Where It All Started

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How We Got To This Point

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The Only Way Out

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An Historical Perspective

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The Future Of Organizational Change Management

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The Moral For Organizational Change Practitioners

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Disclaimer

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The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success Malcolm Gladwell included a chapter on ‘The Ethnic theory of Plane Crashes’. Gladwell dives deep into the investigations of plane crashes of Korean Air, Avianca and Florida Air and zeroes in on the cockpit transcripts.  Some time ago I had the chance to interview him on the importance of culture and communication inside cockpits.

Gladwell analysed the dialogues between the crew and traffic controllers and found that when we ignore culture, airplanes crash.

Deference and Demeanor

Let’s have a closer look at the dynamics of human interaction between a captain a first officer in a cockpit. Their relationship will follow the laws of deference and demeanor. Deference and demeanor are widespread sociological theories, developed by Erving Goffman in his essay ‘The Nature of Deference and Demeanor’. He defines demeanor as the way a person acts, and deference as the respect and/or reaction another person has to that behavior. In other words: deference and demeanor determine the face value that should be acknowledged in a certain situation.

Knowing that each situation determines the face-value that we can claim for ourselves, the relationship between a captain and a first officer should not contain any ambiguity, right? Yet, once they are up in the air the situation may change in such a way that they are confused about what they should acknowledge or claim.

Mitigated Speech

In their 1999 study Cultural Diversity and Crew Communication Fischer and Orasanu tried to identify effective communication strategies for calling attention to problems and getting action on them from other crew members who differ in rank, culture, and gender. One of the methods they used was to measure how they would correct different pilot errors in a particular situation. Both, pilots and first officers were given 6 classes of requests to choose from:

• Commands: “Turn 30° right”.
• Crew Obligation Statements: “I think we need to deviate right about now”.
• Crew Suggestions: “Let’s go around the weather”.
• Queries: “Which direction would you like to deviate?”
• Preferences: “I think it would be wise to turn left or right”.
• Hints: “That return at 25 miles looks mean”.

In Outliers, Gladwell refers to these categories as the 6 degrees of mitigation with which we make suggestions to authority. Mitigated speech is a linguistic term describing deferential or indirect speech inherent in communication between individuals of perceived High Power Distance. Gladwell describes the term as:

Any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said.

Fischer and Orasanu discovered that lower-ranking crew members are frequently unsuccessful in getting the attention of a higher status crew member or in getting senior crew members to change their decisions or actions in safety-critical situations. It’s no surprise that captains generally preferred commands while first officers predominantly used hints.

Their study underscores how difficult it is to overcome ingrained norms for interacting with superiors and subordinates.

PDI – Power Distance Index

To make things worse, the influence of national culture reinforces the dynamics of deference and demeanor in aviation communication. In this respect Gladwell refers to Geert Hofstede who built his cultural dimensions theory between 1967 and 1973. Hofstede gathered and analyzed extensive data on the world’s values and cultures and mapped them on six dimensions:

• Power (equality versus inequality),
• Collectivism (versus individualism),
• Uncertainty avoidance (versus tolerance),
• Masculinity (versus femininity),
• Temporal orientation, and
• Indulgence (versus restraint).

The first dimension, Power Distance Index (PDI) is an important one for captains, first officers and traffic controllers. PDI measures the extent to which the less powerful members of an organization accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. Countries with a low PDI prefer small power distance relationships and in high power distance countries less powerful people accept power relations that are autocratic and paternalistic.

It turns out that every attempt to reduce power-distance in the cockpit is highly influenced by the power-distance that is dictated by our national culture. The investigation of three particular transcripts of air plane crashes illustrate the devastating influence of national culture.

Avianca Flight 052

On January 25, 1990, an Avianca Boeing 707 crashed in Cove Neck, New York, as a result of fuel exhaustion. Avianca Flight 52, a B-707, was bound from Medellin, Colombia to New York, JFK. The flight experienced three extended holding patterns due to bad weather up the Atlantic coast and at JFK. The fuel state was becoming critical by the end of the third hold. The intracockpit conversations indicate a total breakdown in communications by the flight crew in its attempts to relay the situation to ATC (Air Trafic Control).

The captain, the first officer and the traffic controllers were perfectly trained and there was no mechanical failure. However, the Colombian co-pilot is using his own cultural language, i.e. speaking as a subordinate would to a superior. The air traffic controllers are not high PDI Colombian but low PDI New Yorkers. They don’t see any hierarchical gap between the pilots and themselves. When there is no single currency of communication to calibrate the two cultures, disasters can happen.

