The ‘Future State’ Does Not Exist

When looking at change, we often view it through three phases: Current State, Transition State, and Future State. These phases have been presented in various forms over decades. The focus during change initiatives is often on the Future State, addressing questions like "Why?", "What's In It For Me?" (WIIFM), adoption, and how proficient usage looks like. This approach is understandable as it helps make sense of change, it makes success and impact tangible. However, the Future State - as a static new situation - does not really exist.

Let's have a look at Digital Transformation

Take digital transformation, one of the main drivers of change in organizations. When listening to a key note from a CIO of a large European energy company, he talked about three typical questions people ask within his company on digital transformation.

What is the Future State? When is it ready? Where does it live?

The most honest answer to these questions is:

• What is the Future State? It does not exist!

• When is it ready? Never!

• Where does it live? With everyone!

What is new today becomes old tomorrow. Take AI, for example. Traditional adoption to a new state does not make sense as it evolves continuously. So we need to adopt continuously. Digital transformation is not a function in an organization, it is how we conduct our business. And definitely not something reserved for a few early adopters in a startup hub. Research shows that benefits of AI are more likely met or exceeded when we are able to use it proficiently throughout the organization. Democratization is key. To democratize digital transformation, we need to skill up everyone to a certain level of competencies and adopt an infinite mindset.

This example of digital transformation applies to transformation and continuous change in general.

Example from a Car Manufacturer

When delivering a program before the pandemic for change managers in Singapore for a German car manufacturer, one of the local leaders shared this story:

Dear colleagues, the training program you are attending this week addresses the most important challenge we face as a company. We build the best cars in the world. We have the best engineers, develop the best technology, and bring this to our cars. We are not the largest car manufacturer, but we are the best, and we have been doing this for decades. We develop, and the rest follows our example. If we see a problem, we design and develop a brilliant solution and put a new button on the dashboard in our cars. Which is why our cars have so many buttons. This made us very internally focused, however it made and kept us successful for many years.

Then diesel gate happened, and Tesla entered the market. Our response was: 'That is not a good car' and 'Electric driving? We don’t believe in it.' And we continued to develop 'the best cars in the world.'

Then electric driving became more successful than we expected. Electric driving was encouraged by government policies, and Tesla – at that time -  was not that bad. Our reaction was: 'Now we need to build the best electric car in the world.' We struggled with it and suddenly went from leading to falling behind. But we kept trying to build the best electric car in the world.

However, our challenge is not to build the best electric car in the world; we will achieve that eventually, since our engineers are the best. Because, maybe electric driving will be the future, and maybe not. Our challenge is to become more responsive to what happens in the outside world and being able to adapt faster. The relative stability in our industry we knew for decades no longer exists. Our engineering expertise and people are still valuable assets, but we are not change responsive. If this happens again tomorrow, and again and again, we will eventually cease to exist."

The Function of the Three States

So, are the 3 states not useful anymore? No, they have a function.

Endings or Current State:

Do not underestimate the need to focus on what we leave behind. Change is not only about wins and better futures. Sometimes we lose something we value and feel comfortable with. The most powerful thing to do is to acknowledge this to people impacted. People are more open to the new when they are acknowledged for what they need to leave behind, especially if they value it.

Conversations, listening, acknowledging, and using ceremonies/rituals are important attributes.

And in what we end lies our competency, things we are good at, and behaviours we have shown for many years. Learning something new also requires unlearning, especially in the case of mindset and behaviours.

New Beginnings or Desired/Future State:

Bringing clarity, explaining why and impact is and remains important. It brings comfort and hopefully some desire as well. At the same time, we need to be transparent and honest that the future state will not be static and change will always be part of it.

Bringing comfort can be challenging when impact and how the future state will look like is still unknown. Actually, this is a very common situation.

In this situation, we can still bring comfort, and help our brains to deal with uncertainty and the unknown.  Key is to have a clear ‘north star’, where are we moving to. And ‘how the change will happen’ communication is crucial in this journey: how will the process look like, how people can engage and participate and when information will be available.

Our brain wants to make sense of a situation we are in and relate to it, we can better deal with a known bad situation, then with promises of something that is unknown. Developing change resilience and embracing the continuous state of transition is what helps.

Embracing the Continuous Transition State:

The only state that really exists. We live in a continuous state of transition, the liminal space between the old and the new.

This state often gets less focus, but it is where change happens, where learning happens, and where people grow. It is also the state of discomfort and uncertainty. Where people may experience resistance. However, it is a misconception that people don’t like change (Read my blog: “Nobody likes change!?”). Let’s develop our resilience, change our mindset, and focus on continuous growth.

The challenge is to embrace the continuous state of transition we are in. This requires an infinite mindset from leaders, change makers, and everyone involved.

Synchronizing with the speed of change also requires building a change-resilient and responsive organization, which means focusing on people. Let's shift from only structured change plans for change projects to:

• Change leadership for liminality: When was the last time a shiny powerpoint presentation alone, made you fully embrace change? Instead of only sharing nice "Why" story slides, focus support, communication and conversation on how to deal with transition (in all three phases).

• Stop managing resistance: Acknowledge that resistance is a human reaction. Stop convincing people that this is the best idea ever (being right is not enough). Instead; listen, listen, listen and show empathy. Acknowledgement makes people feel heard, which is all they sometimes need to move forward. Discomfort and uncertainty is part of change, it is ‘ok’ to feel it.

• Democratization: Change should not be designed in a project room or as a niche for front runners. Upskilling and employee engagement becomes more important, people who are able to contribute experience more ownership. And the sum of all knowledge and experience makes change better and more powerful.

• Psychological safety: Psychological safety drives innovation. Because people are more comfortable to question the status quo or a new idea / initiative. It brings comfort to making mistakes, which is normal part of learning and adapting. And most importantly, people feel comfortable starting any conversation needed to be successful or avoid failure.

• Motivation and drives: Stop convincing or forcing people. Change is sometimes welcomed and sometimes people are not happy with it. Well developed and high-performing teams, based on the strengths of individual motivators and drives (and the collaboration of these within the team), have a higher responsiveness to change. Motivation comes from ABC: Autonomy, Belonging and Competencies. What drives you? How do you act? What is expected from you? How do you collaborate in your team?

• Conversations over communications: Change happens through real conversations. There is no single conversations that makes change happen or fail, however every conversation can make a difference. Effective conversations always have 2 things in common: 1) the mindset you choose when you join a conversation and 2) how well you listen and try to understand. All the above comes together in the conversations we have. (Read my blog: Change Happens, One Conversation At A Time and Conversations over Communications)

We need a shift in focus, from managing a change to embracing liminality. This will better equip both individuals and organizations to navigate the complexities of our constantly evolving world.