I have been reflecting on my experience with change in organisations through the lens of 'memes' and am beginning to see why some approaches are more successful than others. I am grateful to If Price and Ray Shaw for identifying a range of approaches that can help us break out of limiting patterns and I have used this to pattern my thinking.
In my work as a leadership coach, I can see that what I am often doing is identifying the client's memes and naming them. By bringing to the attention of my clients the behaviours that are disenablers and helping them see the underlying patterns of beliefs etc, that support these behaviours, they are more able to restructure and choose more empowering patterns.
With one client, using a model incorporating leadership qualities of sincerity, benevolence, wisdom, strictness and courage, he was able to see more clearly how disabling patterns were affecting his performance in relationships with direct reports where he needed to be more powerful.
Bringing patterns to people's attention is successful in certain situations but awareness of a pattern is perhaps one of the weaker approaches. Think for example, how many people continue to smoke knowing the damage it does to their health. So sometimes there are other, deeper patterns that underpin behaviours.
This is certainly true for groups. One approach I use, that I now see help clients identify memes and change them, is Open Space. This is a large group process (10- 200+ people), during which participants create and manage their own programmes around a central theme with the aim of developing plans for creative and collaborative action.
For a recent Open Space client the theme was 'How to create a vibrant culture of innovation'. The 35 participants identified more than 20 ideas, themes and approaches of what was needed and the action to be taken. After meeting in self-selected groups over two days to explore these, they finally identified seven key projects and formed the action teams to move them forward.
Another way to view the situation is that the group was identifying its current patterns that disabled innovation and agreeing new patterns and the plans to implement them. What adds power to the process is that you have the attention of a significant proportion of the organisation who now have a shared, co-created understanding of what limits them and what's needed to move forward. This greatly increases the chances of success.
There is not always this level of easy agreement however. Another large group process, Future Search, is specifically designed for where there are conflicting memes. Future Search brings together a diverse group of stakeholders (usually about 64 participants) to find common ground, build a shared vision and move into action to co-create their future.
The underlying assumption is that, rather than expend energy on trying to remove differences, it is more effective to honour the diversity and have people identify and acknowledge their interdependence.
This is a more challenging process, often described as a roller coaster ride, during which individuals and stakeholder groups surface their memes and are presented with the opportunity to let go of some of their deep patterns in return for a desired future that can only be created by the whole group working in collaboration.
We ran a Future Search conference in a small town community in Scotland. Over 60 participants including representatives of the local youth, teachers, councillors, youth workers, voluntary organisations and local businesses came together for 3 days on the theme of creating a future for youth in the town. Towards the end of the conference, as the youth were presenting back a number of projects they identified they wanted to take forward, members of the other groups continually interrupted with suggestions about how they could help make the projects more successful. Finally, out of a sense of frustration, one of the youths said, words to the effect, that they did not want this interference, they wanted to do it themselves, they could not make a bigger mess of it than the adults had already but that they would be happy to call in help if needed.
This had a profound effect on the adults. You could sense the impact of the growing realization that their operating meme was about 'helping the children' and it was no longer children they were dealing with. It was young adults who want more equal representation and participation. Over five years later, I am still hearing stories of the impact of this conference.
When this level of confrontation is not needed, sometimes it is sufficient to re-language the patterns. With one client, the director team with whom we were starting a project were 'highly academic'. The President of the company was concerned that a repeating pattern of behaviours, apparently common amongst academics and involving what's been called 'dualing egos' would disrupt the process.
As the participants gathered we sat in a circle and invited them to 'put on the robe of an elder', to bring their wisdom to the benefit of the organisation, to bring questions that would illuminate issues and help others see beyond where they had reached. There was naturally some skepticism but they played the role for the day. The President commented later that it was they best director's meeting they'd ever had.
Another approach Price and Shaw suggest is re-framing - that is, to look at the situation through a new lens or frame in order to see what is not currently being seen.
With a group of 28 tutors from a business school, we used a tool called a Wisdom Council, which is an ancient way to look into the issues and decisions facing us from eight distinct perspectives that make up a whole.
We gave them a new frame - eight perspective - with which to explore how to move their enterprise forward. What started as a relatively straightforward business issue began to take on new dimensions. Participants gave wider meaning to what they were doing, acknowledging what had been achieved, their 'vision, boldness and brilliance', and saw the need for great balance and unity as a 'family'.
The Director of the enterprise commented afterwards that participants "were delighted by it" and added "I can truthfully say that I have never had such a spontaneous flurry of "thank you" notes for any other event."
In the spirit of learning and growth, there is value for us all examining what we are doing through new lenses. The lens of 'memes' seems to be a useful one for making more sense of why some organisational initiatives work well and other less so.
Mike W Bell has been a senior executive, leadership coach and organizational development consultant for over 30 years. For the last 15 or more of these I have been weaving an old wisdom tradition with the latest science and research to find more whole and balanced approaches to leadership and organization.
