Sustaining Dynamic Change

In Leading Dynamic Change I talked about getting a group of people together to create something that changed the way we did things.  In Leading Dynamic Change I talked about ways to lead the process.  Now we have to Sustain Dynamic Change.  We, as leaders, have to guide consensus building.  Which means guiding the group to an agreeable, consistent, and actionable set of ongoing changes.

For change to be change it always has to be moving, creating, innovative and, for a lack of a better phrase, always changing.  Dynamic change is not one event but a series of events.  It is like a river that passes through many places and many lands.  It starts as a small stream flowing towards something bigger that we only imagine initially.  It becomes a rushing river with many streams merging into the flow of the current until it becomes a mighty slow moving powerful river.  It becomes the sum of many smaller branches flowing into one.

In the end, it becomes the sea, awe-inspiring and dynamic.  While it is a part of all waters that flow into it, it becomes greater than the sum of all of its parts.  In sustaining dynamic change we must make the way we create a living, breathing process that becomes greater than the sum of all of us.

Our teams must be asked to consistently imagine the possibilities, imagine what the greater sum looks like, and what we have to do to make dynamic change a place we live in.  It is a place where we tend to its upkeep and wellbeing, making the needed changes to sustain growth, and to evolve.

Many of today’s greatest companies were once new and innovative.  They amazingly changed the way we lived and made our world a more comfortable place to live in.  Mom and Pop stores became superstores; corner grocery stores became supermarkets and expanded throughout the land.

Today many are in trouble.  Many will be gone in the next few years.  What they did was new and beyond anything, we could have imagined yet they failed to change and evolve.  To sustain dynamic change an environment must be created for leaders that all contribute and embrace the concept of continual growth, change, and evolution.  Many of the same reasons that enabled us to create dynamic change will allow us to sustain that change as well.  From the moment we give birth to change it becomes the now and demands nourishment, growth, and evolution.

Change demands constant review, new input, new innovation and change that is fluid like the stream and it needs input and influence from many sources to become greater than the sum.

Point Of View:

To make dynamic change work and be sustainable it takes continual input, engagement, and analysis from everyone involved.  Everyone has to be a contributor.  The team has to have a clear understanding of the mission, be forward thinking, possibility advocates, and strategically add value to the project and to the team.

We must always seek change while understanding its need to grow.  The team should always be asking what are we doing that works, is it sustainable long-term and at what point does the innovation become mundane.

Dynamic change must be like the stream and have a starting point where we continue on our journey and meet other tributaries.  We learn from them and they give us new ideas, new input and make the current stronger.  We learn to see a greater concept.  Everyone will be needed and the accumulated knowledge they contribute will be the catalyst to get us there.  Once we get there we are one with the change, everyone growing, ever-changing and always looking to be inspired.   The team and dynamic change are intertwined as the team grow so do dynamic change grow.

The team needs to be freed from the bonds of preservation and be given the boundless freedom of imagination.

“Dynamic Change comes when the right group of people shares an understanding of what is to be accomplished, know who they are as a team, and come together to engage in innovation and possibility thinking.  There is a need for a shared understanding of what the team’s strengths are and where each member can take the team.  It is important to agree where the team is now and how it got there.  What can this team contribute that will make change and how does it plot a course that will bring it to Dynamic Change.”

– Larry Tyler

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