Top Posts of 2024

2024 was an exhausting year. I don’t remember any period that seemed so chaotic. Roughly 70 countries had elections this year, encompassing half the world’s population, which was a record. In just about every one, the vote went against the incumbent office holder. People made clear that they want something different.
We seem to be in that liminal space between one era and another with the four shifts of technology, resources demography and migration putting enormous stress on existing systems. What’s not clear is what comes next. Are we headed for the sort of crypto-libertarian society that people like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk envision, or something entirely different.
Looking back on my writing this year, these things were definitely on my mind. How should we approach transformation? When is change a good idea? Where is AI taking us? Perhaps most importantly, what lies ahead? As you look through this list of what I wrote and what people most responded to, what comes to your mind? Please let me know in the comments.
We Have Decades Of Research Telling Us How Change Works. We Need To Start Following The Evidence
The biggest misconception about change is that once people understand it, they will embrace it. That’s almost never true. If you intend to influence an entire organization— or even an entire society—you have to assume the deck is stacked against you. The status quo has had years—and sometimes decades or longer—to build connections and form networks.
Transformation is an area where folk wisdom reigns, but the truth is that we have decades of research that can guide us toward better outcomes. We know, for instance, that change comes from the outside and incurs resistance, that it follows an s-curve, that giving more information doesn’t persuade effectively and that ideas spread through social bonds.
The good news is that we can achieve a lot by using an evidence-based approach. Read this article to learn how.
Sometimes The Future Demands A Vision. This Is Probably Not One Of Those Times.
We like to think that we can predict the future, because it’s usually an extension of the past. So we follow trends, make some judgments on how to extrapolate and act accordingly. Yet while that’s generally a good strategy, when you meet an inflection point it is likely to lead to things going very much awry.
Over the past two centuries, we have seen echoes of the same pattern first established in the late 18th century: a wave of new ideas is resisted by the dominant powers, as tensions build below the surface and eventually explode. Sometimes order holds and sometimes it gives way to a period of chaos and destruction before, eventually, finding some sort of homeostasis.
Some eras call for a vision, while in others certain forces are set in motion and our task is to merely survive them, averting the worst of possible calamities, overcoming the deluge so that we can make it to the other side. It seems that what we are experiencing today is the latter.
Here’s Why It’s So Hard To Change A Culture
There’s an old saying that if you “change the incentives you change the behavior,” but that’s hardly ever true. People often have complex motivations and often act contrary to their self interest because of norms and rituals that underlie behavior. If you want to make an impact, That’s where you need to start.
That’s also what makes cultures so hard to transform. We are, as much as we may hate to admit it, evolved to signal identity and seek status. These truths rarely make it into PowerPoint charts or quarterly strategies, but they lie at the core of every enterprise.
In a positive organizational culture, norms and rituals support behaviors that honor the mission of the enterprise. Negative cultures undermine that mission. A common problem with many transformation initiatives is that they focus on designing incentives to alter behaviors. Unfortunately, unless you can shift norms and rituals, nothing is likely to change.
The Best Way To Overcome Resistance And Defeat Doubters: Start with a Resistance Inventory
Make no mistake, change doesn’t fail by itself. It fails because people resist it. It’s a simple truth that Humans form attachments to people, ideas and other things. When those are threatened, we tend to act out in ways that don’t reflect our best selves.
That’s why anytime we ask people to embrace change, there will always be some who will seek to undermine what we are trying to achieve in ways that are dishonest, underhanded and deceptive. We can ask people to change what they think or do, but we can’t ask them to stop being who they are.
Any change initiative needs to start with a plan to anticipate and overcome resistance. This post outlines a simple tool we use with clients: An evidence-based resistance inventory.
Look Out For These 3 Telltale Signs Of Transformation Theater
Genuine transformation is notoriously difficult, but transformation theater is relatively easy. Many build impressive careers, moving from failed initiative to failed initiative, without ever actually accomplishing anything.
The problem is, of course, transformation theater does an incredible amount of senseless damage to our organizations, our mental health and our societies. We need to learn to recognize the telltale signs and call them out when we see them or we can only expect more of the same.
This post outlines the three telltale signs you need to watch for: A false sense of urgency and a rushed strategic process followed by a large, public rollout. Check out this post to arm yourself against these charlatans.
When evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins claimed that genes are selfish, he didn’t mean that he thought they are cognisant, with a will of their own. Rather, that genes act as if they are selfish, working to replicate themselves in the most efficient way, regardless of what that entails for the organism that carries them. In other words, the phrase “survival of the fittest” applies to our genes, not to us.
The concept led to the idea of memes, elemental bits of culture that compete to be replicated in the marketplace of ideas. Then Susan Blackmore introduced the concept of temes, elemental bits of technology, like lines of code sitting in Github, that are competing to replicate in order to survive in future technological artifacts.
