The Big Idea
Many books about change have a distressingly ridge and simplistic understanding of what change is and how it works. What follows has been adjusted and organized from these common sources to present a more contextualized and comprehensive understanding of change.
Here is a basic outline of types of change:
- Smooth Change
- Entropy
- Unfolding - Pictured in Nature of Order
- Rough Change
- Destruction
- Survival Pioneering - Pictured in Canoeing the Mountains and Tempered Resilience
- Disruption Pioneering - Pictured in Disruption
Primary sources are:
Nature of Order Book 2 by Christopher Alexander
Disruption by Mark DeYamz
Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolsinger
Tempered Resilience by Tod Bolsinger
Everything in the world around us, including ourselves, are in some state of change. No one is the same person they were ten years ago. Therefore, the question for leadership and living is not if we want to change, but what kind of change are we hoping to encourage and pursue.
Smooth Change
Also known as Structure Preserving Transformation. 1
This type of change happens around us all the time. Children grow from babies to teenagers. Seasons change from winter to spring. Paint looks good, then fades, and then chips. While it may seem that many things are not changing significantly, every person, building, program, church, animal, etc. is in a state of smooth change. Smooth change starts from the current structure of the whole and makes small incremental changes. These small changes can be beneficial or damaging. This means that there are two sub-types of smooth change:
- Negative Smooth Change: Called Entropy.
- Positive Smooth Change: Called Unfolding.
Entropy is best summarized and experienced as aging. Everything gets older, everything wears out. Not all at once, but day by day over the years.
Unfolding works similarly but in the opposite direction. Rather than the natural slow decline, it is the natural slow growth. Each small step by step change is aimed to enhance and extend the heath and wholeness of the existing structure. For example, think of a tree that has slowly grown from a seed into a massive oak.
Unfolding is a subtle kind of change seeking to make the smallest change with the biggest positive impact. The basic process of unfolding is quite simple.
- It starts by asking the question: What is one thing that could make this better?
- Then doing it.
- Evaluating the change: (i.e. How did that go?)
- Then starting the process over again in an iterative cycle.
Unlike the next type of change we will define, the process of unfolding works withing the existing structure. The basic guiding maxim of unfolding is that a small positive smooth change (i.e. an unfolding) can sometimes have as much (or more) impact as a big rough change that makes two new problems.
Practically speaking, unfolding should push us to think less of preserving structure for structures sake (i.e. getting stuck in a fight against entropy) but actually look for what next step could unfold and enhance the overall wholeness, life, beauty, and harmony of a thing.
Note
A more philosophical explanation of unfolding can be found in the architect Christopher Alexander’s book the Nature of Order Book 2 Chapter 2: Structure Preserving Transformations Nature of Order Book 2 Chapter 2.pdf or an earlier unpublished manuscript of his: The Unfolding Whole.pdf. One thing to keep in mind is that he lumps entropy into unfolding as a natural part of nature. For our purposes it is helpful to separate them to identify exactly what kind of smooth change we are after.
Rough Change
Also known as Structure Destroying Transformation.2
This kind of change is also all around us. A tree is cut down, businesses close, people change careers, new projects begin, or a baby is born.
- Negative Rough Change: Called Destruction.
- Positive Rough Change: Called Pioneering.
- Reactive Pioneering: Called Survival Pioneering.
- Proactive Pioneering: Called Disruption Pioneering.
Destruction is easy to identify. We see it in vandalizing a store, stealing, smashing, winds, waves, storms, and all other forms of upheaval brought about by human actions or natural disasters.
Pioneering as positive rough change is often undertaken out of necessity. You are in a new land, market, or world and the old name of the game is changing. You need to learn how to survive or things will slip into destruction.
To avoid this there is Reactive Pioneering (Or Survival Pioneering) as described in Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolsinger. The basic and rather dire maxim of Survival Pioneering is “Change or die.” It is a type of change that does not have the luxury of deliberation but must react to the real pressure of a changing world.
Proactive Pioneering (or Disruption Pioneering) is similar in its nature as rough change but it is inherently on the offensive not the defense. Disruption Pioneering is described in Disruption by DeYmaz. It does not wait for the rules of the game to get changed before reacting. Rather, it seeks to change the rules first. He contends that disruptors can see: “what lies ahead, around the corner, long before others have even arrived at the intersection of present and future. Because they are out front and ahead of the curve, disruptors first define, then refine, and ultimately create new realities by changing the way we see things, think about things, and get things done. And once disruptors gain momentum, they don’t merely envision the future; they create and establish it. They frame the questions, shape the narrative, and influence the conversation. In so doing, they challenge what is and inspire what is yet to come.” - Disruption by Mark DeYmaz, pg. xxviii.
What Disruption Pioneering tries to accomplish practically is identifying faulty or negative aspects of a community and working to disrupt it with something better. The basic picture of the Gospel’s activity when employed through Disruption Pioneering is that, when the good news shows up, it should shake up and totally change the community around it. Interestingly, Luther and the work of the Reformers clearly fits into this kind of change.
Info
A related idea to rough change is The Edge of the Wedge
Conclusion
Change is something that every human and ever group of humans experience. It strikes me as odd that we often allow change to come to us in its negative forms of entropy and destruction rather than choosing appropriate positive alternatives. Unfolding, Survival Pioneering, and Disruption Pioneering all have useful applications. But just like you would not hang a picture with a jackhammer or break up concrete with a hand hammer, choosing the right type of change for a situation allows us to plan and apply change in a more precise and effective manner.