“Insanity is expecting to solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
This familiar quote is attributed to Albert Einstein, and when we read it we chuckle and nod our heads in agreement. But do we ever actually make the shift in our own ways of problem solving?
For the last two weeks we have explored systems change through the lens of differences and creating space for the ‘pause’, whether briefly or for more extended time when permitted.
And yet there are some common practices (and language) that we are attached to that cause us to stay stuck in this trap like a hamster in a wheel. This happens when we seek out a ‘best practice’ as our guideline for addressing a complex scenario. As one of my longtime mentors often said,
“To rely on best practices is to create a recipe for mediocrity for most situations and organizations.”
Of course, there is a valuable place in organizational life for best practices when we have simple, repeatable processes that need to be reproduced in multiple environments. Organizational ‘best practices’ can be helpful when you are starting something that needs some basic foundational building blocks that have been proven over time to be effective and where standards and compliance is the desired outcome.
But too often leaders default to best practices—the way others have done something similarly with success—without taking the time to understand the implications of simply ‘plugging and playing’ a set of guidelines or tactics that may not be suitable for the context.
Why do we do this? For a variety of reasons—it’s just easier, or we are don’t want to take the time to look past the superficial to understand what might be going on more deeply or we think we already know the way forward. It can sound like ‘why re-invent the wheel?’. Best practices when applied, help us to categorize and respond by looking backwards at what worked in the past, but rarely help us to create something new or actually initiate true systems change.
But best practices, which often create rigid constraint, actually work against true transformational or second order change required for systems to actually shift.
This is why most leadership development efforts are limited in their effectiveness.
It is also why 70% of organizational change initiatives fail, a statistic that has been remarkably stable since the 1960’s. Some will blame this on lack of accountability, insufficient training or poor communication. And some or all of these reasons might be true, but they are not the real reason for failure. Underneath all of this is a fundamental fear that drives what we call the ‘rubber band effect’.
Most individuals and organizations focus on short term behavior change—teaching or training—but rarely ever utter these simple but profound words
“I (we) do not know what to do.”
It is ONLY in this space, the terrifying space of ‘not knowing’ that we are now ready to learn something. And this is the space of complexity.
To be clear, we cannot live in this space forever and, particularly as leaders, you must use great wisdom and discernment when you open up this space for your team or organization. But this is the space that offers great freedom and allows for curiosity and true innovation to emerge.
Rick Wellock often says that “what we know gets in the way of what we need to learn.”
He is very right about this. The true learning human or organization is not frightened of descending for a time into ‘not knowing’ so that they can learn.
Next week we will unpack “The Valley of Confusion” and how this creates the space for us to truly transform and change.