The Problem with Change: And the Essential Nature of Human Performance
Ashley Goodall
Little, Brown Spark (May 2024)
“If you’ve always done it that way, it’s probably wrong.” Charles Kettering
In his classic book, Leading Change, James O’Toole suggests that the greatest resistance to change tends to be cultural in nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.” Reasons vary, of course, depending on the given circumstances. However, the fact remains that most change initiatives fail or fall far short of original expectations.
Doing business the same way year after year illustrates the power of “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.” It is also true that gratuitous change (“flavor of the month”) and change for the sake of change can also result in very serious problems. As Peter Drucker correctly suggests,
In The Problem with Change, Ashley Goodall observes, “In the pages that follow, we will explore some of the history that has led to the idea that disruption is both really good and really essential. We will learn about why change has the effect that it does on the human animal and why it can be so profoundly disorienting for us. We will ask ourselves what our continued willingness to shake things up, in organizations big and small, implies about of a human at work. And then we will examine what we can do instead: what we can do to bring a greater sense of stability in our workplaces and our teams, and how we might mitigate the unwanted effects of disruptive challenge or else give ourselves a firmer foundation from which to face into them.”
These are among the passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to indicate the nature and extent of Goodall’s coverage:
o Swimming laps in the “blender” (Pages 6-8, 13-14, 17-19, and 90-91)
o The problem of uncertainty (31-37)
o The problem of unbelonging (47-57)
o The problem of lack of control (38-46)
o The problem of displacement (58-66)
o The problem of loss of meaning (67-77)
o Make space (106-110)
o The benefits of chwck-ins (114-118)
o “The Hollywood Handshake” 133-141)
o Share secrets (142-144 and 148-152)
o A company’s Values (145-148 and 167-169)
o A company’s “pretrained semantic network word embedding library” (154-159 and 161-164)
o Speak real words (166-181)
o Rituals at work (195-201)
o Focus on teams and teamwork (204-207)
o The social component of teams (210-211)
o Creating a sense of purpose and meaning (213-218)
o Radicalizing HR (222-227 and 244-246)
o Differences between and among overlapping circles of influence (227-233 and 236-240)
o Pave the way (241–248)
So, what’s the problem with change? I agree with Goodall that change solely for the sake of change almost always creates more problems than it solves (if indeed it solves any), and, that wide and deep support of change initiatives depends on having a stable workplace culture within mutual respect and trust thrive.
Consider this passage from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching:
“Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves.”
This is precisely what Goodall has in mind when sharing his final thoughts about leading change in a business world that is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can recall: Despite “what our leaders may sometgimes appear to think, ourvhealth and ourvgrowth cannot be ordained, or commanded. If we pull on the seedlings like the Chinerse farmer of yore [to see how well they are growing], then we destroy their roots, and what results is not growth but withering. So the duty of any of those who care about making stronger workplaces, and stronger families — to understand and create the conditions for human flourushing — and then to step back and let the humans do the flourishing.”
I congratulate Ashley Goodall on The Problem with Change. It is a brilliant achievement. Bravo!
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Here are two suggestions while reading The Problem with Change: First, highlight key passages. Also, perhaps in a lined notebook kept near-at- hand, record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references, and lessons you have learned as well as your responses to key points posed within the narrative. Also record your responses to specific or major issues or questions addressed, especially at the conclusion of chapters.
These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.
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Ashley Goodall is a leadership expert who has spent his career exploring large organizations from the inside, most recently as an executive at Cisco. He is the co-author of Nine Lies About Work, which was selected as the best management book of 2019 by Strategy + Business and as one of Amazon’s best business and leadership books of 2019. Prior to Cisco, he spent fourteen years at Deloitte as a consultant and as the Chief Learning Officer for Leadership and Professional development. His book, The Problem with Change, was published on May 7th.