Leading change as intentional evolution
Most people don't change just because someone tells them to
It is not the strongest … species that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats. — Charles Darwin (1859)
Change leadership is the process of continually renewing an organization’s strategy, structure and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal stakeholders (Moran & Brightman, 2015).
Many leadership articles report that ~70% of organizational change initiatives fail. Even though there is no research evidence to support that statistic, it has become conventional wisdom because it captures a simple truth: leading change is hard and attempts at planned change often fail. This failure is often the result of leaders ignoring some basic truths about human nature.
Successful change initiatives depend on engaging the attention and cooperation of every person. Leaders will get better results by leveraging three powerful change processes derived from evolutionary biology as presented below.
Changing the Mind/Brain
When we talk about leading change/innovation, we are really talking about how a leader’s mind can change the mind/behavior of their people. And changing our minds, it turns out, consumes a lot of energy. When the brain is required to do something new (which all change demands), it activates multiple centers of attention, memory, problem-solving, planning and other “executive functions” required to manage that challenge.
Once a new mental or motor routine has been learned, it tends to be quickly “automated” and moved to an area of the brain that consumes less energy. A classic demonstration of this automation process is when you have been working for a while to acquire a new skill (riding a bicycle, playing a sport, learning a language) and suddenly notice that you can do it “without thinking about it”. The routine has become a “habit” which is a brilliant energy conservation strategy.
If you ask someone to change a routine that has been automated, it will require them to invest exponentially more energy than simply letting that habit continue to run quietly in the background. Once we learn or make up our mind about something, we resist changing our mind because we are designed to conserve the resources that mental reconstruction process would consume. This is why we often delay changing until it is too late.
This is also why people rarely get a second chance to make a first impression, because once we form an opinion of another person, we will often resist changing that opinion even as new information comes in. Even ‘objective’ scientists hold on tight to old theories when the weight of new evidence begins to disprove them, and sometimes harshly attack the messengers of change as a way of discrediting their new ideas. It can be dangerous to ask people to change their minds!
Leading Change Requires a New Paradigm
In a world of accelerating change, leaders do not have the luxury to keep doing the same old same old for too long. Calls for strategic agility and disruptive innovation loom large in the leadership space. But leaders will not succeed if they employ change models that ignore or miscalculate the design parameters of the minds of the people they are leading.
People don’t change just because they ‘decide’ to, and they definitely don’t change just because someone tells ‘em to!
The root cause of failure for most change/innovation initiatives is the reliance on a linear language-based Talk-Tell paradigm where leaders TELL people to change and expect that they will “Cause I told ’em to.” Many leaders (as well as teachers and parents) put too much faith in talking with (at!) their audience as an effective strategy for learning and change. What they often discover is that they are talking and talking and talking with little impact on their audience’s behavior.
This is because language is a fairly recent arrival on the human evolutionary timeline. For most of human history, our brains have paid attention largely to other people’s actions and environmental incentives, and these are in fact the big levers for effecting behavior change. Words and information are much weaker change tools, but they tend to be relied on heavily by most smart verbal leaders.
Even when leaders try to follow John Kotter’s profoundly important advice to “Create a sense of urgency” to kick-start change, they tend to rely largely on spoken/written communication about impending threats (“We really need to change now because … DANGER!!”). Unfortunately, threat signaling mostly fails to engage the very brain functions that enable people to change and adapt successfully.
It’s evolutionary
Any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, will have a better chance of surviving. — Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin’s (1809 — 1882) study of the evolution/change of plants and animals over time led him to the discovery that any trait that gives an organism a survival advantage in its environmental niche tends to be favored (“selected”) and passed on in larger numbers through inheritance to future generations. The discovery (1953) of the structure of DNA by Crick and Watson (with uncredited contribution from Rosalind Franklin) provided the biological mechanism for that inheritance. This model of biological change by natural selection and genetic inheritance has transformed our understanding of how the natural world works.
Human beings are one of the few species (along with beavers etc.) that can intentionally change its own environment for competitive advantage. We are also the only species that can intentionally select (breed) certain traits and create the conditions to reproduce them rather than leaving the process up to random variation and chance. Leaders can harness these powerful evolutionary processes to facilitate organizational change.
Three effective change leadership strategies can be derived from this discovery that organisms change by transmitting adaptive traits that enable success in a particular environment to future generations:
Launch generational renewal in your organization
Change the work environment so it is conducive to the change you want in the next generation
Select for human traits and skills that will be adaptive in the next generation
CHANGE STRATEGY #1: Launch Generational Renewal
Each generation climbs up to its adaptive peak and holds on tight. Contrary to our belief in our personal capacity to change, most change in the natural world occurs BETWEEN generations, not within them. Each new generation introduces a powerful change dynamic by shuffling the genetic deck, creating fresh copies and random mutations, and replacing those whose ‘tenure’ has run its course.
