The paradoxes inherent in change.

What are the paradoxes inherent here?

I’m not going to lie … being on Brené’s “let me send you a copy of my new book” list TOTALLY strokes my ego.

I got to know her a little before she became really well-known. I’ve had her on some of my pods, have been on hers, and she even asked me to write a blurb for an early book of hers.

(I’m just glad I didn’t do a Dick Rowe, and write the equivalent of “guitar groups are on the way out” as a reason for not signing The Beatles.)

Brené’s new book Strong Ground is the one most strongly aligned with organizational change, and I’m thrilled to see that one of the chapters is on paradox.

She references lots of people in the chapter, from Jim Collins talking about “the genius of the AND” to Richard Rohr’s idea of “the grace paradox” (we grow (spiritually) more by doing things wrong than by doing things right).

One of the quotes I immediately loved is from James March:

“Leadership is plumbing and poetry”

How about THAT as a challenge for the way you lead change? 🫣

The paradoxes I notice

Here are paradoxes I see showing up as I try to lead change. Or put another way, here’s where I find tension:

Doing change to people AND Doing change with people

Providing clear direction AND Running small experiments

Selling the benefits AND Pointing out the pain

Staying curious AND Wanting answers

Being optimistic AND Staying grounded in reality

Taking action AND Being patient and still

Fixing everything AND Letting some dumpster fires keep burning

Change as an event AND Change as a constant

Resolving paradox

“Enough with this BS tension! I want this awkwardness to end, please!”

(Or is that just me?)

Look, I know some of this is “sitting in the tension” of it. The most interesting paradoxes are probably not able to be resolved.

But “sitting in the tension of it” also feels quite passive.

So I have a few questions to more actively engage with the paradoxes that are showing up.

First, which pole of the paradox do I inherently think is more important? In other words, what’s my bias here? Knowing your personal preference, and knowing it’s a personal preference, not a universal truth, can be helpful.

Second, what choice would I actively make as to which one of the poles would best serve as a guide for this change process?

I’ve found a useful trick is to replace “AND” with “EVEN OVER.” It makes it clear what stand I’m taking in a difficult but useful choice.

So for instance, Not “Providing clear direction AND running small experiments” becomes (for me, most of the time) “Run small experiments EVEN OVER providing clear direction.”

Shades of Grey (and Gray)

It’s somehow appropriate that the colour of paradox has different spellings around the world.

If the answer seems clear and black and white, it’s possible you’ve misunderstood the question. 🙂

This is new thinking for me, so I’m curious to know how it lands with you. Do let me know, and let me know your favourite paradox too.

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Navigational errors in change.

How good’s your map? (Rhetorical question)

Alfred Korzybski coined the phrase “the map is not the territory” (and also “the word is not the thing”). 

That sounds obvious enough when it’s pointed out – I can just see myself nodding vigorously and saying, “yes, exactly” when someone makes that point – but it’s amazing how quickly we forget.

• We do love our maps.

• Here are some maps that are currently leading you astray, more or less:

• How the senior team works

• The org chart

• What the values of the organization mean

• What behaviours the values of the organization will determine

• What people think the change is about

• How people understand that thing you communicated

• How much of the training will stick

• How power and influence work

• What competencies you have and don’t have in your change team

• How ready people are to change

• How people will respond to the change

• Your change strategy and plan

This is not a complete list. 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, maps are also really helpful

Creating them is powerful, because you can notice what you’re choosing to include or leave out, to emphasize or downplay.

Using them can generate shared goals and understanding, and increase the odds of you making good choices navigating what’s next.

But reality is messy and unmappable. If only we could “do a Google maps,” type in a destination, and get the exact route to the minute of the journey.

More likely, you need to run small experiments to figure out the way.

Antonio Machado:

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking.

If you’d like a literary excursion that makes the point, Borges’ extremely short story is slightly obscure and also mostly delightful.

And here’s a fun tool that makes the point literally. You can see just how warped our standard “Mercator projection” global map is.

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Seeking success? Or avoiding failure?

A declaration of change often starts with someone senior painting the picture of success.

Often, they do it badly. “10% more widgets!” (In my pod interview with Dan Heath he is wonderfully acidic about how uninspiring c-suite numbers are as a vision.)

Sometimes they do it well, and there’s a resonant and compelling sense of what the future holds, and why we need to get there.

But as humans, we’re not really wired for bold success. We’re wired to minimize failure.

Blame our brains

Your brain has one overriding job, and that’s to keep you alive. The longer you live, the more chance there is of your DNA getting passed along.

So it’s learned that, on balance, staying safe and avoiding risk is the smart long-term bet.

That dark cave that tempted our ancestors some tens of thousands of years ago? The ones that avoided it were the ones who didn’t get eaten by the thing are also the ones who are our ancestors.

You’ll have your bias

In my experience, each of us has our own orientation of “towards reward” or “away from risk.” I’m a seek-rewards guy, my wife is an avoid-risk gal, for instance.

