StrategyWorks

Transform your team in four steps

An unconscious route through the valley

of change

2

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StrategyWorks 2015

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Transformation

A real-life corporate horror story (this really happened)

A while ago a local Financial Services organisation bought a Trusts and Wills business from a

smaller company. Along with the business came a small team of administrators. This team

finished work on a Friday evening in their office in the nearby small town in which they were

based. The following Monday, without ceremony, the team started work in the huge head-

office of their new company. At the same time, the company bought a new, expensive trusts

and wills administration system. A year later, the project manager responsible for

implementing the new system, came to me tearing her hair out.

The new team had made a dreadful mess of implementing the system. The problems they

caused had effectively placed the business under threat. At her request I agreed to chat with

the team, do some investigation and give her an idea of how I could help. At their offices I

found a team lost in emptiness. The newcomers had simply not worked through the impact

of the change through which they had passed.

Eventually they sorted out the system. It took another year to rework all of the data, but they

sorted that out as well. However, the real work was to help the team deal with the

emotional impact of the massive change they had been through.

This is the risk for any change you may be contemplating. Your success, even your survival,

depends on getting it right. Your challenge is to bring your teams along in the change.

Setting strategy usually means engaging in change. This note is about how you can engage

your teams in transformation. The model is built around research into the unconscious

processes in teams that make learning and therefore change so difficult. Understanding this

hidden world and the effect it has on the behaviour in a team can be enlightening and

uplifting to people in a team. Learning the reasons behind our more alarming behaviour can

be reassuring and can steer us to more effective ways of being. It can also help leaders to

manage the impact of change on their teams. The note includes a suggested list of tools

appropriate for use in each of the phases of transformation.

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Change in teams

Introduction

Incremental change is possible. You can take a team through gradual, orderly, linear changes

that allow them to take on new skills or make new agreements.

Traditional models of change often

show an ordered process. John Kotter

is recognised internationally as a

thought-leader on Change

Management. In his book, ‘The Heart

of Change’, he offers eight key steps

for change. Though he does not

position change as an easy,

mechanical process, it is possible to

think of the process as eight discrete,

tidy steps, as shown in figure 1.

Incremental change can be simple and ordered. But change in small steps often does not

make a significant difference. It is also much easier to slip back from insignificant changes

into old ways, making the effort worthless.

Deep, lasting, changes to perspectives and team frameworks require a transformation that is

usually discontinuous, disruptive and

disorderly.

It would be more accurate to show the

process like the model in figure 2.

So how do we cope with this chaos in

our teams? What have we learnt

about teams that can help us navigate

these stormy waters?

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A good approach is to consider the unconscious processes of individuals and the team.

Psychodynamics have come a long way since Freud showed that in spite of our rational

pretences, we are irrational, and we rarely deal directly with external reality. Instead, we

interact with the world based on our internal representations. Recent research has

confirmed the existence of these processes happening below the level of our conscious

which collect, collate, store and use information.

Our unconscious has a massive impact on the way we live. One of the most durable legacy

ideas in Freud’s work was how we use unconscious defence mechanisms to distort or deny

reality to shield ourselves from hurt and threat. This unconscious process complicates

learning, and makes change difficult. Let’s look at how our understanding of some of these

unconscious processes can help us successfully navigate change in teams.

The unconscious learning process

Just as we tend to underestimate the impact of change on a team, so we often under-estimate

the impact of a deep learning process on an individual.

We therefore use neat diagrams like the

“Deconstruction” model shown in figure

3 to illustrate learning and change. The

path from unconscious incompetence

through conscious to unconscious

competence is a useful model for

understanding learning.

However, this formal ‘four-box’ picture

does not come close to describing the

confusion, frustration and despair

associated with deep learning.

It is called ‘deconstruction’ because we

literally take apart the constructs we

hold about reality and reconstruct our understanding with our new learning built in.

However the constructs we dismantle may impact on other beliefs and behaviours,

sometimes with unexpected and alarming consequences.

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In Unconscious Incompetence we are blissfully ignorant of what we don’t know. Our denial

systems work hard to keep us here. We stay in this state until our desire, or circumstances

cause us to move.

