Finn Jackson — Perspectives On Organizational Change
“The best way
forward is not to
try to hold on to
the past but to
build the future
you want instead”
Our interviewee for this Liminal Thought Leaders piece is business coach, consultant, and author, Finn Jackson.
Finn’s experience of organisational change comes from almost a decade spent designing and implementing top to bottom changes to strategy, process, and organisation, internationally, in a global IT services company. He has also worked as a strategy consultant, defense analyst, in an NGO, co-founded an Internet startup, founded a civil society organisation, and co-written a movie screenplay.
Finn is the author of two books on strategy and leadership in times of change: The Escher Cycle: Building self-reinforcing business advantage and The Churning, Inner Leadership: Tools for building inspiration in times of change.
Born in Darjeeling, North East India, Finn holds a degree in physics from Oxford University and an MBA with distinction from Imperial College. His values are honour, harmony, and empowerment. His purpose is to create a generative world.
“Your organisation, no matter what size, has to change. Life is change. If you’re not changing, it’s because you’re dead.”
Mike:
Do you see major change as being inevitable and essential to organisations the world over?
Finn:
Yes, absolutely. On the one hand change has always been with us. And on the other, if you look at a typical PEST analysis of the political, economic, social, and technological issues we face, you can see they are all accelerating and multiplying. We live in a globalised world, so if somebody changes something in one place that can have a knock-on effect somewhere else.
For example, I might be running a nice quiet hotel on the Amalfi coast in Italy when some guy in California invents a website called Airbnb, which allows my neighbours to rent out their rooms. Suddenly my hotel business is at risk. So, globalisation has brought us to a place where the butterfly’s wing on one side of the world really can create a storm for me here today on the other side.
And that rate of change is accelerating — not only through the interaction of political, economic, social, and technological issues, but also their extension into the environmental issues we have created.
We’re also seeing new issues arising to do with the availability and price-volatility of basic resources such as oil, water, and steel. China, for example, was using so much steel that it drove up the global price. Then when China needed less steel (and capacity had grown to match demand) the global price fell, and some plants were no longer economic to run.
So yes, change is inevitable. And we live in such an interconnected world that we are no longer affected only by events within a five mile radius of where we live — we can now be affected by events on the other side of the world. And as Mr. Trump has shown, it’s simply not possible to build a wall and keep the change out.
Mike:
It does seem rather a King Canute kind of initiative, doesn’t it?
Finn:
Absolutely. The same, in my opinion, with Brexit. You have to change. You can’t cut your country off from change. Your organisation, no matter what size, has to change. Life is change. If you’re not changing, it’s because you’re dead.
In my own life I’ve had to go through several major changes and I’ve come to recognise that change is essential. And actually, more than that, once you learn to embrace change, you can learn to live and thrive because of change much better than if you try to resist it. This is the only solution. We have to learn to embrace change better, not resist it.
It’s like in a film or movie where the lead character always resists change and tries out every other option available. Then, finally, they do what they needed to do in the first place and they fulfil their destiny, great things happen. But they always try every other option first. So I think it’s human nature.
But, in answer to your question, external change is inevitable. And that means that whatever kind of organisation you’re in, we all need to learn to deal better with change if we are going to succeed. And that means we need to change ourselves as well as go through external changes.
Mike:
Yes, I think you’re right. I actually think that’s a fascinating subtopic there as to how we ever ended up creating organisations with the delusion that we would be able to avoid change.
Finn:
For me this is where we get into human psychology, and we could spend three days talking about that.
People resist change because we’re not taught how to work with it. Instead, I guess we’re somehow taught to resist change.
Mike:
Against that background, what part do you think leaders changing their own mindset might play in adapting to this pace of change?
Finn:
I think its essential. That is why I’ve focused my latest work in this area. The success of the organisation is driven by what the leader or leaders decide to do. That, in turn, is driven by the way they make sense of and interpret the world, their mindset. And some of that is conscious and a lot of it is unconscious.
Mike:
Yes, Carolyn Taylor is very interesting on what an enormous impact how leaders show up, has on everyone else in the organisation.
Finn:
I have a friend, a Kiwi, who was managing director of a company in Malaysia. He noticed fairly quickly that if he turned up in a good mood then the whole organisation got into a good mood. If he turned up in a bad mood then the whole organisation had a bad day. As soon as he realised this he started making sure he turned up in a good mood every day.
