Chapter 6: Changing the trajectory of our organizations

How do we lead our organizations down this path? How do we transform them? The transformation itself responds to the same paradigm as the organic vision of our organizations. Dynamics of small groups, with continuous improvement, opportunism, fresh blood, feedback, etc.

The entire emergence of these organizations plays on a paradox that is always difficult to master. On one side, there’s the need to nurture the emergence of a contextual response, like the termite mound, like the crystal, and on the other to try in good faith, that is to say here with a certain belief in these ideas. Unfortunately, very often under the guise of adapting to context, we are disrespectful of the initial ideas for which we were transforming, and quite often this adaptation to context hides the resurgence of our habits rather than real change, genuine transformation.

Emergent complex system

People and organizations are right: each transformation, or creation of a living organization will have its personality, its own definition. This is the very idea of complexity, of agility, that this adaptation to context that tends toward the most adequate response, the one carrying the most value for the minimum effort. This observation seems simple, it is not. This adaptation to context also implies that when the context changes, the adaptation changes too. And the context changes constantly. The transformation or creation of our living organizations, like any emergent complex system, is by definition, emergent, therefore adapted.

In my observations, I note four paradoxes that complicate the situation.

Emergence and orthodoxy

Recurring problem: this adaptation should come from learning, this adaptation should challenge certain practices of a doctrine, a reference; unfortunately very often we don’t take the time to learn, we short-circuit immediately. Very often people and companies decide that they already know the necessary adaptations, and this is often a mistake. Forget what comes naturally, it gallops back, it’s very often muscle memory speaking. Especially since this way of thinking about the organization, as natural as it may be, is nevertheless a real leap into another paradigm, it’s difficult to project without living it first.

We should let things emerge while following the ideas on which we base ourselves. Try what is done elsewhere, in a scholarly way so to speak, before knowing for ourselves. The teaching of martial arts in Japan uses an ideogram called Shu-Ha-Ri:

SHU: Do what the mentor asks you to do without flinching. Apply the rule, practice, and practice again.

HA: By doing, you have truly understood how it worked and now you can make contextual adaptations.

RI: You have integrated the teaching, you do it intuitively (whether or not breaking the rule).

So on one side we cannot deny the emergence of a contextual response, on the other the need to respond initially in a very orthodox way, or rather to base this adaptation on real knowledge of the new paradigm. This learning of orthodoxy (of the new paradigm) is far too often ignored. Either because we don’t understand its importance, or because it’s impossible to implement (for good reasons).

Before emerging, we often need to execute the practices of a reference in the field to a) not get swallowed by our muscle memory (our habits), and b) discover a tangible reference on which to base our emergence.

Paradox: emergence relies on orthodox learning of this new paradigm (and not on our habits or desires).

Continuous transformation

We talk about adaptation to a context, contextual emergence. Problem: we adapt to a context that doesn’t wait to evolve, so we adapt constantly. There’s the idea of continuous transformation, of permanent adaptation.

Paradox: we adapt to a context that doesn’t wait to evolve, so we adapt constantly.

Believing before knowing

Knowing that we’re aiming for an emergent contextual response that will be changing, it’s imperative to know how to suspend our beliefs to apply these ideas as best we can. We don’t know what the result will be. We want to change without really knowing what form the change will take. But this is a necessity for change. Intention is therefore key.

Paradox: Knowing where we’re going (vision), without knowing where we’re going (emergence).

Change must remain an option

We’ve seen that nature was not constrained, that it seized opportunity. Or that under constraint it invited itself elsewhere. The best way to preserve an emergent space is to leave it free to fail, and therefore a possible rollback is paradoxically an amplifier of attempts. The invitation to transform is very important. There is no forced transformation, without the right to error.

Paradox: Knowing how to change means allowing yourself to go backward (one step back can bring two forward).

Setting the framework for transformation

Transformation is conducted with the same principles as those that guide us to evolve our organization. Because it’s the same world. And we’ve just said that transformation, that evolution was continuous.

Invitation and self-organization

The most important concept is probably that of invitation. The idea is to invite people to be the actors of their own evolution. In any case, we don’t take someone or an organization where it doesn’t want to go. Remember the principles of people’s involvement: invitation.

