Leading change is a core activity of leadership, made all the more challenging in an age of complexity and what some call "permanent white water." Leaders need to accept the reality of permanent complexity and change and to embrace such conditions as providing opportunities that might not have been available in more stable environments.  Shortly after the presidential election, Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's Chief of Staff, said of the economic crisis, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." And in a recent NPR interview, Gavin Newsom, San Francisco mayor and gubernatorial candidate responded this way to a question about why he would want to run for governor in times like these: "I don't want to manage in the good times in the margins. I want to be involved in something where you can really produce order of magnitude changes, because that's what the times demand."

But it's one thing to cheerfully welcome unstable conditions as opportunities for breakthroughs, it's another thing to have reliable tools for leading in such conditions. What are the absolutely indispensable tools?  The experience of white water rafting offers some clues:

Vision:  Vision is an image of the future you wish to create.  It's where you're going.  It's what pulls you forward and orients you even in the midst of turbulent conditions. In white water rafting, the vision might be that everyone in the boat survives and is able to enjoy the calm at the end of the adventure. Leading in white water calls for keeping focused on where you're headed even while you're scanning your immediate surroundings in order to rapidly adjust to changing conditions.  Here, the second indispensable tool is called for:

"What's the next action?" This simple but powerful tool offered by David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, can enable you to stay focused on your desired future while systematically moving forward one step at a time, in response to changing circumstances.  "What's the next action" in white water rafting might be to steer around the boulder that has appeared  in your path while still focusing on that point on the other bank that you're headed for.

Many complex initiatives could become much less overwhelming if you simply ask yourself "what's next next action?" without losing sight of your longer term vision. Although there are many useful tools for leading in permanent white water, vision and "What's the next action?" seem to be core.

"A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision and a task is the hope of the world."

From a church in Sussex, England, ca. 1730 

Synopsis:  This book addresses the gap between our aspirations for change--personally and collectively--and the lasting change that actually occurs.  It posits that for every commitment we make and inadequately fulfill, there is a competing commitment, possibly totally unconscious, getting in the way.  The book offers a myriad of tools and strategies to make conscious some of these competing commitments, thereby creating the possibility for lasting change in the direction of our aspirations.

Review:  This is one of the most useful books I have ever read.  Although I found the title to be a bit odd, and not at all descriptive of the content of the book, it contains extremely practical content, whether you are leading a team of people or working on personal change.  It is anchored in adult developmental theory but it is immensely accessible to the practitioner.  Highly recommended.

Takeaway idea:  "It is very hard to sustain significant changes in behavior without significant changes in individuals' underlying meanings that may give rise to their behaviors."