I think as human beings we tend to look to our leaders to tell us what to do, both rationally and emotionally, consciously and unconsciously. So then the answer to your question is that it becomes essential for leaders to change their mindsets, not only to understand how the world now works and how to run their organisations to be successful in a time of change but also to learn how to actively create the inspiration, in themselves and their people, that will enable the organisation to cope and thrive in change.
My recent book, The Churning, Inner Leadership, describes how to do this emotional part: how to create the inspiration that will take an organisation through a time of change. And the second volume, The Churning, Outer Leadership, will describe how to do it practically: how to do strategy and execution in a way that that runs the organisation as a living adaptive organism.
Mike:
What do the terms ‘values and purpose’ mean to you? I hear them being spoken about in this context quite a lot. Do you see values and purpose as being crucial to the development of successful and fulfilling organisations?
Finn:
I think that’s a really interesting question. I suppose my answer is yes, but maybe not in the way you think.
My background is very action-oriented, very results-focused. I know that action is the only thing that ever creates results. So when I’ve heard people in the past talk about values and purpose I’ve often seen that discussion as wishy-washy or idealistic: “We should all love each other and live together in peace and harmony,” that kind of thing. But what I’ve come to realise is that values and purpose can actually be very practical, efficient, and effective. This becomes even truer in a time of change.
So I think you need a combination: you need the action to get the results, and you also need the values and purpose to inform which actions are worth taking.
If you’re living through a time of change and you go straight to action without defining values and purpose then you end up like a pinball in a pinball machine, bouncing around taking lots of actions that are not aligned or coherent.
Mike:
The organisation could start looking like an experiment in Brownian motion?
Finn:
Exactly. An organisation is a group of people who have come together to pull a rope in the same direction. But when everything in the outside world is changing then they can lose sight of what that direction is, because it might not be the same as it used to be. Without clear purpose and values they can start pulling in multiple different directions and then the rope snaps.
So I think it’s important to combine both parts — results and values-and-purpose — and the way I’ve come to do this is through something called benchmarking. Are you familiar with that term?
Mike:
Yeah. I am but let’s put a link in for anyone who isn’t.
Finn:
OK, so if you want to improve the way you do something in your business then one way is to look for someone else who already does that thing very well and then copy (or adapt) what they do. This is called benchmarking.
When we’re living through a time of massive change I think it becomes useful to ask, “What organisation is already best practice at getting results in an environment that’s changing the whole time?”
Mike:
Do you have any examples of organisations that you think are particularly good at doing that at the moment?
Finn:
Well my answer is Special Forces: SAS, Green Berets, or whatever. There’s an old quote from a nineteenth century Prussian general who said something like, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” and I think he was right. And yet these Special Forces guys somehow manage to achieve their objectives in an environment that is not only highly unpredictable but also extremely hostile! How do they do that?
In the 1990s I read an article in the Harvard Business Review that explained how it all came down to two things:
First of all, they define the purpose of the mission: the aim that it fulfils as part of the wider campaign. Maybe it’s to disrupt communications or to capture high ground overlooking a particular road, or whatever. Once the team knows their purpose, then if the first approach they try doesn’t work they can still do other things in line with achieving the same purpose. More importantly, they can also act independently of one another: they don’t need to ask their manager or their CEO or go through three weeks of internal reviews. They can simply say “This is the situation, this is my purpose, this is the action I am going to take.” And, bang!, it gets done.
The second thing they do is use rules of engagement: they define what to do in a range of different situations. For example, “If this happens, return fire. If this happens, do not return fire.” These rules of engagement are the same as what we call values: they show us what is important, how we should behave, and what we should best ignore.
So used together, values and purpose help us focus our limited resources to maximise our chances of achieving what matters, even in an unpredictable world. And for an organisation living through a time of change, this is invaluable.
Mike:
If they are crystal clear on those things then presumably they can communicate those fairly well to other people so that if they’re not there, somebody else can do it.
Finn:
Yes exactly. If you all have a shared understanding of what your purpose and values are then you can have a better discussion about how best to achieve those things, given the situation that has arisen. And when necessary, people can also act independently in the ways I described. But if you haven’t defined purpose and values then any discussion about what to do next is going to involve people making different (hidden) assumptions about what the priorities are. That means you’ll take longer to decide what to do. And then the plan you come up with won’t be as focused as it might have been.
Winston Churchill said, “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw a stone a every dog that barks.” Knowing your purpose and values tells you which dogs to throw stones at and which dogs to ignore. And in a time of change, that gives you competitive advantage.
