Leading for Change … and Stability

Change is everywhere. Change is continuous. Change is accelerating and growing more complex. For leaders, such insistent reminders of the change around us and within us elicit a steady stream of tools and approaches to managing change in the world, in markets, in organizations and teams, and in ourselves. Yet except in rare conditions or moments of complete chaos, there are also essential aspects of our world or our relationships or ourselves that remain stable. Recognizing those stable elements and, particularly, coordinating our management of that stability with our management of change, enables us not only to react more fully to waves of change but to grow and adapt with our environments.

In The Problem with Change, Ashley Goodall proposes “stability management” as a necessary corrective to the “change is everywhere” mantra. Behind Goodall’s headline is an astute broadening of focus to the environments in which all us live and lead – environments that provide crucial context for the specific changes we observe around us or the targeted changes we as leaders often aim to make. By its closing pages, the book spotlights the stability – or what he calls the “rootedness” – of actions we take and changes we want to make. Acknowledging roots and caring for them helps to create the conditions, or stability, for more deliberate change.

Left largely unexplored by Goodall is an important further step: how can one balance or coordinate the reality (evolutionary, at least) of change and the sometimes desirability of change with the benefits of stability he outlines? With the imperative to improve or grow, in other words, which behaviors or habits do we continue to rely on as anchors or roots for change and stability? Even in situations of far-reaching change – of new jobs, corporate re-organizations, geographical re-locations, personal losses or relationship break-ups – we continue with certain behaviors, retain certain routines, rely on some stable elements even as we consciously strive to change others. Sleep, eating, exercise, creative expression, or social interactions are among the anchors for attempted changes.

We can find concrete examples of this dual awareness and action elsewhere. Katy Milkman, in her essential How to Change, describes “temptation bundling” as the

linkage of something we intentionally want to change but isn’t straightforward for us to do – like, say, exercise – with a habitual behavior that can even be seen as a reward – like binge-watching TV. By exercising while we binge watch, we anchor our desired change in its association with another consistent behavior. The key to change, for Milkman, is “understanding your opponent,” which for many of us takes the form of laziness, impulsivity, procrastination, or conformity. Just as engineers building a structure take into account opposing conditions like wind resistance and gravity in their designs and planning, she notes, leaders need to account for the vying forces of change and stability.

In broad strokes, this is similar to a classic approach to change, developed by social psychologist Kurt Lewin. “Force-field analysis” comprises the driving forces causing change and the restraining forces resisting change and pulling a subject back to its current or default state, say, of habitual behavior and routine decision-making. Lewin’s core insight was that in any given situation, behavior and decisions are maintained by an equilibrium between the forces driving change and those resisting it. Too much emphasis on change or too great a neglect of resistance, or vice-versa, will likely result in maintaining the current state (or otherwise failing to achieve the new, desired one). To shift the equilibrium and therefore our behavior, decision-making, or situation, both driving and restraining forces need to be addressed together and the driving forces ultimately made stronger. At the heart of this approach are the interdependence of change and resistance and the resulting stabilizing equilibrium that shape our lives and leadership.

We need, put more simply, to step back and consider the dynamics and context of our desired change: What are the multiple forces that drive the changes we seek? What in our current situation should (or should not) remain stable or may hold us back? What is the fuller impact on our lives of those specific sought-after changes and restraints? For leaders, the opportunity is to exercise creative and strategic judgment to coordinate and regularly modulate that interdependence. That requires, for many awash in fevered discussion of constant change and transformation, re-prioritizing our acknowledgment of the stability and rootedness described by Goodall. For all of us, as leaders and human beings, becoming more fully aware of and deliberately acting upon that interdependence of change with resistance and stability can help to make the changes we seek really happen.