In the 1950s, a number of researchers began exploring how innovations spread. Why do some ideas catch on while others fizzle out? And why do certain ideas gain quick acceptance in some places but struggle in others? To find out, they studied successful innovations like hybrid corn and tetracycline.
What they found was that innovative ideas tend to come from outside the community, with early adopters being those most connected to the outside world. The first farmers to adopt hybrid corn were also the ones who often traveled to the city, doctors who read medical journals and attended out of town conferences tended to be those who first prescribed tetracycline.
From there, things followed a distinct pattern, often described as an s-curve. While most ignore the idea—and some show downright hostility to it—those early explorers begin to experiment with it and it is their success that determines whether it will spread. That’s why to successfully lead change, you need to identify, nurture and empower those early few.
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When Portuguese colonists first came across manioc in South America, they were a bit perplexed by the elaborate, multi-day process the indigenous people followed before consuming it. Some steps, like boiling the raw tuber to eliminate its bitterness and prevent digestive issues, appeared practical. Others, however, seemed more driven by superstition than anything else.
So when they transferred the crop to West Africa they streamlined the process. Yet, as Joseph Henrich explains in The Secret of our Success, the original ritual was more practical than it seemed. As it turns out, manioc, if not properly processed, has low levels of cyanide, which accumulate over time and cause chronic poisoning.
What the Portuguese didn’t realize was that they were seeing survivors—those who had inherited the knowledge to process manioc safely. Others who ignored these practices had died out. This same dynamic plays out in business. Leaders often see long-standing practices as outdated inefficiencies—when in reality, they may serve a critical, unseen function.”
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In the 1990s, newly minted Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen began studying why good companies fail. What he found was surprising: They weren’t failing because they lost their way, but because they were following time-honored principles taught at institutions like his own. They listened to customers, invested in R&D and improved their products.
As he researched further he realized that, under certain circumstances, a market becomes over-served, the basis of competition changes and firms become vulnerable to a new type of competitor. In his 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, he coined the term disruptive technology to describe what he saw.
It was an idea whose time had come. The book became a bestseller and Christensen a global business icon. Yet many began to see disruption as more than a special case, but a mantra, an end in itself rather than a means to an end and, at this point, things have gone horribly wrong. We need to abandon the disruption mindset and focus on what really matters.
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One of the most puzzling things that I’ve come across in speaking and writing about change is the denial that resistance exists. While I never hear this from leaders that I coach, who face resistance every day, there is a cadre of consultants and pundits who insist that resistance to change is some sort of illusion.
This should be ridiculous on its face. Certainly, the resistance we encountered during the Orange Revolution was very real. In Lou Gerstner’s account of his historic turnaround at IBM, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance, he’s very clear and candid about the resistance he faced. I can’t recall any major transformation that hasn’t had opposition.
Yet when you look at popular change management models such as Kotter’s 8 Steps or Prosci’s ADKAR, they have little to say about overcoming resistance to change and, wittingly or not, promote the idea of transformation as a communication and skills problem, as if you just give people the right information and training they will embrace change. They will not.
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In 1998, Srdja Popović walked into a Belgrade cafe to meet some friends. A biologist by training, he also played bass in a goth rock band called BAAL. Lately though, his passion turned to politics. He’d become an organizer, eventually rising to lead the youth wing of Serbia’s Democratic Party. It was that passion that brought him to the café that day.
A few years earlier, and half a world away in Ithaca, NY, a young graduate student named Duncan Watts walked into the thick woods surrounding Cornell University to record the chirping of snowy tree crickets. He had recently entered the graduate program in theoretical and applied dynamics and was studying a strange, obscure phenomenon known as coupled oscillation.
Srdja’s meeting led he and his friends to start the activist group Otpor, spark the color revolutions and create a repeatable model for overthrowing dictatorships. Duncan’s nightly sojourns lay the groundwork for a new science of networks. Although they never met, their journeys would become intertwined with mine and reveal the hidden dynamics of change.