So we’re going to invite them. And several times: to come, to propose ideas, to participate in discussion groups, to implement their proposals. But since it’s an invitation, they’re not obliged to accept it: they can decide not to come, not to have ideas, not to participate in discussion groups, not to implement their proposals. Why? Because any coercive action is counterproductive. It’s illusory to want to change people or organizations without their consent, without their desire. The only lasting change will happen with everyone’s commitment, and that starts with an invitation.

Invitation is a double-edged sword. If we systematically, constantly refuse to come, to propose ideas, or to implement ideas from other people, to try, we’ll question the relevance of our belonging to this group, to this framework, to this organization. We wouldn’t be evolving in the same direction.

If the invitation is accepted, embraced, and this is very often the case in my experience, we’ll let people self-organize. Often the framework of my interventions is organizations. No need to explain to people what would be necessary, what to do, how to do it, what to change, what to try. They know much better than I do. I’m generally only the signal that the organization has decided to try. As long as the framework is well defined (I’ll come back to this in the next paragraph), letting people self-organize is also probably the best thing to do, respecting the principles mentioned previously (on team sizes, etc.). Like all living systems, self-organization is innate. “Wanting to organize a self-organized system is not only useless but it’s especially stupid,” Harrison Owen reminds us with a touch of humor. Democracy, natural leadership, dictatorship, perhaps; self-organization above all has the merit, having accepted its principles, of being able to evolve, of not being fossilized.

Authorization and liberating framework

For this invitation to take shape, for this self-organization to be possible, two things must be extremely clarified: the framework and the rules that govern it. As mentioned at the beginning of this text, in what framework can I evolve, what are the limits, the constraints, the spaces I can take. For what purpose, what is the meaning? Does the organization want it? Especially its management, those who authorize? Can I take this space without risk? These are essential questions that must have very clear answers from the organization.

Invitation and self-organization can only flourish if this clarification takes place.

But why then does everyone strive, in modern companies, to want to liberate people, to want to involve, to support, help, rather than dominate, control or other coercive ways of leading their teams? The answer is quite simple: micromanagement, task-based management, without vision, without involvement, without accountability bears little

fruit, and only suits mediocre companies. Mediocre? Those that are, and those that dominate their market through a monopoly or dominant position, or privileged position, and that don’t need to rethink themselves. Their collapse will be sudden.

The current trend is toward clarification — not necessarily simple — of the company’s meaning, its direction, and the framework it proposes, its clearly established rules. In this scheme: a direction, a vision, a meaning, and a framework that defines the contours of what’s possible, everyone is then able to occupy their space, and to occupy space, to take space. The opposite of task-based management, micromanagement, without visibility, which only leaves a thread, a restricted space, without surprise, without innovation, without involvement.

As widely mentioned previously in Fred Brooks’ “Mythical Man-Month,” it’s said that a person can give, produce, offer, deliver, make emerge, use the verb you cherish, between a ratio of 1 to 10. Give x 1 or give x10. We can forget budgets and deadlines with such a spectrum; we might as well focus on what allows people to be at x10 (and also question the ability to stay at x10: allow cycles, drops in rhythm, rest phases, etc.). I believe in it, as I believe that enthusiasm makes a good part of competence. We shouldn’t so much take care of people as of the framework, not worry about conducting energy, dynamics, but liberating it and letting it take the form it wants, like the crystal, like the termite mound.

Small victories

Cycles

Storytelling

Emotion

In this world that dreamed itself Cartesian for the comfort of the mind — “I think therefore I am, phew” — the irruption of emotion is a nuisance. It passes for something irrational. But why deny it? For 30 years it has been returning to the forefront (evolutionary psychology, “Descartes’ error,” Damasio, etc.). None of our important decisions is made without emotion. In this complex world we must combine mathematical reasoning and instinct or intuition, the fruit of our life and those of our ancestors.

Besides, nobody ignores the reality when it comes to making big life choices: choosing a partner, choosing one’s path, etc.

