Dancing with Change
From the Tyranny of Manipulation to Shaping Healthy Organisations
… an evolving book …
To what extent does our limited awareness of the true nature of change constrict our development potential in life?
What could our societies, our organisations, our relationships BE … IF … we understood, quite simply, that … Change is Life; Life is Change?
Change is possibly the most broadly misunderstood concept in society at large and especially in organisational life.
Misunderstandings about the nature of change frequently lead to initiatives that not only fail to achieve their intentions, they may well actually cause more harm than good in the organisation.
Nature’s Dance
Using nature’s moods and evolution as a backdrop, the book will highlight our everyday interactions to illustrate that change is one of life’s natural phenomena. Societies and organisations are presented for what they are: living organisms in which the complex dynamic interdependence of all their elements is continuously redefining the quality of the relationships among them.
Dance Stoppers
Common populist myths and misunderstandings about change will be dismantled. Numerous traps that leaders and, especially, wannabe consultants invariably stumble into when blindly following conventional narratives of organisation and leadership will be highlighted. It is precisely the compartmentalisation that stems from these mechanical narratives that result in the widespread tyranny of behaviour management and GroupThink that ultimately create a toxic exploitational environment in so many, if not the majority of workplaces.
Composing the Music
We are continuously composing the music to which we dance in life. The tunes of the environmental mess we have been creating at least since the start of the industrial revolution is neither easy on the ears nor on the soul.
I will suggest different Questions we could ask in order to lay new foundations for Shaping Healthy Organisations, so they are aligned with nature’s flows. The big issue of systems change in society will also be addressed briefly.
What this book will NOT offer:
Solutions: We can seek solutions for technical problems. There are no ‘solutions’ for nature’s work.
Models: Models purport to know what is good for others. While we may take comfort in the apparent certainty that models offer, in doing so, we delude ourselves. Yes, like many readers, I too have fallen into this trap in the past. Living organisms do not function according to models.
Guidelines: Guidelines defined by others are another lazy trap that we humans so easily slide into. Evolution and development require everyone to take co-ownership for everything occurring within their eco-system. I have learned to become comfortable with the uncomfortable dishes that life inevitably serves us from time to time.
Processes: Processes have a beginning and an end. Nature doesn’t. The dance never stops.
