Change Within Systems

In general, the?systems ?that we design are designed to persist: it’s not that they are not intended to change, ever, but rather that they are not intended to accidentally or carelessly?change ?right now. At least, not without our oversight and under our?control .

Day to day, this can be a good thing: longer term, or as our context of operation shifts, it can be fatal.

Whilst the fact that change is ‘hard’ is commonly spouted, the reasons why this is so may be less clearly understood.

Change can be difficult because of innate complication (it’s hard to create a new technology), but may also be hard because it carries us from the know into the unsure, from?power ?into?uncertainty , and from control into collaboration,?co-creation , or chaos.

Essentially the primary experience of change may initially be loss, even if there is a promise of eventual gain. Even if that loss is simply loss of?certainty .

In this context, it’s valid to ask how we should explore, consider, or initiate and even ‘drive’ change: from within, alongside, our outside of, the current structure.

Change that sits within can tend to be diffused, or made too safe, too fast.

Change alongside can lead to de-lamination of spoken and lived?culture , as the story progresses but the behaviour does not.

And change that is held externally, may provoke immune responses from the legacy Organisation. It lacks connection into the very structure that need to change – this is most commonly seen when e.g ‘innovation’ is housed in a ‘skunkworks’, but where the dynamism of that entity cannot be replicated or assimilated more broadly. It is forever the ‘other’ and indeed may be a source of conflict.

All this may mitigate for diffused change, or socially co-created, where there is no change ‘function’ per se, no new home for ideas – but rather where the future state is collaboratively created, requiring a greater ability for synthesis, storytelling, and rapid iteration, including of structure itself, hence why i argue that a?Socially Dynamic Organisation ?will be more guided than governed, and will be reconfigurable according to need. Because it is not static, requiring ‘change’ to be done, but rather is perpetually fluid, which may seem like a dream, but in reality simply requires us to re-evaluate our relationship with risk and structure itself.