More Change before Change Management
by Minola Jac

Just before Christmas last year, my best friend came over for a full week. What a treat it was, after six years of not having seen each other because of life, COVID and everything in between! One evening, we ended up having a very deep conversation, one of those exchanges that touches on all the big questions in life, and when answers come more easily if you just keep on talking without even turning the lights on. We had ice cream, Prosecco, and decades of friendship to keep us going. At one point, she said: “Hey, there’s something on my mind. You have been doing this change management thing for two decades now, and I am still not sure I fully understand what you actually do.” “Well, that makes two of us. Cheers!” I replied, and we started laughing. 

A few minutes later, I said: “You actually know more about this change management thing than you think, and you do it more consistently and more meaningfully than you give yourself credit for. You just do not label it as such. You have high-stakes communications almost every day. You do perform senior executive stakeholder engagement strategies. You have visioning sessions and change readiness assessments. You even run change impact assessments and implement corrective and mitigating measures. I am sure you even do risk management. You might call it ‘Spending Christmas with the In-Laws,’ while the way these are packaged within organizations is called ‘Transformation Initiative’ or ‘Digital Evolution.’ The principles are the same to their very core.” I then shared with her what I lovingly call my “personal and professional crusade.” 

I have been fascinated with why change is perceived as so much more disruptive and even menacing within the organizational environments while we all navigate far more sophisticated and impactful transformation journeys in our lives. One element of the answer could be that many of us still anchor a big part—maybe the defining part—of who we are in what we do, in our work. Any change to that source of identity, (self-)validation and security impacts us to our very core. Pay attention next time you are within a context where there is a round of introductions, and see how many people start with “Hi, I am [name], and I am the [role].” One small thing I have been doing for years, mostly to keep myself honest and grounded, is this: “Hi, I am Minola, and I currently serve as [role].” My work is a fundamental expression of who I am, but it does not define me. I am a change enthusiast. It just so happens that I had many roles of an enthusiastic change manager.

Another hypothesis I have been testing over the past several years is that in life we don’t say “change management.” We use that expression or label only within the workplace, and what I have learned is that people hear “management” the loudest. The whole vocabulary we use to talk about change at work is based on and developed around tools. It is as if we skip over “change” straight into the (illusion of) control-creating “management.” I recently heard somebody saying that we “fluffify” conversations in a totally different context from change work. It made me think that the opposite might be true when it comes to change work within organizations: we “toolified” it, and we ended up over-reliant on frameworks, methodologies, tools and the promises of linear, smooth, structured processes they hold. 

There is a “stigma” now associated with change management. It makes it sound corrective, transactional, mechanistic, purely and exclusively implementation-oriented. If you pardon me an informal confession, I sometimes feel it is used as the blue pill to project management. It is also almost obsessively concerned with resistance to change and exclusively purposed to address it at all costs. One of the most under-rated, under-used and misunderstood questions in change work is “What needs to be preserved?” There is huge value in understanding what that change resistance is trying to protect. Just as there is massive risk in over-enthusiasm for change and overselling its benefits. About two years ago, I was speaking with someone, and they said something to me right off the bat: “I don’t think we will get a lot of opportunities to work together. I don’t need change management, I have no burning platform.” I smiled, and then I said: “I am so happy to hear this! What is your burning ambition?” 

The requests I normally get sound like “We need a toolkit to manage this big change coming,” “What is the methodology you recommend, and can you do a maximum half-day workshop to equip people to manage the disruption we are facing?” While I believe there is immense power in frameworks, methodologies and tools, I also see time and time again how, in the words of Abraham Maslow’s “Law of the Instrument:” “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It is never just about the toolset. It is always about the mindset and skillset, too. There is always a deeper request beyond “I need a toolkit.” Meaningful and sustainable change work happens when we address the deep(er) problem, not the first problem. 

All this to bring me back to my “crusade.” Whenever I can, I avoid saying “change management,” replacing it with “change work.” It has helped me open some amazing conversations. In everyday life, we say we “deal with change,” in organizations we “manage the change.” And while it might seem more like a semantics-driven conversation, the mental and emotional contexts we create around “dealing with change” and “managing the change” are subtly but fundamentally different. 

I can only hope this book will inspire you to bring some of the “dealing with change” into “managing change,” and equally reversely. Maybe some ways in which we “deal with change” would benefit from disciplined common sense inspired by how we experience change being “managed” within our organizations. Get comfortable with change, first as a word, then as a process and ultimately as the very fabric of our life and work. Create spaces of curiosity over places of certainty. Know that even change is changing. 

And always remember: there is no other journey worthier of our curiosity, courage and compassion than living everyday life with awe, wonder, grace, purpose, intention and joy.`

References:

• Original chapter from book https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Inspiration-Change-Experiences-Mentor/dp/B0CGL9VMY1 written by Minola Jac and authorized to be published in the World Management Agility Forum.