Learning begins in Conscious Incompetence when we engage reality, acknowledging what we

don’t know. Learning requires ‘un-learning’, based on conscious decisions not to work the

old way, even though we still don’t know the new. We may find ourselves double-guessing

what we know we know well, along with what we are working to change. This can be

disorientating.

Conscious Competence is where we learn and apply new skills. As we test our new skills we

make mistakes. We trip, stumble and fall. Awkward experimentation can be tough and

exhausting. Support from a coach, mentor, good friend, our own reflective process,

meditation and prayer are invaluable here. As we learn, we may move back and forth

between conscious incompetence

and competence.

The Conscious part of learning can

be disorientating and is probably

shown more accurately as in figure

4.

As the skill becomes tacit we enter

Unconscious Competence. We

work with confidence, vigour and

aplomb, till hubris or the next

learning opportunity comes along.

Learning can be gruelling. We learn

when we choose to embrace the

pain in the process. This requires us to shun the distractions we use to temporarily soothe

the pain. To do this effectively requires us to sit in the pain. We learn as we reflect and sift

through the causes and impact of the situation. It requires us further to avoid reaching too

soon for the obvious, attractive and easy solutions, which ultimately prove to be inadequate

at best and more destructive at worst.

This sounds compellingly easy doesn't it? But it is not! For a start ‘pain’ really hurts. What is

more, managing anxiety through avoiding pain was one of the first unconscious tools we

learnt. A lesson we learnt well. This is how.

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Splitting and projection – a core defence

We avoid dealing with issues by disowning and projecting. Melanie Klein, a student of Freud

identified our ability to manage the anxiety of reality by disowning our crises. As an infant,

we could not face the terror of a mother not being available to us or worse still, being angry

with us. To deal with this anxiety we created a fantasy of two mothers; a happy friendly one

and an angry one who withheld her love.

In so doing we also learnt to split-off our unwanted characteristics. As part of this fantasy we

created two ‘selves’, a lovable nice self and a

terrifying, ugly and unpleasant self. Positive

aspects such as our skills, wisdom and power

can be just as terrifying as our darkness. We

learnt to disown these too. In so doing we

define a ‘halo’ containing all of our powerful

aspects and a shadow containing the

negative parts of our hidden self.

We also learnt to project split-off qualities

onto others so that we could criticise and try

to manage these qualities in someone else

rather than in ourselves.

We have done this ever since.

The sense of safety we get from splitting

and projecting is compelling. It is much

easier to shake our head at the person

driving selfishly in thick traffic. But living in

a fantasy world prevents us from

developing skills we need for the real

world. Maintaining this judgement

prevents us from seeing our own

destructive behaviours. If we are to live

effectively we eventually have to emerge

from this cocoon.

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Reparation

Our first big step towards maturity began when we accepted the fact that our mother was

one person who was sometimes absent and sometimes angry. We learnt to appreciate our

mom as someone not dedicated solely to

meeting our needs. We learnt that a single

person could have different behaviours and

emotions without this being life-threatening to

us. This return is called “reparation”.

Reparation allowed us to see ourselves as a

single person who could experience different

emotions. We learnt that it was possible to

hold ambivalent thoughts and feelings

together. This developed in us a sense of our

strength and wisdom. We learnt to accept

ownership of the parts of us that we have split

off.

The splitting, projection, reparation cycle facilitates our learning and growth for the rest of our

lives. We split and project, and criticise to manage the anxiety of the new perspective.

Idealising or vilifying in others what we find frightening in ourselves allows us to come to

terms with difficult truths. But we remain stuck in our development until we are able to take

back those parts we have disowned.

When the cycle works well we reflect, repent and gather ourselves for reparation. Then we

drop the fantasy, take ownership of what we have split off and embrace the pain of our

reality. We learn more effective ways of being in the world. Through this process we learn to

discriminate, to love and to trust.

Learning as a team is an indicator of success. J Richard Hackman lists the capacity to learn as a

team as one of the three final indicators of a successful team. In teams the individuals all

work with their own unconscious process. These unconscious processes come together in

unpredictable ways. Wilfred Bion clearly showed that with any group, there was an actual

group engaged in the set agenda. However there was also another group engaged,

unconsciously, in a fantasy agenda. Splitting and projection also happens in teams with

added complexity.

