Step Change

The Leader's Journey

Alan Watkins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000473834
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

No one likes change. Too often it's viewed as something that must be endured; something to 'get through' as fast as possible so that everything can 'return to normal'. We need to change our view of change and see it for the opportunity it really is. Step Change: The Leader's Journey helps leaders to become gifted and skilful at moving through the change process gracefully and productively.

Based on Joseph Campbell's 'hero's journey', Step Change: The Leader's Journey offers a universal road map of change from step-1 (comfort zone) through to step-12 (post-delivery inspiration). The journey travels through four distinct phases of 'discover', 'decide', 'develop' and 'deliver'. Step Change provides a proven formula for change, both personal and organisational, which allows us to know where we are on the Change Wheel and what to expect from each step, including what it looks and feels like at each step. By identifying what causes change to fail at each step as well as tools to navigate past the pitfalls and dead ends that leave us stuck at a particular step or retreating to the comfort zone, the change cycle can be understood and mastered.

The book provides the ideal structure for senior managers, human resource managers, coaches and business leaders to follow in order to embed change across their teams and organisation.

1Step-1Comfort zone

DOI: 10.4324/9781003170402-2

The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So, you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so, it starts.

(Joseph Campbell)

One of the reasons that change is viewed negatively by so many people is because it creates an inevitable departure from our comfort zone. Like leaving a warm bed on a bitterly cold winter’s morning, few people enjoy the shock and dislocation. Our departure from comfort can create a sense of dis-ease and a desire to stay exactly where we are. But if we don’t depart, we may never develop as adult human beings, and we will not fulfil our potential.

When we talk about being in our comfort zone, the implicit assumption is that the comfort zone is a good, safe and happy place to be. For those living outside their comfort zone, it looks like the perfect destination, a worthwhile goal. Many see it as a haven from the difficulties of life. The comfort zone is imbued with magical properties; a womb-like sanctuary to which we can return. But this is a myth and a dangerous one at that.

How do I know if I’m at step-1?

Everyone has experience of being in the comfort zone, nestled nicely in the familiarity of their known world. It’s where every journey of change starts. Unfortunately, too many people have taken up permanent residence there because they have bought into the mythology of the comfort zone. They have privileged survival over development.

The illusion of the comfort zone has arisen largely because few people develop the level of change competence needed to successfully leave. This is despite the multiple opportunities that show up as the years stack up on our journey from infants to adults. When the train to transformation appears, we retreat, we shy away and we fail to board. Each voluntary or involuntary opportunity for change from infant to junior school, from senior school to university, from first job to each successive promotion creates turbulence. In the face of this turbulence and without change competence we mistakenly believe our primary goal is to stay where we are, stabilise our position and return to our comfort zone. If we experience any slight change at all, we are immediately compelled to establish a new comfort zone in our new environment as quickly as possible.

But why have we become so addicted to the need for comfort? To understand this, we must take a step back and look deeply into who we are, how we are constructed and what drives us.

All living things have two fundamental drives, but human beings have developed three. The first motivational drive for all living organisms is survival. We are wired to detect novelty because our safety, growth and navigation depend on it. We constantly compare what we know and what is familiar with what is new and different. Such pattern recognition is our brain’s core operating programme. We must detect threats and protect ourselves against excessive change. In order to do this, we map our inner and outer worlds. The fundamental difference between these maps gives birth to our identity.

Briefly, the maps we make of our external world are awash with change and variety. In contrast, our interior maps are incredibly stable with little variance. We are perpetually mapping our physical existence, and these maps hardly change at all. Our blood pressure, pH, oxygen levels, heart rate, breath rate and muscle tone are all controlled very tightly. We come to understand that these stable, invariant patterns are who we are. Our physical identity is formed. We are the thing that doesn’t change. We are the fixed point in this sea of external hypervariability. This is why we are, at our core, more comfortable with no change. It is who we are. Our most fundamental drive to survive is about maintaining the integrity of that stability, the comfort of no change. But there’s a catch.

If we survive, protect ourselves, feel comfortable and satiate our primary drive by not changing, we create a stable platform. In this non-threatened world of physical and psychological safety, a second motivational drive is activated. And this second drive changes everything.

