Let Change Happen

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.

Like individuals, organizations have a natural tendency to undergo change, to continually develop. This is counter to the current mantra regarding change, which states: “People resist change. People fear change. People hate change.”

Instead, leaders need to understand that we live in a “self-organizing” world - where change is constantly happening - and thus needs to be understood as a power, a presence, a part of the way the world naturally works. Change is a natural, spontaneous, movement toward new forms of order, new patterns of creativity.

Since we live in a world, and work in organizations, that are constantly self-organizing. -

leaders need to keep the following seven perspectives in mind

:

1) We live in a world in which life

wants

to happen. Despite the influenced of Darwinian’s evolutionary theory, which said life was an accident, we live in a world where life wants to happen - where natural improvements want to occur.

2) Organizations are living systems, because the people within them are living beings. The image that the world, or an organization, is some kind of “machine” is an outdated model. The world is not a machine - nor do people act like machines. People have intelligence, freewill, passion and dreams. People are capable of significant change, whereas “machines” have no capacity for real change - apart from being reprogramed by some external entity.

3) We live in a universe that is alive, creative, and experimenting. We live in a world which is constantly exploring what’s possible, finding new combinations - playing and tinkering to find what is still possible. Likewise, people are intelligent, creative, adaptive - and seek ways to create new and better possibilities.

4) Life uses messes to create new, well-ordered solutions. Life is incredibly messy. But what at first glance what may appear messy and inefficient may actually be life experimenting - discovering what is possible. This is a recurring phenomenon in the re-creation of eco-systems. Life uses messes, and (if allowed to play out) the direction is always toward healthier systems and organization.

5) Life is intent on finding what works, not what’s right. It is not ego-attached to what it believes is the only solution, the only right answer. How many relationships split up because of arguments about who is right? Yet when you look around, you see life tinkering, experimenting, playing, as if to say, “If it works, fine; and if it doesn’t work, let’s see if we can find a way that does work.”

6) Life creates more possibilities as it engages with opportunities. The phrase a “narrow window of opportunity” is not true. Systems don’t work that way. If a particular opportunity is not fulfilled, there are always many others being created to engage with. Thought the timing of new opportunities may be unpredictable, they will naturally occur in healthy systems.

7) Life organizes around identity. Life organizes spontaneously and creatively, but it always organizes around a cause or purpose. When we see self-organization, we are watching systems organize into a more meaningful substance.

If you start to think about this for a while, change is happening all the time. People change all the time. Organizations change all the time. That’s who we are. Thus in a self-organizing world, a leader should not only embrace that there is a natural tendency toward change, but seek to facilitate the natural flow of change in ways that uncover new connections, relationships and methods.

** Leaders need to realize that efforts to foster change - not to “manage change” - is the key to facilitating innovation and healthy growth.

Adapted from an article by Margret Wheatley.