Revolutionary v evolutionary change – Part 3: Outcomes emerge from the give and take of everyday conversations and interactions.

The preceding two posts (here and here) summarize how I responded to a request to take part in a debate about the relative merits of evolutionary and revolutionary approaches to change.

In essence, I said that this was not the most important question to address!

Instead, I argued that managers need to ask themselves how best to engage with the hidden, messy and informal dynamics that are continuously at play in their organizations (regardless of how a particular formal change effort might be described). This final post in the ‘trilogy’ says more about that challenge.

Control (or lack of it)

From a conventional standpoint, this 'messiness' gives managers a problem. It underlines the fact that, while they may be in control of certain formal and structured elements of organizational change, they are most definitely not in control of its hidden, messy and informal  bits - its shadow-side. And, to most managers, that is an uncomfortable place to be. To many, it presents a perceived challenge to their leadership - if you're not in control, so to speak, you're not leading!

In the last post, I symbolised these contrasting aspects of organizational change and performance as the ‘right (formal/structured) and left (informal/messy) hands’ of organizational dynamics.

The response of many managers, when outcomes don’t match their stated intentions, is to do more of the ‘right-hand’ stuff to try to gain control. This is the ‘do it better and get it right response’: 

“If I do more stuff over here – more controls, more detailed procedures, extra targets etc – I shall be able to overcome the problems we’ve had with implementation and get things back on track." 

This is a natural enough reaction, perhaps. But all it is likely to do is stoke up more shadow-side activity in our ‘left hands’. And this is just as likely to reinforce the behaviours that caused the initial disconnect between intention and outcome as it is to achieve the desired result.  Probably more so.

So what we need is a different way of thinking about organizations and how change happens within them.  

Everyday conversations and interactions

Importantly, it’s not what managers introduce formally to their organizations that matters most. It’s how people make sense of what they pick up through their local conversations and interactions; and how they then decide to act as a result. 

It is what happens in these constantly shifting conversational networks that determines the outcomes that emerge in response to management initiatives. It is not the initiatives themselves. 

And it’s here, in the give and take of everyday conversations and interactions, that we can see the dynamics of evolutionary change and revolutionary change being played out in organizations.

Ongoing evolution

As the content and patterns of conversations change, so do the actions that flow from them and so does the organization. 

In some cases the ‘change’ that takes place is simply a reinforcement of current thinking – ‘deepening the sense making channels’ so to speak and increasing the likelihood that similar sense making will occur in the future.  At the same time, although these established patterns tend to channel sense making down familiar, culturally embedded ‘pathways’, the possibility exists that novel outcomes will emerge from the same conversational process.  This might happen, for example, because of a simple misunderstanding, a chance event, a humorous remark that triggers a new perspective, the coming together of a diversity of viewpoints, or deliberate leadership attempts at reframing. 

So evolution is continuous and inevitable – as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said,

“You can’t stand in the same river twice”.

 

But what about revolution? 

If the themes that dominate everyday talk reflect those in the formal, ‘above the table’ organization, it is likely that outcomes will be largely in line with plan (the fingers of both hands will be interlocked, to continue the previous metaphor).  If, however, the conversations are out of kilter with the official line, then it is unlikely that managers’ plans will come to fruition. Instead, people will act in line with these different themes, leading to different actions and different outcomes. In terms of the left- and right-hand metaphor, the fingers of the two hands would remain spread apart, with the left hand dominant. 

In some instances, informal coalitions will form deliberately around ‘left-hand’ themes that challenge the established position.  If these apparently ‘subversive’ perspectives gain sufficient momentum and support, they will eventually emerge from ‘the shadows’ as formal propositions. At that point, one or more of these might radically shift the existing strategies, policies and power bases.  That is, it might lead to a revolutionary change. 

After all, this is the very way that formal plans for change emerge in the first place!

Life is what happens …

So, however well – and in whatever way - managers plan, organize, co-ordinate and control the formal side of the organization (‘right hand’), it is the hidden, messy and informal side of organizational life (‘let hand’) that will determine what happens in practice. Leading change is a ‘contact sport’. It can’t be reduced to an arms-length management task, using formal communication programmes, Gantt charts, dashboards, scorecards, competency frameworks and the like. 

As John Lennon wrote in one of his songs: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  So, if managers want to increase the likelihood of change happening successfully, they need to focus their attention on the everyday life of the organization.  They need to actively engage with these conversational networks, so that they can help to shape the way in which people make sense of events and decide how to act - whether that is seen as evolution or revolution!

Other posts in the series:
Part 1: The missing ingredient?
Part 2: The ‘right and left hands’ of organizational change

Comments

[0ut0f0rder]

Evolution- Biology- Rate of Change

There are moments throughout time where evolution pushes forward and different species are capable of evolving at a faster rate than usual. However, this accelerated rate of change takes anywhere from 10,000 years to a million years to occur. With the acceleration of technology in the past 50 years it may become impossible for human evolution to keep up with the pace of technology. What do we do when evolution can't keep up with the rate of change in technology that humans are now forced to confront?

Social Problems on a Global scale - Complexity

Despite having access to the technology to help alleviate global problems like starvation and famine, world governments haven’t found a cost efficient way to work together to solve them. Although wealthier nations do send aid throughout the world it’s still difficult to ensure that the people who are suffering actually receive the help they need. Corruption is prevalent throughout the world and to some degree even in developed western nations. As the world continues to become more complex, Rebecca Costa discusses how to resolve these problems in her book "The Watchman's Rattle.

[Matt_solis]

I remember seeing a discussion on the shortage of resources and people competing for those resources on a Facebook community page http://www.facebook.com/thewatchmansrattle

Here’s the link to the actual video on why people hoard resources and compete with one another when they know working together creates the best outcome for everyone.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1493017207106