Today I return to why I write. While many may write as a form of rhetoric, to persuade or inspire, I write to deepen my understanding of a subject, as a way of navigating and honoring complexity and truth. Sometimes my writing lies dormant longer than I’d like, awaiting a spark that combats all resistance. This is such a moment.  What I am grappling with right now is the thinking found in one of the finest articles on leadership and change I have encountered in a long time: Quinn, Spreitzer, and Brown’s Changing Others Through Changing Ourselves: The Transformation of Human Systems. So much of it resonates and stretches my belief of what is possible that I want to sit with it beyond a single reading and a single post, so beware… I’m enjoying wading through some mud right now. 

I feel there is no doubt – regardless of logic, intention, or need – that most efforts to bring about change fail. Why? In a nutshell, we fail to appreciate the complexities of human systems and underestimate the degree to which a change is adaptive vs. technical. (Need a reminder? Technical change, while often challenging, can be solved by applying existing know-how and current problem-solving processes. Change that is adaptive in nature requires individuals to alter their ways and seek solutions beyond their current tools and expertise. Want more? Adaptive Work, Ron Heifetz). 

I believe the changes we need in education are undeniably adaptive in nature if we are to transform the system. Not only does this mean we need to bridge a significant gap between a new state of possibility and current reality by going beyond existing approaches, but it also means we need to accept that we ourselves are the problem. 

Quinn, et all highlight what is truly at the heart of adaptive change – and it is so much more than I had defined previously:

“In adaptive change, people… must surrender their present self and put themselves in jeopardy by becoming part of an emergent system” (147). 

Changing Others Through Changing Ourselves

It’s worth reading that sentence again… surrender their present self and put themselves in jeopardy by becoming part of an emergent system. In this brief article, the authors seek to answer, “How can an individual engage others in a change effort when doing so requires them to make painful adjustments and put themselves in jeopardy?” And the answer is straightforward: Changing others requires changing ourselves first. 

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The authors present a set of principles that comprise what they call Advanced Change Theory, “a strategy less observable and more complex than the traditional change strategies of rational persuasion, coercion, or participation” (148).  [I’ve summarized it in the table below] What is significant for me is even at our “best”, such as engaging in models of change that are co-created and collaborative, our approach will continue to fall short of truly meeting the potential and possibility of this moment.

The ACT principles [the final column above] articulates a journey I’ve been traveling for some time, especially this curiosity around building an awareness of the realities of the emergent system. The authors highlight the importance of creating a new social reality, adjusting away from self-interest, to building an emergent community that can learn, adapt and grow (Quinn, et al. 150).  What this highlights for me is an essential question worthy of pursuing: How do I act from a place of integrity to my own values and beliefs, while being able to suspend those beliefs and engage the current context with an openness to new and emerging patterns?

This exploration of “lands that are foreign and uncharted in Western thought” (Wheatley, 139) has challenged many of my assumptions about change and put a lot of pressure on the typical frameworks many of us have employed (ie. Kotter’s 8-Step Process, McKinsey’s 7 – S Framework, Lewin’s change model, ADKAR, C-BAM, etc). Until we experience a new social reality and a true community of inclusion, we can’t recognize how powerful, how hopeful, an education can be.

Well, now what? What does all this swirling lead to when I go to work tomorrow morning? How can I consciously and continuously continue this dance of discovery, expanding and narrowing my gaze between the whole of the organization and the individuals who live, work, and learn there?

For those who have been reading along, these pages have served to anchor me in a growing set of new practices as a leader seeking to be immersed in an emergent system. So, today, I’ll add just one: building on my capacity to see with fresh eyes. This means disrupting my habitual way of thinking and perceiving. Neuroscientist Francisco Varela calls this “suspension” – and as esoteric as this may sound, I’ve experienced tangible steps that are adding up to an ability to become aware of my thoughts, loosening their influence on what I see. It started here: I have completely changed my “protocol” of classroom observations – to no protocol at all. I show up early, stay for entire classes, linger in hallways and with teachers, going beyond the boundaries of the class period. I’ve let go of using our competency framework and referencing our learning principles and simply observe without forming conclusions to what those observations mean and I try to listen to what is beyond being said. I listen a lot. I sit with, sometimes draw, all the seemingly unrelated bits of information and every darn time, I’m amazed by the fresh ideas and the fresh conversations that emerge — and how things are connecting, how patterns are emerging. This is the shift in the generative social field. This is the practice I will take to work tomorrow – and the next day.

Reference

• Wheatley, Margaret J.. Leadership and the New Science Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.
• Changing Others Through Changing Ourselves (linked)