Making Change Stick: A Holistic Approach to Successful Change Initiatives

As change leaders and practitioners, how many times have you heard: “A Lot of Change … But Nothing Changes!”  The long-standing cliché that “change is the only constant” is never more applicable than in today’s business world of ever-increasing uncertainty, complexity, volatility and ambiguity.   Even when the stakes aren’t so high and the context not so uncertain, change is difficult.  So how can leaders navigate this challenging landscape successfully? 

Organizations have responded to these challenges by restructuring, acquiring other companies, downsizing, outsourcing, hiring staff on a contract basis, using workplace agreements or introducing processes such as Six Sigma, empowerment programs, activity-based costing and other changes to improve the way the organization works.  And yet, many of these changes either do not work or do not last.

A number of reasons for the failures of change programs have been given: lack of senior management commitment, lack of clarity of vision and specific objectives, introducing too many changes, too many different approaches to the change, lack of employee involvement, poor methods of evaluation or lack of demonstration of results.

An Integral Framework for Successful Change

While there have been many models for change, they tend to focus on one or two disciplines such as a systems approach to change or culture change.  Few if any of the typical approaches are able to include ALL of the main perspectives/dimensions of successful change.   Integral Theory, developed by Ken Wilber, provides a comprehensive methodology that includes all dimensions of change. 

Diagram 1 below shows the four key considerations to bringing about successful/lasting change:

• ·         Intentional  — The personal subjective experience

• ·         Cultural — The interpersonal, shared meaning and values

• ·         Behavioural —  The observable behaviours and measurable outcomes

• ·         Systems — The organization’s structural, technical and support systems and their interconnection. 

Diagram 1: Integral Four Quadrants of Change

One of the basic tenets of the Integral Framework is that ALL quadrants (perspectives) must be considered and attended to for sustainable change to occur.  For any change to stick, each of the four quadrants must shift. 

For example, if an organization restructures (makes Systems change – Lower Right Quadrant) but individuals do not personally change their attitudes or believe in the change (i.e., no shift in Upper Left Quadrant) and the culture remains the same (no shift in Lower Left Quadrant), the change will be only a diagram on a piece of paper.  If managers attend a skills enhancement program (i.e., the Upper Right Quadrant) but the performance appraisal system (i.e., Lower Right Quadrant) is not re-calibrated and nothing is done to cultivate a culture that encourages peak performance (Lower Left Quadrant), then the money spent on the program has gone to waste.

 All quadrants must be considered if a change is to succeed.  In fact, many times change efforts using the latest methods and processes fail or fall short of expectations NOT because the approaches themselves are not useful or valid but because they are partial.  That is, they address one or two of these quadrants or perspectives of change at the expense or exclusion of the other key considerations for success.  

Using the Integral Framework, Change Leaders and Practitioners are able to situate the various change theories and approaches and determine the most comprehensive solutions for sustainable change to occur.  At a time when organizations are trying to implement so much change, the Integral perspective provides both the compass and map to ensure that individuals, teams and organizations get to where the change is supposed to take them.