Tsunamis and Wake Up Calls for Change


The earthquake and tsunami in Japan are cold hard reminders of the fragility of life, no matter how secure we might seem at any moment. Our hearts go out to the Japanese people.

While any major event, both catastrophic or celebratory, can yield learning about transformational change, I tread lightly on using the devastation in Japan as a learning tool. So as I make the following points, my heart is heavy with the suffering thousands of people are enduring in Japan, and I am cautious about what may be coming.

A catalyst of transformational change

A catalyst of transformational change

Wake up calls come in many forms. You experience wake up calls for change every day, throughout the day. Every emotional contraction you have is a sign to let go of some attachment, a call to shift your perception. The cough in your chest or low energy you feel may be telling you to eat better, exercise more, stop smoking, or get more sleep. Your child’s lack of interest in school may be telling you to be more interested in her. Your organization’s low employee or customer service scores may be telling you to shift your organization’s leadership style or culture. When something isn’t working ideally, it is a call for change. Our job as conscious change leaders is to discover just what change is being called for.

What wake up calls do an earthquake and tsunami deliver? What necessary change might they be announcing?

It’s easy to discount natural disasters as wake up calls. They are natural. People didn’t cause them. But on a second look, there is something to learn, as always.

All machines break down. We know this. It’s called entropy, and it happens in all mechanical systems. Is nuclear power safe then? Can we keep plants from breaking down, isolated from natural phenomena? Is nuclear power environmentally sustainable when its waste is so highly toxic to any and all forms of life and has a half-life lasting many generations into the future? An egoistic, man-conquers-nature mentality says it is safe, especially when weighed against a country’s need for electricity. And herein lies the rub.

As our (ego) needs rise…we want more gadgets, more technology, more consumption, more economic benefit…our need for cheap electricity goes up. Simultaneously, our concerns about the tenuousness of nuclear power go down. Our ego needs shift the boundary of sensibility, and what was once a concern and questionable, all of a sudden becomes palatable.

I remember in the 1970’s debating with my dad, who was helping build a nuclear power plant, the costs, risks and benefits of nuclear. I was arguing for renewable energy sources like solar; he was arguing for nuclear because it was more efficient and cheaper. And it was. Why? Because our government invested in nuclear and not solar. For every dollar spent on nuclear research at the time, only pennies were spent on solar. No wonder solar stagnated as nuclear power plants were built across the country.

Many challenges in transformational change occur because people don’ t see the big picture. The purpose and gift of wake up calls are their blatant slaps in the face that say, “Pay attention here.” The risk of a nuclear meltdown in Japan is such a slap. It calls us to see beyond the lure of cheap electricity to perceive the underlying dynamics and wider implications.

Transformation almost always entails a radical shift of organizing principles that emerges out of an equally profound shift in worldview. With this shift, we perceive things differently, make different decisions, and take different actions, which deliver better outcomes.

Perhaps the earthquake and tsunami can help wake us collectively up to see that we need a new worldview and way of acting. Rather than man-conquers-nature, we need a worldview of people working with nature. To serve humanity in the most profound ways, technology needs to live within the bounds of what is life supporting and sustaining, not just consumption driving and cheap. We need to invest in technology that supports life and people, rather than what simply promotes economic growth. And it does not need to be either/or, but rather, both/and. We can have both environmental sustainability and economic growth. Investing in renewable energy will produce the same kind of job creation and wealth distribution that nuclear and oil did. It is an easy transformation to conceive, as long as you are not blinded by vested interests and ideology. Had we researched the heck out of sustainable energy back in the ’70’s, the Japanese people (and the world) would not be faced with a potential nuclear disaster today. I hope we get this wake up call.

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Endorsements

With this extensively upgraded second edition, Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson solidify their status as the leading authorities on change leadership and organizational transformation. This is without question the most comprehensive approach for leaders who are serious about making change a strategic discipline. Beyond Change Management is an intelligent book by two of the most knowledgeable and accomplished masters of their craft, and it’s one that every conscious change leader should adopt as their guide to creating more meaningful organizations.

