Facing Change in a 
Multidimensional World

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” 
Martin Luther King

“No one can force change on anyone else.  It has to be experienced.  Unless we invent ways where the paradigm shifts can be experienced by large numbers of people, then change will remain a myth.”
Eric Trist

“The central political task . . . is the creation of a new model for coexistence among the various cultures, peoples, races and religious spheres within a single, interconnected civilization.”
Vaclav Havel

“Think of organizational data as a wave, moving through space developing more and more potential explanations.  If this wave meets up with one observer, it will collapse into one interpretation.   All other potentialities are lost by that act of observation.  An organization swimming in many interpretations can discuss, combine, and build on them.   The outcome has to be a much richer sense of what needs to be done.  The more participants we engage in this perspective universe, the wiser we become.”  
Margaret Wheatley

Today, as always, we face change, often in spite of ourselves and our organizations.  Change is the essence of life.  Without it we die.  Change is the process of becoming more than we are, of incorporating differences to enrich ourselves and our organizations.    Change occurs as we recognize and include our connections to larger systems, to the common elements on which we can move forward.   Such growth threatens previous self-understandings that limit our abilities to deal with difference.  

From science, organization theory and psychology we find similar lessons.    As organisms grow they become more differentiated with increasing ability to deal with diverse environments or they multiply the size of their present dysfunctionality to the point of death, like a cancer.   Likewise organizations and people that enlarge their perspectives are able to function more effectively over the longer term as they exhibit flexibility and diversity in their responses to the challenges facing them or they become increasingly enmeshed in their own monolithic growth until they can no longer viably function.  Thus finding ways to incorporate and affirm diverse perspectives within our own enhances our health and our ability to act in a clear and wholesome way for our own good and for the common good.  

Everything in nature has its own interiority, from the universe to an individual organism to the tiniest particle of energy.  Each part from the largest to the smallest has an interior drive, a logic that gives it a unique integrity while at the same time produces a relationship to every other part.   As various parts combine, they retain the integrity of the individual parts but acquire a new identity from the whole.  Everything is related to everything else but everything is not the same.   Each system becomes part of a larger system but remains a unique system on its own. The interiority functions in the midst of wide diversity and the community of all parts. 

Likewise humans, organizations and societies have their own interiority, diversity and community.   Each person retains a self-defining identity that is separate and at the same time part of every larger identity.   As we recognize and include ever larger communities within our sphere of identity, we expand our abilities to relate and to act in ways that enhance our possibility to continue a healthy life.    As we ignore, consciously exclude or unintentionally deny different attitudes, perspectives and approaches, we diminish our creative capital and limit our opportunity to address common issues with effective approaches.  We deny the rich diversity that creates vibrant and healthy communities.

Through many years of life as an activist for social change, minister, academic, social investor and now consultant and small businessman, I have observed two different and opposing ways to deal with change in response to various issues and environments.  Some defining characteristics are delineated in the columns below.  The characteristics are often mixed in any one response and form a spectrum, with few organizations or people exhibiting all aspects of one column and none in the other.

What are the implications for organizational response?    Those organizations that exhibit the characteristics of the anticipative model will be the ones most likely to succeed in the long term and those that help build a world with the possibility of sustaining itself.

The practical aspects of implementing policies and practices that apply anticipative characteristics need to be designed to fit particular organizations.   Here are a few guidelines:

1) The more inclusive the governing structures (Boards, committees, advisory councils) and staff, the better they function in relationship to change.

2) The more participative a meeting, the more effective the outcome and the broader the ownership of the results.

3) The more diverse external relationships, the less possibility of external attack.

4) Every person is a valuable contributor.

5) Listening to individuals without judgment is a valuable skill to affirm their importance.

6) Everyone acts the best they know how to in any situation.

7) Everyone has different perceptions according to multiple factors (age, sex, ethnicity, culture, work, etc.) that are neither right nor wrong, good nor bad, but offer a rich tapestry and enhance the creative possibilities of any group.

8)  A group has the possibility of finding its own best course forward if given the opportunity to explore possibilities and alternatives with a diverse spectrum of stakeholders.

9) Ideas, perceptions and experiences are best represented to others by those who hold them, or speak for yourself and encourage others to do likewise.

10) Check your perceptions directly and assume nothing.

For continuing attention to anticipative thinking any group or institution–business, social, professional, environmental, religious– might consider establishing councils/panels/advisory groups that include diverse stakeholders and a cross section of leadership, members, and staff to address alternative futures in the rapidly changing world we face today. Often the momentum of tradition and previous institutional culture prevents a clear look at the possibilities for the future. Such councils can provide an ongoing way of establishing new relationships with people inside and outside an organization and operate to prevent the nearsighted agenda often found in groups that listen only to their own kind.  Inclusive councils, however, are no substitute for vibrant and dynamic dialogue and sustained relationships with communities the organization affects.

For an initial boost to energize the process another approach is to sponsor a future search, a three-day conference seeking common ground for action. A Future Search conference brings together the whole system in a room with a global context for local action.   It is a participant driven process that has achieved wide success in a variety of cultural and organizational settings including business, local communities, government, religious groups, and educational institutions.   The quotes at the beginning of this article are found in the book that describes the process: Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities , second edition,  Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff (Berrett-Kohler 2000). The website is www.futuresearch.net.

Whatever the process chosen to deal with it, change will occur.    We have a choice to anticipate and participate in it toward a future we choose or to ignore it, consciously or unconsciously, and have the change overtake us creating its own dynamics and choosing for us.

 May 31, 2001

Return to Top     Reflections    Process