What loving thunderstorms teaches me about Change Management

Hi, my name is Minola and I am a ceraunophile. “Ceraun” is from the Greek word “Keraunos”, meaning thunderbolt. So, a ceraunophile is a person who loves lightning and thunder. I am a lover of thunderstorms.

There is something absolutely majestic about thunderstorms. I always felt frustrated and even somehow “punished” when I had to come inside during thunderstorms when I was little. All I wanted to do was stay outside and laugh with the clouds. That is what I imagined the skies were doing: letting out a deep-belly, bray, guffaw laughter. As I have been enjoying adulthood for a couple of decades now, my take slowly changed. If you asked me why I enjoy thunderstorms, on some days I might reply “Because it shows that even nature needs to scream sometimes…”

My second summer in Basel comes to an end these days, and I am happy to report a better understanding of what people meant by “Oh, you are here just in time for thunderstorm season” last year when I arrived. June and July are famous for intense weather phenomena in this region. Summers in Switzerland are known for their unpredictable, violent thunderstorms. This is especially true during periods where it is relatively hot for Swiss standards, like this year 2022 with three consecutive heatwaves. According to MeteoSwiss, lightning strikes around 150,000 times yearly in Switzerland, including secondary lightning.

Several of my friends who visited me this summer were totally blown away by the sheer unpredictability and violence of thunderstorms, and that only made me pay closer attention. On Saturday, during a lovely brunch with friends, we somehow ended up speaking about the thunderstorms over the recent months, and that’s when I felt there was some inspiration in here somewhere… Should I try out introducing myself as a “lover of thunderstorms” when I join the next project as Change Lead? Hmmm, I would definitely give it a go…

Understand the movement of thunderstorms, and harness this knowledge on your change journey. A post on Britannica.com demystifies the movement of thunderstorms as follows: “The motion of a thunderstorm across the land is determined primarily by the interactions of its updrafts and downdrafts with steering winds in the middle layers of the atmosphere in which the storm develops. (…) Most storms continually evolve and have new cells developing while old ones dissipate.” Maybe I should blame it entirely on my memory not being what it used to, but I did not remember this part of “steering winds in the middle layers of the atmosphere” from what I was taught in school. The “updrafts” and “downdrafts” sounded familiar, yet it was the mention of the steering winds in the middle layers that made me think about organizations. Explained like this, the movement of thunderstorms is pretty similar to how change occurs in organizations. We have downdrafts from the senior stakeholders (the famous “top down”), updrafts from within the organization (the much sought-after “bottom up”), yet the steering winds happen in the middle. This could be, as an overall generalization, the middle management, taking the strategic input from the “downdraft” and making it actionable and operational; respectively, taking the insights from the “updrafts” and using them to inform decision-making. Within a team, the middle layer can be a team leader or a team assistant. I have witnessed HR and (Internal) Comms generating “steering winds.” I am sure that anyone who has ever done a bit of change work has a small smile on their face reading this – yeah, you caused some “steering winds”, you little wonderful thunderstorm rebel! Thunderstorms reminded me to be more mindful and intentional in engaging the “middle layer”, so that the “steering winds” can be “winds of change…” and now I have Scorpions on heavy rotation in my head…

Embrace the release. Thunderstorms are a great way for the atmosphere to release energy. They also?help keep the Earth in electrical balance. Did you know that without thunderstorms and lightning, the earth-atmosphere electrical balance would disappear in five minutes? We aren't really sure what would happen if this balance wasn't maintained… Psychologist Bruce Tuckman came up with the memorable phrase “forming, storming, norming, and performing” in his 1965 paper, “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups.” It describes the path that teams follow on their way to high performance. Later, he added a fifth stage, “adjourning” (also known as “mourning”) to mark the end of a team's journey. Of all these five stages, “storming” is consistently perceived as the most difficult to navigate. In the storming stage, people start to push against the established boundaries. Conflict or friction can also arise between team members as their true characters – and their preferred ways of working – surface and clash with other people's. At this stage team members may challenge authority or management style, or even the team's mission. Just like thunderstorms release energy and keep electrical balance, the storming within a team helps its members along on their journey. In his book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, Patrick Lencioni mentions “fear of conflict.” This dysfunction is an interesting alternative to the “storming” stage in the Tuckman model of team development. Whereas Tuckman suggests that all teams go through a period of conflict, Lencioni points out that if team members are lacking in trust they will not engage in robust debate. When different working styles, beliefs, and values clash, you often look at your co-workers and think, "I thought I trusted you, but now I'm not so sure." Weather the storm together, and you will find out.

Let thunderstorms put things in perspective. When I was thinking about ideas for this piece, I remembered an excerpt from American writer David Levithan’s novel in verse “The Realm of Possibility”: “Run outside during a thunderstorm / That downpour, that conquered hesitation, that exhilaration / That’s what unlonely is like.” I will look for opportunities to use “conquered hesitation” in future change conversations, and until then I want to stay a little in the energy of “unlonely.” There is an increasing body of research that proves that for some, thunder and lightning are like magic pills against anxiety, depression and loneliness. The totality and power of the elements has a way of showing us our troubles are relatively small. “Stormy weather reminds people that the world is made up of forces bigger than they are, which makes their woes pale in comparison,” says Laurel Steinberg, a New York City-based psychotherapist and a professor at Columbia University. When overpowering nature does interrupt the course of one's life, it's hard not to be taken outside the self in its presence. Psychologists also believe thunderstorms positively impact our mental health and overall wellbeing. Our brain craves sensory input, and the sound of rain or a thunderstorm can appease the brain's demands, which then calms us down. Sun, on the other hand, doesn't do anything to diminish sensory input and keeps our brains wanting more stimulation. One other thought that came running into my mind is related to the perspective we gain when we reflect on how we react and respond during a thunderstorm. How much is instinct, reflex, and how much is structure and planning? When thunderstorms happen unexpectedly – meteorologically, and equally in our personal or professional life, what and who do we want to keep safe? Where – and who – is our safe shelter? What hesitations do we conquer?

Almost every ancient culture had its own interpretation of lightning and why it happened, and it’s normally connected to the earliest known stories of humankind. In most cases, lightning earned a godlike reputation and was believed to be owned by the gods. Because of its raw power and the fact it comes from the sky, lightning is often associated directly with the gods’ wrath, and it symbolizes some kind of divine punishment. There is one less known meaning attached to lightning – loss of ignorance, and a post on symbolismandmetaphor.com describes it in a way that links it beautifully to change: “Throughout history, people believed that God invoked lightning strikes because people became too ignorant and lazy. It was meant as this wake-up call to do something and to change the way they lived. That’s why we sometimes connect the lightning to loss of ignorance, which was employed by people who witnessed it in the past. It acted as a reminder to change and to stop making God angry, or else these strikes would continue to be threatening.”

As a closing thought, I will leave you with a wonderful reflection from Criss Jami, an American poet and essayist known as “The Killosopher”, included in his book “Killosophy”: “The weather is nature's disruptor of human plans and busybodies. Of all the things on earth, nature's disruption is what we know we can depend on, as it is essentially uncontrolled by men.”

Until next week, keep calm and embrace the release.