Why most change programmes fail before they start
Change rarely fails because of bad strategy. It fails because of mindset. That is the central argument Jeff and Staney DeGraff make in The Art of Change — and the spine of the third and final episode in our DeGraff trilogy.
Most leaders treat change like project management. Fixed goals. Linear plans. Measurable milestones. The DeGraffs argue change is the opposite of that. Change is paradoxical, dynamic, and ambiguous. It needs a paradox mindset, not a project plan.
What the paradox mindset actually is
A paradox mindset is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your head — and act — without collapsing one into the other. It is the muscle that lets a leader pursue stability and disruption at the same time, deviance early and alignment later, profit and purpose, marriage and money. The DeGraffs walk through a four-step cycle for building it:
- Identify the paradox.
- Explore its meaning.
- Derive a guiding principle.
- Run a small experiment, looking for disconfirming feedback rather than confirmation.
It is, as Jeff puts it, the difference between a leader who course-corrects when reality changes and one who clings to the original plan until the project dies in the desert.
Why organisations punish the very people they need
Jeff opens The Art of Change with the story of Luis — the unsung architect of Rapid X, the logistics backbone that helped move billions of vials and needles during Operation Warp Speed. Luis got it right. He saved lives. Then he got passed over for promotion while others took credit in keynote speeches and bestselling books.
This is not unusual. It is the rule. As Jeff was once told by Jonas Salk himself: “You start doing something really innovative, no one will notice. After that, they’ll tell you you’re doing it wrong. After that, they’ll call you unprofessional. In the end, they’ll take credit for your work.”
Organisations exist to eliminate variance. Innovators create variance. The collision is structural — and the cost, as Aidan and Jeff explore, is one most innovators eventually pay personally.
Conflict, not alignment, drives change
The most dangerous diagnostic in any organisation, the DeGraffs argue, is comfort. “If you really want to see an organisation that’s not going to change, what you’re looking for is a lot of alignment and apathy.” Functional families never have the argument. Then there is divorce. The same is true of companies.
Real change requires constructive conflict — diverse worldviews bumping against each other inside generous boundaries. Without it, organisations slide quietly into Sears territory: a company that, as Jeff points out, actually invented the digital economy through Allstate, Coldwell Banker and its catalogue infrastructure, and then tried to fit the future inside its existing store.
Deviance first, alignment later
One of the seven paradoxes Jeff and Staney lay out is that change has to start as deviance and end as alignment — but conventional change tools (stage-gating, portfolio management, KPI-led innovation theatre) try to enforce alignment at the start. That is why most change programmes die in the middle. They mitigate the very risk that makes change possible. Operation Warp Speed worked, Jeff notes, because it took 600 shots on goal — and only aligned at the very end.
The takeaway: practice, not theatre
In the previous episode of the DeGraff trilogy on The Creative Mindset, the DeGraffs argued you cannot read your way to creativity. The same applies here. The paradox mindset is a practice, not a slide deck. Identify a paradox you are living right now — at work, in your team, in your marriage. Write down a guiding principle. Run a small experiment. The first pancake will be bad. The third one will be a good pancake.
As Aidan puts it in the episode: FAIL — First Attempt In Learning.
Listen and watch
📘 The Art of Change — https://amzn.to/48mhX54
About The Innovation Show
The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Each week, Aidan sits down with world-class authors, scientists, and practitioners to call out the “Emperor is naked” moments and explore disruption, transformation, leadership, and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
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