5 Change

Real change isn’t something done to you by a project plan – it’s something you help create every day through experiments, honest conversations and small, safe-to-try moves.

Real organisational change is never a one-off event. Neither is it delivered by a perfectly planned Gantt chart or a centrally run project. Instead, real change happens when organisations embrace continuous participatory improvement, grounded in psychological safety, experimentation, encouraging self-management.

Chapter 5 continues to focus on Aaron Dignan’s book Brave New Work (2019) and introduces a practical lens for understanding how organisations change And conversely why so many attempts fail. While Legacy Organisations rely on planning, control, and top-down design, Evolutionary Organisations accept that change happens in complex systems, requiring safe spaces, iterative learning, and distributed authority.

This chapter covers three topics:

1. Pattern for Change: the six-part pattern that underpins continuous participatory change.

2. Looping for Change: the practical process of sensing tensions, proposing practices, and running safe-to-try experiments.

3. Leadership for Change: the cultural and behavioural foundations that enable psychological safety, liminal spaces, and continuous learning.

Together, these topics equip leaders to create the conditions for sustainable change — not through control, but through engendering curiosity, experimentation, and trust in everyone.

5.1 Pattern for Change

5.1.1 A Case for Continuous Change

Tell me a story . . .

Let’s talk about two (fictional) organisations who are inspired by Aaron’s Brave New Work and decide they need to change. They engage a team of consultants to guide them through the journey and are just getting started.

Let’s first visit Control, Inc. Soon after engagement starts, Dan (the department manager) asks, ‘Where’s the plan?’ then struggles to get team time allocated to begin work. By ‘the plan’ Dan means: How will we make this happen? What are the steps? Where will we get to by end of Q1? What about the budget?

But for meaningful organisational change, the plan can only be 1️⃣ Try stuff, 2️⃣ Learn and 3️⃣ Iterate. And it must be safe to take time; safe to fail. As the project starts, the lead consultant reports that ‘People are not showing up’. When asked why, Dan explains that it’s ‘Because they don’t know what it is’.

Let’s next visit Emergent, Inc. Susan (the Chief Operating Officer) is seeking ‘a better way’. She is curious, spending time reading and thinking. Specifically she is looking for ‘Faster and better decisions’ and ‘Transparency for improved coordination’. Susan arranges for the project to kick off at a multi-day offsite workshop for all leaders. Facilitated by the consultants, the team start by questioning the organisation’s Operating System. What is working? What’s blocking? They all share stories and experiences.

Susan encourages them to try new stuff in exercises (experimenting); they all identify and localise organisational ‘tensions’ and kick off ‘safe to try’ experiments with small teams committed to try and test immediately. The experiments naturally gravitate to bigger, systemic issues. Susan is thrilled that ‘leaders are encouraging team to try stuff out for themselves’ as opposed to ‘leaders acting as overloaded, constant fixers’.

Let’s sum this story up as an Operating Principle (remember those? introduced in Chapter 2):

‘Real change can only be through finding a pattern of continuous improvement’ as opposed to

‘Change comes by following a Gantt chart for well-ordered activities’.

5.1.2 Pattern for change

Legacy Organisations attempt change through building detailed plans, centralised project management to set regular milestones and checkpoints and monitor progress accordingly. There is nothing wrong with this as an approach for managing projects, but is it fit for purpose when large scale organisational change is needed?

But we have learnt from the previous chapter that complex systems rarely behave predictably. People do not change because a plan tells them to. They change because they experience a better way of working, feel safe to experiment, and see progress emerge through iteration.

The alternative known as continuous participatory change treats change as organic, decentralised, and human-led.

This new approach comes down to living in the now and exploiting happy accidents. Organisations must try out new stuff, notice positive and negative patterns, amplify what works, quickly abandon what does not. Rather than creating false expectations about how things could be in the future, organisations must manage the present to create a new direction of travel.

Aaron (Dignan) helpfully suggests a six part pattern to embed continuous change. He says organisations should:

So leaders take on the goal of nudging and encouraging, rather than commanding and controlling. Their goal is to create an agile organisation that is people positive and complexity conscious full of humanity, vitality and is always learning.

Let’s dig a little deeper into each of Aaron’s nuggets of wisdom in the following sub-sections.

