How to Become a Change Mastery Leader

First, Understand the Nature of Change

A short Primer to become a Change Mastery Leader using ancient wisdom and modern thinking to engage change issues and problems, for more effective living.

Raised and educated in the way of Western knowledge and social sciences, it was only recently that I became inspired and drawn into the wonderful beauty of the philosophical eco-system elements responsible for the exceptional mindware of the Chinese people and culture. Sharing here are the lessons about change and change management that can be applied to every aspect of life, work, and play.

Long before other people and cultures, the Chinese civilisation has developed functioning socio-political systems and a rich intellectual and philosophical culture. Nearly 4,000 years ago, the Chinese discover that everything in the universe, from nature, human relationships to minute energy particle interactions is participating in a ceaseless process of change guided by simple, yet universal patterns.

I have also added a half (½) Concept to the 3 Basic Change Concepts in the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the Yijing (or I-Ching), to complete my understanding in order to share their application for today’s environment. Through this, I manage to combine its ancient wisdom with Western (and other) philosophical thought to better engage the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) world today.

The Yijing (or I-Ching) was developed as a philosophical taxonomy to describe Nature and provide an organising framework of the universe for mapping the impact of its various interactive elements in creating transformational change. It has been used as a dynamic knowledge framework for much of Chinese medical and scientific practices as well as political and social governance.

Here, I shall refer to the Yijing (or I-Ching) Book of the Western Zhou dynasty (1047–771 BCE) since 2 earlier purported versions were lost. The I-Ching Book of Changes has three principal Change Concepts, namely Buyi (不易), Bianyi (变易) and Jianyi (简易). I have introduced a (½) Concept called Rényi (人易). The Concepts are inseparable and their synthesis yet symbiotic relationships can only be understood in holistic practice.

[1] BUYI (不易) — Constancy in Change

Not everything changes. “Buyi” is a core governing concept where everything else may change, but some things remain permanently unchanged. We can think of life and death, conditions of happiness and sadness, pain and comfort, creation of babies, the constant scientific ratio of Pi, circumference and diameter, Pythagoras’ constant √2, Phi or Golden Ratio, and many other undisputed permanently unchanged constants. As the universe is an open system that is self-generative and self-transformative, the constancy in change is the only permanent constant in life.

[2] BIANYI (变易) — Diversity of Change

“Bianyi” refers to permanent or ceaseless changes, which are the only change that defies constancy and survive the test of constant. It sees the only permanent change to be slow and steady change. From a cell to a star, in love and other intense emotions, from our mind to our body, bodily growth from baby to adult, from yesterday to tomorrow, everything is changing always, anytime and anywhere. Our learned response is to accept the changes, adapting and adjusting accordingly in order to survive or develop or grow. The metamorphosis of the butterfly is a good example of “Bianyi”. Other examples include the constant atomic vibration in solids, our continuous thought, and mood swings. Change takes place in an orderly manner. The diversity or multifariousness of change can therefore be understood through a systematic study of their patterns.

[3] JIANYI (简易) — Discernible Perceptible Change

“Jianyi” encourages the principles of simplicity for comprehension. It classifies change happenings and phenomena to derive the general reasons behind them in the simplest manners to be understood using, for example, the 5 Elements and 8 Trigrams models of the I-Ching (Yijing) as a sense-making framework to capture and develop responses to things happening and phenomenon seen or experienced. Thus, one can be at ease with ceaseless change so as to be able to live with its uncertainty and serendipity. Unexpected uncertainties can only result from outside these models when the known unknown configurations are “contaminated” by wholly (yet) unknown vectors.

[3½] RENYI (人易) — Human Changes

“Renyi” is the half (½) concept that recognizes that human actions have consequences. That the human response to changes as well as to satisfy his own unlimited selfish desires, including the desire to hurt and dominate people and things, has serious cause-and-effect chain reactions characterized by the fluxing “yin-yang” dynamics.