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The unconscious process in teams The cycle of splitting, projection and reparation happens at a team level.

The role of central figures

Under duress, members of a group

split-off what they don’t like about

themselves. They discard

negatives such as weaknesses and

irritating habits (their shadow) as

well as positives such as strengths,

wisdom and experience (their

halo).

Then something extra happens.

When team members disown

particular conflicts, everyone in

the team unconsciously selects

the same central figures on whom

to project particular split off

attributes.

The selected figures collude,

with lesser or greater

enthusiasm, in taking up these

attributes. The selected people

find themselves cast in specific

roles. In this way the team gets

the selected players to act out

the crisis. Two key roles are

created in this way.

The person onto whom the

group projects their halos

becomes a hero, or rather

super-hero. They can do no

wrong. They can come to meetings late and unprepared. They can say whatever they like

about a topic or person. The rest of the team consider this behaviour cute, strong and

inspiring.

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The person onto whom the team

projects their shadow becomes

the scapegoat, the villain, the

dirty dog. They dare not come

late or unprepared. When they

voice their opinion, if they

summon enough courage to be

heard, they may be berated for it.

The team roll their eyes, our

prime demonstration of

contempt.

The scapegoat may be ostracised

or even ejected from the team.

The team then attempt to manage their anxiety by controlling the players. The behaviours of

the selected players express and act out the experience and emotions of each of the

members in the group.

I once coached a leadership team who fired their IT manager, their Operations manager and

their HR manager in short succession. Of course these people may really have been inept

(even Freud said “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”). But when I shared this model with the

team I was told emphatically that this was not happening. Come to think of it, this was near

to the last work I did with this team.

As long as members hold these fantasy roles the team group will not move. They remain

stuck.

Progress and growth happens through reparation. First, members recognise their own

experience and behaviour in the drama being played out by the Hero and Scapegoat. They

take back ownership of these behaviours, acknowledging their role in the drama. They

embrace their anxiety. They make a conscious effort to take back the failings and triumphs

projected onto the Scapegoat and Hero. Their dialogue is filled with understanding,

ownership and solutions thinking. When this reparation happens with a critical mass of team

members, the resulting process of change is deep, chaotic, and disorientating. This is

transformation.

Members are able to stop this plunge into chaos by exercising well-practiced routines of

interaction. Chris Argyris, one of the fathers of Organisation Development called these

‘defensive routines’.

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Defensive routines

We grow and mature through the cycles of splitting and reparation. But real learning is

painful. Therefore we have developed skills to avoid this pain. These skills or routines are

aimed at minimising our exposure to reality as we relate with people. The defensive routines

are so over-learnt that we don’t realise when we use them.

In teams, defensive routines define the real values. These actual values may not be anything

like the framed list on the wall behind the boss’s secretary. Behaviour in all teams conforms

to one of two value models.

In model I, people set out to get what

they want, at whatever cost to anyone

else. They suppress any negative

feelings and pretend that everything is

‘just fine’. They operate from untested

and unvoiced assumptions and

evaluations. They give advice that is

abstract and difficult to implement.

This advice may be delivered in a blunt

or more palatable way but it effectively

judges the person to whom it is

offered, creating in them a need for

defence. Effectively they use the same behaviours and outcomes they criticise.

These same people further rationalise their behaviour to cover up this inconsistency. They

use the same over-learnt tactics to make this cover up undiscussable. And then they make

the undiscussability of the undiscussable, undiscussable. If that sounds convoluted, well you

are getting a picture of how disingenuous we are in our teams. People put forward ideas

then defend them using all the routines in their arsenal. They desperately ignore reality.

They maintain their chosen way of thinking and keep their barriers well defended. They do

anything to hold back from entering the vortex of dialogue. As a result, they do not learn nor

grow in maturity. Most of us operate instinctively from Model I. In discussion we present

our ideas and defend them. In a pinch we tend to judge others and blame them for whatever

goes wrong.

In Model II, teams, when coached effectively, were able to seek and give valid information

and plan actions from the informed choice resulting from sharing information. Teams put

ideas out tentatively, and called for the opinions of others. They carefully sought

understanding of the reasons for issues. They also carefully monitored that they were

behaving in this way.