Commitment

For this to start,  those with formal or informal power must commit to providing:

Autonomy: trusting teams to self-organise, where members are encouraged to use their skills and judgement as opposed to ‘asking their manager’.

Consent: allowing decisions to be made by those affected, supported by distributed authority and accompanied by offers of guidance when needed.

Transparency: information available to everyone when they need it, where they need it. Essentially OPEN by default.

This commitment must become embedded and cultural, not performative. Without it, every future step collapses.

Boundaries

A liminal space is a protected environment where teams can experiment without Legacy Organisation-style scrutiny. So it’s essential that liminal space is created and protected to try out changes to the OS Canvas domains. A liminal space must have clear boundaries which are:

1. 1. Clear (‘This is the team and scope’)

   2. Small enough to be safe (<150 people). Note that this can be everyone in a startup or SME.

   3. Large enough to make the experiment meaningful.

Once boundaries are established, the innovation for change can begin.

Priming

Stay with me for a moment . . .! Imagine you have been using a paper based expense claims system for 20 years. Someone comes along and says ‘we’ve got this great new app for expense claiming’. Our natural reaction may be to make excuses, think everyone will be better at using the app, and ‘rubbish’ the app, extolling the virtues of the age old paper based system. This is referred to as a fear zone reaction as shown in Figure 5-1.

Our goal as leaders or peers is to move people experiencing these fear symptoms into the learning zone, then onward into the growth zone. We can achieve this by a process of experiential learning, referred to by Dignan as priming.  Priming uses a combination of games, exercises, reflections, dialogue and play to help move people to their learning edge, celebrating curiosity and experimentation.

Looping

Looping is the engine of continuous participatory change and the detailed mechanics will be explored in detail in the next section.  Essentially looping involves sensing tensions in the current OS Canvas domain, proposing practices to relieve these tensions, running experiments to put the practices into action. Then learning and improving. And then repeating!

Looping is decentralised and team-led as opposed to owned by a central project management office! It has much in common with agile development and organisation agility. These are a central theme as we progress through our module / Pressbook.

Criticality

At some point, an organisation reaches a moment where enough people are committed to the practices of self-management that going back to the way things were is totally  impractical. This is referred to as the tipping point. This is achieved through natural evolution as opposed to precise conditions. But the two most common signs are:

• • New language is adopted which becomes embedded in the culture.

  • New practices spread organically, beyond the boundaries of the liminal space.

Criticality is that magic moment when change becomes irreversible and organisational evolution becomes culturally embedded. This is referred to as the state of continuity . . .

Continuity

Change becomes continuous when it:

1. 1. Is part of everyday work, and the Operating System changes from being a ‘black box’ to something which is open and transparent.

   2. The pattern of change Is owned by everyone. Everyone understands why we are doing it, how we are doing it and shared responsibility for pattern improvement.

   3. Is supported by coaching, supporting and blockage removal, rather than command and control

At this stage, change stops being an ‘initiative’ and becomes a ‘way of life’ and constantly reinforces Evolutionary Organisation behaviours.

5.1.3 Case Study (Synthetic) — Control, Inc vs Emergent, Inc

It’s worth revisiting the essence of the story we used to open the section. Two organisations attempt OS transformation.

Control, Inc

1. Managers expect a plan, timeline and outcomes upfront

2. People avoid participation due to fear and ambiguity

3. Progress stalls; frustration grows

Emergent, Inc

1. Leaders ask questions rather than demand solutions

2. Workshops create liminal spaces for exploration

3. Tensions surface, experiments start, practices evolve

4. Culture slowly shifts toward autonomy and learning

Same challenge with totally different results. The difference is mindset, safety, and commitment embodied in the tools explored in this topic.

5.1.4 👍 Topic Summary

Clearly a new approach to organisational change is needed. The pattern for change offered in this topic shows that:

• Real change can only be through finding and embedding a pattern of continuous improvement into the organisation.
• Successfully implementing the pattern for change needs commitment to autonomy, consent and transparency.
• The change starts within agreed boundaries, by priming and looping until eventually criticality leads to continuity.

5.1.5 Topic Quiz

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5.2 Looping for change

5.2.1 Outer (Governance) Loop

The looping process comprises the outer loop, which is conjoined with the inner loop. Sounds complex, but it’s not!  The purpose of the outer loop is to prioritise the OS Canvas domain for initial experimentation, define the liminal space for experimentation, kick off the inner loop (where the experiment occurs) then learn and improve, The outer loop is shown in Figure 5-2. We could refer to this as the ‘governance’ loop which controls the experimentation and learning.

