Our Blog: "The LAST Word on Change"

Evolution of Change Management (Part I – Toward Simplicity)

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Ever notice that nearly every presentation of the best new thinking in any area of management science or organizational effectiveness, particularly “Change Management,” is usually joined by a promise of being most thorough, comprehensive, and complete?  What is it about man, or this field, that automatically associates volume and complexity with “better?”  It’s like life is an English paper and the only sure way to get an “A” grade is to make sure that when the professor weighs the stack of papers, it exceeds the average weight of all other submissions? 

Maybe that’s how we got a 3,500 page U.S. healthcare bill, huh?...

Referencing a “point of diminishing returns” as commentary on this game would be the equivalent of a bad joke.  Of course there are diminishing returns!  Go do a google™ search on “Change Management”—it will likely yield over 114 MILLION hits.

While trying to find a way to illustrate for my readers and clients the reality of diminishing returns…and in the process, make a contrast that builds greater understanding of the value in Leading Change…Simply, I was struck by images of evolution.

Again, in this picture, progress is linear and complexity accelerates (whether there is a point of diminishing return, I will leave to the 25^th Century historians or today’s philosophers).  Anyway, through years of helping companies get major change initiatives “unstuck” and overcome repeated cycles of frustration with change, I have discovered that the next phase in our evolution as Change Leaders does NOT come from incorporating more and more layers of complexity…or even a linear progression.  It involves a return to simplicity.

Consider the history that forms based on what you've studied or heard about the unfolding wisdom available regarding change management.  It may form an evolutionary path that looks something like the following:

1. Discovery of FIRE (change as a mystery)
2. The Age of Management Science (sophisticated mechanisms of control and implementation for doing things TO others)
3. A Technological (Process) Boom (From Argyris, Lewin & Bridges to ADKAR/Prosci.  Organizational Change Management/OCM as a process is born.)
4. Back to Touchy-Feely (Kubler-Ross and the humanist movement)
5. Big Company Benchmarks Show Complex Organizational Change IS Possible (Nadler, Gerstner @ IBM)
6. Emerging People Science Advances Our Understanding (Conner on “resilience”)
7. More Change Process Insights (Moss-Kanter, Kotter, & Anderson—“beyond change management" to change leadership process)

Here’s the problem…we’ve been stuck cranking out many iterations of Phases 3 & 7 for many years now.  The mere repetitiveness of these process models makes a case for diminishing returns.

What if the next phase of evolution made change more, um…simple?  This is, in fact, exactly where years of research and application at Last Word on Change™ has led us.  Think about it…you’ve invested more and more in change planning, change communication, change consulting, change models, training, and tool-kits—is the return on that investment linear and outrageously positive?  In most cases, the answer is “no.”

I invite you to read more about the role of simplicity in change success and sustainability on our website.  http://www.lastwordonchange.com/simple-solution

In just two days, I will post Part II of this blog on the Evolution of Change Management, contrasting the “latest and greatest” I’ve seen on change leadership, involving 5 models and 21 capabilities with a more powerful (and smaller) magic number…FOUR.

See you here on Thursday!