Once you start thinking about selfish genes, memes and temes, and begin applying those concepts to artificial intelligence, it becomes clear that AI must be selfish as well, competing to get itself replicated through us. That in turn, raises some very important questions: What is the context we are creating for this competition and how will the rules affect our own fate?
There Is No Secret Formula. Effective Leaders Need To Master Mode Shifting.
Gurus are always trying to sell us one “secret” or one “simple rule” to follow. We need to “break down silos” and “bust bureaucracy,” or abandon incrementalism and only seek out “breakthrough ideas.” Some say we need to abandon the status quo and seek out constant transformation and change.
The truth is that there is no secret formula. Success is highly context dependent. What works in one set of circumstances will likely lead to failure in another. That’s why we need to become adept at mode shifting from one set of principles to another. There are no silver bullets. Solutions need to fit problems, not the other way around.
As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out, “no course of action can be determined by a rule, because any course of action can be made out to accord with the rule.” We have to have the courage to make decisions and that often means we need to exchange one mode of logic for another.
3 Questions Every Change Consultant Should Be Able To Answer
Managers are trained to lead operations, not change. You usually get promoted to management by being good at your job. You try to keep things running smoothly, service your customers, develop talent, take care of your employees, and improve things where you can. It’s often a struggle to keep the trains running on time.
So when the need arises to pursue a transformational initiative, an organizational change management team is usually brought in, either from a consulting firm or from a vendor. They will usually bring a formal change management model like Kotter’s 8 steps, Prosci’s ADKAR or something similar, formulated internally.
Don’t get fooled by fancy charts. These models are notoriously unsuccessful and you shouldn’t just accept them. McKinsey has found that 69% of transformation efforts fail. A more recent study by Bain found that only 12% succeeded and 75% had mediocre results. Change is an investment and, like any other, you need to ask good questions. Here are three:
To Make Tough Conversations Productive, Focus On These 3 Things
We spend most of our time with people who see things largely like we do. They work in similar industries, have similar educations and live in similar places. When confronted with areas of disagreement, we can usually bullshit our way through it and keep the peace. That’s how we normally go through life.
Yet difficult conversations are sometimes unavoidable. There are fundamental differences in values and perspectives as well as issues surrounding identity and status that underlie and shape every professional and personal relationship. At some point these need to be addressed in order to move forward with any ability to function effectively.
The good news is that there are sound evidence-based principles for how to have difficult conversations and resolve them in a positive way. Three strategies include identifying shared values, addressing status dynamics, and matching the conversation the other person wants to have. Mastering these concepts will help you lead, collaborate, and connect.
Jack Welch’s GE Was The Wrong Model To Take From The 90s. Lou Gerstner’s IBM Is The Right One
When Fortune magazine named General Electric CEO Jack Welch “Manager of the Century.” it lauded the CEO’s ability to increase the stock price and deliver consistent earnings growth. Nicknamed “Neutron Jack,” he was known as a fierce competitor and a ruthless cost cutter. In the late 20th century, he was nothing less than an icon, an example other leaders wanted to emulate.
When Lou Gerstner took over at IBM in 1993, the company was near bankruptcy. Many thought it should be broken up. Yet Gerstner saw enormous value could be unlocked through reviving the culture that made the iconic company successful in the first place. His turnaround of the firm was perhaps the most impressive in corporate history.
It’s been a quarter century since both left their jobs at the helm and it’s time to take stock on the two radically different approaches. Welch created a fiercely competitive environment. Gerstner stressed values. By now it should become clear that Gertner’s approach was far more successful, creating enormous value for IBM and for society. Welch is a cautionary tale.
This Is One Big Reason Why So Much Business Thinking Is Crap
Management fads usually come from people who did well in school. Many of these are business school professors and consultants, who’ve never operated a business. They are often people who’ve never failed, been told that they’re smart all their lives and expect others to be impressed by their ideas, not to examine them thoroughly.
They tend to come up with their ideas by talking to other smart, successful people about their experiences. These ideas get picked up by more smart, successful people and are propagated further. The elite hivemind then puts these ideas into practice, rarely checking what evidence the ideas are based on. When the ideas fail, they are rarely questioned. Shortcomings are blamed on poor execution by less smart, successful people.
We need to own up to some basic truths. Case study research can be useful, but is enormously flawed and highly susceptible to bias. People recounting events usually tell self-serving accounts and researchers conducting interviews are often trying to confirm their own hunches. The interviews themselves are almost never subjected to any serious review. We need to be more vigilant. We can do better.
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So those are my top posts for 2024. Thanks to everybody for all your support over the years. I’m taking the next few weeks off, but will be back on Sunday, January 5th with my future trend for 2025.
Have a safe and happy New Year!
– Greg