Organizational change/innovation initiatives often fail to capture the hearts and minds of a busy organization full of busy people with busy work days. The background noise of current reality drowns out the signal of change. How to send a louder clearer message that change is coming?
Leaders can successfully create change by intentionally launching a NEW GENERATION in their organization. Instituting generational renewal involves creating attention-getting DRAMA by announcing that BIG CHANGES are coming to an organization’s
strategy
structure
processes
incentives
people
narratives/stories
culture
Generational renewal is the perfect time to
take a fresh look at current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and adjust strategy accordingly
consider internal innovation and external growth opportunities
update financial, tech and legal infrastructures
optimize the talent selection/management and leadership development process
Major change to these critical arenas grabs the hearts and minds of every stakeholder, and orients them toward the next generation of organizational life.
CHANGE STRATEGY #2: Change the Work Environment to Promote Regeneration
One of the mistakes that leaders often make is to ask people to change while leaving them in the same old setting where they will naturally tend to keep doing the same old thing. Environmental cues and conditions (incentives, structure, culture etc.) win out over words/language almost every time, so changing the workplace ENVIRONMENT during your re-generation period into one that is conducive to strategic change is a much more potent strategy than just telling/talking.
When Lockheed Corporation needed to accelerate the design and production of fighter aircraft during WWII, they created the well-known “Skunk Works” (aka Advanced Development Program). With its charismatic leaders, atypical hiring criteria, resource-rich environment and special non-bureaucratic structure, the Skunk Works leapfrogged over Lockheed’s traditional manufacturing process in their speed to production.
The Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company (now 3M) was founded in 1902. To continuously promote new product development, they set up multiple research labs and encouraged their engineers to devote some of their work time to experimentation for innovative solutions (engineers are naturally very good at this). The labs competed with each other as they presented their concepts to a panel of judges who decided which experiments to fund for prototyping and possible production. This struggle for resources is a form of planned natural selection.
First listed on the NYSE in 1946, 3M is currently a component of the Dow and S&P 500. The fact that this company has managed to avoid the corporate doom loop for more than a century of operation by creating laboratories of innovation and change should interest every leader.
Optimal elements of environmental restructuring during a generational changeover include
radical transparency of performance and financial data
broader/deeper delegation of decision-making authority while holding people more responsible for results
a culture of experimentation and smart risks
a financial stake in the game for all stakeholders
continuous work process improvement
removal of bureaucratic and other structural impediments to success
By redesigning the work environment and its structure, processes, incentives and culture, leaders will broadcast an amplified change/regeneration signal that cuts through the noise of the now in a way that words alone can never do.
CHANGE STRATEGY #3: Select the ‘Right’ People for the Next Generation
When a new American president is elected, their transition team asks for letters of resignation from all the top positions in the executive branch. Their resignations are either accepted or declined based on selection criteria for the new administration and its agenda. This process sends a clear signal that a job is not an entitlement and there is no tenure and change is a-coming. It gets people’s attention. It should be part of your generational renewal process.
When trying to create the fastest race horse or that prize-winning pumpkin, breeders don’t include every available variety of horse and pumpkin in their program. They are “selective” about introducing the traits they want. Successful change/innovation initiatives require careful Stay/Go decision-making about who will be included in the new generation.
This is no different than earlier hiring decisions that were hopefully based on some deliberate selection criteria for desired competencies and other traits. In the re-engineered work environment, new characteristics will be more adaptive and therefore require a new talent selection round.
Conclusion
Leaders must design their change/innovation initiatives in a way that (a) creates the necessary drama (in a good way) to shake people out of their automated/habit state and engage their attention and emotions and thinking, and at the same time (b) protects people from confusion and fear so extreme resistance is not triggered.
To activate the energy and mental openness required for successful change, leaders will be more effective if they shift from a words-based communication strategy (Talk-Tell) to leveraging three powerful natural processes of biological change:
Launch generational renewal
Change the work environment so it is conducive to the change you want
Select for people with the traits and skills that will be adaptive in the next generation
REFERENCES
Brightman, B. (2024), “Ready to change?”, HUMAN NATURE
Darwin, C. (1959), On the origin of species by means of natural selection, John Murray
Handy, C. (1994), The empty raincoat: Making sense of the future, Arrow Books
Handy, C. (2015), The Second Curve: Thoughts on reinventing society, Cornerstone Digital
Kotter J. (1996), Leading change, Harvard Business School Press
Moran, J. and Brightman, B. (2015), “Leading Organizational Change”, in Dumas C. and Beinecke, R., Change Leadership, Sage Publications
This challenges the very foundation of most corporate change models I’ve seen. The idea that we rely too much on language based persuasion rather than environmental design or generational changes makes so much sense. Excellent read Baird.
Have a good Wednesday!
I like this concept of creating necessary drama. It is a way to reimplement the forces of nature but in a controlled environment and semi-controlled outcomes. Great piece, Baird.