Do you know yours? The key players on your team? Your sponsors’? The CEO’s? The org culture’s?

Three conditions

One tool that might help to calm all nerves is to make explicit three different conditions of success.

From Lean comes the concept of Conditions of Satisfaction. These make explicit what “good enough” is. You know it, and they know it. They’re not just explicit, they’re typically measurable and limited in number. 

I’m going to add two more.

Conditions of Glory. 

What would be absolutely brilliant? What would be stunningly excellent? Do we know, specifically, what a truly glorious outcome would look like? And for whom? How do we unlock people’s ambition and excitement

Conditions of Catastrophe.

What would be disastrous? This might get into what Michael Abrashoff would call “above the waterline mistakes” and “below the waterline mistakes.” If the ship sinks, that’s probably a catastrophe. But does everyone know that?

There’s lots of general talk about success, but it’s helpful to remember that humans on the whole are more wired to avoid failure than they are to seek success.

Knowing how you, your team, your sponsor, and your organization are oriented will make clear what’s possible and worth striving for, and where you might choose to play it safe.

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Beware sharks.

Where’s the danger?

I’m currently in Australia and entered some “risky” territory at the beach.

That’s a pretty excellent photo, right? It’s almost like they don’t want you to go swimming. 🫣

You probably haven’t erected Danger! Death Imminent! signs around the place for your change process.

That’s good.

But, almost certainly, people already have these messages posted in their own minds, and have their own internal doom scroll going on.

That’s less good.

Australian Tourism faces this challenge. More people die in Australia each year from their furniture tipping over onto them, than they do from shark bites.

But nobody asks Australians about the IKEA-related dangers of a trip Down Under.

Change makes people worry.

When in doubt, people will assume that change is a threat.

So let me ask you this:

What are the sharks, the stingers, the snakes, the treacherous undertow, and/or the collapsing beach that your change program has conjured for people?

You’ll find out when you go and ask them.

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Armani x Change

RIP Armani

Signor Armani died last week. He’s made a lasting impression on fashion, but he’s got something to teach us as transformational leaders, too:

Take out the shoulder pads of the suit. And wear more loafers.

I’m kidding.

Well, kind of. I love stretching a metaphor, and I’m sure I could somehow draw some dubious change lesson here if nip came to tuck.

But at a more principle-based level, Signor Armani did love to say this:

The essence of style is a simple way of saying something complex.

I’ve never really thought of a change process needing to be stylish, but there’s something powerful here. It seems that other leaders feel the same.

I interviewed Paolo Pisano, CHRO for the Booking.com Group recently (episode coming out in a few months), and when I asked him what his most singular piece of modern change mastery was, he answered:

Simplify!

Which in turn reminded me of an interview with Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify and an excellent first principle thinker, who said:

You can tame enormous complexity with good UX.

Be Stylish

Here are three things you could do to search for style in the way you’re leading change.

1. Make it visual

Sketch out your design. Drawing things makes them real. What’s going to happen, and what does that look like? What’s the final outcome, and what does that look like? What are the tiny details that will make all the difference, and what do they look like?

2. Give it a theme

Every haute couture show has its own angle. If your change program had to be staged in Paris to a lot of Very Beautiful People Wearing Oversized Sunglasses, what would grab their attention? What would have both gravitas and whimsy?

3. Remove one of the big things

Just cut it out. Subtraction is one of the great underutilized tools of change.

(“Remove the shoulder pads.”)

4. Explain it in a single breath

If it takes more than that, there’s more simplicity to be found on the other side of complexity.

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The double pain of ambiguous loss.

What’s the ambiguous loss?

Since starting the Change Signal project, I’ve been thinking about grief and its role in stymying change. 

I’ve had the hypothesis that we underestimate people’s sadness at leaving the status quo behind. Even when it’s a messy, diminishing and miserable status quo, it’s our status quo. We know how it works and what our role is in the whole catastrophe of it all.

I recently interviewed Michael Norton, author of The Ritual Effect, for a forthcoming episode of the pod, and we ended up spending quite some time on the whole idea of ambiguous loss and its cousin, anticipatory grief.

Ambiguous loss is a term coined by Pauline Boss. It’s when there’s a discombobulating combination of presence and absence. Someone with dementia is physically present and psychologically absent. Someone who’s been reported missing might still be very psychologically present.

This “grief limbo” can be hard to process. We’re stuck in the ambiguity and uncertainty of it all. Going through some of the rituals of mourning can feel too premature, and it’s easy enough to assume you’re just “making too much of it all”.

The status quo has a denser gravity than we realize. It’s not that easy to escape its pull. As we experience organizational change, we can underestimate the hidden forces that make it hard for people to move.

A deeper attachment to the way things are right now than anyone expected, and anticipatory grief at its passing, even if it might also come with a sense of relief or excitement.

A sense of ambiguous loss, with some things still present and others now absent.

Humans are messy, delightful, and complex. Helping them move through change is subtle, challenging and important.

