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Communication Paradox of Change

To justify learning (=change), an organisation requires convincing reasons.

Mostly this happens by declaring the existing conditions of the past ineffective. It makes it much easier to then present the future as something which will become better. In the process, it is forgotten that the conditions, before they were viewed as having been overhauled, were not as bad as were necessarily claimed for the purpose of change. The past of an organisation must, in favour of justifying change, be viewed as much worse than it really was, when it was still the present.

At the same time it is, of course, a fact that the promised or desired future, once it becomes the present, is never as nice and as good, and never so free from unintended side effects, as planned.

This is one of the main reasons why change projects have such a bad reputation. However, if one drew attention to all the risks of the future and the benefits of the present, then the motivation for change would not be created. For organisations, the handling of this communication paradox is a fundamental challenge.