“I think you will agree that we are living in most interesting times. I never remember myself a time in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and, let me say also, new objects for anxiety.”

The words as prescient as they are for business leaders today were actually delivered by the statesman, Joseph Chamberlain (the father of the British PM, Neville Chamberlain), and reported by ‘The Western Daily Press’ of Bristol on the 21st January, 1891.

The decision of the British people to leave the European Union and consequently to be the first nation to choose to de-globalise in a highly globalised, and inter-dependent, world is causing rising uncertainty - the ‘interesting times’ of Chamberlain - within many board rooms, organisations, and businesses not just in the UK but across the trading world who face uncertainty and disruption.

Starkly, a lot of what businesses have come to accept as the normal way of working and operating over the last 40 years is likely to now be thrown to the wind for something that is so far, unknown. Transformation and reinvention is now going to be required if many businesses are to survive let alone thrive. Historically few organisations have truly succeeded in successfully transforming let alone reinventing themselves.

Transformation involves change which is not something that humans naturally embrace, for they are instinctively ‘hardwired’ to perceive any change as a threat to the basic human need for survival and against which humans will resist (see Blog of 15th May 2017).

The prospect of change creates, as Joseph Chamberlain points out ‘new objects of anxiety’, that come in many forms but according to the eminent organisational psychologist, Edgar Schein, are principally expressed by humans through two kinds of anxiety: ‘learning anxiety’ and ‘survival anxiety’.

Schein’s early research and work as a psychologist was in the early 1950s with repatriated prisoners from the Korean War. It was known through the work of the British journalist, Edward Hunter, that something had happened in Korea to prisoners - what he called ‘brainwashing’ - to which Schein later concurred and called ‘coercive persuasion’. Whilst this research and work would not on the surface seem appropriate to business, Schein nonetheless found surprising similarities in his work in the late 1950s with American corporations that led to his developing his theory further[1].

Some 50 years later, having successfully worked with many global organisations in the area of transformation and change, Schein in an interview said that his work over the years confirmed that: ‘In the prison camps [in Korea] 80% of the people survived by being passive. That’s generally the way it is in organisations’[2].

Learning anxiety is the basis for resistance to change and learning. It comes from being afraid to try something new for fear of failure – it is (excuse the oxymoron) 'passivity in action'.

Trying to talk humans out of their anxieties about change is extremely difficult as their fears are the very basis for their resistance. Given the potential intensities of these fears few of us would try anything unless ‘survival anxiety’ kicked-in' through the realisation that in order to 'make it' you are going to have to change.

The basic principle of change is that it only happens when survival anxiety is greater than learning anxiety.

From the standpoint of an organisation or a business facing the need to change there are two choices based upon this principle. Either the survival anxiety need is increased by threatening people with loss of jobs or valued rewards, or the learning anxiety is decreased by creating a psychologically safe environment where people can ‘unlearn’ and generate new learning. The latter is complex and difficult making the former the more popular, as well as the easier of the two options, but the latter is what is required right now by many businesses.

It is important to recognise that there is a substantial difference between change and transformation that many leaders do not understand. Whilst significant change maybe a difficult to bring about, transformation is highly challenging, for it requires transformative learning - the unlearning of old ways and the learning of new - that involves people examining and changing their beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, and behaviours.

Transformation of an organisation does not necessarily need to start at ‘the top’ but the leaders must become and remain enthusiastic learners and models. They need to openly acknowledge their need to examine their beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, and behaviours as well as importantly creating a psychologically safe learning environment that heightens, but unfortunately will not guarantee, the likelihood of success. Leaders need to be visible, communicating, and continually reassuring people as to: ‘Why they need, and would want, to change things that have worked well for them in their work and life?’

Transformation is difficult but it is not impossible. It requires leadership based in the right positive beliefs and behaviours that does not delude itself; patience as it will take a long time - often time leaders and organisations do not have as well as underestimate; and the continued inspired use of balanced coercive persuasion for the moment this stops so does transformation.

“There is a Chinese curse which says; ‘May you live in interesting times’. Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.” Robert Kennedy[3]

[1] Schein, E.H. (1961) ‘Coercive Persuasion’, Norton, NY.

[2] Cotou, D. (2002) ‘The Anxiety of Learning’, Harvard Business Review, March, 2002.

[3] Robert Kennedy, ‘Day of Affirmation Address’, University of Capetown, South Africa, 6th June, 1966.