To a New York traffic controller deferential speech doesn’t mean that the pilot is being appropriately deferential to a superior; it means that the pilot doesn’t have a problem. Gladwell notes:

Our ability to succeed at what we do is powerfully bound up in where we are from. And being a good pilot and coming from a high power-distance culture is a difficult mix.

It turns out that ignoring the cultural differences got eight of the nine crew members and 65 of the 149 passengers on board killed.

Air Florida Flight 90

On January 13, 1982, the Boeing 737-200 flying Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River, killing all but four passengers and one flight attendant. This crash seems to be the result of ineffective mitigated speech of the first officer.

On multiple occasions he tries to hint, prefer, query and suggest to de-ice the wings of the airplane. All to no avail. The captain is not responding to his requests and the first officer is at the limits of appropriate deference for the given situation. The plane crashes at take-off.

Korean Air Flight 801

Korean Air Flight 801 crashed on August 6, 1997, on approach to Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport, Guam (a United States insular area). The aircraft crashed on Nimitz Hill in Asan, Guam while on approach to the airport.

This particular crash illustrates the negative reinforcement of a high PDI culture on cockpit communication. We can only understand what has been going on in that cockpit if we take into account the characteristics of this high PDI culture. Apparently our Western communication has a transmitter orientation, i.e.: it is considered the responsibility of the speaker to communicate the sense of his message unambiguously. If there is confusion it is considered the fault of the speaker.

However the Korean language – like most Asian languages – is receiver-oriented. It is up to the listener to make sense of what is being said. For example, Korean language has six degrees of formal address:

• formal deference,
• informal deference,
• blunt,
• familiar,
• intimate, and
• plain

This leads to very subtle communication and the co-pilots being at the limits of formal deference for the given situation. The high PDI culture of Korea has a multiplication effect compared to the Air Florida cockpit.

Language Is The Key

To solve this problem, Korean Air brought in David Greenberg, a retired Delta Air Lines vice president, to run its operations. Greenberg’s first rule was that English should be the language of aviation. Greenberg started with the airline’s flight crews. He introduced rigorous new training and testing standards, as well as some ”cockpit culture” changes for Korean Air’s 1,700 pilots. On the ground, he began basing promotions and transfers in the company’s ranks on merit rather than connections and friendships.

Declaring English as the formal cockpit language – even among Korean pilots who are sitting side by side – gave the pilots an alternate identity. That way the pilots could escape the roles that were dictated by the heavy weight of their country’s cultural legacy. Gladwell notes:

They needed an opportunity to step outside those roles when they sat in cockpit; and language was the key to that transformation.

In English they would be free of the six gradients of Korean language. This transformed their relationship to their work.

The Lesson for Us?

Galdwell’s study made it clear that deference, demeanor and culture should be addressed in order to make planes safer. But what about less life threatening situations like running a multi-billion project or running a multinational company? The way we address culture is always though stupid surveys and never though effective communication strategies. We’ve got work to do. I guess this is why I am diving to deep into the dynamics of human interaction.

Why Your Boss is Grumpy

In a new study, researchers at USC, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the Kellogg School of Management have found that individuals in roles that possess power but lack status have a tendency to engage in activities that demean others. According to the study, “The Destructive Nature of Power Without Status,” the combination of some authority and little perceived status can be a toxic combination.

Have a look at the correlation that was found between hierarchical power and status (image copied directly from the article):

The researchers predicted that when people have a role that gives them power but lacks status then it can lead to demeaning behaviors. In their own words:

“Put simply, it feels bad to be in a low-status position and the power that goes with that role gives them a way to take action on those negative feelings.”

Apparently this is one of the first studies that focuses on the relationship between power and status – two elements that have typically been looked at in isolation. To quote the researchers:

“The idea that power always corrupts may not be entirely true. Just because someone has power or, alternatively, is in a low status role does not mean they will mistreat others. Rather, power and status interact to produce effects that cannot be fully explained by studying only one or the other basis of hierarchy.”

To summarize, this may just be why you boss is so grumpy all day: feeling unimportant and unrespected in a powerful position. A hug may help – who knows?

