An ability to embrace new ideas, routinely challenge old ones, and live with paradox will be the effective leader’s premier trait.
(Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos)
The way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality, we must see it on the tightrope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.
(Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)
3.1 CHAPTER 7:
PARADOXES OF CHANGE
Many popular prescriptions for managing and leading change are in tension and even contradictory. There is, then, a temptation to side with one or the other or settle on a compromise. In the book chapter, you will discover the value of adopting a ‘paradox mindset’ that accepts and works through such tensions and contradictions. A particular focus is on the balancing act required to appreciate, communicate and live with our desire for certainty yet experience of uncertainty in change.
Learning Objectives
• Understand the nature of paradox and the role of ‘both/or’ leadership.
• Appreciate and explore the paradoxes of rationality, performance and meaning in leading change.
• Be able to analyse, evaluate and apply strategies for effectively handling (‘plumbing’) and meaningfully living with (‘poetry’) the paradoxes of change.
In this website companion to Chapter 7, you will be provided with:
• 1 introductory video and 3 podcast lectures on the paradoxes of change. These were created in 2019 for full-time MBA students as a supplement to the Coursera program Leading Transformations: Manage Change.
• 2 Readings/Exercises allowing you to Explore Further Resources on the paradoxes of change.
• 1 Practice Quiz and 1 Assessment Quiz on the paradoxes of change as a supplement to the Coursera program Leading Transformations: Manage Change quizzes.
3.1.1 Chapter 7 Lessons
3.1.2 Chapter 7 Explore Further Resources
(i) A Paradox Mindset Exercise
Your Paradox Mindset Inventory
The aim of this exercise is to illustrate and deepen your understanding of the nature of a paradox mindset and what it means for you.
Undertake the following three tasks:
1. Watch the 2 minute Video on Paradox Mindsets embedded in the Paradox Mindset Inventory – More Information webpage, located at: https://paradox.lerner.udel.edu/moreinformation.php. Feel free to browse any of the follow up articles on Both/And thinking with embedded links.
2. Follow this up by taking the Paradox Mindset Inventory (with debrief), located at https://paradox.lerner.udel.edu.
What zone are you in? What do you think your answer and results say about you, how you approach change, and what you need to take care of yourself while acting effectively to bring about change?
3. As a stimulus for personal reflection in the task of ‘re-inventing yourself’:
a) Reading: Read the 4 short personal stories in the article Embrace the paradox to become a better leader, located at: https://www.imd.org/ibyimd/team-building/embrace-the-paradox-to-become-a-better-leader (note further information on Terri Kelly and her actions can be found in the textbook at 7.6.3 Handling Paradox: Nimble Leadership at W.L.Gore.
b) Reflection: After reading about their dilemmas and actions, reflect on some of the key competing personal and work demands you have to grapple with.
c) Action: Think about how to take up the opportunities your personal and work demands open up and how you might make them into something that works for you.
(ii) Applying the Paradoxes of Rationality, Performance and Meaning Case Study
Climate Change: The Brain Paradox
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thebrainparadox
This case study applies, tests and helps you become more familiar with the nature and implications of the paradoxes of rationality, performance and meaning. The case study is a short video introduction to the lengthier documentary on the challenge of climate change points to a key paradoxical tension in responding to this identified crisis: as we have become more aware of the threat (‘wake up call’) we still fail to change our lifestyles to address it (‘bury head in the sand’, ‘denial and deforming reality’).
The trailer suggests there is a way out of the dilemma by uncovering the ‘brain’s mechanisms that make us bury our heads in the sand’ and find the ‘psychological resources that will allow us to face the threat’. After watching the video, and using this as a case study in the paradoxes of change, reflect on and discuss the following question:
• Is the scientific message that uncovering the brains mechanisms will allow us to address the threat of climate change a useful and realistic or overly-rational and unrealistic view of how knowledge can help bring about change?
Undertake the exercise in three steps:
a) Brainstorm
Carry out a general brainstorming activity on the insights and limitations of the message, by yourself or in a group,
b) Reading
Re-read the analyses of the paradoxes of rationality, performance and meaning, then consider how you might craft out an approach to bringing about climate change that incorporates their insights; and,
c) Summarise
In a short sentence, state what advantage a ‘paradox mindset’ gives you in crafting out a pragmatic and meaningful approach to climate change - one that goes beyond the video’s message that the key issue and solution is ‘understanding the brain’s mechanisms’.
