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Change vitality: How to lead for continual transformation
DEBORAH ROWLAND
Twenty years ago, I launched what has now become a regular cycle of empirical research into what it takes to lead big complex change well. The initial research inquiry, Is Change Changing? carried two questions. On the cusp of the new millennium and dawn of a digital, globally interconnected age, was the nature of change itself — and how to lead it — changing? But more than that, by simply inserting a comma between the two words, ‘change’ and ‘changing,’ could we replace the notion of change as a singular event with its recognition as a continual state of being?
Perpetual transformation is no new concept. It was 2500 years ago that Greek philosopher Heraclitus notably proclaimed, “nothing endures but change.”104 But fast-forward to two decades ago and what fueled my initial research were management thinkers such as Pascale105 and Senge106 placing the notion of change as a constant state in the forefront of a leader’s mind. And today, undoubtedly amplified by 18 months of ducking and diving the uncertain waves of COVID-19, perpetual transformation is a deeply lived reality. The question stands before us — have our leadership practices and approach to change caught up with this dawning reality?
In this article, I share a holistic framework, Change Vitality,107 that I and my colleagues have created to guide leaders through the navigation of constant change. Grounded in now four rounds of research over two decades, Change Vitality stands on the shoulders of hundreds of leaders across all continents, industries and sectors who have generously given their time to participate in in-depth behavioral event interviews that we rigorously code for what leads to success in a continually changing world. I hope the framework guides you too.
Introducing Change Vitality
Perpetual transformation calls for a distinct new way to lead change. One that replaces notions of launching time-bound, system-wide, centrally controlled ‘change programs’ with the subtler realization that ongoing change is an inherent feature of all living systems108 — and that if we could only understand how change naturally occurs, we could lead it with less busy effort and more easeful impact — a distinction I call the difference between ‘action’ and ‘movement.’109
A key tenet, therefore, of Change Vitality is that you only do what is necessary (vital). Change is also not something you periodically bring to a system, separate to its task, but an ongoing phenomenon you inherently cultivate — continually pausing (stillness) in the flow of work to scan your team, organization and wider context for the ripe issues that most need attention, and in these spots targeting minimally invasive experiments that have enduring, energetic, whole system impact (movement).110
As such, I liken Change Vitality to ‘corporate acupuncture’ — as distinct from ‘corporate surgery.’ Witness how with one client I worked with, the simple and singular act of training meeting observers to continually spot and name in-the-moment decision-making routines sped up cultural change in a way their elaborate “new ways of working” programs and governance redesigns could never have achieved.
Change Vitality therefore requires you to go to the source of the system’s routines and regularly hold that up to attention (a bit like doing a daily body scan for your physical well-being).111 In the above example the inner code was “we cannot make a collective decision until everyone is happy with the decision so we will spend as much time as we need trying to accommodate everyone to a compromise.” When the pleasing culture got named, change could occur.
So, how to cultivate this ongoing, system-shifting Change Vitality? While more effortless, it is not without effort!
The Still Moving Change Vitality Framework
Our research has revealed four essential, richly interdependent factors that, together, enable leaders to cultivate successful Change Vitality:
It’s a lot to pay attention to — hardly surprising that most change efforts fail.112 But when you do take this ‘how’ of change seriously, you have a far higher chance of success. Given the high price of change and the toll it takes on people’s time, energy and lives, set alongside the prize it can bring to markets, societies, livelihoods — indeed our very planet’s survival — I feel this is an effort worth taking.
Still Moving Change Vitality Cone
We visualize the four Change Vitality factors as a flow of energy that rises upward through a spinning cone. Perpetual change can feel like this — a bit wobbly, risky, hard to stay in balance. And we all know that the essence of the cone’s ability to move at pace, yet remain stable, rests on how securely it pivots on the ground. The Inner Capacities are at the bottom of the cone for a reason. The startling, primary message from our research is this:113
Your entire ability to lead whole systems through perpetual change rests on how well you cultivate your inner state, your ability to tune into and regulate your mental and emotional response to experience.
Change Vitality starts in the quality of your being
I never forget the time when I was an executive leading big change and I decided to switch from trying to change the team and process that I was leading, and in its place work on my inner state. It would have been very expensive and time-consuming to change the team and the process, but by flipping my inner state from judgment, impatience and a need to be seen as perfect to curiosity, stillness and an expansive humility — the quality of people’s engagement and the speed of the change shifted perceptibly. My inner state altered the outer world.
We cannot always directly control the external world of perpetual motion, as hard as we might try. But we do have the power and freedom to change how we respond to it, and in so doing, get a different world. I danced for joy when my research proved Frankl’s114 wisdom applicable to leading change. The Inner Capacities mediated all other variables. What a pivot your inner world is.
Sounds easy, but our ego can get in the way. To override our neural patterning, our research revealed four Inner Capacities that require your continual attention. Scan this ‘to be list’ — how well do you intentionally cultivate your quality of being?
