Be the change
Understanding is necessary but not sufficient...
“Practice yourself what you preach”. — Plautus1
In a recent dialogue I made the case that in order to be an effective change catalyst for future-fit cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness it’s not enough to understand theoretically what’s required, it’s necessary to embody that understanding.
In other words, we must “be the change” we want to see in the world — a phrase often attributed to M.K. “Mahatma” Gandhi.2
One of the dialogue participants asked me afterwards if I could describe in more detail what that means in practice.
How does someone go about being the change?
That’s the question addressed in this 11 minute Future-Fit Culture Frequently Asked Questions video…
The above video defines mindset in terms of the following four-layer cognitive stack:
I described the nature and role of mindsets in forming and reforming an organisation’s culture in a previous article — Demystifying Mindsets — which you can access by clicking below:
In the video above I also mention organisational learning pioneer Chris Argyris, and his notion — developed with Donald Schön — of theories of action, and the important difference between espoused theory and theory in-use, as follows:
“When someone is asked how they would behave under certain circumstances, the answer they usually give is their espoused theory of action for that situation. This is the theory of action to which they give allegiance, and which, upon request, they communicate to others. However, the theory that actually governs their actions is their theory-in-use.” 3
In the original Latin: “Facias ipse quod faciamus nobis suades”. Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC – 184 BC) was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. The quote is from Asinaria (The Donkey Man) Act III, scene 3, line 54 (line 644 of full Latin text).
The quote “be the change you want to see in the world” is not in any of M.K. “Mahatma” Gandhi’s published writings and seems to have first appeared 25 years after his death. However his descendants regard it as a genuine quote and his grandson Arun Gandhi has even written a book with the title “Be the Change”.
Argyris, M. and Schön, D. (1974) Theory in Practice. Increasing professional effectiveness, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p6-7. A useful introduction to Argyris and his work is available here on the Infed site.