I’ve spend almost three years now trying to complete my book “Beyond Frameworks - Navigating the Ripple Effects of Change Model Interactions”. There’s a draft under review by people I appreciate and respect enormously.
In advance to turning that draft into something ‘real’, I wanted to share a short list of my learnings on Change Models, Interactions, and AI. Some things I may have known from the outstart, other lessons I learned along the journey of writing.
There is no Change Framework, Model or Method that by itself is ‘good enough’ to deal with complex organizational change (what some people like to call transformations).
Whichever Framework, Model, or Method you use depends on context, biases and personal preferences (of you, your organization, or your customer).
AI can help working on any Framework, Model, or Method. Which makes it easier to try something new, or to swap if your context changes, or redirect if you chose the wrong Framework at the start.
Interactions occur, whether we like it or not, and therefore every change is causing ripple effects. Which interactions occur depends on the people impacted by the change, the models you choose to use, the context, and what you are trying to change.
Our key job as Change Agents is to continuously align the people impacted by the change with the ripples the interactions are causing.
Dealing with interactions is not an AI job, because it requires real people to interact with each other. Including observation of and conversations about people’s responses to change.
AI is (can be…), however, a powerful assistant for any Change Agent.
Never blindly use its answers, the responses you get are food for conversation and lines of thinking – though never a single truth.
Don’t feel limited in your questions to AI, it knows more models and frameworks than you can learn in a lifetime. Ask it to suggest models to use for your change at hand. Keep asking more details, provide it context… you’ll see it becomes a useful assistant. Over time!
Everything stands or falls with a) the quality of the inputs you are giving it and b) a bit of patience and iterations of prompting it. It can’t read your mind (not yet…), so be as specific as possible.
Never ask more than one question in a prompt, it increases the risk of getting a BS answer.
Working with AI can be addictive. You can get lost in trying it out or derail from what you set out to seek an answer for in a split second (which then turns out to be 3 hours later than you had planned for) – and yes, that’s from personal experience…
My journey hasn't finished. There are some additional topics, that didn't seem to fit in the book itself, but are important to talk about. Stay tuned, more (learning) to come.