This half (½) Concept refers to the changes caused by the unlimited and indefinite choices created by human intelligence. Human creativity and innovations make the current choice matrix inappropriate and irrelevant. The problem solutions needed to embrace and engage successfully the VUCA world today have yet to be developed. It will require imaginative creativity to select and interpret the 64 Hexagrams of Yijing (or I-Ching) in their conventional manner. They are finite and therefore can be grasped.

In understanding these Concepts, one no longer has to suppress or externalise the fear of uncertainty, but be emboldened and empowered to face the “uncertainties” of change boldly and squarely with humility and candidness.

The important lesson from these fundamental Change concepts is that you can transform your Change problem issues by changing your creative mind innovatively. Specifically, you can change your problem context and life situation by changing your mindware. The “Renyi” (½) Concept subjects all the other 3 Yijing (I-Ching) Change concepts to rule over them by transforming your mind so as to change your life. This is the First step to becoming a Change Mastery Leader.

BECOMING A CHANGE MASTERY LEADER

In the VUCA world, the 8 Trigrams, 64 Hexagrams, and other typologies of Yijing (I-Ching) can be useful tools to make sense of VUCA’s volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. But for the same situational context, different Yijing (I-Ching) Masters may arrive at vastly different interpretations of the selected Hexagrams, even after and if they manage to agree on the same applicable Hexagrams!

The basic dualism principle of Yijing (I-Ching) provides the key to unlocking the solutions to embrace, adapt and master change in order to obtain new harmonious equilibriums, however temporarily, as one continues to strive and persevere for that elusive, unattainable, and unsustainable balance of conflicting change forces.

The “Renyi” concept empowers conscious reality-learning mindfulness through “knowing what I think when I see what I say”. To Change Mastery Leaders, what is most important about any change event or phenomenon is not what has happened, but what it means. Beyond the 8 Trigrams and 64 Hexagrams, the Change Mastery Leader reads, listens, and feels every intelligence and applies comprehension, reasoning, judgment, intuition, anticipation to draw his own conclusions for the right creative and innovative action, unbounded by their limitations of previous interpretations.

The Change Mastery Leader visualises unlimited but finite probable, possible and feasible futures using human intelligence as well as the I-Ching experiences of the 8 Trigrams and 64 Hexagrams. He/she asks the unthinkable questions for the unimaginable and known unknown but incomplete answers in the search for creative and innovative solutions. He/she leverages on the benefits emboldened and empowered by technology, global learning communities, and modern knowledge for the change analysis and solutions never before encountered or envisaged by ancient and current Yijing (I-Ching) Masters.

The Change Master embraces a strategic longer-term perspective. He/she understands from the Yijing (I-Ching) that the only unchanging law of the universe is constant ceaseless change. His new mindware thinks holistically of the parts in the whole and of their relationship to each other. The conventional win-lose logic from Western philosophy does not appeal to him. The yin-yang dualism embedded in Yijing (I- Ching) emboldens his perspective that all things are inseparable from their opposites. The vectors of change, as outcomes from the confluence of opposite forces, can all be valid when considered concurrently for an effective change intervention.

The most powerful change management approach sees opposing forces as reconcilable since they are parts of a bigger interacting whole and therefore can be synthesised as new solutions of managed change. This approach is possible with the dualism mindset of Yijing (I-Ching) from the Chinese language itself.

The Chinese word for “crisis” is the combination of the words “danger” and “opportunity”. It internalises and embraces a remarkable comfort to be in bed with both ambiguity and uncertainty concurrently. Mentally, the Chinese has merged two opposite notions of “danger” and “opportunity” to create the new prospective word of “crisis”, whereby a worthy Change Master would find within any change crisis the seeds of awesome opportunity (see picture below).

My Discovery of Blue Leaders

Unpacking the Passions of Blue Leaders

Everyone can be a Leader for This Era of Uncertainty and Change

Be an Action Leader for these Turbulent Times (Part 1 OF 2)

Using Action Trigons for More Effective Leadership (Part 2 of 2)

Spotting Opportunities in a Changing World

Water — The Amazing Dynamism of Effective Strategy