With no end to churn in sight, it makes sense to learn how to respond to change at the pace the world is demanding. Let’s look at how to continue to grow the capabilities needed to lead complex, continuous change over time.
Where does one go to learn these capabilities? Perhaps to Apple, Google, Facebook, or IDEO. Or maybe to the Design Thinking program at Stanford. Or to Rita McGrath’s, Kathleen Eisenhardt’s, Ian McMillan’s, or Paul Schoemaker’s strategy classes. If these options aren’t available to you, you’ll do what you have always done: Learn through experience. The Center for Creative Leadership’s research into how leaders learn has produced consistent results the world over. When faced with a learning challenge, 70 percent of what people learn is learned on the job. Twenty percent is learned through mentors, coaches, and peers. Ten percent is learned through classroom education. This tells us is that if we want to become futurist leaders of complex, continuous change, we have to throw ourselves into opportunities to do just that. It helps if we have instruction, so we aren’t learning the wrong lessons from our experience. It also helps if there are others around us to provide guidance, support, and feedback. In the end though, we’ll learn most of what we need to know from the school of hard knocks. But wait—is it just a matter of trial and error?
In his intriguing book, “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell helps us understand that the best performers in their fields are not born that way; they practice their way into it. In fact, he cites research that finds that 10,000 hours of practice seems to be the tipping point between someone who is very, very good at something and someone who is a true genius. This presumes a lot of things—that the person has an aptitude for the work; that they continue to learn and improve rather than repeating the same performance over and over 10,000 times; and that they are fortunate in having the support and resources that enable them to engage in such a focused activity as they progress from amateur to expert. Without proper coaching and mentoring (the “20 percent” in CCL’s 70-20-10 model), we can learn the wrong things and repeat them over and over again. A frequently used example is improving your golf swing. Spending endless hours on the practice range adds little improvement without professional instruction to correct mistakes. If you have a coach or mentor who understands how to lead complex, continuous change, take advantage of their support.
Fortunately, there are endless opportunities to practice. Also good to remember is that we will improve along the way, so that our organizations will benefit from our learning even if we haven’t yet become “outliers.” It is still a great advantage, from our organization’s point of view, that we are avoiding more and more mistakes over time rather than making the same mistakes over and over again.
With regard to leading complex, continuous change, if I’m interested in learning so I can increase my success, I need to ask myself the following questions:
- What is my current approach to leading complex, continuous change?
- How well is it working?
- What would account for the level of success I am achieving?
- Based on this, what should I do differently?
My rate of progress in learning how to lead complex, continuous change, like anything else I would like to learn, is determined by several factors. First, are there consequences—does the learning matter? Are there ramifications if I lead change poorly or rewards if I improve? Second, how committed am I? Do I combine intention with attention to put time and energy into learning? Third, do I demonstrate perseverance? Do I remain committed in the face of setbacks? Fourth, am I surrounded and supported by my social network? Do they encourage me to learn rather than ridicule me for trying? Finally, do I have the opportunity to learn? Am able to take advantage of opportunities to learn that are moderately challenging? Am I given the authority and resources I need to act in these situations? Is it acceptable to learn from failure?
Breakthroughs in learning are usually the result of readiness coming together with opportunity. We find it difficult to perform at a higher level unless we already have learned the skills required to do so. Once we have prepared ourselves, we need the opportunity (sometimes multiple opportunities) to put our new skills to the test. If we achieve success, our learning is reinforced; we experience a breakthrough.
So let’s review. We are faced with the challenge of becoming better at leading complex, continuous change. We have recognized that our current way of responding to this kind of change isn’t working very well. We’re overwhelmed with projects, and many of them are not producing results. We need a better way of doing things. There are consequences for failing to improve. We are motivated to learn.
To learn, we need support, opportunity, resources, and aptitude. Moreover, we need to be willing to stick with learning through some setbacks and failures until we achieve a breakthrough in our ability. It can take some time before we see benefits that reinforce our decision to learn.
Creating the conditions for learning to lead complex, continuous change can be quite challenging. In the face of demands to respond to issues that are constantly emerging, we find it difficult to take time to step back, reflect, and learn. Yet, we have a clear choice, whether we are aware of it or not: to continue on as we always have, or to invest in learning.
When few others have tried something that’s new, we are reluctant to invest time and energy in exploring it. Better that we stay with what we know until some better way is well-proven. Leaders in organizations who face slower-moving competitive environments may be able to ignore learning opportunities for a while longer. Those of you on the edge of chaos need to be learning now.
Excerpt from “Leading Continuous Change: Navigating Churn in the Real World” by Bill Pasmore, Ph.D. (Berrett-Koehler, 2015). For more information, visit: http://solutions.ccl.org/Leading-Continuous-Change-Navigating-Churn-in-the-Real-World?_ga=1.91053081.2030242334.1430144362.
Bill Pasmore, Ph.D., is senior vice president and global organizational practice leader at the Center for Creative Leadership, a global provider of leadership education. He is also a professor of practice of Organization and Leadership at Columbia University and was formerly a partner at Oliver Wyman Delta Consulting, part of the MMC Corporation. He is a consultant to CEOs of global Fortune 1000 firms on change, leadership, senior teams, and organization design and is a frequent speaker at corporate events and conferences.