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These unconscious processes and defensive routines together explain some of the behaviours

of teams under the stress of change. But there is more. The process of change itself takes a

team through different phases. The following model has been created to hold these issues

together to facilitate our understanding of change and how we can support teams in

transformation.

Modelling the journey of transformation

The process of engaging with the issues, thinking on the crises and working as a team can be

shown as concentric areas of energy.

In the middle is a spinning vortex of chaos. This is where the team goes when they take back

their split off crises and engage in the wrenching dialogue around issues, emotions and

solutions.

Bordering on this vortex is a region of relative calm. This is a stable area where teams use the

energy of the vortex to work and prepare for their next intense dialogue in the vortex.

Defensive routines take the team to the outer area of the model. This is the rut or backwater

of stagnation where teams become lost in inauthentic behaviours that prevent them from

moving forward in the journey of transformation.

The journey through the chaos of transformation can be shown in four quadrants. In each

quadrant there is an entry condition, there is work to be done, and there is the possibility of

the team getting stuck in splitting and defensive routines. I have also included steps we can

take and tools we can use to coach a team through each quadrant.

The model comes into play when a team is faced with an impending change or

transformation.

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Quadrant 1: Hanging On

Dealing with the facts and preparing for the emotions

The team hear about impending change. The future immediately looks scary. The familiar

takes on new value. They look back and treasure the old ways of working and behaving.

They tell each other stories of the ‘good old days’. What they are doing may not be at all

effective and their behaviour may no longer fit the situation. But they tell each other fantasy

stories about how well it is going.

Eventually a critical mass of members decide to talk about the change. They soon realise they

lack a common understanding of the facts of their current reality and how they are going to

make this change happen. The pressure they feel to deliver amplifies their sense of inability

to change. They feel the control they thought they had, slipping away. They feel lost,

helpless and vulnerable.

The change surfaces long-suppressed feelings of exasperation. Feelings of being controlled

resonate unconsciously with past, unresolved events in which they were forced to accept

uninvited or unwanted circumstances. Members of the group experience intense feelings of

pain, frustration and anger. Defence mechanisms kick in. They deny these feelings. They

also split off and project the crisis onto central figures in the group. The wise, competent,

imperturbable hero emerges. The annoying, inept, flustered scapegoat voices the dark

feelings of the group and is ostracised for it.

In this quadrant, the work of the team is to push on through the uncertainty. Their task is to

share their ideas, to listen to one another and to understand the presenting issues in the

change. The problem is the group has not yet agreed on norms for conversation or how they

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will work together around the issues. In addition to this, the rampant emotions surfaced by

the issues threaten to tear them apart as a group. While they may have a vision for the

future, they have not yet changed to meet these expectations. The dialogue proceeds along

a knife edge between shutting down and running out of control. With rising panic, the group

tries to manage these deep-seated emotions which threaten to engulf them.

The group experience the commitment to talking through the facts as a plunge into chaos.

Members feel everything is falling apart. They want to run away from what they see as a

formless and empty situation. They try to avoid the next meeting. Interactions may be

characterised by defensive routines such as intellectualising, questioning the process, ridicule

and denial. And of course the super-hero and the scapegoat take up their roles.

Entry into the next quadrant in the model happens when a core group in the team push

through the uncertainty. Movement in the group happens when this critical mass puts aside

their instinctive defences. They lead the group to take back the negative and positive

attributes they have projected onto the scapegoat and the hero. They own their role in the

issues. As defensive routines fall away, open dialogue unfolds. This dialogue prepares the

team for dealing with their emotions.

Sometimes they get stuck. All too often the group is unable to cope with facts and their

emotions. They use defensive routines to avoid experiencing and exploring deep primal

emotions. The group retreats into the comfort of existing behaviours which may not be

appropriate to the new situation. The chance for real change is passed over for minor

modification from which the team can comfortably slip back into their old ways.

Teams initiating transformation usually find the process very difficult. However, there are a

number of tools available to facilitate the start of the journey of change.

The change leader may well be accused of running a ‘Talk-shop’ in this phase

and it takes courage to keep the dialogue going.

