The Myth About Change

If change were easy, we would have new marketing that is interesting, new topics at conferences and events, and plenty of new ideas and novel executions to feed on. We would also have little room for echo chambers. The truth is that change is easier to talk about than it is to do. Execution is vital, and willingness is crucial.

A few years ago, Fast Company was undergoing a lot of change. In many ways it and plenty of other publications still are. Change was one of the topics they chronicled. There was a whole series of articles and conversations dedicated to change. Yet, when change became necessary it was hard to implement. Remember Alan Deutschman's book Change or Die?

The client tells you that they'd like to see something very different. "We've been doing the same old thing for years," they tell you, "why don't you show us something else?" The trouble with that is often something else is quite vague. It means anywhere from "I'll know it when I see it," to "it does not look like something we'd do and say." Or, in the best of circumstances, the answer has been staring them in the face for years. They just need you, a third party, to tell them it will work. Be prepared to fight them on it, it will look and sound too easy. It's not. Execution matters.

All leadership comes down to this: changing people's behavior. Why is that so damn hard? Writes Deutschman. What happens when it is the leader who does not want to change? When he is hiding behind the idea of wanting to make a clean breast of things while he is paying lip service to giving the example. That is tricky territory. Change is not a prescription you give to others.

Choice gives us the illusion of change. I cannot recall when was the last time that an agency could propose only one recommendation. Richard Huntington at Adliterate puts it so well: we are spoiled by choice. Having lots of options only means delaying the moment of truth, when we will need to make a decision on direction. Would you much rather be exactly wrong or be surprising and interesting? Your choice.

[Michelangelo in the Agony and the Ecstasy, viewing time 2:46. Hat tip to Brian Millar]

Comments

[Steve Roesler]

Valeria,

This has such a poignant message (as does the related video).

Since "change" is the domain in which I live, professionally, I will affirm that two of the biggest enemies of significant change are strategy and choices.

Strategy can create the illusion of "doing" when one is only thinking about what might be done. Yet it is intellectually satisfying.

Too many choices create an arena for too many conflicting opinions, regardless of how "rational" people claim they will be.

Simply starting down a path that "looks pretty darned reasonable" is the way to learn where you are going; once you start going, the adjustments needed are seen by all and become readily apparent.

Maybe "Change or Die" is really "Start Moving or Die."

Keep writing...

[Valeria Maltoni]

There's a great series of ads from IBM that states: "Stop Talking. Start Doing." Are we there yet? Everyone's a strategist these days. Who executes?

Too many choices and too many cooks in the kitchen, if you ask me.

Thank you for taking the time to comment, Steve. With your perspective the conversation goes to a whole new level.

[Peter]

Hi Valeria,

I think your post captures the mood of our times well -
we drown but demand a glass of water to quench our thirst.

Perhaps we're missing something about how things come to being ( most wonderous and surprising)

We all cling to familiar concepts - change, action, new, innovation ( and to make matters worse we introduce the spectre of death to engender urgency and impatience) as the pre-condition to something better - Unwilling to accept that maybe these concepts can't deliver us from our times.

Growing up I remember a saying that the devil loves idle hands - Growing up I've figured out that, while it may love idle hands, it lusts a busy mind.

Spk soon.

Peter

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[Valeria Maltoni]

Peter:

Mind-expanding thoughts. We do cling to familiar concepts even as we claim to be heading towards the future of things. I do wonder, can we deliver us from ourselves?

I've always seen physical labor as a fantastic way to heal the mind. My mother used to say: "when you're upset, scrub floors." Her other priceless saying is: "when you're in a hurry, slow down." I am seeing connection from those pieces of family/regional wisdom and your sayings about the devil.

[Peter]

Yes - Perhaps a different tomorrow is affiliated with the rest of our bodies and not just our minds.

But what place for your mother's wisdom in times where the new is seen as a priori to a different tomorrow. Where:

- counsel ( wise or otherwise ) is treated as news and replaced the next day

- wisdom retold becomes old news

- consumed, meditated, collected, tied up and put out on the nature strip ( I think you call them Kerbs) to be recycled one day

But of course, there will always be those that scrub floors and slow down. The wise amongst us, who deliver us all, not by words, but by their example.

Thanks for the chat ( now back to work).

[Meikah Delid]

Hi, Valeria!

Such a thought-provoking post. :)

I always believe that having choices is a good thing. But you're right, it can also impede or delay decision-making.

About change, people resist it initially because they tend to be happy with the status quo. What I learn though about promoting change is that it doesn't happen overnight. It goes through stages, the first step of which is very crucial:
1. sell the concept of change
2. promote the concept of change
3. show what's in it for those who will be affected by the change
4. present what the change will entail, what it will bring about
5. better yet, show that it will be good for everybody and how

When we go through these thought-processes, sometimes we learn a lot about change and we tend to embrace it.

Keep at it! :)

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Peter - counsel is treated as news and we are expected to dish it out on demand. As a sub of that, there is a lot of recycled counsel and news is more like entertainment today. I think we also get used to the sound of our own voices and take the words for granted. I am grateful for those (positive) influences that come from just giving the example.

@Meikah - sometimes the array of choices is an illusion of freedom. In creating, for instance, we do much better when we have constraints than when faced with a blank page. Another observation I made is that we are comfortable enough with status quo to not want to mess it up and potentially start over. The most we learn from going through change is what we learn about ourselves.

[Peter]

Why is the concept of change something to be sold as a virtue - what does it say about those that don't practice it?

[copywriting]

Hi Valeria,

What a thought provoking piece. The dialogue it generated is fantastic.

I think it's not a question of if change is necessary or needed. In my experience, it is that change is what is, always. The illusion is that there is not change. Perhaps it is not only do or die but change or die...

The question then becomes how to embrace change so that the desired results or goals are achieved. After the how has been established, then yes, a buy-in by all parties effect would be required.

Again, fantastic discussion. Thank you all!
Sam

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Peter - my take is that change just is (or isn't) depending on your acknowledgment of it. All things are or become in the presence of our observation.

@Sam - have you ever re-read a book you so cherished in the past? Did it feel different when you re-read it? It probably did. What changes and how it impacts things depend on our angle and filter. One of my favorite quotes is when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.

[Peter]

Returning to your original observation - the absence of new.

I am re-assured by the general agreement that change is a constant.

What puzzles me is why, as has been observed in the past:

# "the more things change the more they stay the same"

#"If we don’t change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed”

"If you do the same thing over and over and nothing changes - you haven't done it for long enough"

My work in progress (WIP - preferred over IMO) is that:

# action and movement - personal intervention in the moment - designed to produce "the new" doesn't (and if it does - its just a co-incidence).

# Before you get to choice (WIP - a white rabbit anyway) - what do we really know about the direction of things
(direction is a hobby of mine).

The "new" or how thing come to being in wondrous and surprising ways may require much more from us. No doubt including the practice of "all things are or become in the presence of observation".

A lovely exchange:

From doing "The truth is that change is easier to talk about than it is to do. Execution is vital, and willingness is crucial."

To not doing "all things are or become in the presence of observation."

And everything in between.