All hands on deck, all the time.
- What’s new today is old tomorrow. That’s fine.
Given the nature, pace, and scope of change – the three ways, in my view, that change can be – if not measured – then observed, with each year, month, or even day that the 21st century roars forward, there is no longer the option to choose between being interventional or holistic. That choice has been made already, and if we don’t get with that program, we’ll find ourselves victims of this fate, so well stated by my colleague and friend Timothy Wood Powell: “If you don’t change, you have changed.”
