Liminal Thought Leader Mark Kuznicki — Perspectives On Organizational Change

“Why are we here,
Who do we serve,
What is our purpose?”

The next in our series of interviews asking a number of noted thought leaders for their views on a few basic but essential questions on Organizational Change.

In between helping organizations find their way through the maze of massive and rapid change, working on the development of the uniquely progressive culture at The Moment, and actively engaging in a range of social issues, Mark Kuznicki generously found time to give his views on my questions about organizational change.

Mike :
I know from the discussions that we have had in the past that you are both fascinated by and deeply involved in organizational change. What I’d like to ask you today is, do you see major change as being inevitable and essential to organizations the world over, both commercial and non-commercial, and if so why do you think change is inevitable?

Mark:
Change in one form or another will be inevitable and it can come in the form of collapse or in the form of renewal. I am referring to economic change, demographic change, migration, climate change, and the increasing pace of change. And this acceleration of change is being driven primarily through technology-driven globalization.

Technology-driven globalization is a fundamental, unstoppable force and driver. Rather than pretend like it’s not happening, how do we direct this force in positive ways?

Mike :
Right and I guess that covers off whether or not it’s essential.

Mark:
Yes. And getting down to the organizational level, any organization within any sector or industry is part of the system and is being buffeted by these waves of change in different and specific ways. And we need to spend more time understanding those waves of change and how it affects the humans who sit within these organizations.

These organizations were created for a purpose. Ultimately that is the core challenge; how to re-imagine what an organization is and how it does what it does in order to maintain its original purpose in response to these waves of global change.

Mike :
Right and that’s something, which you and The Moment are particularly, deeply involved in helping clients to achieve, yes?

Mark:
Definitely. When we work with clients, we want to help people understand the signals, trends and drivers of change that are affecting the organization. Where is it in its life cycle? What parts of the organization need to be grown and developed and what parts of it need to be let go of, creatively destroyed or transformed? And how do we do all of this in a way that helps all parts of the organization to be more resilient and adaptive to the future?

Mike :
I would imagine that is not an easy process for some people, which brings me on to another question. How important is it that leaders in those organizations be able to change their own mindset in order to make this kind of change successful?

Mark:
Leadership is the difference between organizations that can adapt and organizations that won’t.

True leadership takes a longer view than the next quarter or even the next fiscal year. I’m personally inspired by how indigenous people think in terms of seven generations. They take an extremely long view. Turns out that in business cycles, right now especially because of the pace of change, a lot of markets are being rapidly transformed. Many different transformations will happen in a single generation.

So having a long view is really essential. A big task for leaders is to enable teams to sense into and respond to a future that is constantly evolving in order to create something that’s going to be fit to their organizational purpose no matter how much change comes their way.

Mike :
What do the terms “values” and “higher purpose” mean to you? I hear them being spoken about in this context quite a lot. I wonder if you see these as being central in the development of successful and fulfilling organizations?

Mark:
I have a very strong belief that organizations were created for a purpose, which is to serve people in some way.

It’s critical that the people in the organization share a deeper understanding of a few critical questions: Why are we here? Who do we serve? What is our purpose? If we have clarity of purpose and clarity of what we stand for and who we serve, then we can withstand all sorts of different changes that are happening around us because we have a North Star.

For any organization that depends on people being creative together, the thing that unites those people is moving through difficult and complex challenges with that shared sense of purpose. A shared understanding of, “This is why we are here.” It’s so important.

Mike :
It’s not something which you do once, it’s more like an ongoing practice?

Mark:
Absolutely. I’ve seen good and bad implementations. The simple and most common is, “We have a bunch of values and we put them on posters around the office.” But then people behave in ways that are actually counter to those stated values.

The process of understanding how our behaviors are differing from what we say we do and then reflecting on this disparity and trying to perfect the organization around these shared values is something that requires an ongoing practice and deeper exploration than posters on a wall.

Mike :
Right. You’re an organizational change consultant and one of the co-founders of The Moment. I know that you are super busy and your days are challenging, varied and likely also fun but would you like to give us just a brief summary of what a day might hold for you typically?

Mark:
Sure. A day in my life starts bright and early. I try to make space for myself in the start of my day by doing a meditation practice or something that clears my head and centers me to face the day. Which begins with fighting traffic in downtown Toronto just to get to our studio, checking in with clients, working on client challenges, and getting into the muck of complexity that our clients face each and every day.

Then there is the organization. Our team is built around extremely talented, thoughtful people who are participating in the system that we are creating here for self-management. So while I am a leader and a co-founder, I am not the only one that is leading the organization. I do have some particular jobs that I need to do in sort of stewarding this team.

That means I can spend my day dealing with complex situations, business problems or organizational structure issues with a client and then come back into my own environment where I have to navigate a changing organization. We are constantly reinventing ourselves because of what we do. We couldn’t help our clients so effectively if we weren’t learning all the time and responding to the fast paced change all around us. That means our organization has to be even more fluid than the target fluidity we are helping our clients to achieve.

Mike :
It must be necessary as you get to the end of the day and get home to put your feet up for five minutes isn’t it?

Mark:
It’s a wonderful thing to be able to do that, but I have to admit that it stays with me. I’m one of these people that’s drawn to the puzzles. The puzzles that I’m working on stay with me regardless of where I am.

Mike :
Right. So for you it’s a real calling, a vocation, what you’re doing.

Mark:
Yeah. It is and it doesn’t turn off at 5 o’clock. In the evening, I might read a piece of news that gets me riled up about something that’s happening in the world. I might want to go out and solve all these problems but I’m only one human so I have to come back to what it is I can do and constantly be trying to find that center.

Mike :
I hear you. If there’s one piece of advice that you would give to organizations wanting to move towards a new and more complete kind of organization, say something like, but not necessarily limited to or bound by the idea of Teal, what would it be?

Mark:
For those leaders looking to create stronger and more resilient organizations my advice would be, create stronger more resilient teams; starting with becoming stronger and more resilient yourself.

As leaders, the journey that we’ve undertaken towards creating a self-managing organization is actually a journey of understanding who we are and how we are with each other. It requires an incredible amount of emotional intelligence, self awareness and calm in order to navigate a organizational system that you’re creating and constantly recreating.

It is not for the faint of heart, but it is worth it.

I don’t know anyone who’s undertaken this journey and then said they will go back to the old way. I’m fully committed to the value of this path and would advise a lot of people to pay attention to who they are and how they relate to themselves and then their teams.

Mike : Great advice. Thanks very much for your time. I really appreciate it.

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