Change? Elemental, says dear Usher

Elemental Change is another great read by Neil Usher. The topic is of the utmost importance; the timing impeccable. It is a must-read for all those leading, managing, experiencing and thinking about organisational change.

Note: You can read this review in Portuguese on KMOL

In 2018, Neil Usher published his first book The Elemental Workplace. As I wrote at the time, it is a book about building fantastic workplaces and about change. In that book, Neil proposes a framework consisting of three moments - “I know”, “I feel” and “I will do”.

In a way, Elemental Change picks up where that other one left, and explores the process of implementing change in the course of constant movement.

“We are therefore never in a state of being, we are always becoming.”

It is a book about managing and leading change with a perpetual beta mindset. It was written for all change leaders, change managers and change consultants: the three main roles in any change initiative.

The book takes us through three stages: the reflection (why are we doing this?), the preparation (how are we going to do it?), and the action (what are we going to do?).

The "why" is the "the infrastructure of change" and there are 3 interrelated levels of this infrastructure: the universal, the global and the local. They are all around us. Like the existing values or the context.

Neil believes that “change is our very essence”. Yet, despite that, change is mostly perceived as a negative thing, the associated language is loaded with negative words and people tend to look at change as a burden.

To make stuff happen, change leaders and change managers need to work together to lead and manage (having power and authority), influence and enable. That is the way to overcome the three types of opposition to change: inertia, resistance and complacency.

To make change happen, we need to create or leverage the six components of the change operating system: opportunity, vision, evidence, leadership, trust, and resources.

These 6 components can be measured at the beginning of the change initiative and then again at strategic intervals to assess progress. The book includes a set of questions to guide this measurement.

“change challenges trust at every turn”

The sections about Leadership and Trust are particularly powerful. The section about Evidence made me think a lot about the book Designing Knowledge, not for the overlap in ideas but rather for their complementarity.

Part 3 of the book focus on the periodic table of change, with nine elements divided into three groups: I am informed (because we think things), I am engaged (because we feel things) and I am involved (because we do things).

“Engagement creates a temporary bond, more a letter of intent – involvement cements this into a form of social contract.”

The book ends on a high: the Close part is just “wow”!

My key takeaways

Let’s be real about change

Any change initiative started long before we thought it had and will go on far longer than we thought it would. In a way, we are pawns whose role it is to provide the resources, knowledge and opportunity for people to change themselves, at their own pace.

“change succeeds by degree, not in the absolute. Quite probably, accidentally.”

Adaptation or Adoption

Apparently informed by a conversation with Luis Suarez at Social Now, Neil Usher defends that despite the widespread use of the “adoption”, we should strive for adaptation. Adoption is reversible; adaptation is not, is “a step in evolution” and is something people do willingly.

“The preposition ‘to’ is the critical difference. We adopt x, we adapt to y. When we adapt it necessitates movement, our position changes.”

This actually reminded me of a podcast interview with Ravi Venkatesan where he talks about how human beings have adapted to their surroundings, being that the reason for our survival and evolution.

In any case, it may be a cultural / language thing, but for me I kind of feel almost as the opposite. Let’s think of adopting a child: this is something that I do willingly, and wholeheartedly. If a crisis is before me, I will be forced to adapt but that is not something that I do willingly and I will likely revert back to normal at the earliest possible date.

Agility

Neil refers to the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” which, although written for software development, has found its way into corporate functions. The agile approach defends that change is accepted, addressed and embraced as part of the whole process.

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is not an equivalent of chaos, or risk or of a bad outcome. “Uncertainty creates the opportunity for change.”

“We could view all this as daunting in terms of our chances of success when leading a change initiative. (…) Or we could see it as a pulsing energy, a natural movement that defies inertia. One that rolls over and around resistance, that creates untold possibilities, that feeds our desire to make things happen, that is with us.”

Your vision

Formulate your vision as a question - “While statements are inactive, questions are alive.”. Develop your vision and your objetives together because they will be the stable elements of your change efforts.

SMART or DUMB

When it comes to change, should objectives be SMART - specific, measurable, assignable, relevant, time-bound – or DUMB – dynamic, understandable, motivating and believable?

VUCA vs SCUL

It’s hard to think of the last time I did not hear about the VUCA world in a talk. Neil sets it against a stable, certain, understandable and lucid (SCUL) world.

Everybody’s job is no-one’s job

“[C]hange is no-one’s and yet everyone’s job. No-one’s because there isn’t a natural ‘department of change’ within an organisation (unless one has been specifically created). (…) Everyone’s because (...) we are all first leaders of change, and then professionals.” It is a challenging and dangerous situation as it is extremely easy to push the responsibility around, procrastinate, and let things progress without strategy and guidance.

It also feels very much what I observe with knowledge management, with many organisations unburdening their load with the argument that it is everyone’s job to manage their knowledge. You can guess where that takes them, right?

About being a leader 

The “Do this… not this...” table for change leaders should become a poster to hang on every mental wall which frequently blocks the leadership light to shine.

From that table:

• Admit when wrong, don't assign blame
• Ask questions, don't give opinions
• Discover, don't assume
• Guide behaviour, don't create rules
• Unite and solve, don't divide and rule
• Welcome the possibility, don't fear the risk

Final words

Neil Usher started thinking and writing this book before the COVID-19 pandemic took the whole world by surprise, forcing organisations to deep and fast changes.

The whole thing clearly created one of those situations where people felt change as an emergency: “we’re on a burning platform, mostly fictitious – change, or die (horribly) – so do whatever it takes and do it now. It ends up being frenzied and chaotic, but the objective is achieved despite the ridiculous proportion of effort to productive outcome. When it’s all done and celebrated, no one especially worries about that, believing that next time it’ll be different – better planned, more economical, less stressful. The underlying philosophy, printed onto the team T-shirts in Wham! sized letters is: ‘JFDI!’.”

I chose to quote this entire paragraph because it describes much of what I have been witnessing: organisations are changing to accommodate the initial impact but are not using the opportunity to explore more meaningful, strategic changes, nor as an argument to prepare for the next crisis.

Simultaneously, this paragraph is a good example of the fun, easy, cheeky tone of Neil’s writing.

Actually, Neil’s sense of humour and wittiness is one of the three aspects that make his books stand out from the crowd. The other two are his vast and deep general knowledge that weaves the pages and bring concepts alive, and his practical experience of actually having done it.

This is a must-read for all those leading, managing, experiencing and thinking about organisational change, and has been added to my list list of favorite books.