We Are Becoming
I publish a monthly newsletter titled "Are We There Yet?" The title serves two purposes:
As an ode to the classic The Simpsons scene of Bart and Lisa in the back seat of the family car constantly asking their parents "Are We There Yet?" at far too short intervals bordering on instantaneous
To question the viewpoint that organizational change is always made up of grand, discrete transformation efforts that have a defined beginning and end date
Everybody loves a formal organizational transformation (well, not really!). Most people do think of organizational change in terms of these transformations. The reality is, however, that organizations are constantly changing, independent of formal transformations. There are always new people coming into the organization and people leaving the organization. We learn things by doing every day. Our customers and our markets are dynamic, and the change that impacts them ultimately changes our organizational reality.
Despite the prevalence of continuous change in the organization, people don't usually think of this as a mode of organizational change, likely because it is less visible than transformation efforts and also because we don't have a simple way of describing the phenomenon.
Fast forward to earlier this month when I was reading a new novel by Portia Elan called Homebound. The story told in the novel spans three separate timelines, including several set in the future. On the surface, this is not a book related to organizational change. However, it does cover themes related to how things get passed on from generation to generation, which in some ways is analogous to how things get passed on inside an organization.
What really caught my attention was a scene on page 29. The main character in this scene is a sentient robot Chaya. Chaya has been around for several centuries, references its internal chorus of voices, and speaks of itself as a collective. Chaya is explaining to one of the human characters about Chaya's collective memories across their existence.
Chaya states:
We carry every self we’ve ever been. We have always been this way, and yet—-moment to moment—-we are becoming.
This quote spoke to me on several levels.
First, "We carry every self we've ever been" captures how an organization contains the sum of the experiences the organization has collected over its existence to date, and these continue to impact the organization on a daily basis.
Second, "We have always been this way" conveys the "homeostasis" or stability one sees in organizations based on their collective experiences, values, and behavior.
Lastly, what really struck me was the "moment to moment--we are becoming." The "moment to moment" describes that change, however imperceptible, is happening constantly in an organization. The "we are becoming" is a concise, yet powerful description of what organizational change is all about.
We are becoming. Organizational change is a continuous evolutionary process. Using past experience, values, and behaviors as a foundation, an organization lives in the present as it continues to change and evolve, never fully set in stone.
I am going to start incorporating the "We are becoming" mindset into the change efforts I undertake within my clients' organizations. I think it is a powerful and thought-provoking way of considering the organizational life cycle. This wording helps frame organizational change as active participation, continuous in nature, and one where everyone contributes.