This exercise is a challenging one, as it requires you to really think through the nature of the paradoxes and the types of strategies you might adopt to address them in addressing one of the largest and most complex change issues of our time. It pushes you to think through the complexities of a paradox perspective. Good luck!
Beyond the yellow brick road of naïvete and the muggers’ lane of cynicism, there is a narrow path, poorly lit, hard to find, and even harder to stay on once found. People who have the skill and the perseverance to take that path serve us in countless ways. We need more of these people. Many more.
(John Kotter, Power and Influence)
3.2 CHAPTER 8:
IRONIES OF CHANGE
How can leaders be mindful of the challenges of change, mobilize energy and resources to address them, and handle the paradoxes of the change enterprise? Unfortunately, addressing such issues effectively and with meaning is often hampered by deeply embedded ‘deficit thinking’ in managing and leading change. In this chapter, we advocate a more positive strength-based approach. Unlike naïvely ‘gung-ho’ versions of this approach, we make a case for one grounded in an engaged ironic sensibility.
Learning Objectives
• Understand and appreciate the weaknesses of a ‘deficit approach’ to change.
• Examine and explore the value of a strength-based ironic sensibility.
• Be able to analyse and debate the importance of an ironic sensibility as a perspective (ironic gaze), performance (ironic mask), and temperament (ironic temper).
In this website companion to Chapter 8, you will be provided with:
• 1 introductory video and 3 podcast lectures on the paradoxes of change. These were created in 2019 for full-time MBA students as a supplement to the Coursera program Leading Transformations: Manage Change.
• 2 Readings/Exercises allowing you to Explore Further Resources on the paradoxes of change.
• 1 Practice Quiz and 1 Assessment Quiz on the paradoxes of change as a supplement to the Coursera program Leading Transformations: Manage Change quizzes.
3.2.1 Chapter 8 Lessons
3.2.2 Chapter 8 Explore Further Resources
(i) Rebel Talent: Are you a ‘constructive non-conformist’
In her book Rebel Talent (2018), and in numerous on-line talks, Francesco Gina celebrates the actions and contributions of what she describes as ‘constructive non-conformists’. Her basic argument is a simple one – people are more engaged, perform better at work and are more innovative when they listen and give voice to their own ideas rather than bowing down and conforming to custom and peer pressure.
Adopting an ironic stance in the face of the challenges of change is a particular form of rebel talent or constructive non-conformity. It is an approach to change that questions the dominant overly-rational and over-controlling views of change, and gives voice to our inherent ironic sense that it is only sensible to approach change mindfully, appreciating things are often not what they seem and people are not as purposeful and intelligent as they like to think. In this way, an ironic stance allows us to move away from unproductive frustration and blame-game playing when our overly-rational expectations are dashed, and focus our attention onto how best to act and interact given an inevitable degree of stupidity, chaos and defensiveness in human affairs. The outcome, we argue, is less personal stress and unproductive lashing out in frustration and a greater ability to gain satisfaction, enhance enjoyment and achieve outcomes by facing up to the realities of change.
For the purposes of this exercise, we want you to focus on ‘rebel talent’ and do three things:
1. What is rebel talent?
Gain a basic understanding of the nature and value of rebel talent or constructive non-conformity.
Task:
• Read Francesco Gina’s introductory essay ‘Let your workers rebel’ and watch/read any follow up material you find interesting at:
https://hbr.org/2016/10/let-your-workers-rebel
2. How much of a rebel are you?
Take the constructive-non conformist assessment.
Task:
• Fill out the questionnaire at: https://hbr.org/2016/10/assessment-are-you-a-constructive-nonconformist?ab=seriesnav-bigidea
• Do so, while thinking about how you approached any attempt to bring about a recent change in your work or study environment
• Read the assessment of your ‘level’!
3. What do your results say about your ability to adopt an ironic stance in the face of change, and what you might do to enhance your ability to do so?
Task:
• Explore and discuss the following two questions:
a) How willing and able am I to adopt an ironic perspective (i.e. act in awareness of the fallibility and folly of yourself and others) and communicate this to others through an effective ironic performance (i.e. sharing this perspective in a way that people understand and find engaging and minimises defensiveness and backlash)?
b) How might I enhance my capabilities in this area?