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Pundits often encourage us to find our tribe, but that has its downsides. Tribal thinking can make us suspicious of outsiders and can lead us to ignore new information and evidence that challenges our existing beliefs and paradigms. Sure, there is safety in sticking with our tribe, but we are unlikely to learn anything new.
Experimental evidence has long shown we are hardwired to be distrustful of others we see as different than ourselves. In a study of adults that were randomly assigned to “leopards” and “tigers,” fMRI studies noted hostility to out-group members. Similar results were found in a study involving five year-old children and even in infants.
Yet in his new book, Tribal, behavioral psychologist Michael Morris suggests a more hopeful view. He points to three tribal instincts—the peer instinct, the hero instinct and the ancestor instinct—that leaders can leverage to pursue common purpose. We can expand our tribe beyond simple conflicts of “us and them,” to forge bonds and move forward as “we together.”
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Humans tend to think about things in a linear way. We assume progress happens step by step—losing a little weight for the summer, putting money into a college fund, growing a business customer by customer. We measure, plan, and execute accordingly. One day follows the next, and we try to make a little progress towards our goals
Yet many have observed that shifts are often abrupt. Hemingway, quite famously, described change as happening, “gradually, then suddenly.” Thomas Kuhn explained how revolutions unfold in abrupt paradigm shifts. Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot described change in terms of Noah effects and Joseph effects, with massive shocks disrupting periods of continuity.
Yet these are more than just interesting observations. For decades, scientists have uncovered the natural forces that underlie how change happens. Once we understand these principles, we can learn to notice the telltale signs and anticipate opportunities before events take us by surprise. That can help us work toward the kind of outcomes we want to see.
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When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was asked about how artificial intelligence will affect the marketing industry, he said, “It will mean that 95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today will easily, nearly instantly and at almost no cost be handled by the AI.”
Anybody who’s used an AI service can see what he means. With a simple prompt, we can use AI to generate ideas, produce creative images and videos, even to test the ideas against real or synthetic focus groups, exactly as Altman says. What he misses is that those things make up comparatively little of what marketing professionals do.
The truth is that creative work has been highly automated for some time, but, statistically, we’re not working any less. The problem is that, while machines can do much of our work for us, they can’t decide what work we want done. That’s why high-level jobs, both now and in the future, will center on identifying, communicating, coordinating, and executing intent.
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I recently read a book by a well-known business thought leader that I have tremendous respect for. Surprisingly, I noticed a factual error and, when I checked her notes, I saw that she cited an article I wrote in Forbes in which I made the same factual error. So it is quite likely that she made the mistake because she put her trust in me.
The error was relatively minor. I wrote that Blockbuster CEO, John Antioco, was fired because of a compensation dispute, when actually he left of his own accord. It was a stupid mistake and, to this day, I’m not really sure of why I made it. But I did so numerous times, in a number of articles and didn’t correct myself until Antioco himself set me straight.
The error wasn’t due to a lack of information. In fact, on some level I knew the real story, but somehow I got the wrong one into my head and it stuck there. The truth is that our minds are incredibly adept at playing tricks on us. Getting facts right has nothing to do with intelligence or ability. We need to recognize how easy it is to fool ourselves and remain vigilant.
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We tend to view revolutionary changes through iconic moments. We can envision Gandhi and his Salt March against the British Raj, Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial, where he told the world about his dream, or Steve Jobs’ return to Apple and inspiring us all to Think Different. Those legendary change leaders provide inspiration to us all.
Yet those moments can also be incredibly misleading, because they only tell us how the story ended, not how it began. We see the triumphs, but none of the struggles, setbacks, disappointments and doubts that they had to overcome along the way. So what we end up with is a cartoonish view, not exactly a lie, but not the truth either.
One thing that I’ve discovered in two decades studying transformational change is that what makes the difference between revolutionary leaders and those poor souls who toiled for years with nothing to show for it was what they learned along the way. One advantage we have is that we don’t have to fail to benefit from their mistakes. Here are three tools to help you.
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