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

So now you know why your poor boss is so grumpy – high in authority, but low in influence – it’s time to make that grin disappear from your face. The bad news is that things will only get worse with the rise of social media. My prediction is that the gap between influencers (high in status) who are low in rank (low in power) on the one hand, and command-and-control bosses (low in status and high in power) will get bigger. Have a look at the image below:

You may still think that social media are only changing the marketing and sales part of our organizations, but it goes deeper than that. People have acquired a new form of literacy called online collaboration and the relationships and bonding that happens in so-called communities is tribal (based on co-creation), rather than hierarchical (based on compliance). This is what is currently being played out in an organizational context and it defines the tension between the so-called gen X, gen Y and the gen ‘what-have-you’s.

Connecting Some Dots

Reading through these studies and jumping to premature conclusions as I did in the drawing above is an excellent way for me to connect some dots. If – as a reader – you have gotten this far, you may want to check out the three following links. The point is that middle management will be the first who will suffer from this clash. Of all functions in an organization theirs is the most structured, defined and driven by command-and-control.

Organizations who are to make the best of it in the face of this clash between influence and authority should be thinking about a new form of organizing called Social Architecture, and a new form of recognition called Social Validation.

If you put fences around people, you will get sheep.
- William L. McKnight

I Used to be a Sheep

Last week Cole Porter’s classic ‘Don’t Fence Me In‘ came to life as Jef Staes was making a case against the mindset of sheep herding in our society. His latest book ‘Ik was een schaap‘ (only available in Dutch) translates as ‘I Used to be a Sheep’. It’s a manifesto against sheep herding in education, organizations and society. (Note: Jef is a guest author on this blog and his thoughts on how organizations can find a new balance are described in his Switch 3D article and in his Sheep Drama article – an early version of his new book if you will.)

Sheep herding is something we inherit from the Industrial Revolution. That is when work got organized: people came together in the same physical environment and labor got split up into its different components.

The way we run our companies and projects today was inspired by the logic of a 120 years old Scientific Management. Command-and-control was the slogan that would create economic growth. And it did. Without any doubt, our economy, our society and our well-being would not have progressed to the current levels of prosperity without compliance and obedience.

In fact, the compliance to strict rules and procedures was the shortest path to productivity. Without any doubt, carrot-and-stick leadership is the best way to get things done in a predictable economy based on scarcity and competition.

Fences

In an earlier article I explained how Jef challenged me to rethink the use of SMART goals. We came to the awkward conclusion that rather than fueling or accelerating their performance, SMART goals are numbing very bit of initiative and creativity out of people. Rather than empowering people, with SMART goals I am putting a fence around them. I’m domesticating them with function descriptions and herding them within the fences of the status quo. As you can guess: that fence an illusion of security that makes people stop thinking.

But now a shift is happening: the amount of information is overwhelming and most people, teams and companies are paralyzed by the flood of information. The result for SMART corporate decision-making is painstaking: as a central commander you need to process even more information faster. No matter how hard you try, you will always be too late in this new information-driven economy.

Turns out that when we have the courage to think about the consequences for education, organizations and society, that we bump into very radical ideas. That is because the difference between ‘how we are organized’ and ‘what we are up against’ is too big. Jef concludes that there are three radical changes we should be tackling in order to become future-proof: three fences to get rid of.

Fence #1: Degrees

First, we need to deal with the fact that our education system is shaped according to the factories of 120 years ago. Education is functionally organized and we are educating people like a factory is producing batches. Everybody needs to comply to the same standards and we eradicate all deviations. Next, education delivers standardized ‘human’ (or whatever is left of that) resources.

In that sense, a degree is a piece of paper that certifies that all creativity and deviation has been educated out of you. Sir Ken Robinson refers to this as the crisis of human resources. Robinson claims our education has dislocated us from our natural talents. Most talents are like real natural resources: they are buried deep. And education as we know it is designed to flatten out the individuality of our talent.

Education needs a revolution because more and more it becomes clear that we are preparing our children for the world of tomorrow with an education system that is shaped according to what the world looked like yesterday. Degrees do not represent the talent or the passion that is inside of us, but still we trick ourselves into believing that degrees are meaningful. Those days are over.

Fence #2: Function Descriptions

The next thing you know is that you get hired because your degree matches a function description. This is a second fence and this one is based on the premise that all work can be standardized and that functions are the best way to make use of people’s talents in an organizational setting.

Here is how that typically goes when it is time for a performance appraisal:

• Let’s not waste any time on the stuff that went well;
• Let’s focus on your weaknesses – although that’s not where your strengths are;
• Let’s make a plan on how you can bridge that gap;
• You are subscribed for that training – and of course you do average;

Worst of all: companies invest tons of money in order to automate this mechanism and then call it ‘learning solution’ or ‘learning management systems’. Let’s be honest: learning has nothing to do with it.

