Big transformation programmes used to make a lot of sense. For most of modern history, organisations would run for a period of time and then need to make a change. So they’d set up a programme, run a transformation, project, or change over a set period of time, and then go back to a steady state. A couple of years later you would do it all again.
That world is pretty much gone. Things are moving fast and they aren’t going to stop. Changes are happening all of the time and there is no steady state that you can run for years. AI is a primary driver of this, but it’s not the only one. This means organisations need to be able to continue to absorb and manage change in smaller increments more regularly.
As with many things, the best practices for doing this well haven’t changed, but the new world we are in has made the penalty for not doing so more acute. It has always been the case that change would be more successful if you had an organisation with people who felt engaged and understood. Now that you need your people to accept more consistent changes and changes with greater uncertain foundations, like AI, it is critical.
I’ve started calling the best practice The Living Loop of Engagement. It is easy to define and hard to do. It is a continuous, honest engagement, at every level of an organisation about the reality of the work. It is a standing practice of talking with people about how things really happen and then using that information to shape what you do. It has to run all of the time, not just when there’s something to announce or news to share.
Done consistently, it builds a unique sort of trust. It’s not about warmth or whether someone is liked. Real trust that makes a difference is when people believe they can tell you the truth and that they will be taken seriously. Critically, it’s when they believe that what they tell you will make a difference and can influence decisions. And it’s where they know it won’t be used against them even if it’s not what you want to hear.
Lots of people will tell you your people need to feel they can be honest and that they won’t be penalised. That is important, but if you want your people to really trust you, they have to believe that what they tell you will count. People will give you honest information once. They will keep giving it to you only if they have seen it change something. And where the decision doesn’t go their way, you have to be able to demonstrate that you heard them and your decision was made based on strategy, not misunderstanding or ignorance. This preserves trust so that they will keep engaging.
It’s important to note that you need this honest information not only to know how to drive a change, but to make the right decision about what to change and how to change it in the first place. It is the only way you will learn the true state of your starting point. This is how you get the information you need about where to go next. People doing the work can see what leaders cannot. They will have insights and the ability to identify opportunities that would otherwise be missed.
This is also how change lands and persists. People who helped shape a change will advocate it to their own colleagues in a way that no announcement or all-hands meeting can match.
Diagnosis, design, delivery, adaptation are usually thought of a separate phases. Underneath all of them needs to be the consistent mechanism doing the same job all of the time. This is what the Living loop means. It doesn’t run once and stop. It turns continuously, and each turn returns the truth, the feedback, the extra effort, the early warning, and the insights that create the capacity to keep adapting.
I’ve previously written about the Living Arch, the shape of a human-centric, AI-enabled, continuously adaptive operating model. The Living Loop is the companion. The arch is the structure and the loop keeps it alive.
There is a lot underneath this that I will be writing about in coming weeks. How can you tell if a change is actually holding? When compliance and actual commitment look the same from the front of the room, how can you tell the difference? What do you do when you have decisions you can’t disclose yet and it seems like silence is the only option? What are the early warning signs that a change is quietly coming apart?
For now, the key point is that an engagement loop, run continuously, so it delivers for you again and again is no longer a nice to have. If you want to be able to continuously adapt and not run “programmes” over and over again that lead to change fatigue, disengagement, or outright resistance you need to look at whether you have this type of communication in your organisation and if not, start building it.
If you need help, let me know.