The Change Paradox

Sometimes it seems as if everybody wants something, or someone, to change. The front page of the Labour Party manifesto for the 2024 general election had the word ‘Change’ starkly printed in red next to a picture of Sir Keir Starmer. In its own terms it was certainly successful; the party won a landslide majority. The problem for Starmer came two years later. He faced overwhelming pressure for yet another change. He resigned as Prime Minister. It seems as if wanting things to be different is a natural human instinct.

All Change is Loss

But this is not the whole story for those who see the costs of change, even when accepting it as inevitable. Harry Levinson, the American psychologist, argued that all change is loss and must be mourned. There seems to be a corresponding human instinct to keep things as they are, as anyone who has led a team, a department, or an organisation can testify. The human response to the costs and anxiety induced by change has been at the heart of Donald Trump’s political project. By promising to ‘Make America Great Again’ he has promoted a change that also looks back to the past, whether that past ever existed.

Going Deeper

This is one part of the change paradox, but there is a deeper level. Whether we welcome change or resist it, whether we want to move to a bold new future or turn the clock back to how things might have been before, all these different viewpoints have one thing in common. They see the change as something that needs to happen to someone else. If only other people would listen more, be more collaborative, be more decisive, or just be different, then everything would be better. The problem, though, is that we cannot make other people change. We can ask them to change, we can encourage them to change, we can reward them if they do or distance ourselves if they won’t. But none of us can get inside someone else’s head and rewire them.

What we can do

So, is there anything we can do? Yes, there is. We cannot change other people, but we can change the way we act in relation to them.

This truth is at the heart of family systems theory and of leadership coaching. Thinking systemically invites us to look at how emotional fields operate in the places where we work, whether that is our teams, our departments, our organisations or our industry. The challenge is to stay true to ourselves and connected to others at the same time, which Bowen described as differentiation.

Maintaining our differentiation is difficult when anxiety rises in the systems we feel caught in. Doing so means not surrendering our own thinking and position while keeping the relationships around us as healthy as we can. This is what it means to walk the narrow edge between cut off and fusion, which I explored in a previous insight. We can listen with openness and change our view if we choose, or we can agree to disagree. If people try to get us on their side, we can keep our distance, while if others walk away from us, we can stay open to them.

How to Change the System

And here we see the deeper level of the change paradox. For when we change ourselves the system does in fact change, because we are part of the system.

None of this is easy to do, especially as a leader. This is where leadership coaching can help. A coach will listen, question and challenge but they will not tell you what to do. They will not try and rewire you, but they will give you the opportunity to rewire yourself if you choose to do so.

If this article has resonated with you, and you would like to explore how this way of thinking might help you develop your leadership, enhance your wellbeing, or reflect more deeply on the systems you may feel caught in, I would be delighted to have an initial conversation with you.

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