We believe the reason most change efforts do not achieve their objectives is because change is “pushed” throughout the organization. This is the traditional method. When you push change you always get resistance. This resistance, which can be either active or passive, has a subversive quality to it, and undermines the change initiative. The non-traditional approach looks at change from a “pull” perspective. This view follows the eight key steps outlined in a previous post. Using the eight key steps, change is pulled into existence by enrolling the organization in a new Vision of the future and showing the organization how to bring that Vision forth.
What happens when you push anything? You get push back that shows up as resistance. The people supporting the change get frustrated and they tend to push harder to overcome what they interpret as resistance. This is not very productive and usually results in misunderstanding, delay and in the worst case, recrimination and acrimony.
Let’s briefly examine two ways of looking at change. We definitely show our bias, but after you read this, you determine which approach you think will be more effective.
One way to look at change is as a change in state, going from one reality or situation to another reality or situation. This is the traditional view of change. This view holds that there is something wrong with the current situation. The people holding this view think of it as if it were an objective fact. This is the way it is! And since this is the way it is, like a fact, everyone should see it the same way.
Within this traditional view, the obvious next step is to postulate a different reality that fixes the current reality. This new reality also shows up like something real, like a fact. This will fix the problem. It’s obvious; everyone should see and accept the improvements. If they don’t there is something wrong with them. The final steps in the process involve moving everyone from the “wrong” reality to the “right” reality. This invariably causes resistance which has to be overcome by persuasion, or threat. Obviously, the resistance is “wrong”.
When you look at traditional change efforts this way you can begin to see they set up the seeds of their own failure. They set up a right/wrong position. A contrary position has to be overcome. This means you make a lot of people wrong. Everyone knows instinctively this approach creates difficulties. Get the picture?
The other way of looking at change can provide a more powerful working theory to guide the change process. This view sees change as a shift in the conversations within the organization. This view holds that real, sustainable change results from changing the organizational conversations.
While we think of an organization as a living entity, it is really a legal abstraction. The people within the organization are the living entity and they constitute who they are as a result of the discussions they have and don’t have with one another. This view holds that organizations are socially constructed, and the socially constructed reality creates the system called the company. Every company is a system and as a system it is perfectly designed to produce the results it’s producing. If you want to change the results you have to change the design. This means, from a linguistic perspective, you have to change the conversations in one or two domains. One is the strategic domain; the second domain is the operational domain.
The ability to change the conversation depends on the conversational dynamics of the organization. If you have a great deal of withheld communications or highly charged confrontational discussions, change will be very difficult. If you have open, highly collaborative conversations change will be easier and will naturally flow from the shifting conversational patterns.
This approach starts with a compelling Vision. With this Vision in place, use the eight key steps, outlined in the previous post, to pull the change into existence by enrolling the organization in a new vision of the future and showing the organization how to bring that vision forth.