If we want to cope with the challenges of today’s economy we need roles instead of functions. Roles that are tied together in a social architecture ensure that the right talents are exposed to the challenges at hand.

Fence #3: Retirement

Worst of all: after a lifetime of conformity and working on your weaknesses, society decides that you can be scrap-heaped. Your talents and your passions no longer mean anything to society because you are no longer performing in that function. This is the third fence.

Although older workers can be bursting with talent and have the willingness to share and learn, our society is shaping different expectations. Retirement happens because people have become too expensive and dispensable. There are dispensable because we have been focusing on their weaknesses and all that time we could have developed their talents.

If Not a Fence, Then What?

Building consciousness for the fences that we let ourselves herd into is a first step to prepare us for the world as it is today. Jef’s new book is a wake-up call that will make us look into a new direction. Jef concludes that:

• Schools of tomorrow become meeting places where learning is based on what you can get out of people – not on what you can put in.
• Career development is not longer based on functions but on roles and social validation.
• The retirement fence can only be abandoned when we abandon degrees and functions.

Stuff to think about!

In the below One Minute Interview features Clo Willaerts, the author of the book The Conversity Model, as she explains how social media are changing the way we do business. According to her, social media will cause fundamental changes to business because of a unstopable movement: the outside world is coming in.

The Typical Journey

For most companies it starts with following (monitoring) what people are saying about their products online. This is a way of listening and picking up the cues of your audience. This is when companies start to pick up feedback, stories and ideas from real people who are purchasing and using their products.

In a next step, these companies may be on the outlook of the need or desire of their potential customers. For instance, a car seller will shift the monitoring focus from the brand (“look at me, me, me!”) to conversations about stuff people do prior to purchasing a car (in other words: “look at you!”)

As they dig deeper into the conversations, the listening shifts from passive to active. And if they are really good, they shift from sales pitching to real authentic conversations. Before you know it, these companies have changed their way of working, created new roles (note: I did not say ‘new hierarchical functions’ or ‘new department’).

Finally, companies start crafting a social media strategy, deciding on centralization or decentralization of these new roles, recruiting the right people inside the company (note: I did say ‘inside’). Home Depot is a good example of a company that is traveling this road. They are using social media to get their customer service to the next level. Needles to say: this is a huge change.

What This Means for Organizations

When Willaerts declares that social media will change business completely she may be overstating some facts, but as long as the dust hasn’t settled, there is no way we can tell. Earlier I have cast some predictions on what this means for middle managers: their role will shift completely from a “tool for compliance” into a “partner for co-creation”.

Social media are maturing from a ‘danger to productivity’ towards ‘tools for productivity’. Yammer is a good example of that. People are quickly adapting to a new form of literacy by collaborating and sharing information via Facebook and other platforms. As a consequence, the scarcity value of information is close to zero. The laws of gravity for information have shifted: it is the extent to which information is shared and tagged with meaning that determines its value (not the amount you keep to yourself).

What This Means for Organizational Change Practitioners

What does this mean for organizational change practitioners? From my point of view, our profession is practiced though 4 work-streams, they are: communication, learning, organization and performance; each of them addressing  a basic need of people confronted with a change.

Now here is the thing: when social media are changing the laws of gravity for business, there is no way  organizational change practitioners can stand aside and pretend that their methods and tools should not be reviewed. What’s more: social media are specifically affecting the core of our business. In other words: the streams remain the same, but the focus needs a radical change. In my opinion, this is how social media is requiring the focus of each of the change management work-streams to shift:

WORK-STREAM >> FROM >> TO

• Communication >> message & audience >> story & community
• Learning >> content & collection >> context & connection
• Organization >> hierarchy & positions >> social architecture & roles
• Performance >> control & compliance >> trust & co-creation

The only way to make this shift happen is by declaring and installing a social architecture, i.e.: a platform on top of your hierarchy that allows for co-creation. In my opinion, this is the new role of organizational change practitioners: building platforms where compliance and co-creation can meet.

First Things First

If you are an organizational change practitioner and you are still labelling social media as a hype, I would like to encourage you to seriously reconsider your point of view. To be honest, I was skeptic too in the beginning – and I still am.

Finally, a few more words about the book. As I am not a digital native I have been actively searching for the best books in town to help me around. I have been particularly lucky to come across Chris Brogan & Julien Smith’s Trust Agents. Their book is packed with welcome advice for beginners in social media, but also for people who are ready to take the next step, i.e.: to become a platform of whatever they are good at.