Let’s take each of these steps in turn.

A. Prioritise OS Canvas Domain

We start by going back to the OS Canvas (our logical model for the organisation) and selecting the elements / domain where we want to get started, based on team discussion and prioritisation. Refer back to Figure 5-3 for a reminder of the OS Canvas and its various domains.

For example, if the team decide that the biggest challenges are with lack of information – that all information is kept in department silos which are so hard to access for everyone else – start with the Information domain. Alternatively, if everyone is spending far too much time in meetings, start with the Meetings domain.

B. Define Liminal Space

You will recall that this is a specific set of people (part of a department, for example) where we will make is safe to experiment. Why is this needed? Well, as we can see from the cartoon at Figure 5-4, that its natural and human to get so used to ways of working that even if someone comes along with a great idea its rejected.

This is not the case in the Liminal Space where it is safe enough for something special to happen. The team feels safe, takes risks, feels empathy, inclusion and have time for deep reflection.

Looping happens inside a liminal space — a psychologically safe environment where:

• People can take interpersonal risks

• Mistakes are part of learning

• Experimentation is protected

• Reflection is routine

• New identities and behaviours can emerge

Forming a Liminal Space needs discipline, not magic and it is the leader’s responsibility to create the space including time and opportunity. The leader enforces the discipline needed to make it work and allow the magic to happen! The team sustain the space.

C. Loop

We will come back to the inner loop (where the experiments happen) in the next section.

D. Learn and Improve

This step comprises four interlinked activities as follows.

5.2.2 Inner (Experiment) Loop

This is where the teams – within the liminal space – identify what’s not working and try different approaches through the continuous and sequential application of three steps as shown in Figure 5-5.

1. Sensing Tensions

A tension is the gap between how things are and how they could be. Tensions are not signs of failure.  They can always be seen as signs of opportunity.

The characteristics of tensions are:

1. They are ever-present

2. They produce stress, anxiety, or frustration

3. They highlight misalignment between system design and reality

4. They inspire change when acknowledged

In summary:

‘Sense tensions to inspire change ideas’ as opposed to ‘Live with tensions and accept stress, anxiety, negativity’.

Dignan usefully includes 78 sample tension cards in his book.

2 Explore New Practices

Once tensions are named, the next step is to explore practices that might resolve or reduce them. Sources of practices include other industries, other teams, stories from experience, or horizon-scanning examples.

Practices should be small, targeted (at the tension), hypothesis-driven and safe to try, in the liminal space.

Again Aaron (Dignan) helps with practice cards (again included in his book) but techniques such as Ideation and Empathy Mapping (part of Design Thinking) could also be used at this stage.

3 Conduct Experiments

Experiments bring practices to life. A strong experiment includes:

After the experiment we will share learnings, adapt or scale the practice and move to the next loop.

5.2.3 Bringing the Loops Together.

As indicated earlier, the inner (experiment) loop sits within the outer (governance) loop as shown in Figure 5-6.

Over time, the practices of looping will create its own cultural momentum, essentially growing a new organisational capability, in Trafford and Boggis (2017) terms.

5.2.4 Case Study (Synthetic): FlowBank

FlowBank wants to improve the speed of decision-making. They identify these tensions:

• Slow sign-off processes

• Meetings used for updates rather than decisions

• Lack of cross-team coordination

Three experiments emerge:

1. Decision Protocol Practice: replacing three approval layers with a devolved, consent-based approach.

2. Meeting Redesign: weekly update meetings replaced with asynchronous dashboards. Meeting used for collaborative problem solving as opposed to ‘updating the boss’.

3. Workflow Pilot: cross-functional mission team coordinated through shared visual boards (E.g., Mural)

After six weeks, they find that

• Decisions accelerate by 40%. The people in the decision making chain are delighted!

• Teams report lower frustration and use the time saved in meeting to spend more time with customers.

• Everyone is curious and practices begin spreading beyond original teams

5.2.5 👍 Topic Summary

Looping is the practical engine of change applied through sensing tensions, proposing practices, running experiments and learning in liminal spaces. Looping allows organisations to evolve continuously rather than change episodically.

