New Metaphors for Change – Part 2

Triggering evolution and change in a living system is different from what change is in a mechanistic inert system. As I wrote in  last week’s blog, the larger system will help you with change if you are open to it. And leading change in living systems can use less energy and money than traditional frameworks of driving change or making change happen.

To illustrate, here is  the next set of metaphors to help you generate new strategies for engaging in change.

New Metaphors for Organizational Change

5. Beneficial viruses – How change spreads through a networked system.

Given the recent pandemic, we have all had a master class on how germs and viruses spread in life. Most often we think of viruses as things that will make us sick. However, in living systems, we can spread beneficial viruses that can help us speed change or evolution in our organizations.

In a networked, interdependent system, relationships are the essential life ingredient to help the living system operate. Information, knowledge, learning, and meaning are all carried through these relationships. As leaders who want to trigger change in a system, we can intentionally share new ideas or practices along the informal lines of relationships that pre-exist in our organizations.

6. Suspense novels – Dynamic tension resolution.

A good suspense novel starts with an action scene where the protagonist, antagonist, and naming what is at stake creates the dynamic tension. This three-way tension is found in suspenseful books, poetry, and music because it draws us into the story or music. We want to keep reading because we want to see how the story ends. Tension resolution systems used as a framework for change, will engage staff to help the organization move toward a higher outcome or important purpose. We used to call this building a “sense of urgency” in change.

I like to think of it as moving from a rocking chair motion, where we swing from one position to the opposite without really going anywhere, to adding a third tension point that provides the actual direction we need to head. In a good suspense novel, the “good guy” goes up against the “bad guy” to save the world. When you have three points of tension instead of two, it attracts people (bystanders) toward helping to save the world. The Lord of the Rings trilogy or Harry Potter series are both good examples of dynamic tension resolution because good and evil are clearly  defined, and many  characters are deeply engaged in saving the world for future generations.

7. Weather systems – Sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

Chaos theory named the butterfly effect. The metaphor is that in a dynamic interdependent living system, the flap of a butterfly’s wings in China can cause a blizzard in New York City. But this cause and effect over a great distance only occurs when the initial conditions are right. Like many complex systems, the weather system and our organizations have what’s known as a sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

When I’m engaged by a client, it takes time to understand the context of the team, organization, or sector I am working in.  I  always notice initial conditions that can trigger outsized positive or negative reaction. In one organization a new leader had been hired by the Board without any staff input. Traditionally, hiring decisions of this magnitude had wide engagement in this organization because it allowed people to build trust with the potential new leader.

In this case, the decision not to hire with this traditional engagement created a sensitive dependence on initial conditions. There was no knowledge or familiarity with the incoming CEO. Plus, there was no avenue to give feedback, hear concerns, or create a predisposition to trust the new leader. When this leader started to make decisions without input, another cultural value in the organization these decisions had extreme reactions, an “organizational blizzard”, if you will. This caught the new CEO by surprise because they were acting in alignment with how they had been hired, a closely held decision making process. It took over a year for this CEO to rebuild trust with the staff. The good news is that they noticed what was happening and worked to fix it.

8. Traffic jams – Pacing the system.

I used to live in Los Angeles, California where I commuted every workday on the famously clogged LA freeways. I learned a lot about driving in traffic,  because the smaller city I had moved from didn’t have 4-6 lane freeways to get from one place to another.

The most important lesson I learned was that traffic behaved like a non-linear dynamic system. Sometimes there would be a traffic jam, and after a while, it would open up and flow freely. I would look around to see if there was a reason for the slowdown, like a traffic accident, and most times there wasn’t any sign of what caused the slowdown to begin with. People’s driving habits made a difference with how smoothly the traffic would flow. Some would put their foot on the gas and speed up whenever there was an opening and as soon as it closed, they would apply their breaks. This start and stopping driving behavior tended to create traffic jams because every car behind them were impacted by the pattern of their behavior.

Over time, I learned the importance of leaving a little space between me and the car ahead and to pace my driving to the speed the traffic system was moving. This allowed me to start and stop less, creating less wear and tear on my car. This lesson also helped me notice that my organization moved at a pace and with different cycles over the course of a year. When I noticed and moved with the pace of the living system, leading change had less “starts and stops” and flowed with the system, not against it.

I hope you’ve  enjoyed reading about these metaphors for change!  I encourage all the leaders and other change agents out there to explore new metaphors to help you consider more and better ways to lead change in a living systems.