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“Thought and analysis are powerless to pierce the great mystery that overs over the world and over our existence, but knowledge of the great truths only appears in action and labor.” Albert Schweitzer
“Spiritual warriors are courageous enough to taste suffering and relate to their fear… suffering is not seen as a failure or a punishment. It’s a purification.” Sogyal Rinpoche
Transform the Norm
What do we mean by transformation? It is a big word. Webster’s definition: A complete change in form, shape, character or nature. A metamorphosis.
But, we are ready for — we need — an expanded definition of greatness. This definition includes sustainable returns of money and meaning. It is greatness that benefits shareholders and the environment, that achieves breakthroughs in service, technology, and in the lives of those who are associated with the enterprise.
The goal of most change efforts is a new system capable of increased internal efficiency, expanded agility and capability in the marketplace, with new levels of energy, creativity, ownership, and productivity. There are two primary ways change efforts are set up to fall short.
First, they lack a whole system approach.
Most efforts at organizational change are lower right (external-collective). Change efforts fail when deep system design issues are mistaken as isolated problems to be solved. Change is programmatic and piecemeal. This is analogous to treating the symptoms of a disease and not the disease. Short-term improvement is often followed by worsening conditions long-term.
Second, and by far the most common way change efforts are not set up for success, is that the two internal quadrants are largely ignored.
These change efforts focus only on the external side of change. New technology is introduced, the organization is restructured, teams are introduced, policies and reward systems are changed, workflows are reorganized, cross-training and cross-functional interfaces are put in place, etc. Individuals and teams receive training in the skills required to function in the new system. All very comprehensive, right? Seems like all the bases are covered and it should work. It seldom does, because the system cannot organize, in a sustainable way, beyond the level of consciousness in the left (internal) quadrants.
Most change efforts suffer from both oversights mentioned above: focusing on problems not systems and ignoring the need for inner shifts in consciousness and culture. But, when we study change efforts through the lens of the whole system model, by far and away the most common quadrant ignored is the individual/internal followed closely by the collective/ internal. In other words, all the internal, deeper, psychological and spiritual aspects of individual and culture change are given short shrift.
This oversight is particularly critical because in a changing organization system and structure, managers and employees alike are implicitly being asked to evolve a new orientation towards themselves and their world. Organizational change is not a question of skills and structure alone, but of identity and world-view.
PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION
Change efforts of this type require leaders to use power differently, to use their power to develop the power and expertise of others. This expectation becomes problematic for leaders who derive a sense of personal worth from being powerful, important, expert, decisive, heroic, and/or in charge. In the new organization they are no longer “the one”, but one among many.
For those who have spent a lifetime defining their worth in terms of their strength of command, technical expertise, and decision-making ability, this shift constitutes nothing less than a crisis of identity. They must ask, “Who am I if I am not my ability to take command and be the one who makes the right decision?”
Likewise, those leaders and employees who have shunned power and played the safe, loyal, hardworking follower as a way of being protected and valued by those in power, are now being asked to let go of this strategy. They are now asked to take on risk, step into conflict, make tough decisions, and generally take on more responsibility and visibility than they are used to carrying. For these individuals, this too is a crisis of identity. They ask, “How do I remain worthy and stay safe if I risk both failure and the displeasure of those above me?”
This example demonstrates how an organizational change places implicit demands for deep internal change upon every person in the organization. The organizational emphasis on high performance teamwork is making an invisible demand that each person fundamentally changes their system of identity, not merely make a few skill adjustments. They are being asked to phase-shift into a radically new way of understanding and expressing themselves and their world.
The inner dynamics of personal identity are powerful, complex, and immune to change. They operate at both the individual level (who I am) and at the collective/cultural level (who we are).
For most of us, these powerful forces were organized years ago. They have decades of experience and momentum behind them. These internal dynamics, if ignored, can easily scuttle the most well intentioned change process (we think this accounts for much of the 85% short-fall).
For organizational change to be real, we need to personally transform ourselves. This is tough stuff. Much of what is termed resistance to change is the struggle people, individually and collectively, have with reorganizing their system of identity. People need help and support to make this inner journey. They seldom get it in the way most change efforts are constructed.
In short, deep systemic change occurs only if we can be the change we want to see in the organization and the world.
Dynamic Transformation
Transformation isn't like a linear, step-by-step process. No.
Transformation is a process, as the growth toward mastery (in any endeavor such as music, sport, martial art, leadership, or psychological and spiritual awareness).
Do
not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his
good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12: 2
Romans 12: 2