• When changing, the Org should sense tensions which lead to stress, anxiety, and poor productivity within each OS Canvas element in turn.
• New practices can then be explored to relieve these tensions, through idea generation or copying best practices.
• Experimental use of the new practices within a liminal space can test if they work, learning, improving and looping.

5.2.6 Topic Quiz

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5.2.7 Reflection Questions

1. What tensions can you identify in your team or organisation?
2. Which practices could be tried safely and quickly?
3. How might you protect the liminal space needed for experimentation?

5.3 Leadership for Change

5.3.1 Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is the foundation of continuous participatory change. According to Amy Edmondson (2018):

Psychological Safety is a climate where people feel safe enough to take interpersonal risks by speaking up, asking questions, or sharing concerns.

In realising that much of their work was team based, Google set up Project Aristotle to answer the question ‘What makes an effective team?’ (Vakil, 2020). A long term mixed methods study followed including interviews with all level of employees from executives to team members. Analysis sought to establish correlation between team traits and performance and the results are summarised in Figure 5-7.

Project Aristotle found that psychological safety is the strongest predictor of high team performance — stronger than talent, seniority, or workload.

Signs of high psychological safety:

Conversely signs of low psychological safety include:

Essentially, when Psychological Safety occurs,

‘A team is a group of people who trust each other’ as opposed to ‘A team is a group of people who have to work together.’

Psychological Safety is even more important when standards are high and high performance is needed, as shown in Figure 5-8, again derived from Amy Edmondson’s (2018) excellent work.

It’s the leader’s responsibility to cultivate Psychological Safety, but this can never be done with a project plan or a PowerPoint presentation. It’s all about leadership behaviours, authenticity and ‘winning hearts and minds’.

5.3.2 Liminal Spaces

Liminal spaces, introduced earlier, require leadership that:

Leaders “hold the space” long enough for change to emerge. They also nourish Psychological Safety within the Liminal Space through their personal action and attitudes.

5.3.3 Continuous Learning

A culture of experimentation and learning includes:

Learning becomes the operating norm.

5.3.4 Leadership Principles

Effective change leadership follows several principles:

Leaders shift from commanders to enablers. They motivate and unblock, never demand nor tell.

5.3.5 Case Study (Synthetic) — HealthPlus

HealthPlus wants greater innovation in patient care. Leaders initially push a top-down transformation plan, which fails because staff feel overwhelmed and unsure.

Leaders then recalibrate, moving to

• Weekly reflective huddles

• Safe-to-try experiments in triage design

• Peer-led training

• Leadership walk-arounds focusing on curiosity, not compliance

Within months:

• Morale improves

• Patient flow increases

• Staff initiate experiments without prompting

Leadership shifts from control to empowerment.

5.4 Chapter Summary

Chapter 5 shows that real change emerges from continuous participation, not centralised planning. Patterns for change offer a foundation for ongoing improvement. Looping brings change to life through tensions, practices, and safe-to-try experiments. Leadership enables this through psychological safety, liminal spaces, and a culture of learning.

Change becomes successful not by predicting the future, but by creating conditions where better futures can emerge through empowered teams, experimentation, and trust.

The following action plan can be used to put the advice offered in this chapter into operation.

1. Shift from projects to patterns – stop treating change as a one-off programme and start embedding continuous, participatory improvement as “how we work around here.”
2. Use the six-part pattern – commit (autonomy, consent, transparency), set boundaries, prime people, loop experiments, watch for criticality, and then protect continuity.
3. Loop for change, not perfection – in a liminal space, keep sensing tensions, testing new practices, and running short, safe-to-try experiments that you learn from fast.
4. Lead with psychological safety – create conditions where people can speak up, question, and fail intelligently without fear, so innovation and teamwork can flourish.
5. Make learning the default – normalise retrospectives, feedback, experimentation and stopping low-value work, so the organisation is always evolving rather than waiting for the next “big change.”

5.5 References

1. Dignan, A. (2019). Brave New Work.
2. Duhigg, C. (2016). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team.
3. Edmondson, A. (2018). The Fearless Organization.
4. Edmondson, A. (2014). TEDxHGSE: Building a Psychologically Safe Workplace.
5. Vakil, T. (2020). What Makes Teams Successful? (Project Aristotle analysis)