Change is the one constant in the world of business. In today’s interconnected, global economy, the rate of change has never been higher and while there are a host of frameworks available to help you get started, there is one fundamental truth about managing change. It’s complex.
This concept of complexity was first introduced to me by Rick Nason, a Professor of Enterprise Risk Management at Dalhousie University and author of the book, It’s Not Complicated: The Art and Science of Complexity in Business.
He explains the concept of complexity as follows:
A complex system is like raising a teenager, which seems to involve a random series of events with no set of rules, best practices, or recipes to follow. Raising two teenagers simultaneously in seemingly the exact same way can lead to very different results. Each teenager is unique in how he or she responds to various events and attempts at control; furthermore, their responses appear to change randomly over time. Raising teenagers can be a frustrating experience for a parent. (Teenagers generally seem to be unappreciative of the process as well.) The best that a parent can do is to set a few broad principles for behavior and deal with each unique situation as it arises, recognizing that each teenager is an ever-changing mix of emotions and desires.
It’s Not Complicated: The Art and Science of Complexity in Business by Rick Nason
This is in direct comparison to simple and complicated systems.
A simple system is like cooking, you have a recipe or instructions to follow and there is a large margin of error; adding too much sauce often doesn’t make your pasta inedible. Conversely, in a complicated system, the instructions must be followed exactly to generate the desired outcome, such as getting an astronaut to the moon and back.
Managing change has traditionally and continues to rely on static frameworks which are more akin to managing complicated problems. However, we can’t forget that managing change, at it’s core, involves people and since people are complex, change management must also be complex.
Managing change is not about applying the right framework. It requires more flexibility and dynamism than that in order to manage the complexities effectively.
We must remain attentive and receptive to how the organization, employees and customers are reacting to the change over time, from the first awareness message to implementation and beyond.
Reactions to a change vary by individual and these reactions evolve over time which is what makes managing change so complex and why a static framework will never yield the desired outcomes.
This is not to say that the frameworks available today are not valuable, I use elements of them in my practice today. However, relying on any framework as anything more than a starting point can have disastrous consequences.
What’s more important in managing change is your mindset. If you approach change with a “test & learn” mindset and an understanding that change is complex, you can often avoid some of the common missteps that plague change initiatives today.
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