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What’s your best wisdom about modern change mastery?

What’s your best wisdom?

You know who is way, way, WAY smarter than me?

Us.

Change Signal is a burgeoning group of transformational leaders who are seeking (and finding) modern change mastery.

So I’d be an idiot not to regularly be asking you all, what do you know and love about this discipline?

What are you seeking out and learning as modern change mastery?

So let me know.

What are your favourite frameworks, books, thought leaders, podcasts, and miscellaneous sources of wisdom that fuel and inform the work that you’re doing?

Shoot me an email and tell me. I read every note I get.

Pod guest ideas? One thing I’m definitely curious about is who else you think I should have on the pod. If you’ve got a thought on that, let me know. (And if you can make the introduction, let me know that too!)

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Three recommendations from me

Here are three resources I’ve found resonant lately.

The Change Rebels newsletter

They’ve created a fiercely wonderful community about and for self-managed organizations. The newsletter is punchy, practical, and also philosophical. A great regular read. Also, Pim De Morree was one of the first guests on the pod. You might enjoy that episode.

Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit

I’m as surprised as you, perhaps, that I’m recommending it. I was a bit dismissive of it when it came out (7 Habits … but wait, there’s more! Buy my book!) But my coach reminded me of it, and in particular, a model that shows the choices people have. It’s a model that moves through six stages, including Malicious Obedience (oh, I know this one well!), Cheerful Cooperation, and Creative Excitement. It’s on p.22 of my edition, and when I think about how to do change with people, not to people, this framework is helpful.

At Work with The Ready podcast

Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin are wonderful hosts, and this is “let’s do real talk” about what works in getting work done. I’ve been a guest on the pod myself, and Rodney’s been on Change Signal (“Go find the gnarliest problem, and start there” <= love her insight!)

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Some unexpected pearls of wisdom

Unexpected pearls of wisdom

I love the idea of “stems” in music … small encapsulated bits of magic that get shared and passed around, and are often the seeds for new creations. So I’m thinking of these various bits and pieces of wisdom I’ve collected over the last little while as change stems. For some, you’ll see the obvious link to transformation. Others might be a little obscure.

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“Never accept a ‘no’ from someone who can’t give a ‘yes’.”

~ a lesson passed on by my friend ​Eric​ from one of his mentors

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"The unpalatable truth is that the best change approach is one that builds off what best practice exists, but counters this with deep knowledge of the organisation and a clear articulation about what needs to be different. It requires clear-sighted planning and sustainability, but it equally needs messy experimentation, an understanding of the emotional agenda and boldness."

~ ​Kate Lye​ shared this with me, although we can’t find its source. If you know where it comes from, please let me know.

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“Sensemaking starts with chaos.”

~ Karl Weick

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“There are only two things that determine how your life turns out. One is luck, which we don’t have any control over. And second, where you land in that range of possible outcomes is going to be determined by the quality of your decisions. The quality of your decisions determines, in large part, the quality of your life.”

~ Annie Duke

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“If you always let people in in traffic, no one can cut you off.” Also, “If you can train yourself to ask ‘is there a better way to do this?’ at random intervals ten times a day, you will become unstoppable.”

~ Cate Hall’s ​Substack​

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“Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.”

~ Robert Conquest’s first law of politics. (See ​last week’s newsletter​ for #3.)

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“What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness.”

~ Flann O’Brien

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“I want to change my mind. Or more accurately, be receptive to God changing it. Not in a zombified, cultish, drink the Kool-aid manner, but in the sense of a continual opening to dare-I-say-it grace? To more reality, more imagination and more freedom, even when that very doorway paradoxically comes with an understanding of limit. My mind has often been a fearful, defended and judgemental place. Thieves of my time and energy everywhere. Avaunt, you cullions!”

~ ​Martin Shaw​

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“The patient inherit everything the impatient leave behind.”

~ Shane Parrish

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“Your purpose is not the thing you do. It’s the thing that happens in others when you do what you do.”

~ Dr Caroline Leaf

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“Not all criticism is equally valid.”

~ Seth Godin’s ​list of 65​

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“Solvitur ambulando.” (When in doubt, go for a walk.)

~ Diogenes

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“Motivation is weather: changeable, unpredictable, often absent when you need it most. Discipline is climate: the steady, reliable conditions you create for yourself regardless of how you feel on any given day."

~ Maalvika’s ​Substack​

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“I’m still Trojan Horsing, smuggling wit, wisdom and warmth wherever I can.”

~ ​Dr Jason Fox​

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“I arrive at the venue about thirty minutes before the show begins. I usually have a room of my own where I change into my stage clothes, put on a little make-up, and do some vocal exercises. Then I sit in silence, with my eyes closed, for about fifteen minutes. During this time I bring to mind those dear to me who have passed away, focusing on each person individually, and silently solicit their presence. For someone of my age this is a fairly substantial task. I assign specific qualities or powers to them that reflect their personalities, and I call upon those qualities.”

