Every time I speak to a group of executives, they complain that their organizations desperately need to change, but that the bosses are hostile to it. And every time I speak to a group of leaders, they say that change is their highest priority, but can’t seem to align the rank-and-file behind transformational initiatives.
The truth is that everybody loves their own brand of change, it’s other people’s ideas and initiatives that they don’t like. We all have things that we want to be different. But the status quo has inertia on its side and never yields its power gracefully. To want change is one thing, but to change ourselves, well… that’s another story.
What I’ve found in both my research and my practice is that people who bring about transformational, even historic, change start out no differently than anyone else. In fact, early versions of them are often decidedly unimpressive. The difference between them and everyone else is that somewhere along the way they learn to adopt a changemaker mindset.
The war in Ukraine is, in so many ways, an unspeakable tragedy. An unprovoked attack by a cynical power, continuous and barbaric shelling of innocent civilians and what may be the largest refugee crisis in history, makes us recalibrate what humans are capable of. And all of this, for the most part, to satisfy the hubris of one man.
Yet despite the horrors, I am hopeful. In the 20 years I have been involved with Ukraine, I have seen it evolve from a kleptocratic post-communist state to an emerging democracy with the power to inspire the world. I could not have imagined, when I first fell in love with the place all those years ago, what has come to pass.
The truth is that Ukraine has much to teach us beyond the mighty courage and spirit we see on our TV screens. The reason Ukrainians fight so bravely is because they have struggled so long and hard. It is because of that struggle that they know what they are fighting for. That’s why, despite the cold calculations by armchair strategists, Ukraine defies expectations.
The physicist Max Planck made many historic breakthroughs, including a discovery that led to quantum theory. Still, he lamented that “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
Clearly, that’s not only true for scientific truths. Every generation rejects some notions of their elders, explores things on their own and adopts new ideas. Some of those ideas will survive, but others will ultimately be rejected, which always causes some acrimony. Even Aristotle complained about the “exalted notions” of the youth.
Yet this time is different. Because the Boomer generation was so large, and Generation X so small, those who came of age in the 1960s essentially ruled for two epochs. The rising Millennial generation, which is now the largest, holds starkly different values than Boomers. Over the next decade, as Millennials come to predominate, we can expect tensions to rise.
In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi, who had long established himself as a revolutionary leader of uncommon strategic acumen, called for a general strike throughout India to protest unjust laws levied on his people by the British. It was, at least at first, an enormous success. In Mumbai, for example, 80% of shops closed their doors.
Yet things soon got out of hand. What began as peaceful protests against oppression turned violent. Riots broke out. The moral high ground that Gandhi so coveted—and relied on to accomplish his objectives—would crumble under his feat. Things ended with a horrible massacre at Amritsar. Gandhi would later call it his Himalayan miscalculation.
Yet that wasn’t the end of the story. Not by a long shot. He not only admitted his mistake, he vowed to learn from it. Ten years later, when the opportunity presented itself, he took a very different tack, which led to the Salt March and became his greatest triumph. It is often the ability to learn from mistakes that makes the difference between success and failure.
The unicorn is perhaps unique among myths in that the creature doesn’t appear in the mythology of any culture. The ancient Greeks, for all of their centaurs, hydras and medusas, never had any stories of unicorns, they simply thought that some existed somewhere. Of course, nobody had ever seen one, but they believed others had.
Beliefs are amazing things. We don’t need any evidence or rational basis to believe something to be true. In fact, research has shown that, when confronted with scientific evidence which conflicts with preexisting views, people tend to question the objectivity of the research rather than revisit their beliefs. Also, as Sam Arbesman has explained, our notions of the facts themselves change over time.
George Soros and others have noted that information has a reflexive quality. We can’t possibly verify every proposition, so we tend to take cues from those around us, especially when they are reinforced by authority figures, like consultants and media personalities. Over time, the zeitgeist diverges further from reality and myths evolve into established doctrine.
