This weekend I taught a three-hour session on Systems to students in Georgetown’s Organization Development and Change Leadership Certificate program. I went through this program 11 years ago myself (though it didn’t have the “change leadership” moniker back then). I love teaching this class and digging into the idea that when we get together in groups, we tend to fall into familiar patterns and system dynamics. The people at the top always feel burdened by complexity and responsibility. The people in the middle always feel torn trying to meet everyone’s needs. The people on the front lines always feel oppressed by the people above them who muck things up incompetently. This is drawn from Barry Oshry’s Seeing Systems (book and blog). It’s a great read (though not in traditional style, which might annoy some people).

During the class I talked a lot about what Oshry calls “the sound of the old dance shaking.” Oshry says that when we fall into our traditional, familiar patterns, we are engaging in a “dance of blind reflex.” We narrow our focus to our particular part of the system, and our story focuses on us and how hard it is for us. We start acting in that predictable (and relatively powerless) way that people in our position typically do (no matter where we are in the system). This is the dance of blind reflex. The different parts of the system in many organizations spend a lot of time in this dance.

But he also talks about ways to step out of that pattern. To challenge the assumptions and do things differently. Like people at the top looking for ways to give other people in the system some of the responsibility. Like people in the middle refusing to be the one to solve everyone’s problems and instead getting out of the way so other folks can get together to start solving their own problems. Or people at the bottom choosing to be an active creator of a better organization rather than a victim of the higher ups.

When we do these things, people who are stuck in the dance of blind reflex are going to resist. They’ll say no. They’ll say “That’s not what I pay you to do!” They’ll tell you to go away.

That is the sound of the old dance shaking.

System patterns don’t come down without a fight. Resistance is the sound of the old dance shaking. So when you hear that sound, keep moving forward, Persist. Maintain your focus on empowering others and getting problems solved and making the organization better. If you can, welcome the resistance. It shows you’re making progress! And be forgiving of the people who are upset by all the shaking. We all do that at times.

Just stay focused on your work: changing the patterns that are getting in the way of us creating more powerful organizations. The change will involve some shaking and it is our job (all of us) to manage that shaking, both for those of us who are pushing the change and those who are rattled by it.

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