Change Always Involves Strategic Conflict. Here’s How You Build Strategies To Win:

Photo by Hassan Pasha on Unsplash

Change is often a story told as a hero’s journey. We discover a cause, are called to set out on a mission and seek to bring about some alternative future state. If we are good and true, do all the right things in the right way, and our cause is righteous, we will prevail in the end. Like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, much of the struggle is internal.

Yet like Star Wars, that story is a fantasy. The true story of change is that of strategic conflict between that alternative future state and the status quo. There are always sources of power keeping the status quo in place and that’s where the battle lies. As long as those sources of power remain, nothing will ever change.

Once you internalize this story, however, you are ready to build an effective strategy. Power always lies in institutions and, by identifying and analyzing those forces at play, you can begin designing actions to influence them.. If you can remove — or even mitigate — the sources of power on which the status quo depends, you can make genuine transformation a reality.

The Status Quo Always Has Inertia On Its Side, And Never Cedes Power Gracefully