Notice, choose, perceive and integrate — your four inner state resources for a world of perpetual motion, and the basis for all else that matters in leading change well.
Perpetual change requires an equal balance of structure and chaos
The Inner Capacities enable you to be calm, resourceful, and systemically alert — a fundamental being quality. They enable you to up your game in what you then need to do to lead change well. The four External Practices are highly correlated to leading successful change, and when combined enable you to keep a system in continual, creative motion. Drawing from the science of ‘complex adaptive systems,’115 that shows us how such continual innovation holds an equal balance of structure and chaos, the four practices span two axes of stability and disruption.
Stabilizing practices
Disrupting practices
The top five percentile of change leaders in our research were able to master all four practices, combining them into powerful, ‘multi-hit’ interventions. Do you notice your leadership in them? How well do you put them together, do you lean toward some more than others? Are you more of a stabilizer or a disrupter? Putting all four practices together becomes easier once you have mastered the Inner Capacities. Can you start to see the connections between the quality of your ‘being’ and the skill of your ‘doing’? For example, it is very hard to make a Transforming Space intervention if you are not Staying Present.
These first two Change Vitality factors are about your personal leadership skill and are paramount. Indeed, our research showed that 52% of the variance between success and failure in high magnitude change is attributed to the quality of a leader’s inner state and outer action. But there are two additional Change Vitality factors that require your attention, which relate to how well you create the wider, systemic capacity for change. The next factor up the Change Vitality cone is your choice of Change Approach.
Now is the time for an emergence
A Change Approach is the overall way in which you design and implement change. Too often we focus solely on the what of a change — for example, do we need to restructure, is a cultural change required? And we fail to pay attention to the how of the change, that is, the process through which the restructuring will occur, or the cultural change implemented. Yet, our research has shown that your choice of change approach is fateful — it will fundamentally determine where you end up.
One approach in particular — emergent change — was highly correlated with success in ongoing, rapidly changing dynamic contexts. In today’s world, heavily engineered top-down approaches to change that assume a fixed destination simply do not work. Here is how we have taken the principles of emergence from complex adaptive systems and applied them to how you approach organizational change:116
Harnessing the systemic undercurrents that govern perpetual flow
And so, we arrive at the fourth and final Change Vitality factor: the Ordering Forces. Unlike the first three, the Ordering Forces hold an invariant quality, they are constantly present in any human system.117 They are not skills to be cultivated or approaches to be brought, but deep hidden forces that govern all collective life. And a bit like the wind, they can be keenly felt while never ‘seen.’ Smart change leaders act as more than windsocks though. They not only pick up but harness these Ordering Forces, which, if left unattended, will always exert some kind of ‘drag’ on the change, making things seem like a lot more effort than they need to be.
The four systemic forces are:
Cultivating your inner state, paying attention to your outer action, taking care of how you design the change, and harnessing what governs a system’s flow. Four potent and interconnected skill sets for leading in perpetual transformation. I wish you great Change Vitality in your future path.
About the author
Deborah Rowland is a pioneer thinker, practitioner, author and speaker in leading change. She has personally led change in major global organizations including Shell, Gucci Group, BBC Worldwide and PepsiCo, holding both Group HR and VP of Organizational and Management Development roles. Deborah is also the founder of consulting firm Still Moving which has pioneered research in the change field, and acts as change coach to the executive boards of major corporations. Her latest book, The Still Moving Field Guide: Change Vitality at Your Fingertips (Wiley, 2020) is based on her groundbreaking research into the realities of leading change.
Footnotes
104 https://iperceptive.com/authors/heraclitus_quotes.html
105 Surfing the Edge of Chaos, Pascale, R. (Currency, 2001)
106 The Dance of Change, Senge, P. et al (Nicholas Brealey, 1999)
107 The Still Moving Field Guide: Change Vitality at Your Fingertips, Rowland, D. (Wiley 2020)
108 Leadership and the New Science, Wheatley, M. (Read How You Want, 2012)
109 https://iperceptive.com/authors/heraclitus_quotes.html is this the right link?
110 Still Moving: How to Lead Mindful Change, Rowland, D. (Wiley 2018)
111 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2019/02/07/lead-like-an-anthropologist-and-lead- change-well/
112 https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypercy/2019/03/13/why-do-change-programs- fail/?sh=63755a342e48
113 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/01/11/change-starts-with-a-leaders-ability- to-look-inward/
114 Man’s Search For Meaning, Frankl, V (Rider, 2004)
115 https://wiki.santafe.edu/images/5/53/Lansing2003.pdf
116 https://medium.com/sfi-30-foundations-frontiers/emergence-a-unifying-theme-for-21st- century-science-4324ac0f951e
117 https://www.leadershipcentre.org.uk/artofchangemaking/theory/four-orders-and- constellations/