Change is a Team Sport
““There’s a better way to do it. Find it.””
As cool as they are, our fancy technologies are not going to change the world for us. Platforms like Twitter and Instagram make it easy for anyone to become an all-purpose 24/7 pundit, holed up in the basement and commenting on everything around you. And sometimes saying something pithy or funny or snarky can shock the world’s sensibilities and lead to change. We’ve all seen how a single tweet or viral video can call attention to some vanity, cruelty, or foolishness, and radically affect public opinion.
But making change through social media is like capturing lightning in a bottle. Your tweet might take over the world – but it almost certainly won’t. Insisting you’ll change the world via social media is like basing your financial strategy on lottery tickets, bingo cards, and Enron stock.
My goal with these blog posts (and the book from which they are drawn) is more prosaic, and (in my judgment) more realistic. I know there are people around me who want to facilitate change, but aren’t sure how to make it happen. I wrote this book to help. It incorporates some of the knowledge and experience I’ve gained over thirty years as a consultant, and what I’ve learned from experts and other smart people.
As a consultant who supports organizations working to improve their internal communication and collaboration, I’ve seen plenty of change efforts go awry. Along the way I’ve learned that while every successful change is unique, every failed effort shares some of the same unfortunate qualities – poor internal communication and ineffective collaboration.
That’s because change isn’t an individual sport: It requires a team, and teams can’t function if they don’t work together and communicate. Change also requires change agents, leaders who are willing to step up and invest energy in a larger cause.
The Influence Model of Leadership also posits that three elements — context, the change agent, and the allies recruited into your cause, are all necessary for change to take place. In a way, making change is not unlike making gunpowder, which consists of three relatively inert chemicals – charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. Omit any of these elements, and nothing happens. But when combined with intention, the components work together to create something powerful and potentially explosive.
Like Daniel Pink, whose book Free Agent Nation inspired my thinking, I hope my writing helps liberate the term “change agent” from its narrow application in the fields of human resources and change management. Throughout my posts, I’ll use “change agent,” “leader,” and “agent of change” to refer to anyone who is energized to make things a little better.
I’ve decided that this is a good time for me to write what I know and believe about creating change. I hope that others find insight in what I have to say, and find the courage to do your part as well.
