Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?

by Aaron Dignan

THE FOLLY OF THE CHANGE PLAN In the popular approach to change, the one you know and have probably experienced, we imagine the future we want and then we attempt to close the gap between how things are and how they should be. Because we are oriented around a specific vision of the future, we tend to view change as finite. It’s a journey from point A to point B, with a beginning, middle, and end. Once we achieve that goal, we are done. To that end, we manage change in a linear fashion, with a project plan, time line, milestones, and all the trappings of a controlled and ordered process. This is a compelling but ultimately incoherent theory of change. It’s compelling because it reflects what we want to believe about the world and our power to change it. Don’t forget, we’re carrying a hundred years of Taylorism around with us and the wiring is deep. Our entire career, we have been trained and drilled on the importance of planning, control, and finding the one best way. We want to do change by the book.