Change agile leaders require these 2 skills (and they're not easy!)

Organisations cannot hide from change. Our best attempts to deny or reject change cannot help us ignore the fact that the world is changing around us rapidly - war, economic instability, social justice issues, and climate and health crises all impact how we run our organisations daily.?The problem is we all talk about change agility, but none of us actually wants to do the hard work of unlearning and learning new skills to actually be change agile.

So can you stop and ask yourself:

If you know change is happening, do you feel equipped to respond? What are you (or aren't you) doing to upskill yourself to be more change agile?

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Below, I've listed the two most critical skills leaders must start learning and practicing now in order to develop their change agility and lead into the future:

1. From linear thinking to circular thinking:

?Humans are wired to solve problems. And when we do, our brains reward us with a?hit of dopamine, which only encourages us to solve more problems! We just love fixing things. And our default way of fixing things is to analyse. To discover a clear cause and effect to our problem where A causes B causes C. This is linear thinking, and in organisations, we hire people who are really good at this.

?However, most modern organisational challenges aren't so neat and tidy. They are complex and messy. For example, how do we "solve" better customer experience or trust in our organisation or re-defining our products and services offering? There's no single clear solution.?So to find solutions to complex problems, we have to rely on circular thinking.

This means looking at the bigger picture through a systems lens. From this vantage point, we can discover relationships and interdependent connections that may be contributing to our challenge. When we can think circularly, we see that everything is related and impacts one another. A causes B causes C causes A, causes D, etc.

This view helps us respond with more insightful interventions that are less obvious and more effective.?It also helps us identify patterns, which reveal deeper insights into what might really be happening before rushing to a solution that addresses only the surface or worse, makes the problem bigger. As Peter Senge famously stated in The Fifth Discipline,

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The easy way out often leads back in.?If the solution were easy then it should have already been found.

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Because our organisations are constantly changing, evolving, and often unpredictable, we must be willing to continue to think circularly to continuously intervene. This way of operating is the very definition of being change agile. To respond rather than react with interventions that nudge our organisations along rather than create upheaval, overwhelm, and fatigue.?

2. From the task focused left brain to the creative process of the right brain

When organisations change, they are responding to the external complexity of their environment. Plainly stated, they are adapting in hopes of thriving. So to be change agile and adapt, we need to start looking beyond our left brain which craves data, analysis, details…..and certainty.

There are other sources of knowledge beyond what our left brain typically relies on that can help us find more creative, holistic, and sustainable solutions. Cue the right brain.

The right side of our brains are more visual and intuitive. Its thinking is less organised and doesn't rely as heavily on words. Our right brain helps us access our creativity and imagination, and also helps us see the bigger picture. Wouldn't it make sense to include this powerful part of our brain more in our organisational decision making?

For whatever reason, the right brain has not been as celebrated in our organisational life. However, this is changing because this part of our brain is precisely what we need to call on to help us become more change agile.

This means using images, analogies, metaphors, stories, art, poetry, music, etc. to help us make sense of what is happening in our organisations and tap into a bigger picture. For example, nature can be a great metaphor for change and can inspire us to respond in ways that are regenerative and sustainable.

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Like all learning, these skills take practice, time, and patience. This means having a level of commitment to clumsily try them out (most leaders hate feeling and looking clumsy). It also means that leaders have to get comfortable with the open-endedness of change.

Change agility, by its very definition, has no clear end point. It is a habit to cultivate. Something to be practiced everyday. A new way of showing up at work. And most of all, leaders have to be able to embrace the mess. The mess of not knowing. Of relying on creative processes that we cannot rationalise nor always put into words.?And the mess of trusting rather than controlling the process.

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To think circularly and see change as a creative process is to build change agility. If this has sparked your thinking, please leave a comment or get in touch with us at www.humanswholead.com.?