Imagining a better world

By Brian Byrne     24th Oct 2019  

As I read through the Sunday papers, there was one train of thought that was consistent about Irelands mauling at the hands of New Zealand the previous day. We hadn’t evolved our gameplan. We stuck to the tried and tested methods that helped the team reach the highs of 2018—a Grand Slam, a series win in Australia and beating the All Blacks. Some of the headlines included words like Predictable. Ineffective. Risk-Averse. Unambitious. Reductive. A pretty damning indictment in any walk of life.

When you have success with one methodology, it’s tempting to keep using it. But its a strategy doomed to fail. Let’s be honest if you do the same thing, the same way, over and over again, no matter how successful, a malaise will set in. There’s no challenge. Standards drop and targets aren’t met. Couple that with your competitors evolving their methods and all of a sudden, you’re not so bloody successful any more!

For many organisations, change of any kind is hard to take. Learning something new is uncomfortable. Beth Comstock author of Imagine it Forward: Courage, Creativity and the Power of Change, writes that because of uncertainty, people are less willing to try new things. “To be innovative, you have to learn to be comfortable with some level of maybe.” And unfortunately, lots of businesses aren’t willing to take on that level of uncertainty. As a result, a culture develops that doesn’t encourage creativity, rewards problem solving or taking risks.

Comstock, a director at Nike and former President of the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, says its essential management teams take a positive view of change. To achieve this, she believes that three factors are critical.

1. Give Yourself Permission to Imagine
When you embark on a journey of change, Comstock says, you’ll generally encounter two types of people. Goalkeepers are those that help you achieve your objectives, and Gatekeepers are those that will say ‘no’ to everything. They are the Gatekeepers of the status quo and often act out of fear. The appropriate response to this type of attitude is resilience and a determination not to be discouraged. Positive change comes about when “you imagine a better future for yourself, your customers, your company—and even the world.”

2. Embrace Discovery
Comstock says this one is all about the joy of living and working—and is her favourite of the three. She writes “Discovery is about making the world your classroom. If you follow your curiosity, it will take you almost anywhere where change is happening and where the future is revealing itself.” Comstock advocates looking for patterns and trends and admonishes executives who she argues don’t spend enough time in the real world! She recommends “focusing on threes”. When you are out in the world, and you see something for the first time that interests you, take note. If you see it a second time, ask yourself if its a coincidence. But if you see it a third time, realise that this is probably a trend and something that you could learn from and possibly implement in your own job or company.

3. Make the Change Happen
Having a positive vision for change, according to Comstock, is worthless if it’s not pursued wholeheartedly. Many organisations begin by hiring transformation officers, and that’s good because it starts the process, drives momentum and makes people accountable. But, she explains, it will not work if delegating change to one person is all that’s done. For real change to take place, everybody needs to be involved, and feedback from all departments and staff must be embraced. “Management, as we once knew it is obsolete. It is no longer a control function if it ever was. Today you have to lead with vision and empower your teams to figure things out.”