Change is possible.
(If we’re willing to go first.)
Welcome to We Can Change, a weekly newsletter exploring how change happens—which is rather different from how we think it should happen—and how we can lead visionary change in our work and in our world.
I’m Kristen. My work transforms leaders, teams and organizational cultures from the inside-out for sustainable change that actually sticks. In this space, I share what I’ve learned over more than 20 years in social, behavioral and organizational change—and what I’m still learning every single day.
An unacceptable rate of failure
A recent study for the Harvard Business Review estimated that 78% of transformation initiatives fail—a staggering number, but not all that surprising.
We fail when we expect change to follow the linear path we’ve prescribed in our plans. We transform when we honor the complexity of change, holding a plan lightly and letting it evolve to include unexpected opportunities that emerge.
We fail when we attempt to force change or quell the natural resistance that rises to meet it. We thrive when we offer a purposeful vision for our people and create the conditions for them to co-create meaningful and sustainable change with us.
Most of all, we fail when we think we’re exempt, that everyone else needs to change, not us. We are most effective in leading change when it begins within us, shifting our old assumptions and reactive behaviors into openness, curiosity and creativity as our default mode.
We’ve been getting change wrong for an awfully long time.
Now more than ever, we need to get this right.
Joyful agents of change
The people who read this newsletter are like you: looking to make a difference and working to make things better, though perhaps frustrated, disillusioned or not sure where to begin.
Every week in We Can Change, I share provocations and practices from the Radiant change methodology I apply in my work with leading organizations. This is not your grandfather’s change management model. It goes deep. It challenges you to begin within yourself. It engages and empowers your team. It supercharges your culture.
That’s why it works.
Whatever your role, you can be a leader of change. Whatever change you’re seeking, it’s possible. No matter how lonely it can feel, you’re not alone.
Together we are creating a global community of joyful agents of change.
I’m glad you’re here, and I’m grateful to be in this work with you.
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