Reflections on Change # I
Most of the activities we pursue aim at one out of four designated objectives; to ensure that we either
or
- and inadvertently, we do so to underpin an overall objective, which is to sustain and improve life. For ourselves and for those, for whom we care.
However reluctant we from nature’s side are to change - or rather to the unknown, which is inherently the outcome entailed by most types of change - people will at large allow for a certain pursuit of incremental change as long as it underpins their vision of something attractive, or even necessary - depending on what status quo looks like as opposed to their image of a more desirable situation, and as long as they believe that the outcome of the change in question - in correspondence with this vision - will lead to the desired outcome.
At the end of the day, we pretend to be constantly changing, while in reality, we allocate most of our resources to make sure that things remain approximately as we know them, hence perpetuating status quo.
On the other hand, change is a fundamental premise. Nothing stays exactly the same. Changes take place constantly - in our individual lives as well as in communities of all sizes and society at large, and as a rule the changes are manmade. Not always conscientiously so, but still as the result of choices that we, or someone, has made. Few changes take place all by themselves. All change derives from decisions made by someone, with or without foreseeing the changes the decisions will entail. If change becomes synonymous for destiny, the word loses its meaning as a verb; to change.
If we disregard other existential phenomena, such as love and hate, happiness and despair, few other concepts have resulted in more philosophical reflections than the concept of change. A substantial part of these revolves around the inevitability of change, and how we relate to change when it happens. Another category focuses on the responsibility of each and every one of us to create the change we want to see happen, and that change at a larger scale starts with the change of individuals. Finally, the observation that change is hard, so we can just as well learn to embrace it, as we’ll all be facing it from time to time, makes up a noticeable part. However, what seems to cut across these three different categories is the notion that change is something, we experience as individuals, and not as communities or societies. Moreover, very few reflections seem to deal with what we - whether on a n individual or collective basis - can do to proactively create change - to live up to Herbert Simon’s iconic definition of design; to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones, rather than - as is left as the more interesting challenge - to merely reactively dealing with the inevitable change that we encounter.
Perhaps process and methodologies are too difficult to boil down to three-line chunks of life wisdom. At least they are very rare, but a few examples do exist, like this one from the design guru Buckminster Fuller, which - not surprisingly - ascribes a classical, design-methodological approach to change;
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
In two sentences, Fuller captures the gist of what design can do; create a new model - be it a system or a lone-standing proposition to a concrete challenge - that constitutes, for whatever reason, a better alternative to what already exists. That’s it. That is what design can do.
There is only one fundamental problem with this rationale. We stopped a long, long time ago to discuss amongst ourselves what a preferred situation looks like.
The generations currently populating the earth, as well as a few foregoing, have left the keys to defining what progress is to a vey small, exclusive group of “innovators”, whose point of departure is what can be done, rather than what kind of future we want, resulting in a mode of progress, in which the idea of a vision has been brutally exchanged with that of technological performance, a fear expressed by Albert Einstein already in the very youth of modern technologies - like electricity and running water.
”Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” [1]
Recommended by LinkedIn
More recent “sceptics” include all kinds of people, from scientists and philosophers to royals;
“Our way of life has been influenced by the way technology has developed. In future, it seems to me, we ought to try to reverse this and so develop our technology that it meets the needs of the sort of life we wish to lead.” [2]
Despite, no matter by which scale I measure, I have very little in common with late Prince Philip, he captures the very gist of how I see and understand the concept of user centricity - as opposed to a technocratic approach to change. But, just as with Simon’s take on design, this approach requires a common understanding of what “the sort of life we wish to lead” looks like, and that is just not the case. Hence, perhaps a more accommodating approach to design might be that of the philosopher Donald Schön, which focuses on the experimental dimensions of design;
“When the practitioner reflects in action in a case he perceives as unique, paying attention to phenomena and surfacing his intuitive understanding of them, his experimenting is at once exploratory, move testing and hypothesis testing. The three functions are fulfilled by the very same actions.”[3]
So, striving for change - and doing so by applying design as a vehicle - entails a process where exploration and testing go hand in hand, so that “what good is” comes out of the process instead of being a predefined objective. That actually suits me fine and aligns with my process-wise agnosticism, as earlier described her at LinkedIn;
“I have a confession to make; I've realised that I'm an agnostic - also when it comes to processes and methods. I don't believe that there is one thruth. I believe in exploring and combining bits and pieces from sensible and effective approaches - individually blended to fit that specific team, in that specifc situation with its specific set of challenges.
That works for me, and it it has worked for most of my clients until now. I believe in the power of change, and I believe in conversation. All else is up to the energy that we create in between us and in our joint aspirations.”
Moreover, believing that “what good is” comes out of the process instead of being a predefined objective, resonates perfectly well both with my professional and my personal doings. I believe in creating the future as I go along - experimenting and testing my way forward towards something yet not clearly defined. By doing so, I have learnt to embrace and cherish change - instead of fearing it, while trying to explain, and while perpetuating the shortcomings, of the present.
What is your relation to change…?
[1] New York Times, May 25, 1946: “Atomic Education Urged by Einstein”, Page 13, Column 6, New York. (ProQuest)
[2] Prince Philip Mountbatten, 1984: Men, Machines and Sacred Cows (London, Hamish Hamilton)
[3] D.A. Schön. 1983: The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York, NY: Basic Books).