These are the slides from my Learning Performance Institute's Fellows Day talk exploring why calls for change do not work. The message, of course, is that change can work and that we need to be more strategic about implementing those changes. Meagre talk is not enough.

1. WHY CALLS FOR
CHANGE DON’T WORK
- A challenge by @NeilDenny

2. Change in
2014?
First a look
back at 2013

3. NEVER
GOT
GOING
SIMPLY
STALLED

4. Never got going
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Black hole debates that crush ideas
Deferential to existing authority or practices
Inbuilt structures ensure inertia
Committees/`Sign off’/Evidence based
Reactive devaluation
Change is not your responsibility
Overwhelm

5. Never got going
•
•
•
•
•
“Everything we need is right here.”
Ostracise innovators
Inexperience/Past failures/Non compliance
Defensiveness
Invalidate criticism – “Okay, so what is the
answer then?”
• Stories and scars – institutionalised and
individual

6. The change simulacrum
sim-u-la-crum n
Something that replaces
reality with its representation

7. The change simulacrum
Con-fer-ence-s q.

8. Stalled
•
•
•
•
Ground down by the grind
The flight to health
Re-assimilation – “It’s not so different.”
The Ghettoed Innovation – “What? That?
Oh, that’s Neil’s thing.”
• Premature resolution – “What it is, right…”

9. Stalled
• Previously granted authority is withdrawn or
becomes ambiguous or illusory
• We are trying to implement change at wrong
level – individual, team or organisation
• Sabotage – intentional and unintentional
• Obfuscation inc Recurrent objections
• Failure to acknowledge interests and loss

10. Condemning criticism

11. Condemning criticism

12. We condone
mediocrity and
make excuses for
each other’s noncompliance

13. While a majority of
firms will vote to
proclaim standards,
they will usually not
vote
to enforce them
David Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker

14. Case
study?

15. d
i
s
t
r
e
s
s
time
Adapted from Ronald Heifetz’ The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

16. d
i
s
t
r
e
s
s
X
time
Adapted from Ronald Heifetz’ The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

17. d
i
s
t
r
e
s
s
X
time
Adapted from Ronald Heifetz’ The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

18. d
i
s
t
r
e
s
s
X
Alleviate distress
• Refer to authority
• Quick fix – technical solution
• Work avoidance including
• scapegoating
• minimising challenge
• flight to health
• proxy conflicts
time
Adapted from Ronald Heifetz’ The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

19. d
i
s
t
r
e
s
s
X
Maintain productive
levels of distress
time
Adapted from Ronald Heifetz’ The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

20. d
i
s
t
r
e
s
s
X
time
Adapted from Ronald Heifetz’ The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

21. d
i
s
t
r
e
s
s
X
time
Adapted from Ronald Heifetz’ The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

22. Change to survive
Change to thrive
Technical
Adaptive
Preserve status quo
Ongoing disruption
Responsibility is deferred
to others through
granting of authority
Change as little as
possible
Responsibility is handed
back to the constituents
themselves
“Move fast and break
things” -Mark Zuckerberg
Rinse. Repeat.

23. Change competencies?
Make difficult questions the habit
-to ask and to be asked!
•
•
•
•
Stretches tolerance for distress
Leads us into conflicted spaces
Disrupts aversion tactics
Redistributes responsibility back to
constituents

24. Change competencies?
• Encourage dissenting voices – “The canaries in
the coalmine” (Ronald Heifetz)
• Put the freaks up front – learn to love your
mavericks
• Shift from individualistic to systemic thinking
• Reflective practice

25. 3 ideas
• Embrace `Not knowing’ as a fertile playground
• Deliberately search out complexity and
resistance
• Develop iterative change processes
OBSERVE
EXPERIMENT
INTERPRET

26. www.theleagueofnotknowing.com

27. Neil doesn’t
pretend to
have all the
answers (or
any of them
necessarily)
He challenges
me to be
more creative
and take
greater risks
with my own
vulnerabilities
t: 07815 727693
e: neildenny@allLD.co.uk
Twitter @neildenny
www.allLD.co.uk