(ii) An Ironic Stance: Fostering rebel talent inside Pixar
Exercise Part 1:
How much is rebel talent encouraged in your organisation when bringing about change?
The constructive non-conformity of rebel talent is an engaging notion. It appeals to our creative, innovative and entrepreneurial instincts. It has its own inspirational romance. To a degree, we wish to harness this ethos in arguing for an ironic stance. We are, in a sense, asking you to rebel against a dominant simple-minded and overly-rational view of how change can and should occur and your role in it. We are encouraging non-conformity with the rationalistic, mechanistic and bureaucratic ethos that dominates within organisations. We are also arguing for doing so in a constructive manner, adopting a lightness of being (of thought, heart and touch) that is personally more healthy and meaningful and organisationally more effective.
The first part of this exercise involves you exploring the degree to which your organisation encourages or represses ‘constructive non-conformity’ in general. This diagnosis will be directly relevant for you in any attempt to argue for the adoption of an ironic stance in the change enterprise. It will prepare you somewhat for the opposition you will encounter, the perspectives and interests you have to work with and the obstacles you will have to find your way around.
Task:
• Re-read ‘Let your workers rebel’
• Evaluate how far the conditions described by Francesco Gina as necessary for an organisation to foster ‘rebel talent’ are present in your organisation when it comes to change.
Exercise Part 2:
Ed Catmull, President Pixar: An ironic stance in fostering rebel talent
As Oscar Wilde once aptly observed, ‘The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.’ What is regarded as ‘constructive’ is a complex and contentious domain. There is a temptation in us all to create a positive heroic story of the ‘constructive’ nature of the ideas and actions we prefer, and demonise the opponents as evil and destructive. Romanticising our own cause can lead to dismissing other points of view, lashing out against those who do not agree with or live up to our ideals and become unrealistically (and even dangerously) committed to the virtue and inevitable success of our enterprise. Those with an ironic sensibility are aware of this danger, in individuals and collectivities, and an ironic stance tempers romantic rebelliousness with a humble awareness of the limitations of our perspectives and our power. Romanticism encourages us to be a hero in our own story, standing above the fray in Olympian glory! Irony tempers this with a sense of the comic and the absurd, aware that ‘heroes’ often have ‘feet of clay’, often subordinate to the ‘tyranny’ of fate and circumstance. It is one thing to romanticise rebel talent, valuable enough as it stands. It is quite another to adopt a requisite lightness of being i.e. being sufficiently reflective, humble and persistent in making desirable forms of ‘constructive non-conformity’ happen in situ. We often observe this ethos when experienced and motivational practitioners discuss their ‘warts and all’ struggles to ‘make things happen’. Ed Catmull of Pixar is no exception.
In this second part of the exercise, you have four tasks:
1. Watch the video ‘Fostering rebel talent inside Pixar’: https://hbr.org/2016/12/video-fostering-rebel-talent-inside-pixar-2 (of particular interest are 14 minutes of Ed Catmull’s reflections at: 4:10 -13:09; 19:09 - 22:50; 23:22 - 24:15. For further details of Catmull’s approach see Catmull, E. (2014), Creativity Inc.: Overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration. New York: Random House).
2. Brainstorm whether and how you think Ed Catmull:
• adopts an ironic gaze in expecting ‘fallibility’ and ‘folly’ on the part of those setting up and working within the ‘brain trusts’.
• dons an ironic mask in communicating this in a way that provides encouragement and motivation rather than demeaning and denouncing.
3. After this initial brainstorm, watch the video again, and then elaborate on your earlier thoughts. Include a discussion of Catmull’s perspective and performance in:
• the points Catmull makes when he says that something is ‘easy to say’ but not to ‘live it’, ‘think ahead’ to avoid ‘the pause’ judgement effect, not being modest when he says first new ideas ‘suck’, and using the metaphor of being able to ‘blow up’ ideas?
• how Catmull balances being critical and being motivational in humbly noting we don’t ‘always achieve it’, ‘frequently do have failures’, the paradoxical ‘tricky line’ in making it safe to fail, balancing the ‘magic’ with appreciation of the ‘forces of conservatism’ and how people come in ‘wanting to do good’ and structures ‘accidentally’ get in the way.
4. Finally, summarise in a paragraph, or even sentence, how an ironic stance might help you to expect and handle opposition to a change enterprise you are committed to.
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