Then when a crisis happens, your purpose and values tell you whether it matters or not. If it doesn’t matter you don’t waste your time and resources. If it does matter, then purpose and values help you quickly define the outcome you want. This frees up time and resource to focus on how best to achieve that outcome, and then to implement it.
And if the purpose and values of the organisation I work in are aligned with my personal purpose and values then I am going to feel energy, enthusiasm, and inspiration, which will translate into higher productivity.
So knowing your purpose and values brings focus, energy, efficiency, effectiveness, and adaptability, all of which are very important in times of change.
Mike:
Interesting.
Finn:
So, coming back to your question, I see values and purpose as crucial to creating successful and fulfilling organisations. First because, from a very hard practical, execution-oriented, results-oriented point of view, they enable us to get the most out of our limited resources. And second, from a very soft, touchy-feely point of view, because working in a values- or purpose-led organisation enables people to make meaning of their working lives, it inspires them, Viktor Frankl saw this as our highest purpose as human beings. And in a time of change, successful organisations need both.
Mike:
Very interesting. So as published author, of The Escher Cycle and The Churning, Inner Leadership, and a consultant and coach, you’ve got to be pretty busy. Would you like to give us a brief summary of what a typical day might hold for you?
Finn:
[Laughs] There is no typical day.
Mike:
Everybody says that. And I’m delighted when everyone says that. Then I get the opportunity to say okay, so what kind of chaos is it?
Finn:
Yes, that’s interesting. But there is no chaos.
Mike:
No?
Finn:
There’s variety but not chaos. Just now I’ve just been talking to a guy in Switzerland who is looking at the direction he wants to take his business in. That’s spilled over into his personal life so we’ve also discussed actions he might take to improve his relationship with his wife. This evening I’m talking with a woman in Amsterdam who wants to quit her job but isn’t sure what direction to take. I’m talking to you now about change. I’m doing some business development. I’m talking to the Institute of Leadership and Management about a webinar I’ll be doing for them. So every day is different. And on the surface that might look like chaos. But to me it’s a series of varied activities that are very clearly aligned around my central purpose and values: which is to empower people to become more fully who they are and to create a generative, sustainable world.
Mike:
Busy and interesting. Lots of variety in there.
Finn:
Yes. I’ve come to a place where I can embrace change. There is a great Alan Watts quote about how, once you realise that everything is changing and that even the greatest palaces and organisations will crumble one day, then you can realise that nothing lasts. And this gives you access to a new power and energy. Because once you realise that everything is changing it allows you to let go, because there is nothing to hold on to. You have to let go. And when you fully embrace that then you can most fully express who you are and what you most want to achieve in the world. Because the best way forward is not to try to hold on to the past but to build the future you want instead.
Instead of holding back the tide, go surfing. Build the things you care about.
Mike:
Don’t try to go surfing with your throne though, it’s probably not going to work.
Finn:
Right. So build your favourite kind of surf board, or build a barbecue to have on the beach while the tide is coming in. In a time of massive change, like we’re living through now, when the world no longer works the way we thought it did, it’s difficult and often painful because it forces us to decide what we care most about and let go what we don’t. But once we know what matters then it becomes liberating, because we can let go of the rest and focus on building what we truly care about, which is the essence of who we are.
Mike:
Right.
Finn:
A time of change forces you to ask yourself; “Well, of these two, three, four things which do I really care about? Because I can’t have them all.” You think you’re asking questions about the outside world, but actually you are being forced to learn more deeply about yourself. To find out what your personal purpose and values are. And once you know the answers and what you really care about then you engage with that and life becomes much more fun and much more exciting.
They did some research a couple of years ago on technology companies on the US west coast and they found that people working with SpaceX and Tesla had much higher levels of stress and lower levels of pay than people in equivalent jobs elsewhere. But they loved it. They had jobs with meaning that was about ‘putting people on Mars’ or ‘reversing climate change’. And that’s what life is for. We’re all here for 60, 70, 80 years if we’re lucky and we should spend as much of that time as possible doing the things that matter to us and that engage and inspire us. The best way to do that is to know what your purpose and values are and then join an organisation that aligns with them. Then do what you can.
Mike:
As fully as possible.
Finn:
As fully as possible. And that’s going to be different for each of us.
Living through this change forces us to work out what each of us truly cares about and what we really enjoy doing and are good at. And then we can go and combine those into our purpose.