~ ​Nick Cave

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You vs The Evil Genius

The Change Question: Who’s the evil genius sabotaging your plans?

I came across this the other day:

The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

~ Robert Conquest’s Third Law of Politics 

It made me laugh. It’s both absurd and exactly right. 

There probably isn’t really an evil genius, in a lair, with flying monkeys, and/or a table with an industrial laser beam. (“I don’t expect you to lead a change program, Mr. Bungay Stanier. I expect you to die.”)

But it reminds me that it’s useful to “red team” your change plans. That’s when you have an adversary try to find vulnerabilities and weaknesses in your setup and plans.

I’ve been using AI to help me with that. For instance, as I’ve worked on developing the Change Signal promise (currently “for transformational leaders seeking modern change mastery”), I’ve given Claude the prompt:

Play the role of a senior, experienced, skeptical change leader. What would they roll their eyes at or be suspicious of? Don’t pull your punches. Give it to me straight.

In some ways, that’s like a pre-“small experiment” (this week’s pod episode’s theme): running tests and getting data.

In any case. I’m pretty sure you’re a hero. I’m cheering you on in your battle for Justice and keeping organizations human. I’m glad you’re here and doing this work.

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Capability vs Capacity

The Change Question: What matters most?

Caroline Kealey asked me a great question in a back-and-forth on LinkedIn, as we were discussing the (fabulous btw) Anne Gotte pod episode.

A question that kept coming up for me in listening: you were emphasizing the importance of change capacity in organizations. How do you understand the distinction between change capacity and capability? In conversation, I've found that most people use the term "capacity" when what is actually meant is "capability".

It’s amazing how, when two words sound alike, their definitions can get a little slippery and intertwined with each other. Am I using one, and meaning the other?

(This confusion also happens to me with “vegetables” and “chocolate,” but that’s a whole ‘nother thing.)

When I pause and take a breath, the differences seem clear enough.

Change Capabilities for an organization are the skills and mindsets required to be able to make progress on change. How to stay curious longer (and at scale). Managing conflict. Forgoing strategy and running small experiments. In short, how to be a change agent.

Change Capacity is the amount of juice left in the organization to make a change. It doesn’t matter how on-board your sponsor is, how excellent your strategy is, how necessary the change is, and how fantastic the training to help with capabilities is, if the change glass is already full. Pouring water into a full glass just makes for a wet carpet.

My guess is that we’re constantly drawn to discussions about capabilities (which is tricky, but tangible), and we too often skip over the need to understand capacity. (That’s why the pod episodes with Caroline Webb (audit!) and Leidy Klotz (subtract!) are so helpful.)

What’s your best wisdom on understanding, expanding, and managing change capacity? Is there someone I should interview on the pod who can help us go deeper on that?

Caroline Kealey started this, so we can end with her. Here’s an article she’s written on teasing apart the two concepts, if you’d like to go deeper.

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What they want vs what they need

The Change Question: What do they want?

I’m editing The Coaching Habit, preparing a 10-year special edition for next year. It’s been quite a while since I read it closely. It’s pretty good, actually.

The Foundation Question, number four of seven in the book, is “What do you want?”

It’s a very powerful question, and a tricky one. Often, we’re not good at tapping in deeply to what it is that we want. Get clear on what we want — for us, for them, for the situation at hand — can be a moment of insight and the foundation for taking action. 

Beyond want is need

As powerful as uncovering a want undoubtedly is, deeper still is understanding need.

In The Coaching Habit, I reference the work of Marshall Rosenberg (who in turn draws on that of economist Manfred Max-Neef), who proposes nine universal and self-explanatory needs.

Affection

Creation

Recreation

Freedom

Identity

Understanding

Participation

Protection

Subsistence

I can see how being thrown into a change experience pokes at least six of the nine.   

Pick three

If you had to pick three of these as central to you and the way you live your life, which ones would they be? For me: Creation; Freedom; Identity.

There’s a one in 84 chance that yours and mine will be the same.

It might be useful to know how what matters deeply to you is affecting the change program you’re leading. How might those needs be having you over- or under-weight certain aspects of the process?

It might be useful to review what’s going on, and understand how it might be challenging some people’s deeply felt needs, and whether anything needs to be adjusted if so.

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Where’s the friction?

The Change Question: Where’s the friction?

Bob Sutton — a future guest on the pod — says:

“Friction problems squander the zeal, damage the health, and throttle the creativity and productivity of good people.”

The point of managing the friction? To make the right things easier and the wrong things harder.

But what people get wrong about friction is they think it’s all bad. That nirvana is somehow a “friction-free” experience.

Friction-free certainly sounds like it would be efficient. But you could also label that as smooth, slick or Teflon: when nothing sticks, nothing sticks.

And if nothing sticks, nothing changes.

Warning: tortured cricket metaphor approaching

I appreciate that it’s only a small number of my readers who know about cricket. I grew up playing it in Australia, and even I don’t fully understand how a game that lasts five days could be interesting.