Many experts suspect that the Covid crisis is finally beginning to recede. It is, of course, hard to know for sure. There will continue to be debate and we will still need to have measures in place for some time now. Still, for the most part, people are back at work, kids are in school, and relatively normal routines have returned.
Generations from now, historians will most likely still question what lessons are to be gleaned from the past few years. Should we strengthen our multilateral institutions or have they become so sclerotic that they need to be dismantled? Is the rise of populist nationalism a harbinger for the future or a flash in the pan?
One thing I don’t expect to be hotly debated, in fact seems perfectly clear even now, is that science saved us. Untold thousands, working mostly anonymously in labs around the world, created a vaccine of astonishing efficacy in record time. It is these types of breakthroughs that change the course of history and, if we can embrace their power, lead us to a better future.
On September 17th, 2011, protesters began to flood into Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. Declaring “We are the 99%” they planned to #Occupy Wall Street for as long as it took to make their voice heard. Similar protests soon spread like wildfire across 951 cities in 82 countries. It seemed to be a massive global movement of historic proportions.
But it wasn’t a movement. It was merely a moment. Within a few months, the streets and parks were cleared. The protesters went home and nothing much changed. #Occupy was, to paraphrase Shakespeare, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Certainly, no tangible aim was accomplished.
Failure has costs. Thousands of people for hours a day across several months adds up to billions of dollars worth of man-hours that could have been put to some useful purpose. Make no mistake. Creating positive change in the world takes far more than mobilization. You need a vision and a strategy, guided by values, designed to accomplish clear objectives.
When I lived and worked in Ukraine, it was commonplace to see men in camouflage fatigues and Uzi’s in the waiting rooms of offices around town. They weren’t there as security, or to rob the place, but to help transfer money between businesses. It was cumbersome and inefficient, but in an atmosphere of mistrust, it was a necessity.
In most countries, we’re still a long way from armed couriers as a daily routine, but according to Edelman’s recent Trust Barometer, we’re headed in that direction. Entitled “The Cycle of Distrust,” it details an overall collapse of confidence, finding that roughly two thirds believe that journalists, government leaders, and business executives, are “purposely trying to mislead.”
That’s a problem for all of us. Mistrust is corrosive to the norms that help our society run efficiently and the costs are very real. Our lack of trust in government prevents us from making needed investments. Suspicions about law enforcement undermine public safety. Mistrust in the workplace undermines performance. We desperately need to rebuild trust.
All too often, we see change as a communication exercise. We think that if people really understood our idea, they would embrace it. In this view, bringing about change is really just a matter of messaging. Find the right slogan and deliver it in the right way, and you will ignite the passions required to drive transformation.
Nothing can be further from the truth. If a change is important and has real potential for impact, there will always be some people who won’t like it and they will work to undermine it in ways that are dishonest, underhanded, and deceptive. Change rarely fails because people don’t understand it. Most often it is actively sabotaged.
A more elegant slogan won’t save you. What you need is a sound strategy to overcome resistance to change. Fortunately, we know from social and political movements that radical, transformational change is possible and, as I explained in Cascades, their principles can be highly effective in organizations. Here are three strategies that you should know.
When the Business Roundtable issued a statement in 2019 that discarded the old notion that the sole purpose of a business is to provide value to shareholders, many were dismayed. Some thought it was just another example of misguided altruism by “elites.” Others saw it as a cynical and disingenuous ploy.
Yet the primacy of shareholder value is hardly a well-established economic principle. The concept does not appear even once in Adam Smith’s seminal treatise, The Wealth of Nations. In fact, it is a relatively recent idea and when the economist Milton Friedman first proposed it in 1970, it was considered radical, even subversive, certainly not to be taken as gospel.
It has also been tremendously unsuccessful. Since Friedman’s essay we have become less productive, not more. One reason for the poor results is that Friedman and others like him failed to recognize that our economy is made up of people, not inanimate pieces of data that make up economic charts, and these people search for meaning and purpose in their lives.
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