In my opinion, Clo Willaerts’ book The Conversity Model is a complement to Trust Agents; a ‘field guide’ if you will. She has done her homework; using, analyzing and categorizing the social media and social networks that are available for all of us today. So if you are still searching for a starters’ kit on social media, my advice would be to purchase the pack: Trust Agents and the Conversity Model.

Note: the book links I mention are Amazon Associate links.

What You See

When I ask customers to give an overview of the way things are done in their organization, they typically end up showing me their organization chart. Instantly, the most logical question to ask seems to be: ‘Which position is most important in order to get things done over here?‘

There are three types of answers:

1. The CEO: those who favor this position as ‘most important’ tell me that this is the person who has the authority to get things done and who carries the vision to inspire the troops;
2. The frontline people at the bottom of the organization chart: the argument here is that you can change all you want, but if these people are not committing to your goals you might as well forget it;
3. Middle Management: logically, if they are unable to get it all organized, the initiative will fail big time.

So there you are: three different answers, all alike in justification.

What You Get

The truth is that there is no telling which position on an organization chart is most important in order to get things done. That is because the question is a trick question. The real question is: ’Without looking at that chart, what are the ingredients for success?’.

Last week I had the chance to ask that question to a manager of an organization with a lot of sites on different geographic locations. From his experience, the most successful projects in the history of his organization were those where the project manager could gather a team of competent and complementary talents who were working in a relationship of trust. The most important part is that these teams constantly kept in touch with the hierarchy.

This means that the most important part of the organization chart is not the positions (‘the boxes’) or the reporting lines. It is the white space between them.

What this manager was telling me is something we all know from our intuition: it is not the number of degrees of a project manager that determines the success of a project. Rather, it is the extent to which this person is able to recruit a network of people from the hierarchy and put them in a social fabric that fosters a community for co-creation.

In other words: successful project managers are social architects. They provide a platform on top of the hierarchy, allowing the community of ambassadors to realize the objectives of the project. So here is an alternative definition of a social architect:

A Social Architect is someone who makes conscious use of the white space on an organization chart.

Stay tuned , for this is not the last word on this subject.

According to Priebatsch, last decade was the decade of the social fabric, where “the framework in which we connect with other people” was built. This decade is the one where the gaming framework will be built.

He continues by saying that the first version of this game layer already exists. There are already games like loyalty schemes and airline mile programs. The only problem is that they are boring.

Four Gaming Dynamics

Seth’s mission is to improve the game layer on top of the world. He shares 4 dynamics that are essential for the gaming fabric of our society.

Appointment dynamic: a dynamic in which to success, one must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action. The dynamic of a ‘happy hour’ is a good example of the appointment dynamic because it influences our behavior and our entire culture by ‘being somewhere at the right time. A more recent example is Farmville (which has more active users than Twitter!!) where the crop cycles influence when people log on.

‘So far so good’ you may think… but what about inducing this same behavioral dynamic into healthcare, where products like GlowCaps improve medication adherence through reminders, social feedback, financial incentives and automatic refills. According to Priebatsch:

This is not a game yet. They should get points for doing this on time. You should lose points for not doing this on time. They should recognize that they have built an appointment dynamic and then consciously leverage the game.

Influence and status: the ability of one player to modify the behavior of another’s actions through social pressure. Examples include the status color of your credit card; the recognition you get on your profile on World  of Warcraft.

It can also be used consciously in more conventional settings, like grades at school. It’s just not well designed because we are not designing the dynamic consciously.

Progression dynamic: a dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process. You need to move through different steps. A good example is the completeness of your profile on LinkedIn, where we want to reach the 100%.

Communal Discovery: a dynamic wherein an entire community is rallied to work together to solve a challenge. A good example is Digg, where good stories and good news is promoted.

An Example: Foursquare

Foursquare is another example, combining different dynamics: that of status and progression. It is a ‘checking in’ system that enables you to tell your friends exactly where you are in the world using a GPS from your phone.

With a game-like feel you unlock badges and earn points each time you check in somewhere. Very addictive. You can even become the ‘mayor’ of somewhere when you check in enough times. You can also make recommendations about the places you are, like recommending a dish in a restaurant. Your tip will be visible to others as they check in this place.

Fourquare creates a game layer on top of the geographic reality. You can go to a restaurant in the real world for a fine dining experience.

