New Paradigms Are What’s Needed to Address Common Problems with Leading Transformational Change

People facing difficult challenges often look for inspiration from Greek mathematician, Archimedes, who famously said, “Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum on which to place it, and single-handed I shall move the world.” If only such a lever were available to leaders engaged in transformational change efforts!

Such a lever does exist, contend transformational change and workplace experts Robert “Jake” Jacobs and Susan Schmitt Winchester. In fact, Jake and Susan identify eight such levers that when applied to transformational change can yield profound results for individuals, teams, and organizations.

Their?essay, “Leverage Change: If You Want to Transform Your Organization, Start by Changing Your Own Paradigms,” appears in The Secret Sauce for Leading Transformational Change, for which I am lead author.

Jake, is president of Jake Jacobs Consulting, a global consulting firm focused on helping clients achieve faster, easier, better results than they ever imagined possible. Susan is CHRO for Applied Materials and a leading voice for teaching people how to use the workplace as a laboratory for emotional healing from dysfunctional pasts, where they can build the future they deserve.

According to Jake and Susan, most approaches to transformational change are littered with flawed paradigms, old scripts, and self-limiting beliefs. The common wisdom is that transforming organizations “takes years, is hard work, and often leads to disappointing results . . . it goes with the territory.” These old paradigms are what lead to transformational change efforts often falling short of the mark.

“Want different results? See the world in new ways,” they argue.

The eight levers they identify in their essay represent fresh perspectives on addressing common problems with transformational change. They call this collection of new paradigms “Leverage Change,” which consists of smart, strategic actions that when taken make it “possible to achieve faster, easier, better results with any transformation effort, in any organization, made by anyone.”

Leverage Change

Leverage Change can be used to turbocharge change efforts that are launching, already underway, or are in development. It applies equally well to simple efforts involving a few people to complex ones engaging tens of thousands.

Each of the eight levers addresses a common problem that prevents transformation efforts from succeeding. These common problems and the levers that address them are:

1. There is Too Much Change … Pay Attention to Continuity
2. Change Takes Too Long … Think and Act as If the Future Were Now
3. People Reject Your Change Approach Because It Is “Not Invented Here” … Design It Yourself
4. People Do Not Know Enough to Make Good Decisions … Create a Common Database
5. All Change Efforts Must Begin from the Top … Start with Impact, Follow the Energy
6. So Many Ask, “What Is in It for Me?” … Develop a Future People Want to Call Their Own
7. People Get to Do Only the Routine Work of Their Regular Jobs … Find Opportunities for People to Make a Meaningful Difference
8. People’s Plates Are Already Full … Make Change Work Part of Daily Work

Change Takes Too Long

One of the more frequent frustrations of leaders in creating effective transformations is that change takes too long. Even when their efforts succeed, organizations pay a steep price for slow transformation: the competition wins new markets, commercializes leading-edge technologies, makes valuable process improvements, and creates cultures that lead to advantages in the recruitment and retention of top talent.

Leaders can reduce the time it takes to transform an organization from years to months by embracing a new paradigm. Instead of seeing the future as something “out there” that will occur at a later point in time, they can choose to think and act as if the future were now (lever #2). When leaders and entire organizations make this shift, transformation occurs rapidly, and in some cases instantaneously.

The old paradigm held that transforming culture takes years. Plenty of experts will tell you the same. Do not buy it. This paradigm shift immediately changes the game.

For example, if you want a more participative culture, think and act as if such close collaboration already exists.

• Who should be in the room for your next meeting?
• What criteria should you be using to make decisions today?
• How much power should different stakeholders hold right now?

Stop talking about the future. Start living it.

Encourage others to join your journey. Colleagues previously reticent to jump aboard will see and hear change occurring all around them, increasing their belief that this time the transformation is for real.

Then, as they begin thinking and acting as if the future were now, their colleagues’ faith in the future being real creates a virtuous cycle of ongoing transformation, further stoking the engine of your change efforts.

This is just one example of how paradigms help us make sense of our organizations, but they can also get in the way. Change paradigms that are holding you and your organization back. Embrace new paradigms that allow you to transform your organization.

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The Secret Sauce for Leading Transformational Change, from lead author Ian Ziskin and with contributions from dozens of senior business leaders, HR leaders, experts, coaches, and consultants, shares insight, vivid stories, lessons learned, and best practices for what it takes to lead, survive, and thrive in periods of transformational change. Learn more at https://www.transformationalchangebook.com.