And what we discover then is that we all need each other because I can’t do what you’re most interested in, you can’t do what I’m most interested in, we can’t do what Jane and Joe are most interested in. And so we have come together in an organisation that roughly aligns with our individual purposes and values and which then gets us to work together at what we each do best, and encourages us to become even better versions of who we are: to ‘self-actualise’ in the psychology jargon. Because in becoming the best of who we are we also deliver the most value to the organisation. Gallup found that organisations with emotionally engaged workforces deliver 147% higher earnings per share.
Perhaps this comes back to your original question, “Is change inevitable and essential to organisations around the world?” Well yes, it’s inevitable because the world out there is changing and we can’t shut that out. We have to engage with it. And yes it’s also essential, because change forces each one of us to decide who we are, what we care most about, and what work we do and enjoy the best. Once we know that then we can make our maximum contribution to an organisation.
This means that organisations which provide a ‘container’ of purpose and values for us to work in have competitive advantage. And so one of the changes organisations need to make is to adapt themselves to match the changes on the outside, in the marketplace. And the other is to adapt themselves on the inside, in terms of their culture, their purpose and values, and the way they do leadership.
Mike:
Right. And The Churning, Inner Leadership is very much a practical guide to doing that stuff isn’t it?
Finn:
Yes, absolutely. It’s a step by step guide for enabling anybody to learn how to inspire and lead themselves through times of change, by getting clear on their values and purpose and a bunch of other stuff as well. Then once they know that then they can start to inspire and lead other people as well.
And when we do that, even in a small way to begin with, then it becomes a reinforcing cycle. Each change we implement teaches us something, which helps us to be more focused and precise about the next change we make. It brings us more and more skill to fulfil that next cycle, until the whole thing becomes an accelerating, exhilarating process.
Mike:
I still do think there is this overwhelming push for organisations to find better ways of structuring themselves, so that there can be more creativity. I do think there is potentially a big competitive differentiator. Much bigger potential competitive differentiator say, than looking for getting another two sigmas of error out of a particular process. Right? Much more interesting as well and much more about actually making places fulfilling.
Finn
Yes. And I think that change of structure needs to come on the inside, to our mindsets and the ways we think about leadership and strategy. Because when the competitive advantage of your company is driven by your ability to develop the individual uniqueness of your people then you have something that cannot be copied, by any other organisation.
Mike
So, given that. If you had to select one piece of advice that you were going to give to organisations that wanted to move towards a new and more complete kind of organisation. What might that be? This is a horrible Desert Island Disks question isn’t it?
Finn:
[Laughs] Yes. Yes it is…
I’m not sure. Because every organisation is different and is in a different place.
Mike:
Right.
Finn:
So, let me think about this… The organisation you’re imagining is different from the organisation that I’m imagining and the organisations I’m imagining are all going to need different things. There’s no single action that is suitable for all organisations.
Mike:
Yeah. Very good answer.
Finn:
But if we have set that context, then… I guess I’d say that the starting point for any organisation is going to be to look at what your business environment is going to look like in 24 months or 12 months from now. Write that down as best you can. Then ask yourself what skills and competencies you’re going to need to succeed in that kind of environment. Are you ready? This is the first step of doing strategy in times of change, which I will describe in Outer Leadership. It’s about building an organisation that operates as a living organism. There is more I could say if you want. But if you’re just after the first one or two steps then that’s it.
Mike:
Yeah, that’s pretty interesting. That’s a good place to start because that actually involves people in beginning to imagine future scenarios.
Finn:
Yes. And then what are you going to need to do to be successful in that future scenario?
Mike:
It’s also an interesting exercise because it gets them to actually seriously think about how much is likely to change in 12 to 24 months and how big a range it’s likely to be.
Finn:
Yes. And then what comes after that, I think, is two kinds of consequences. One is the very hard: what technologies do I need, what resources do I need? Those kind of hard business strategic execution questions. But then there are also the softer skills questions, like what kind of skills do I need as a leader to inspire my people and to lead change? Or, what kinds of skills are my people going to need to cope with what is coming? Do they know how to deal with uncertainty, manage stress, find the opportunities in a crisis, inspire key stakeholders to pursue the best way forward, that kind of thing? These are the skills I provide tools for delivering in The Churning, Inner Leadership. And in the future I think they’re going to be much, much more important.
Mike:
Yeah.
Finn:
So, from that starting point, of “What’s the world going to be like?”, you can identify your priorities both for the hard strategic stuff that needs to change and also the softer leadership skills that need to change. And both are going to be essential.
Mike:
Great insights there. Thanks Finn. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your insights on these themes.
Finn:
It’s my pleasure, thanks for the discussion.