The second drive is for exploration. It’s our desire to look for more resources that takes us beyond survival and towards a new, more expanded future. At the core of that future is reproduction. If we find the resources we seek, which at the most basic level means nutrients (oxygen, food and water) plus security or shelter, we can meet our second drive. This second reproductive drive transcends and includes the primary drive. It drives us to search, to connect and to reproduce so we can continue as a species. To do this successfully, we must become comfortable with change. To explore, we must venture out. The more advanced or complex the organism, the greater the adventure and the more developed our change competence must become.

The exploratory reproductive system is where the journey ends for most of the biosphere, but not us. Human beings have developed a third motivational system, which goes beyond the exploratory reproductive drive of most organisms, and that is the conscious desire to evolve. This consciousness transcends and includes the two previous innate systems. In fact, the third system emerges to inhibit the first two systems to enable us to adapt and flourish as complex beings in an increasingly complex world.

It’s this third system that is failing us now. It’s not kicking in because many people continue to over prioritise system one and privilege comfort while undervaluing change. This is why many people’s relationship with comfort and change has become fickle. Our primary motivational system has become too dominant. Our secondary exploratory motivational system is shut down, and our third motivational system has not even fired up and so can’t deliver the abilities we need in a rapidly accelerating world.

When our primary system is dominant, we become trapped in our cage of comfort, just surviving. We lose the opportunity to experience some of the most beautiful and inspiring moments in life; we don’t encounter the exquisite freshness of novelty. The experience of something new is what keeps our brain (and us) young, fresh and alive. People get bored when nothing is changing. When we privilege our primary system and ‘no change’, we put ourselves on the slippery slope to senescence and decay. In our comfort zone, we stick to our unconscious bias for stability. And in a world that is accelerating, this bias is massively impairing our ability to grow, develop and succeed.

Some people spend their entire lives at step-1. But what are the warning signs that you may inadvertently be living out your days in the cage of comfort? The clues that you might be in step-1 include:

• You believe everything is ‘fine’ right now.
• Conditions are stable and there is no need for change.
• Everything is just ticking along quite nicely – no crisis, no burning platform.
• Things feel good or at least manageable.

Step-1 is soporific, there are no surprises. Everything is functioning well. We are operating in ‘business as usual’ mode. We know exactly what is expected of us and what we need to do to maintain the status quo.

In a relationship, we might find ourselves in the comfort zone after several years together and a couple of children. We know each other well enough to have moved past the early expectation of perfection. We are liberated from idealism and have surrendered the idea of what could have been and replaced it with what is. In this trance, we have not noticed the infection of complacency, comfort and the erosion of ambition. The partnership is functional and stable, and that’s fine. As parents, we know our roles and get on with our tasks and responsibilities. There may not be fireworks, but there are rarely any nasty surprises either. It’s nice.

Professionally, the picture is similar. Everything looks normal, and our career and the business might be ticking along. Results are stable – not stellar, but not terrible either. It’s all a bit stale, and there is often little urgency. We don’t expect to be stretched or challenged and can simply ‘go through the motions’ of our work. It’s predictable – we have no desire to rock the boat, and neither, it seems, does anyone else. There are very few curve balls which can give us a false sense of control. We are generally oblivious of the need for change. This operational blindness can mean that even if a few red flags start to appear or subtle indications that change might be imminent or needed, we miss them. This is not deliberate; it’s not that we see these danger signals and ignore them at step-1; often we just don’t see them. The boat is either becalmed, drifting, or a storm is brewing, but either way no action is taken. We’re not especially engaged or excited by our work anymore, but we don’t hate it either. We can get stuck in this limbo existence because it’s not bad enough to leave. At step-1, we’re not really aware of the need for change. We’re ‘asleep’. We may even buy into the ultimate fallacy of step-1 that ‘ignorance is bliss’: it isn’t. Ignorance is just ignorance. Bliss is a completely different place that can’t be mistaken for step-1. If you have ever been to the planet of Bliss, there is no confusion.

In this state of stasis, we urgently need to change our set point. We need to activate our third motivational system and swing the pendulum back to adventure. We need to wake up. The journey of our life awaits. If we become alive to this quest, embrace our innate curiosity, then we can change our view of change. The opportunity that lies within our grasp is to use change as a stepping-stone to a better, more productive, creative and wonderful future. One where we can become a more enlightened leader, live large, sacrifice ourselves to something beyond ourselves – this is the hero’s journey, and it starts with the realisation that we are stuck at step-1, too comfortable in our complacency.

How does it feel to be in step-1?

