Walk the Incline

The idea of a race to the top, visually popularized in US culture in that iconic scene in Rocky when the title character runs up the stairs and celebrates at the top, has been repeated thousands of times in movies, tv shows, and is even the title of a federal education grant fund.

It can be exciting to start a transformational project. Sometimes the excitement stems from the perception that an honest change needs to occur in ourselves or in a system or an organization. Other times the excitement stems from the urgency of competition or the sudden realization of the legitimacy of correcting injustice. Of course these motivators can occur in combination as well - the reasons for human activity are varied and often complex. Regardless of the reasons, it is very common for there to be a race up the incline of transformative development.

Those leading transformation regardless of where it is happening (personal, professional, organizational) do well to keep in mind this simple truth: a run or race up an incline ends in exhaustion. The more quickly change is pushed, the more resources it requires to be well managed because this sort of change involves ongoing management of alterations of habit, and altering habits takes time, energy, intentional repetition and patience. We can all personally attest to this - changing our diets, getting more exercise, quitting a harmful habit - these are challenging and often require many restarts when not intentionally well managed. Why is it then that so many people are surprised and frustrated when change fails organizationally? Careers and organizations are comprised of people; transforming organizations = changing people = changing habits, and habit change is challenging!

The exhaustion itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Transformative development is hard and (usually) worthwhile. The adage that nothing worth doing is easy holds true. The issue really is how well the exhaustion is managed and how well the next steps are lead. When leadership and/ or stakeholders are impatient, often due to professional expectations outside of change management (such as in healthcare where health of patients is on the line or tech where the pace of change is unreasonably fast), the resources needed to sustain implementation are depleted, old habits take over, and nothing of substance is accomplished.

What I've described above is called implementation dip. It is well explained in Michael Fullan's work which was introduced to me in grad school and to which I have borne witness in work and life ever since. Fullan, whose work focuses on education, knows well the pervasive and repeating nonsense of the unfunded mandate - a change idea, maybe good, maybe not-so-good gets handed to school systems that are expected to engage in the challenge of change management without any additional resources. This leads to a dip in the implementation of the change that can be overcome but often is not-hence the nonsensical nature of doing it over and over.

This happens everywhere, public and private organizations, personally even. The mandate to engage in change with no additional support stresses systems and infrastructures, and leads to burnout. I would argue that in the most severe (note, not rare) of cases it leads to corruption in organizations and health problems, even suicide, in personal cases.

Take away: Transformation can be exhausting. Managing the change of transformational development, i.e. providing adequate resources including but not limited to time, energy, intentional repetition and patience, is an ongoing endeavor that when done well results in change continuing through the implementation dip caused by the exhaustion.

Action step: Walk up the incline of transformation; do not run. Take your time. Gather the data about what really needs changing and what resources will be needed to manage it well. If those resources are not available but the change is still needed, think the change in terms of its manageable components. Agile and Lean may be helpful here.

Thank you for reading. Be well.