With Foursquare you can add a game layer to that experience: outset the mayor of that restaurant on Foursquare, check what other visitors tell about the food and the service and even see if anyone in your network is there at the same time.

Upgrading Organizational Change Management

In recent years the literature on organizational change management has started to include insights on how to shape an environment, a project or any initiative in order to achieve successful behavior change.

In their 2009 book Nudge Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Thaler & Sunstein made the case for choice architecture. Their premise is that the context in which you make a decision always shapes your choices. In their own words:

A nudge…is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding options or significantly changing their economic incentives.

In the same way as Priebatsch is promoting a conscious use of the dynamics that construct the gaming dynamic, Thaler & Sunstein tell us to set up choices in a way that takes advantage of how humans make decisions.

Another recent best-seller in our field is Switch, written by the Heath brothers. The authors use the analogy of an elephant and its rider. The rider represents the rational and logical. The Elephant, on the other hand, represents our emotions, our gut response. This complete book is built up around the phases of influencing behavior: Direct the rider, Motivate the elephant and shape the path.

I think the insights of Seth Priebatsch represent an upgrade and in some ways offer a more conscious way to fine-tune the steps of this method.

A final example worth noting is Brain Wansink’s research on Mindless Eating. The point here is that dinner control starts with plate control. And you often have more tools available than you think: small tweaks to the environment that yield big results.

The question here could be: how can we introduce the above dynamics into the management of eating behavior?

The Moral

Organizational Change Management is always in search of instruments to navigate the behavior of a target audience. The new literature has been giving us good guidance on how to consciously do that.

But in the mean time the world has changed. The internet has upgraded the social fabric of our society, and now we are in the middle of upgrading the gaming fabric of our society.

The invitation for us is to grab the opportunity and to make conscious use of the fact that our employees are already using Facebook, Wikipedia, instant messaging, and many other technologies. Then – and only then – can we empower them to leverage them to the benefit of our companies.

This requires us to go beyond sanctioning social networking and encourage and empower employees to become proactive problem solvers. “Shaping the path” needs an upgrade as we are adding a game layer. Let’s not hold it off any longer.

1. It’s about Balance

The one thing you need to know about social architecture is that it not something replacing hierarchy. Social architecture is a balance between a control-based hierarchy and a trust-based network of communities.

Make no mistake about it: communities are not replacing hierarchy. We still need hierarchy and control to get things done. The only difference with the old days is that control will only get you half-way. The Industrial Revolution is over.

Today, getting things done requires an extra layer on top of hierarchy. This is the layer of communities, tribes, movements, problems and solutions. Each of these communities want to be hosted. And you need those communities to get results in today’s economy.

2. Don’t start a Community

It’s tempting to think that you need to create a community for the thing you want to kick-off. Here’s the secret: you don’t. That community already exists.

Here’s a hint: communities typically gather around business processes and solutions that are transversal. A hierarchy with silos can’t cater for that.

So instead of creating the community you should be ‘listening for’ the community. Chances are that it is right there below your feet and that you’ve been standing on it all the time.

Search for the business process owners or other people that have been fighting for a good cause without a hierarchy to back them up.

Recently the use of the term ‘Burning Platform’ is under fire because it implicitly refers to the active use of panic. For almost than 20 years practitioners have believed that ‘creating a burning platform’ is about the use of fear in order to create the sense of urgency.

About Commitment, Not Fear

Turns out that this is a misunderstanding. It is more about commitment and courage than it is about creating panic and fear. Have a look at the first part of this interview.

About Sustaining, Not Initiating

It is not about creating or exploiting a negative situation. Rather, it is about the level of commitment that is needed to get through a change. The burning platform does not refer to the energy that is needed to initiate change but to the commitment that is needed to sustain the change.

Daryl Conner mentions the term ‘Business Imperative’: the thing that moves from organizational commitment to personal promise. This is what a business imperative is all about: the willingness to pay the emotional price of committing without being sure of succeeding. Have a look at the second part of the interview.

What this means for Organizational Change Practitioners

His final advice is to treat the burning platform as exclusive. And the only way to do so is to be clear on our own intentions as an organizational change practitioner. Our role is to help our clients to make an informed decision.

When the world changes, the rules change. And if you insist on playing today’s games by yesterday’s rules, you’re stuck. Hence, this manifasto. Let’s get out of the analysis paralysis and focus on what we leave behind at the end of a project. The thing that teaches people how to fish so they can eat forever.

The new Organizational Change Management is called Social Architecture.