Primarily we feel alright, we are comfortable in step-1, and in some cases that comfort is warranted. There may genuinely be nothing wrong and nothing to fix or improve. We are not stressed, there is no drama and no chaos. Of course, even if that’s true, it can still feel dull, humdrum and, at times, boring, ironically because there is no stress, no drama and no chaos!

But business is business. Markets change. Economic conditions alter. Pandemics propagate. Political fortunes reverse. Customers demand something new or better. Employees come and go. Supply chains have challenges. Technology disrupts demand. Business needs change. It’s unlikely that we can remain in the comfort zone forever – regardless of the type of business we may lead.

What tends to emerge when the occasional red flag appears is dismissive complacency, wilful ignorance, rationalisation, self-justification or insularity. It may be that the numbers are down in a particular department, there is a production issue that no one can seem to get to the bottom of or a new appointment is causing problems, but we are reluctant to wake up to warning signs and underlying issues.

In our insularity, we lack sensitivity to market forces, we refute external advice, we ignore the signals and continue to reject the need for change. Instead, we dismiss the red flags as just the small or short-term ups and downs of business. We convince ourselves that the poor numbers are a blip or that the production issue is minor or that the new recruit is just finding their feet. There is often an absence of curiosity. We will often make up our mind about issues with very little data, external input or verifiable fact – hence the insularity. This type of insularity and refusal to heed any warning signs is probably why the first sign of heart disease in many men is death! Sadly, ignoring the flashing lights or various symptoms of impending doom doesn’t alter the outcome.

When we are in the comfort zone of step-1, we may actively seek to ignore the facts and cling to the story. This is certainly understandable in business, where the share price is linked to the narrative of the business rather than the facts. When things go wrong, the short-term focus of most public companies means they are invested in ignoring the issue or at the very least glossing over the problem to make sure they don’t spook the analysts, the market or the media. Leaders may, similarly, want to paint a somewhat idealised picture to ensure staff remain motivated. It is a small step from overly optimistic narratives to convincing ourselves things are better than they really are. If leaders succumb to this comfortable story, then trouble won’t be far behind.

At step-1, we are ‘asleep’. This is a metaphor for walking through life with a lack of awareness and a lack of recognition that anything needs to change. Such somnolence has many parents:

1. Immaturity – our perceptiveness is unsophisticated; we don’t realise that change is brewing.
2. Naivety – wishful thinking and idealism may blind us to the reality.
3. Wilful ignorance – we may have a sense something is happening, but we stick our ‘head in the sand’.
4. Denial – flat out rejection of any facts that would indicate that change is needed.
5. Invincibility – we may have a misplaced certainty that the current success is unassailable.

The trap of narcissism

At every step of the leader’s journey there are traits or behaviours that the leader can exhibit that will actively stop the leader’s journey in its tracks and prevent progress. In step-1, one of the commonest traps is narcissism. Unchecked, narcissism can create a sense of invincibility and keep us stuck in the comfort zone.

The psychology of narcissism means there is often a very low level of change competence. When we’ve cycled through the Change Wheel a few times, it’s almost impossible to be that self-absorbed. With experience and maturity, we come to realise that we are never really in control. Contrary to whatever story we construct to keep us in the comfort zone, we are not omnipotent. Leaders stuck in narcissism often operate with a delusional attachment to the idea that they are in control. Such narcissistic control freakery is common in the C-suite, and it is part of the ‘shadow’ of many leaders stuck at step-1.

Narcissism is a very powerful and seductive behavioural trap because there is often a very thin line between this and its slightly more functional alter ego, wilful insistence. The latter can make things happen and inadvertently reinforce a sense of control and invincibility. Success that flows from wilfulness can, therefore, obscure an underlying narcissism. The shadow can be exacerbated by the fact that many leaders have learnt to mask their more narcissistic tendencies.

Part of the narcissist’s operating model is that they are attracted to the latest ‘shiny object’ or rising star. Initially, many people feel the warmth of their charismatic energy. But it can turn very frosty, very fast for those who fall out of favour with a narcissist.

Narcissists are often unconsciously driven by their need to prove themselves superior, and they can subtly or overtly undermine those around them.

The key characteristics of narcissism are:

1. Need to be seen positively – narcissists often talk endlessly to show others how brilliant they are. Often, they are unaware how grandiose they may appear or simply don’t care if they are coming across a...