I played in my teens, and I was a bowler. Unlike in baseball, where they seem to replace the ball every 10 seconds or so if it becomes even slightly blemished (clearly, it’s the true “snowflake” of sports balls), one of the arts of cricket is to nurture the ball over 80 overs (240 “pitches”) as it gets beaten up and before you’re eligible for a new one. 

One strategy is to polish one side of the ball, and keep the other side roughed up. That often allows the bowler to create some magic, as the ball starts to swing through the air. The polished side goes faster than the rough side, and everything gets trickier for the person batting.

You get the point.

You’re the bowler in the Change Project of Life.

What needs to be made faster, easier, slicker, smoother (or, channelling Leidy Klotz, removed altogether)?

And what needs a little more friction, to slow things down, deepen the engagement, and make things stick?

And a bonus: an early Tim Finn song to wrap things up.

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What's everybody (secretly) getting from this dysfunction?

The Change Question: What's everybody (secretly) getting from this dysfunction?

We underestimate just how much people love the status quo, even as they are irritated, frustrated, and trapped by the status quo.

It’s not that they like pain, or misery, or mediocrity.

It’s that they get something from it.

I often frame it as understanding the Prizes and Punishments from a choice. 

Do it, don’t do it. There are prizes and punishments for either one of those choices.

If we’re wanting change, we typically shine a light on both the Prizes for the new system and the Punishments of the old.

We forget to understand more deeply the Prizes of things staying exactly as they are. They’ll be both deeply personal and quite generic:

Familiarity

I know my place

Certainty over ambiguity

Predictable drama

Not confronting

Sunk cost

People and systems to blame

Nostalgia

(What did I miss?)

Deming said, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does.”

The system resists change because that’s the nature of a system — yeah homeostasis! — but at a more atomic level, people love the system as it is, even as they feel frustrated by it.

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What are you pretending to ignore?

The Change Question: What sacred rule will you break?

I journal most mornings​, and one of the three questions I answer is:

What do you notice?

It’s there to invite me in to be more present to what’s actually going on.

• What do I notice in front of me? The weather. The desk. The vibe.

• What do I notice, somatically, about how my body’s showing up?

• What do I notice about how I’m feeling about things?

• What do I notice about what I’m noticing, about what’s grabbed my attention?

• What do I notice about what I’m trying to ignore, that I know to be true nonetheless?

Those dagnabbit* moments

(*To be clear, I don’t actually say dagnabbit, but I’m trying to keep this Suitable for Work.)

Part of the power of journaling is a forcing function to notice what’s on the periphery. It’s happened often enough that it’s a familiar experience.

For me, it goes like this …

I’ve been feeling there’s something flitting through my consciousness, something disconcerting.

I finally turn to face whatever it is that’s been lurking there to see what it is.

I realize I’ve been trying to deny that it’s been there, hoping it might just get disappointed in my lack of attention, and go away ...

It hasn’t gone away.

And, dagnabbit*, now I’m looking at it, it’s pretty clear and obvious.

I’m going to have to acknowledge it.

And I’m going to have to face the consequences of my two choices: to do something about it, or to not do something about it.

What’s in your shadows?

Here’s what’s lurked there over the years for me, things that I’ve been pretending weren’t true:

• Something’s off with someone on my team.

• Something’s off with my boss.

• The “why” of my change project isn’t compelling or even interesting.

• My change sponsor doesn’t know what they’re doing and doesn’t really care.

• We don’t have the resources we need.

• We don’t know what success looks like.

• There’s no strategic reason for this.

• I’m depleted and exhausted.

• There’s not enough change capacity in the organization to absorb this.

• The problem is we’re not working hard enough.

And of course, my magical thinking, aka denial, about all of the above.

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What sacred rule will you break?

The Change Question: What sacred rule will you break?

What if the principles by which you’re leading change fell into three buckets?

First, loose tactics

Useful things to do and rules of thumb that can be tweaked, adjusted, and discarded as required. They exist at a tactical level. Sometimes they’re appropriate, sometimes they’re not. “Use Slack, not email, to [this population] for [this type of message]”, as a bland example.

Second, proven guidelines

These might be the basics which you’ve learned, through study and experience, about how you lead change.

You might be drawing on Kotter, or Prosci, or something from McKinsey. This is your standard playbook, and you know how to run the playbook. This might be something like, “Always cascade communications through the formal hierarchy.”

Finally, sacred rules

Ah, those slippery, sacred rules.

Sacred rules are tricky and paradoxical. Because not only do we hold them to be inviolate … at the same time, we often don’t realize we hold them at all.

They exist at what the (late, great) ​Ed Schein​ would, in the context of understanding an organizational culture, call the “​underlying assumptions​” level. It’s the way you breathe, it’s the way you see the world, it’s ​water​. I’ll give you some examples of sacred rules that are true for me.