Tools for ‘Hanging on’

Steps to initiate transformation

Dialogue is one of the most important mechanisms for change. Find any reason for the team

to meet to talk. In this dialogue your first task is to create a realisation in the team that

change is no longer optional. You will need to create a sense of urgency. Give them an

experience of the Burning Platform.

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Create a sense of

urgency

The team will not enter quadrant 1 without a sense of urgency,

without a message of punishment. Statistics rarely have the impact

required to create a burning platform.

To see the situation

for what it really is,

the right people

must experience the

raw operating

problem. The

burning platform.

This takes creativity.

Select a core group to

lead the

transformation

Motivating a mass of people is expensive, exhausting and time

consuming. To be more effective and efficient, concentrate your

efforts on a core group. A critical mass of members will emerge to

lead the team through the transformation. You can facilitate the

process by identifying those most likely to play this role to get them

on board.

Gather, focus and

galvanise resources

Who will make the change happen? First on the core team agenda is

to find enough people to make the change happen. Creativity is

required to implement the changes with fewer rather than more

people.

Conceptualise the

change

The work of the core group is to talk through the issues associated

with transformation. They can conceptualise and agree the context

and possible solutions.

Define your values

and precepts

Values are the timeless principles governing the culture of your

organisation. These can become generic to the point of meaningless

unless you translate them into resultant behaviours.

Precepts are the intermediate set of operating principles you choose

to steer your organisation through the transformation. You will base

these on the nature of your organisation and the situation in which

you find yourselves.

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Quadrant 2: Working Through

Sharing deep emotions

The facts are coming out and the team have breached the dam of deep emotions. Now they

decide how best to deal with their emotions. Teams tend to one of two extremes.

On one extreme they hold tightly onto rigid emotional boundaries, not allowing any loss of

control. They carefully keep discussion to the facts only. All emotions are suppressed and

everyone plays out the ‘No place for feelings in Business’ fantasy. Author Gary Hamel says

the language of business has become seriously depleted. Just ask team members about the

love they feel for one another. The language of relationships and feelings has been expunged

from business. This is especially true of teams in this phase.

Rigid emotional boundaries provide a stable and predictable context as members try to adhere

to old patterns of behaviour, detach themselves emotionally and project their negativity onto

the scapegoat, who has ‘real personal problems’.

At the other extreme, members of the team allow themselves to be caught up in a flood of

unbridled emotions. Members relinquish control of how they express their emotions. The

group is swept along in a tide of unchecked responses, animated expression and irrational

acts. When it is over, members use phrases like “I don’t know what got into me…”

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The group use either of these extremes to avoid the pain and the panic coming from sharing

deep emotions. They get stuck in this phase as group members are not able to articulate

their personal experience of the focal group issue.

The work of the team here is to find a balance between these two extremes, where they can

surface and share their deepest emotions and where the dialogue retains enough order for

members to speak, listen and reflect. The core group now lead the group into the vortex of

chaos on emotional issues. Their work is to find a working balance between rigid emotional

boundaries and no personal boundaries.

As they take back the feelings they have disowned they find the appropriate level of

permeability for their emotional boundaries in dialogue. They experience a wider range of

emotions as a group. They begin to relate at an authentic level. They are able to explore

their past, present and future experiences sharing vivid experiences and meanings.

Entry into the next phase is made possible by the core group exploring their past, present and

anticipated future experiences together.

It takes courage to weather the storms of emotion which may be levelled at the

leader as well as the scapegoat.

Tools for ‘Working through’

Steps to help the team deal with the chaos of engagement

Teams naturally shy away from initiating the deep dialogue necessary for transformation.

The following actions provide forums for discourse and measures for outcomes.

Create the vision for

the change

When the team have grasped and committed themselves to a

compelling vision they will make it happen. The vision should include

your one ‘Wildly Important Goal’ and a statement of bold strategy.

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Plan the detail for the

change

Engage teams in detailed planning of the projects, sub-projects,

major tasks, tasks and deliverables required for change in their

areas. This will allow your people to talk through their views and

emotions and to take ownership of their part of the change.

Define key LEAD

measures

Lead measures chart the work to produce the desired outcomes. If

luck plays a significant role in your business you are focussing on lag

measures and have not been creative enough in defining the work to

produce the outcomes. The detailed plan will show you the most

important actions required to achieve your vision. Your work is to

find easy measures to track these actions.

