Start By Doing

by Jon Lukin

I’ve found myself in conversations about the value of Agile, Holacracy, Lean, Six Sigma, and the way I approach the transformation of how systems and teams operate. While the academic in me is happy to indulge in these theoretical debates and comparisons, my inner achiever gets impatient for a few reasons. The first is that most of it is the reptilian brain, the amygdala, doing what it does best - negotiating fear and risk to keep us safe. It uses these intellectual exercises around practice and methodology to mask impotence. I get it, so I’m empathetic to it. I used to, and still do, love these exercises in an academic context. But I have to name it and its in-the-way-ness. The second reason is that I’m an advocate of doing good and acting ethically, no matter what that looks like. I’m not a perfect practitioner with flawless designs, unimpeachable theory, and resolute answers, but neither is anyone else. The right theory/method/design for the project is the one you use, but you do have to use one. 

Finally, I’m a person and practitioner who has a deeper commitment to leading the experience of change over ruminating and discussing the merits of change with a client. I believe that if you’re considering change, you’re in need of it. To begin the process, we have to do something. Because if nothing changes, then nothing changes. 

I will leave the debate between methodologies for another time. Instead, I’ll spend my time with my thoughts on the questions beneath the questions. 

Organizations have systems of operation, more commonly referred to as culture. These are the assumptions, principles, practices, values, and behaviors that guide the organization. Agile (the adjective, not the method) and resilient organizations understand that intentionality in their way of working is an essential and iterative process that leverages tools, practices, and flow to think strategically, work dynamically, and learn constantly. This intentionality, when embraced throughout a system, creates a living, breathing, evolving whole. 

As an OD practitioner, I think holistically about a system’s principles and practices and work symbiotically with the system to adopt new tools, strategies, and mindsets to understand the work that needs to be done with the how to get it done, in the most effective way. 

When designing an organization or system for a new way of working, you must experience openly (be unattached from outcome), learn willingly (nobody likes to be forcefed), and apply courageously (because all change requires courage), dynamically (because this is an evolving dance), and consistently (because change needs to be sticky). I would prefer to get into the work quickly, to make missteps in the dance, and live the experience by doing. It will likely be dizzying and disorienting, but it will also be challenging, personal, and fulfilling. And in those moments, together, we find value and meaning in our work. 

Org design, lean, six sigma, holacracy - or any work that dubs itself "transformative", all boil down to changes in collective behavior driven by changes in individual and community thinking. They are not finalities and rarely will you arrive at a terminus. The dance is always occurring and programming of the system is always a work in progress in learning and creation. 

Talking about changing is a stall tactic. David Whyte writes "Beginning well or beginning poorly, what is important is simply to begin, but the ability to make a good beginning is also an art form, beginning well involves a clearing away of the crass, the irrelevant and the complicated to find the beautiful, often hidden lineaments of the essential and the necessary."

As an OD practitioner, I can provide the tools and ingredients for your kitchen, but you have to make the meal. And that understanding has to be at the forefront of every change initiative.