“You can't sprint toward a finish line no one else can see.” Keep banging on about the vision.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has occurred.” (Thank you, George Bernard Shaw.) So, always communicate more.

“Nobody likes change, except a baby with a wet diaper/nappy.” There’s bound to be resistance.

“The middle managers will make or break your change effort.” Pour all your effort into that so-called “frozen middle”.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Not said by Charles Ducker, and I totally don’t agree with this. I think they’re the twin DNA strands of a successful organization. But it’s too popular a truism not to include.

I’m a vegetarian

So when people say “scared cows make for great steaks,” I don’t totally buy into the metaphor. But I do agree with the premise. But it’s not until you see your sacred rules, until you bring them into the light, that you can decide whether they still serve you, or whether they’re unduly influencing some of your plans.

So, let me ask you:

What feels so obvious, so true, so undeniable, so essential to the way you think about change, that it’s not even worth talking about?

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What’s the easiest change for people to make?

The Change Question: What’s the easiest change for people to make?

I hope you’re ambitious for your change process.

We’re here, you’re here, to make a difference after all.

So why not dream big?

In a book of mine, ​How to Begin​, I say “we unlock our greatness by working on the hard things,” and I believe that to be true.

But perhaps you, too, have felt the disappointment of the grand dream poorly realized. I’ve certainly been a victim of trying to shift my jazz-handing, big-talking, horizon-seeking dreams and strategies (I’m a “big thinker,” yes I am!) to more tangible ways of getting it done.

There’s nothing at all wrong with big dreams. Just don’t confuse that with needing grand strategies to execute them. In fact, more often, it’s small, steady, tactics and experiments that are required to make consistent progress.

In last week’s conversation with ​Roy Baumeister​, the most influential voice on willpower, I was very struck with this piece of research he shared.

You have a limited stock of willpower, and it's used for all the same things. So each time you spend some willpower doing one thing, you make it less likely that you'll succeed at the others.

So start with the easiest change, because self-control is like a muscle. As you exercise it, you get stronger and you get better.

One of my former PhD students, Mark Moravian, worked with people trying to quit smoking, and that's the graveyard of psychological theories. Hardly anything works.

But he had people just practice strengthening their self-control for a couple of weeks with simple things. Like if you have the habit of opening the door with your right hand, well, use your left hand instead — little things like that. And he tripled the success rate of people quitting smoking.

I’m getting two a-has when I think of this.

First, it’s increasingly clear to me that the real, deeper role of a change agent is to build change capacity in your organization.

If you don’t have people who are curious, who have some self-control, who feel some agency, who have courage … it doesn’t matter how good your plans are, how enthusiastic your sponsors are, how large your budget is. ​Baumeister​ teaches us that small interventions, easy things to achieve, can help build great capacity for change.

Secondly, it’s a reminder that change is a complex, unpredictable, and emergent process. It always is.

That’s annoying for those of us who’d like something more predictable, something more “I’ll pull this lever, work this process, trigger this mechanism, and voila! I’ll get what I am hoping for.” I’m one of those people, by the way

But what is liberating about knowing this is that small changes can create big differences in a system. “The Butterfly Effect” is the title of the very first chapter of the very first book I read about complexity, James Gleick's forty-year-old Chaos: Making a New Science.

Hold big dreams for the changes you want to make. Find the story and the purpose in the work you do.

But realize that small and often easy habits, practices, tactics and experiments are how you’ll keep moving forward.

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Where does your power lie?

The Change Question: Where does your power lie?

First, what is power?

I like the definition from Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro’s book, Power, for All.

Power is the ability to influence another’s behaviour

You have power. It’s in some obvious and some not-so-obvious places.

Your power lies…

In those that report to you

In your reputation

In how well you know what your boss wants

In your ability to see patterns of function and dysfunction

In your empathy

In your willingness to say the hard thing

In your patience

In your capacity to manage the “failures” of small experiments

In your ability to build connections

In your courage to say no

In your willingness to keep a promise

In the generous act of listening well

In how well you know what your boss’s boss wants

In your attunement to who really has influence

In your ability to turn a marketing phrase

In the act of claiming power

I’m sure I’ve missed a thing or two.

What would you add?

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Pod Wisdom: Resilience ≠ “pushing through the pain”

Dr Tasha Eurich, from the ​​Change Signal​ episode "Shatterproof"

“Instead of pushing through, you start to pay attention. You say pain — biologically and psychologically — is a signal that something isn't quite right. The process of becoming shatterproof starts with that awareness that pain isn't a personal failure, it's a signal to pay attention.”

Dr Tasha Eurich is the author of Shatterproof.

Listen to the full episode with Tasha Eurich now

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Why Work Feels Harder Than It Should — and What You Can Do About It

Miscommunication. Friction. That sense that something or someone is out of sync. Sound familiar?

The latest white paper from Box of Crayons, Navigating a Fractured Workplace, explores what’s really going on beneath the surface — and how Relational Curiosity can help leaders build trust, spark better conversations, and create more connected, resilient teams.