Make measures visible

on a scoreboard

Create a visible scorecard, based on one or two lead measures to

highlight progress. Great teams know at every moment whether

they are winning. They are continually thinking about what they

need to do next. A compelling scoreboard tells the team where they

are and where they should be in the journey to the vision.

Communication

Communicate a simple, heartfelt message of context and vision

throughout your organisation. Consider emotions as well as facts.

Acknowledge and deal with confusion, anger and distrust, which

exist in every organisation and are heightened by the change.

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Quadrant3: Letting Go

Living with the loss of the familiar

The team have discussed the issues. They have shared deep emotions. Facts with emotions

pave the way for the team to let go. In this quadrant the team experience, express and cope

with the information and emotions around the death of their existing means of coping with

the focal issues.

The work of the group is to fully experience the despair, hopelessness and emptiness

associated with letting go of their current way of being and doing. Members lose their sense

of reality. They experience a bottomless chasm in which they lose energy and intent. They

struggle to get work done and may appear apathetic or withdrawn.

This is what Frederick Hudson called “Cocooning”. Finding themselves in a bleak, lonely,

unfriendly place the team look inwards. Teams experienced in change may do their best to

avoid this quadrant. However, once the facts have been discussed and team-members have

shared their deep emotions, they will realise they can no longer hold onto past approaches.

Someone may comment on how what worked before doesn't work now. They are letting go.

It takes courage and faith to knowingly enter this void. But rich rewards await those who

embrace the hopelessness of this dreary state. They learn to survive without hope. And it is

here in this dark valley that we meet our authentic self. The team able to exist in the void will

prepare for the next phase of transformation. They will build the creative energy to try a

whole lot of new ideas as a team.

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Teams sometimes lose heart right here. Overawed by the facts, drained by the emotions they

have shared, overwhelmed by the enormity of what lies ahead, they become stuck in despair.

The familiar and comfortable have been taken away. But they lack the gumption to plough

on. Lost in emptiness and immobility, they do their best to relive the “good old days”. They

become intellectual and emotional zombies, the living dead, with no vision for anything

meaningful in life.

It takes courage to keep the team focussed on the emptiness, not allowing

members to take on inadequate solutions for which they are not ready.

Tools for ‘Letting go’

Steps to support the team in the doldrums

In any change there will be bleak times when everyone wonders why they are going through

the exercises and where it is all heading. Teams may engage in the transformation with

apparent enthusiasm at first. But the psychodynamics can be debilitating. There is a point

where all transformations slide in despair into the slough of despond.

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‘Letting go’ can be a dreary place. Members of your teams will find any excuse to bunk

meetings and to cover for their lack of delivery. The role of the leader is to pull the team

together, support individuals and provide tools to allow the teams to gather themselves and

take ownership of the change.

Never give up

Never! Ever! As leader of the change you need to resolve right from

the start never to give up. Like that silly poster of the frog in a

heron’s beak with its hands around the heron’s neck. Never give up.

Cut the workload

Aggressively rid yourself of unnecessary or ridiculously inflated work.

What may have been relevant in the past may well be obsolete now.

Find it. Cut it out. Implement a process to constantly seek out

opportunities to cut out unnecessary work.

Deal with the politics

Entrenched power centres can kill a transformation. These must be

taken head-on. The ‘Letting go’ phase of the transformation is a

good time to do this. All the previous work you have done should

give your core group sufficient traction, and creativity, to move the

obstacles.

Empower your people

You can take away empowerment, but your people have to take it

back. Your role is to let go of the controls, take out the levels of

bureaucracy and provide a motivating environment in which people

feel encouraged to step up to new endeavour and responsibility.

Keep a journal Encourage each person to write their experience. There is a special

reward in sitting quietly describing your pain in your own

handwriting, highlighting all the shame and guilt. This is not self-pity

but an honest facing up to where you are. This is about lying face-

down and eating dust. These reflections and your eventual response

provide rich material for coaching.

