Change, change management and leadership

[NB: This post was originally written in October 2013]

I am preparing a presentation for the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM) conference in October: http://www.aipm2014.com.au/. This will be interesting as I am neither a project manager and I intend to talk about change management. The title of the presentation is: Sleepwalking through turbulence: Some thoughts on change, change management and leadership.

What follows was prepared to introduce my presentation to the AIPM audience. It generated some interesting conversation.

The presentation is based on five (loose) propositions about change, change management and leadership. Thoughts and observations on the following are welcome.

Change, adaptation, evolution, revolution, development, adjustment, shift, transition, innovation, modification, variation are all aspects of our daily lives, the lives of our families, and our relationships with others. We manage the twists and turns of these interactions dynamically. We work with the flow of daily life. It is only when it comes to managing organisations that change becomes a process in which we feel compelled to actively plan and guide others through a staged and linear sequence.

The impression is one of change as something we do to an organisation. It positions us all as the ‘mechanics of change’. It suggests that we have a degree of managerial control over events and outcomes. It is the idea of managerial control over events that does not seem to bear close scrutiny.

When faced with the vastness of the undertaking that is organisational change management, control is a mirage that gives us comfort and sanctuary. It suggests the nirvana of purposeful, leader-led and risk-minimised intervention is available to us all.

Most change methodologies perpetuate the idea that certain actions, if sufficiently well planned and well communicated, will lead us to our desired outcomes. But many research expeditions to find this nirvana have failed to uncover evidence of its existence. Yet, despite this, we continue to trudge our way toward the mirage.

We are watchful but unseeing. We are certain of our direction but not the reason why we are going there. We know but we are not questioning. We are sleepwalking.

So, what to do then?

We need a way to approach the issues of change, change management and leadership in a way that works with people, work and organisation as it actually is rather than how we would prefer it to be.

I do not make any claims for myself in having new or special insights. It is not my intention to present you with a new mirage. Instead, perhaps unsatisfactorily, I offer five propositions that might help us to challenge the assumptions and norms of change management together. [To add to the unsatisfactory nature of my approach, I haven't explained what I mean by the propositions here. They are open to interpretation and reflection.]

• Proposition One. Organisational stability is the norm, so ‘managing’ organisational change only makes sense in terms of responding to turbulence.
• Proposition Two. We put a substantial amount of effort into maintaining the architecture of our ‘culture’ without acknowledging that ‘culture’ inhabits the people rather than organisations.
• Proposition Three. In managing change, despite our experience, we persist in thinking about time as a clock (linear and even) and not as an experience (bendy and uneven).
• Proposition Four. Resilience (organisational, team and individual) is central to adapting change. We understand resilience through a sense of scale and an awareness of boundaries.
• Proposition Five. People are the shock absorbers of change, so the primary role of leaders responding to change is not to control but rather to make meaning out of uncertainty for others.

These are not astonishing or new (maybe they not even propositions) but they might be a helpful stimulus for reflecting on change, change management and leadership.