To learn how Curiosity can help you take on today’s biggest workplace challenges, download the full white paper.

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The Last Word

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

~ Audre Lorde

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Are you trusting?

The Change Question: Are you trusting?

I’ve been sitting with Rachel Botsman’s definition of trust:

A confident relationship with the unknown

There’s more to it than might meet the eye.

It’s not just saying, “Yes, things are ambiguous, and I’m pretty good at navigating the unknown.”

It’s actually asking, are you able to NOT navigate the unknown, but to sit with it, even more, to sit IN it.

To not only not know, but also not need to act on the not knowing.

(I think that’s a triple negative in that sentence, so clearly I’m moving towards some form of Zen enlightenment, but stick with me. I’m also still chopping wood and carrying water.)

Here’s another thing she said that made me pause:

If you are in the loop of everything, you're not trusting

“Keep me in the loop” sounds benign enough, but beneath the thin veneer of civil interest lurks … oversight … control … distrust.

Two questions from The Coaching Habit might be helpful here.

“How can I help?”

That’s you asking the other person. It might be someone on your change team, your change sponsor, or someone in that body of people you’re seeking to move through change. It asks you to put aside your presumption that you know what they want and need, and has you stay curious to understand how you might be of service.

Remember, just because they ask for something doesn’t mean you have to deliver. It’s easy to be anxious about this question because it can feel like you’re just adding to your overwhelm. But your range of answers include “no,” “maybe,” “not that, but this,” and of course “sure!

“What do I want?”

If the first question is figuring out what they want, this one is holding the mirror up to yourself to figure out what’s driving you. Honestly, I find this a tricky question to answer (it’s one of my daily journaling questions), but when I keep asking it … “What do I want? And what else do I want? And what else do I want? So what do I really want?” I get closer to understanding what makes me tick, what will make me trust and distrust.

Adult to adult relationships​

​At the heart of all I do lies this quest to help me and you and others build adult-to-adult relationships.

One way of defining that is asking for what you want, knowing the answer may be no, and being willing to negotiate the difference.

When you’re in the ebb and flow of change, having these types of relationships can make all the difference.

Generous. Boundaried. Trusting.

(If this article resonates, you’ll enjoy Otto’s interview, too.)

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Pod Wisdom: Why are they resisting?

Otto Scharmer, from the Change Signal​ episode "The three voices sabotaging change"

“The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener. So what's most important is least visible to the eye. It's the inner place from which we operate. I remember interviewing the late CEO of Hanover Insurance, Bill O'Brien, when he shared all his successes and failures with transformational change. He summed up his experience in the following line: "The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener.”

Otto Scharmer is the creator of the U-Theory of change. His latest book is Presencing: 7 Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business.

Listen to the full episode with Otto Scharmer now

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Get them on your side

​Struggling with difficult personalities? MBS’s book, How to Work with Almost Anyone shows change leaders how to build a Best Possible Relationship with every key player. Transform resistance into connection into collaboration with a framework that will help your change initiative succeed.

“Actionable, practical strategies” ~ Brené Brown

Available online and at bookstores.

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The Last Word

"What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create."

~ Buddha

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How do you use your Friday afternoons?

The Change Question: How do you use your Friday afternoons?

Last week’s pod was a solo episode — me digging in and teaching the Karpman Drama Triangle.

I’ve spent an annoyingly large amount of time in the drama triangle, bouncing around the three roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer. (You have too 🙂 … it’s one of those “I’m human” things.)

The time it was most helpful for me was twenty-four years ago, when I first moved to Canada. I was hired into a deeply dysfunctional role, “Director of Brand Alignment” (I think) … an “all hat, no cattle” role that was meant to drive internal change to reflect and amplify the external rebranding the organization was going through.

Our corporate HQ was in the middle of nowhere, a 90-minute bus ride home. The commute added insult to injury, but it did provide a consistent, predictable opportunity to review the week.

At the time, mostly what I did was notice (and somewhat despair of) the Drama Triangle pattern that kept playing out.

I had a boss who was under pressure for a failing change project (Project: persecutor; Boss: victim). She then came and took it out on her team (Boss: persecutor; Michael: victim then rescuer then victim then rescuer then victim then … you get the idea.).

Nowadays, I’d cast my net a little wider. I might try to answer some of these questions.

What do I notice?​

What’s out there? What are the strong and the weak signals? What’s in my head? What’s in my heart?

This is a chance to gather feedback, audit near and far, inside and outside.

I also whisper to myself, as I answer this, “What am I pretending isn’t happening?”
​

What patterns are you seeing?​

This is a “double click” on the first question. You’ve been around a bit. You’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. What are the dynamics that are showing up now?

The Drama Triangle is one lens, but not the only one.
​
​What made this a good week?

It may very well have been a crappy week; but almost certainly it was not 100% pure misery.