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Quadrant 4: Moving Beyond

Taking ownership of the future

The team is now ready for some serious R&D. They have embraced the fact of their outdated

behaviours. They have engaged at a deep emotional level about what this means to them as

a team. They have faced their mindless clinging and have let go. Letting go has been painful

and they have embraced this pain. They know something about themselves they never knew

before. However, being aware of ineffective behaviour is necessary but insufficient for

transformation. Now the team need to experiment with new behaviours.

The team begins to act. The will be ready to move into a phase of research, development and

testing. Members who embrace their intellectual and imaginative abilities and emotions

move out of the void and take responsibility for transformation. The core group or critical

mass will start using terms like “Hey, why don’t we try this…”

Experiments are tentative, awkward and uncertain. The core group can be instrumental in

testing new approaches. Members fail often as they learn new ways of being and doing. The

comfort they will feel with the new approach is still to come.

The pragmatic solution may be an anti-climax. After the tension of the change process, the

agreed way forward may seem a little ordinary. Finding the solution, even though it may

involve some embarrassing practice situations, is a lot more fun than Letting Go. The team

may not feel ready for the routine. And of course once the solution is in place it will be the

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target for the next change The team may try to avoid getting down to work by extending this

phase and looking for the perfect solution.

Members may try to avoid completing the transformation by remaining in a cycle of

identifying and testing new ideas. Experimenting without taking responsibility for

implementation can be a compelling fantasy of working hard, especially after the dissipation

and despair of the void. In this fantasy, members really do work hard. And the lack of

implementation fuels other old fantasies and raises the risk of emotional, intellectual and

physical burnout.

Transformation happens when the core group adopt a “good-enough” solution. This allows

the team to experience an infusion of new meaning in themselves and their team. The

super-hero and scapegoat lose their prominence as reparation around the transformation

issues reach completion.

It takes creativity and courage to accept a solution that is ‘good enough’

without being perfect.

Tools for ‘Moving Beyond’

Steps to bed-down the transformation

At this point in the transformation you should consider two great risks: The risk of focussing

on the cost of the change and the risk of kicking back too soon, which is illustrated in figure

18 below.

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Short term wins

All initiatives attract fire. Even at this stage of your transformation

there will be people who will say “why are we even doing this?” The

solution is to produce visible, timely, unambiguous and meaningful

short term wins to nourish faith in the effort, enlighten the

pessimists and silence the cynics.

Make the change stick

Change can be fragile. Even when the new way of working seems

settled, without careful attention, people can slide back into their

traditional ways of working. Tradition is a powerful force. Leaps into

the future can slide back into the past.

Execution meetings Strategic delivery in the midst of the whirlwind of daily tasks is

impossible. Impossible, that is, unless each person commits

themselves to and is held accountable for the regular delivery of a

significant component of strategic change. This is best managed in

highly structured weekly accountability meetings.

Change – another perspective

Here is another perspective on transformation. Corporate life cycles between relative calm

and rampant turbulence. Times of upheaval are opportunities to implement

change. However the door of opportunity never stays open very long. We need to be

ready. We can do three things to be ready:

Being prepared.

Lying in Wait.

Forcing the issue.

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Conclusion

Real lasting transformation is tough. But the rewards for getting it right are compelling.

Success in transformation depends on a personal journey of change which is supported by a

group process of dealing with the right issues at the right time. The personal component of

change is facilitated by an understanding of the individual and the group unconscious

processes attending the change.

The group unconscious process can be described in four phases of transformation. In each

phase the group enters a vortex of chaos in which the work of transformation is carried out

through dialogue. Groups who balk at entering the vortex may find themselves stuck in

thinking, speech and action.

There are process tools to assist groups into, through, and out of each phase. However,

though we can define phases and suggest relevant tools, deep transformation is not a linear,

tidy business. There is much that cannot be managed according to a strict agenda.

Learning is not to be undertaken lightly. But then again, as Chief Powhatan (whose proper

name was Wahunsenacawh) said to Pocahontas, “Sometimes our paths are chosen for us”

and we find ourselves dealing with an upheaval. And anyway, what is this business of living

about if we don’t take opportunities in both hands and engage and learn? After all, life is not

for sissies. So let’s get in the game and engage with our teams. As you engage, be aware of

the unconscious process. Remember, it is called ‘unconscious’ because we are not aware of

what is happening. Blind-spots are called that because we can’t see them. So get help as you

go.