Jim Kouzes
Coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge and The Truth About Leadership


Read this great book by Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson and learn how to use their multi-dimensional approach to lead transformation masterfully and consciously!

Marshall Goldsmith
World-renowned executive coach
Author of the New York Times best-sellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There


An important move toward a more integral business consulting approach, very much recommended for those interested in the topic and ways to actually apply it. 

Ken Wilber
Author, The Integral Vision, A Brief History of Everything, and over a dozen other best-sellers


Dean and Linda are core to the field of conscious change leadership, and continue to stretch and push its boundaries in this rich and deep compendium. This is a must read from two consummate thought leaders who have devoted their careers to developing highly successful change leaders. Read it and immediately improve your change leadership or consulting success.

Bev Kaye
CEO, Career Systems International
Author of Love 'em or Lose 'em: Getting Good People to Stay


This book is about mastery of leading the transformational change process written by masters of the craft.  For corporate leaders and consultants who consider themselves committed students of the process of organizational change.

Daryl Conner
Chairman, Conner Partners
Author of Managing at the Speed of Change and Leading at the Edge of Chaos


Beyond Change Management is a timely how-to guide for leading change in the 21st century. It provides both a conceptual roadmap, and practical tools and techniques for successfully transforming organizations.

Noel Tichy
Professor, University of Michigan
Co-author with Warren Bennis of JUDGMENT: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls


Once again, Dean and Linda have nailed it! Beyond Change Management is an extraordinary book examining the shifts in change management that have occurred over the years. This book offers real, practical solutions for change practitioners to become extraordinary conscious change leaders.

Darlene Meister
Director, Unified Change Management
United States House of Representatives


Powerful business solutions to the current chaos facing many organizations today. Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson get to the heart of change, the human touch, by using timeless techniques and tools.
Ken Blanchard
Co-Author of The One Minute Manager and Leading at a Higher Level


Having applied this methodology for two years to manage change inside Microsoft, it has been instrumental in our ability to land change effectively, engage employees and deliver results quickly. The Change Leader’s Roadmap allows us to lead change with precision and minimal outside consulting, while at the same time growing change leadership capability internally. This is the most complete change methodology we have found anywhere.

Pete Fox
General Manager, Corporate Accounts
Microsoft US


This newest edition of The Change of Leader’s Roadmap is an invaluable, comprehensive and practical guide for envisioning an organization’s desired future, designing the structures and practices necessary to make it happen, and implementing them effectively. The book describes the change process in nine distinct phases and outlines the activities and tasks that need to occur in each phase. It provides change leaders with an essential map for successfully traversing the complex and uncertain terrain of transformational change.   

Thomas G. Cummings
Professor and Chair, Department of Management & Organization
Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California


This is the next best thing to having Dean, Linda and the Being First team riding alongside your complex change initiative. The Change Leader’s Roadmap breeds confidence in senior executive “Champions” to guide not just a successful transformational change, but most importantly, to develop the mission critical organizational CULTURE that will ensure unparalleled return on investment. Nothing I have seen in my 32 years of leading change comes close.

Jeff Mulligan
Former CEO, Common Wealth Credit Union
Mayor, City of Lloydminster


After implementing more than 2000 business strategy and operational excellence initiatives, we set out to find the best change methodology and toolbox in the world. The methodology this book describes is it! Study it thoroughly, because the thinking, process approach and pragmatic tools really work!

Thomas Fischer
Director COO
Valcon Management Consultants A/S
Copenhagen


A practical, step-by-step guide for change leaders, managers and consultants. The book provides conceptually grounded, real world, time tested tools and guidance that will prove invaluable to those faced with navigating the challenges of leading organizational change in today's turbulent times.

Robert J. Marshak, Ph.D.
Senior Scholar in Residence
MSOD Program, American University
Organizational Change Consultant