If therefore this emotional, intuitive, instinctive aspect takes such a large part in our life, no doubt it’s the key in our way of changing, of apprehending a new way of doing, of thinking. The image used by the Heath brothers in their book “Switch¹” (the title is evocative) indicates nothing else: it’s the Indian elephant driver and his elephant. The driver is the Cartesian, reasoning face of the duo, but it can’t go anywhere without the adhesion of the wilder part that is the elephant. To lead the elephant, you must seduce it, show it obvious passages, make dead ends visible too. Ignoring that without the elephant’s agreement we won’t go anywhere means failing in advance. In all change management, we must thus play as much on reason as on emotions.

Playing on emotions is terror. Manipulation at its highest point. But by saying this you already confirm the importance of emotion, and our weakness in managing it. Frank reminds me of (//TODO Frank? :)) Naomi Klein, reading “thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman², or even the “treatise on manipulation for the use of honest people”³ depress about our enslavement to cognitive biases. I can’t tell you otherwise, it seems to me that like each discovery, we can make good or bad use of it. But I don’t think that genuine personal or organizational change management will happen without emotion.

Remember your changes of beliefs, ideals, principles, didn’t they occur with an emotional influx? Like energy made available for another path, a catastrophe to use Thom’s term. Like laughter, which occurs, for example in the absurd sketches of Monty Python, when we’ve stored up energy (by projecting ourselves, we find here again storytelling, mirror neurons) and it leads to an absurdity, it pours out through laughter, the only outlet for this influx of energy.

Also think, as Oana reminds me, of sudden breaks with some of your loved ones, a barrier has been crossed, behavior judged outside the boundaries of the possible. We immediately dry up all communication. There will be no more energy going in that direction. This change is very rapid, very violent, very sudden, and often definitive. And yet we’re talking about a close friend. The break, the change, the catastrophe (Thom again) is equal to the present energy, that associated with a close friend.

Echoing the Switch discourse of the Heath brothers, reason indicates the way, but it’s the flow of emotional energy that will push us to move in that direction. As in an irrigation game, the paradigm change of thought is like a diverted river. We must therefore know, like laughter, how to allow this influx of emotion and give it the opportunity to orient itself differently. Here too we can see the face of manipulation; I can’t tell you anything against that. As always it depends on the intention we put into our acts. Each thing can be used rightly or wrongly. I hope to use them rightly. We could take two examples: Unilever’s transformation during the 90s recounted in “To the desert and back” by Philip Mirvis⁴, and Dan Mezick’s Open Agile Adoption.

Events with emotional charge

When Mirvis tells us the story of Unilever’s transformation, he analyzes a posteriori that it was made possible by key moments that enabled significant shifts. Each of these shifts having very often been crystallized by extraordinary events (in the desert, in the Ardennes, etc.) with artistic staging, and which appear symbolic a posteriori even if they weren’t necessarily intended at the start. Crystallized or rather made possible by these events that made available this emotion conducive to generating clicks, epiphanies, shifts in modes of thought. Very often these events were amplified by an artistic approach, genuine staging. This is indeed the meaning of the word sensitize.

This allows us to better understand that something is happening. One can be for or against, depending on the degree of orchestration, which we’ll bring closer or not to manipulation. The best way to guard against it is to announce what we’re trying to do, why we’re doing it this way and let people free to participate.

Like the container enabling emergence in complex environments, we should perhaps better propose a secure space in which emotion can pour out, than orchestrate too much its staging.

A safe, benevolent space

It’s this freedom to participate that we find in the Open Agile Adoption proposed by Dan Mezick (which he now calls OpenSpace Agility⁵). By invitation, we’ll set a framework conducive to a secure space. And it’s this secure space that can allow the emergence of emotion. Which is itself the energy that transforms.

When Olaf Lewitz speaks of protection, benevolence and vulnerability he typically describes this type of framework: a protected space conducive to emotion. A sensitive moment. Having experienced a certain number of open agile adoptions (I was able to meet and forge friendship ties with Dan Mezick at the very beginning of his proposal), it’s surprising to observe how this emotion only asks to emerge.

Homeostasis

Resilience

Propagation patterns