Where, in Dan Heath’s words, are the bright spots? Have you been able to point those out to others, as well as yourself?​
​
Who’s having a hard time?​

It might be you. It might be someone on your team. It might be a group of people who are going through the change.

Remembering that people are up against it is one of the ways you keep the human in the change. It’s OK to feel compassion.

​What might I stop, start and/or continue?​

I like the triple-play of this question because it works as an idea-generating process.

You don’t have to act on everything you come up with. But you might ask yourself, which action on the list here might make the most difference?

We are busy busy busy. And we’ll never get “on top of things.” (I saw the delightful Oliver Burkeman speak last night, and if you’re not convinced by that previous sentence, you might read his latest book.)

Creating a regular routine for reflection may well allow you to be kinder to yourself, more strategic in your work, and more compassionate to those around you. A good return on ten minutes or so per week.

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Pod Wisdom: Why are they resisting?

Rachel Botsman, from the Change Signal​ episode "Trust: Your Change Leader Superpower?":

"The low trust group, you have to manage with care. And these aren't always difficult people. These are often employees that are very invested and engaged in the organization, which is why they are asking questions that can feel like resistance. 'I really care about our culture. I really care about our people. I really care about this product or this service,' can feel like friction. Friction is energy. We have to remember that they’re not necessarily defensive or disengaged or disenchanted. That is someone saying, I really care that we do this right.”

Listen to the full episode with Rachel Botsman now

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Get them on your side

​Struggling with difficult personalities? MBS’s book, How to Work with Almost Anyone shows change leaders how to build a Best Possible Relationship with every key player. Transform resistance into connection into collaboration with a framework that will help your change initiative succeed.

“Actionable, practical strategies” ~ Brené Brown

Available online and at bookstores.

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The Last Word

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

~ Carl Rogers

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What’s the dysfunction you bring to the party?

The Change Question: What’s the dysfunction you bring to the party? (Choice of 4)

What does it look like when you’re behaving badly?

Obviously, this is an extremely rare event, it’s almost impossible to bring an example to mind, but humour me just for the sake of the conversation …

How do you act when it’s all going pear-shaped?

How do you act to make it all go pear-shaped?

The podcast this week is about the Karpman Drama Triangle, and that’s juicy if you don’t yet know it. There’s more on that below.

But let me offer a different framework in this piece … flicks through the card catalogue of models …

Ah yes, John Gottman. Delightful.

Four horsemen

Do you know The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work? It’s one of my top-shelf books, an absolutely go-to for anything involving interactions between human beings.

It’s based on research from the Gottman “love lab,” which, to be honest, feels like a daunting place to visit. After four decades of gathering data, they claim they can tell within 90 seconds of observing interactions whether a couple will last together or not. 🫣

In the book, Gottman shares the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”: four communication behaviors that are corrosive to any relationship.

As you’re reading, ask yourself which one might be your go-to in difficult times. (Mine’s “stonewalling,” in case you were wondering.)

Criticism: Attacking the other person’s character rather than a specific behaviour or issue (which would be a complaint).

Contempt: Gottman says this is the most destructive pattern — when you treat the other person with disrespect. At its most extreme, it’s things like ridicule, mimicking, or eye-rolling. There are also more subtle ways you can transmit this sense of moral superiority.

Defensiveness: This might be moving into Victim mode, or perhaps you think attack is the best form of defence. Whatever it is, it’s definitely not your fault.

Stonewalling: This is when you back out of the interaction, shutting down, or tuning out. It’s quiet, but it’s quite the power play when the other person can only shout into the void.

It’s easy with all of these to imagine the more obvious and extreme versions of each of these.

I’m more curious about the subtle ways they play out, the sneaky ways we let ourselves down at times.

Working in change is hard, and there are daily reasons to get wound up about what’s going on.

Working on yourself is part of the process.

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Pod Wisdom: Drama!

MBS from the Change Signal​ episode "Are you a Change drama queen?":

"You never leave the drama triangle behind. The goal is to notice more quickly that you're in the drama triangle, get out of it more efficiently, and stay out of it longer.”

Listen to the full episode with MBS now

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How to Work with (Almost) Anyone

​The Coaching Habit un-weirded coaching and made it an everyday tool for managers and leaders alike.

Now, How to Work with (Almost) Anyone un-weirds psychological safety.

Our working relationships have a huge impact on our happiness and success. This is the practical book that helps you build the Best Possible Relationship with all the people that matter.

Brené Brown says, “Actionable, tactical strategies. And the wisdom is real — it sticks.”

Available online and at bookstores.

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The Last Word

“There are new experiences to be found, when you go past your limits, which aren’t like the old ones scaled up. They’re something distinct. Unanticipated and unanticipatable. I don’t know how to explain it better than that! It seems to me that this is true of so many things. The only way to know what it’s like to run mile 22 is to run 21 miles first, you can’t shortcut your way there.”
​
~ Matt Webb from “tl;dr I ran a marathon at the weekend and it was hard”

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