In the last blog post on The Top 7 Mistakes Change Leaders Make I mentioned the importance of looking at common mistakes as an entry point into exploring the success habits of great change leaders.
To recap, the top 7 mistakes I’ve noticed after 20 years of surveying and working with change leaders are:
1) An over focus on protection and safety at the expense of growth
2) Having vague outcomes
3) No map
4) A poor container for getting from here to there
5) Little or no buy in from stakeholders
6) Keeping too narrow a perspective
7) Lack of appropriate implementation and persistence through the bugs
In my upcoming book, The Change Artist Principles, I will explore each of these mistakes via case studies and how the mistakes made became the grounding agents that led to the successful adoption of new habits.
The first is an over focus on protection and safety at the expense of growth. According to cellular biologist and PhD, Bruce Lipton, most organisms operate in either protection mode or growth mode but cannot be operating in both modes at the same time. An organism (or an organization) that continually focuses on safety and protection cannot grow. Many change leaders won’t or cannot launch a change because the individuals (and thus the organization as a whole) get stuck in fight or flight mode far too often. This leaves no resources left over for growth. Here is a short 2 minute video in which Bruce Lipton explains the concept of protection vs growth:
If a cell is in protection, this shuts down growth processes so that the cell can engage in behaviors needed to maintain survival. Although the protective mechanisms of the cell are useful to ensure survival, the important question is just how much of our work lives are spent in growth and how much in protection?
Popular perceptions that cause people to go into protection mode far too often
Our cells go into protection mode due to our perceptions. Popular perceptions that cause people to go into protection mode at work are “if I don’t get everything done on my task list this week I will feel guilty all weekend,” or “my coworker wants to make me look bad to my boss,” or “if I take a real lunch break today I’ll lose my career, gain 10 10lbs, and become a homeless, fat person by Thursday.”
If we change our perceptions, we can change our biology
Being in protection mode shuts down your immune system so that the body can use all its energy for the fight or flight response. The obvious result of our fast paced, stressed out Western workplaces is the debilitation of the immune system of both the individuals and the organization as a whole. This then shuts down the growth process of the cells. When we reach the point where the cells that are lost outnumber the cells that have been replaced, we start to express disease or, a “lack of ease”. Our systems were not designed to cope with the level of stress we experience in our modern lives. The good news is, according to Dr Lipton, “If we change our perceptions, we can change our biology”.
Two different perceptions of the same situation
It’s easy to see that you could choose a different perception by looking at how two different people react to the same situation. One person may perceive a move from one building to another as a horrible discomfort causing them sleepless nights. This perception came from a decision they probably made sometime in the past and which now colors their possible future. These decisions can always be changed. Another person might see the same move as an opportunity to de-clutter their work area, get to know new people, and be refreshed by a change of environment. What we perceive affects our experience which in turn affects our biology, which in turn affects our performance, and by association those we work with and those our organization serves. In further blog posts and in the book I will explore some of the more popular methods of re-mapping your brain around change–or making new decisions that will create less stressful perceptions.
Case Study: W.L. Gore & Associates
Here is a short case study about a company that has a good balance between protection and growth. After rigorous evaluation Fast Company magazine finally voted W.L. Gore & Associates as the most innovative company in America a few years back. You’ve no doubt heard of its most famous product: Gore-Tex fabrics, which have a transparent plastic coating that makes them waterproof and windproof but keeps them breathable. They also make over 1000 different other products such as synthetic blood vessels, Glide dental floss, the first floss that resisted shredding, and the Elixir guitar strings, which last five times longer than normal strings.
Gore is known for being as innovative in its operating principles as it is in its diverse product lines. For example, they create sustainable growth by making people feel safe to take risks. Since they are a privately owned company they don’t have to report their quarterly earnings, thus they happily allocate 10% of their resources to new initiatives and allow anyone in the company who wants to try a new initiative a generous amount of resources to develop it. Of course, some of those initiatives fail, but they expect that. And, when Gore people pull the plug on a failing initiative, they’ll still have a “celebration” with beer or champagne, just as they would if it had been a success. Because they know that lowers stress and validates trying new things and thus helps the whole company continue to grow.
Tags: Bruce Lipton, Canada, Carla Reiger, carla rieger, change management, economic downturn, employee engagement, Gortex, innovation, stress management, Transformational Leadership, vancouver, W.L. Gore & Associates, work environment, workplace solutions

