The Evolution of Organizational Change

Change occurs naturally in our bodies and our lives all the time, without the need for intervention. Why then, with all the knowledge and resources available to us in our organizations, is successful Change Management so difficult to achieve?

Why is it that after decades of research and practice, the typical  methods for transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from their current state to a desired future state still results in a 70% failure rate?

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A recent McKinsey Quarterly report entitled, “The Irrational Side of Change Management,” revisits the four basic conditions necessary for changing the behavior of employees:

1. A compelling story – employees must see the point of the change and agree with it
2. Role modeling – employees see executives and colleagues they admire behaving in the new way
3. Reinforcing mechanisms – systems, processes and incentives that are in line with the new behavior
4. Capability Building – ensuring employees have the skills required to make the desired change

The report goes on to reveal nine insights on how human nature gets in the way of successfully applying the four conditions required for behavioral change and opens the door for deeper reflection among executives and consultants.

What isn’t fully addressed by this report or prevailing thought leadership is the assumption that change imposed from the outside in can be ever be successful.  Change Management as it’s implemented today is imposition-based with the greatest portion of the operational emphasis and budget directed at trying to enforce the change after the decisions to change, and what to change have already been made.

With organizations undergoing a shake-up in every region of the globe, we need to further examine the correlation between the imposition-based change management model and the low success rate.

We need to challenge the underlying assumptions and processes that leaders and organizations use to identify the need for change and determine the nature of the change required.  It’s time to examine the biology of organizational life and the evolutionary nature of change itself.

Understanding the Biology of Organizational Life

In biology, transition has a higher success rate when it comes from, and aligns with the nature of the existing organism.  When dealing with a transplant patient, medical practitioners and surgeons work with human biology to increase the patient’s chances of post-op success by:

• Looking through the various symptoms or manifestations of the problem
• Correctly identifying the troubled organ at the source
• Seeking a healthy replacement organ, and
• Choosing a donor with a blood type that matches that of the transplant patient.

In our organizations however, we are often ill-equipped for dealing with the Biology of Organizational Life. Conditioned to see organizations as machines rather than ecosystems, we focus on controlling inputs and outputs rather than on understanding and facilitating the nature of the beings that make the organization run.

Imagine the absurdity of assembling the best and brightest engineers to try to improve the quality of life for an ill patient; only to end up misdiagnosing the patient’s heart problems, and instead performing a kidney transplant using an organ from a donor with the wrong blood type.

Sounds like pure madness when you look at it this way. But it’s happening in organizations every day. Faced with operational growing pains and acute symptoms, we inadvertently bring in the wrong specialist to work on the wrong area of the organization. We end up developing brilliant solutions to misdiagnosed problems and implementing the wrong type of change for our organization. Later we wonder why the organizational body resists and rejects our transplant as though it were a foreign object.

As in nature, change for most people has a better success rate when it’s initiated from and aligned with what’s already happening on the inside. Not surprisingly, most of the people affected by organizational change initiatives have change imposed on them from the outside-in.   What many executives see as a transition, the organizational body perceives as an imposition.  What is pitched as a future vision for employees to embrace, registers as a threat to the nature of the organism itself and is rejected as such.

From Imposition to Evolution

• If human nature is the single biggest contributing factor to your current state, and
• Human nature is the biggest factor standing in the way of reaching your desired future state, then
• It stands to reason that human nature should be your biggest focus before initiating change.

Without a crystal ball, no one can know for sure that prescribed changes will lead to the desired future state. But the underlying assumption behind the imposition-based change model is that the right specialists have correctly diagnosed the source, not just the symptoms, of the problem; they know what needs to change, where, and have identified the right type of change for your organization.

Unfortunately, most change initiatives fail before they begin, by working with an incomplete assessment of the biology of organizational life and the human influences that gave rise to the current state of the organization, markets, environment, etc.  This leads to inaccurate or faulty conclusions on what needs to change, and how things should be changed.

Aligning Change with Your Current and Desired State

How do you decide what needs to change in your organization? How can you be sure that the change you want to make is sufficient to bring about the desired future state?  How do you know which changes offer the greatest amount of leverage and which hold the greatest possibilities for long-term success?  How do you initiate change in alignment with the biology of your organization?

There are two ways to initiate organizational change:

Low-Leverage Change is change imposed from the outside in where management or consultants identify the need for change and the nature of the change required. And then design an initiative that imposes a change in employee behavior.

High-Leverage Change is change that goes beyond the manifestation of the problems to understand the biology of the organization and the nature of the problems and challenges it’s facing.  It uses a discovery process that flows from the wealth and wisdom of the constituents that make up the organizational ecosystem.  And it achieves a higher rate of long term success by developing change that aligns the Ecology of the Self with the Ecology of the Whole.

Change management initiatives based on a mechanistic view of organizational life create low-leverage change at best.
When we begin to understand individuals and the organizations they form as biological organisms and ecosystems, new opportunities arise for high-leverage change.

Discovering the Biology of Your Organization

Here are just a few of the ways, we can work with you to discover the Biology of your Organization and help you develop your organizational aptitude for high-leverage change.

Discovery Café:

Discovery Café’s are a valuable first step for surfacing the underlying influences in your organizational ecosystem. Find out how we can design a custom Discovery Café around your specific objectives.  Learn More

Strategy Workshops

Add your name to our guest list to be notified of our upcoming public workshops on the use of Reflective Learning and Strategic Contemplation in Change Management.  Learn More

Direct Consultation:
Contact Yvonne Bailey at  778-297-4488 or by email:
ybailey@themindfulmba.com