On Using Chaos
There are innumerable frameworks that represent change, learning, and improvement as straight-forward, linear processes. If we just follow these steps, we will remove all of the complexity and solve all of our most difficult problems.
The truth of the matter is, this is never how this works in reality, particularly in an industry like software development. There are socio-technical systems that we have to address, there are complexities introduced with unique implementations based on the capabilities of the person writing them, and every problem is slightly different. We aren’t stamping out widgets, we are creating solutions to challenging problems.
At the risk of adding yet another framework to the mix, I use mental model that takes into account cognitive processes for integrating new information, an iterative approach to change, and a way of thinking about progress that gives us all a little more grace, empowerment, and ownership that we can extend to others as well, and perhaps make change a little easier for all of us. This model is based on hermeneutics.
Core to the process of identifying and solving problems is the process of making meaning; this is also true of learning. One key challenge to scaling learning and change management is that the process of making meaning out of our experiences is very personal. People are constantly taking in new information from a variety of stimuli and integrating it into their personal context in order to grow their understanding of the world and the people around them. When people pursue knowledge, it is almost always interest driven and based on an individual’s unique context and experience. Because interpretation and synthesis of information has always been such a personal process, it is difficult to identify valid models and approaches for facilitating that process in a way that is beneficial for problem solving at scale.
It is here where we can begin to apply hermeneutics in a way to yield value when we are seeking to facilitate change, innovation, or a learning culture. When we are attempting to influence large groups of people into new ways of doing things, it’s rare that we have a group of people with minds prepared to receive the necessary knowledge and practice to make major changes. They frequently don’t share the same vocabulary or signification of terminology.
Rather than facilitating the slow process of making meaning and cultivating a shared context to shift the mindset of large groups of people, we end up setting forth a series of practices and approaches they must follow in order to achieve our targeted goals. This is definitely an important part of change. When we don’t follow-up with the more in-depth cognitive shifts, though, what we usually achieve with this approach, even when we implement the most carefully constructed change plans, is a cargo cult.
Fundamentally, the hermeneutic cycle posits that we begin with knowledge of a concept and that through interpretation, we accumulate greater understanding of that concept until it becomes part of our fundamental experience. There is a progression of understanding that occurs as people engage deeply with concepts. There is interplay between the parts and the whole, theory and practice, knowledge and experience. This is a constant back and forth from the general to the specific and with each trip across this spectrum, understanding grows.
Hermeneutics specifically redirected scholars to continuously understand the parts as contextualized within the whole - personal involvement is required in order for someone to truly understand something which means they have to engage with the concepts and the content and integrate them into their broader understanding of how they perceive the world. We cannot escape the effect of history and society on our perceptions. Those influences cannot be ignored; they also shouldn’t become the only lens through which we perceive new things – and sometimes old things. We do need to be aware of how they inform our context.
For an individual, this generally looks like a progression of engagement with a concept or problem. The concept still loosely applies to corporate accumulation of understanding as well, except there is a bit of group think, collective consciousness, or whatever your preferred version of those concepts is. I have facilitated this in a lot of different ways: creating ambient conversations, providing avenues of experimentation and practice, and formalizing those things with learning programs and processes. It is insufficient to tell people to do things or to codify them as a process – we must facilitate the comprehensive discovery and thorough process in order to achieve the results we want to achieve.
The kind of change we want to see is a process. It doesn’t happen quickly and people will be in different places throughout their journeys. The way to approach the change is to build in the structure for this cognitive exercise. By ensuring that all people affected by a given change or direction are growing in understanding of the needed change continuously until the change is enacted, we can facilitate a much smoother change process. In order to do this, we must cultivate a culture of learning and continuously feed the right behaviors, knowledge, and skills into it to feed the process of problem identification, concept discovery, sharing, and eventual normalization. I envision this as a spiral that some members of my team have started referring to as the “Learning Tornado”.
Assessing progress through this process is definitely a challenge. There is a change curve that was adapted from the work of Kubler-Ross on grief. The spiral I’ve been discussing doesn’t really begin until stage 3 of that process, but you can start to see the progress when you start to see the following behaviors:
Not Ready – This is the point at which people are fundamentally still resisting change. There will always be people who struggle to get past this stage. The best way to help them move past it is to provide success stories and access to information about what the change really means
Awareness – This is where things start to get interesting. Usually, this aligns with the problem identification stage of the spiral and where people are explaining why something won’t work or won’t solve the identified problem. In some cases, they may be right. However, it doesn’t matter because this is a turning point in the change journey. They are acknowledging that there is a problem and they are engaging in the process of solving it.
Acceptance – This is, surprisingly, a low point for many people. They’ve lost the motivation to fight against the change, acknowledged that it is going to happen, and frequently begin to soak in exposure and sharing of new concepts.
Experimentation – This lines up conveniently with the spiral and is exactly what it sounds like – people begin actively engaging with the new thing and endeavoring to make it work, improve it, etc.
Searching – At this point, things may not be smooth, but we are looking for things that are going well. Maybe we start to see success, maybe we realize that we need to back up and rethink some things. Either way, this is a moment when the change is not only accepted and used, but begins to be fundamentally adopted.
Integration – Finally, it becomes the norm and we start to see it standardized in our processes.
Frequently, this is an organic process, growing through voluntary engagement across various groups. Just as often, we are working on implementing change as a process or directive. When it’s a driven process, begin developing a shared vocabulary and figuring out how to structure engagement with the people who need to make a change. This can be much more difficult than it sounds. Many times, people have to unlearn associations with specific terms and concepts before they can learn to communicate with shared meaning of those terms. The most difficult part of that scenario is that you are likely unaware of what those associations are. The only way to work through this is to have a lot of conversations, productive conflict, and opportunities for feedback with people who are working through the change. This can take a while, but it is part of the exposure and sharing portions of the spiral. It’s here where you really leverage communication channels, your network, and your influence or political capital to drive change.
Practically, facilitating experiences that help facilitate change can be difficult. Again, when this is happening organically, people seek these out themselves. When facilitating change, it’s difficult to find ways for this to occur organically. There are a few key principles that I think of at this point. First, no one runs a commercial once. If you want people to be aware of something, use all of the channels you can, frequently, to get there. Another option is formal learning. People have to be ready for this – assessing readiness is an entirely different conversation, but ultimately, people need to be ready to experiment with the new processes, ideas, etc. Slightly easier approaches are leveraging communication channels available to you and familiar to your audience.
At the end of all of this, the biggest thing to bear in mind is that for change to work, people have to do it. It’s not easy, it’s not linear, it’s not comfortable, and it will likely be wrong the first time, but it is effective.