When leaders try to motivate their organizations for Change, we sometimes hear justifications like, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Or sometimes we hear, "If you keep doin' what you're doin', you'll keep gettin' what you're gettin'."

Artist's concept of the robotic explorer Opportunity on Mars. Photo courtesy U.S. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The reasoning is, "We're all unhappy with what's happening now, so let's try this new proposal — it's bound to be better." Plausible enough, until you think about it a little more carefully. Here are three reasons for doubt.
- We can't really do the same thing twice
- We might like to believe that an organization can reliably repeat a set of actions, but if people are involved, it isn't really true. First, management rarely has a level of control over the rest of the employees sufficient to justify the claim that exact repetition is possible. But more important, we as people don't have that kind of control of our own actions — we're humans, not robots. We have good days and bad. Precise repetition is impossible, and that's often one reason why results are so variable.
- The context is always changing
- Even if we could repeat a set of actions precisely, the context in which we act is always changing, and that affects the outcome. Imagine a football team believing that since they scored once using a certain play, all they have to do to win is to execute that same play exactly again and again. The folly of that belief is evident as soon as you recall that there's another team of thinking people on the field. And so it is in business.
- We can't know everything about the circumstances
- We're humans, not robots.
We have good days and
bad. Precise repetition
is impossible.Even if we could repeat our actions precisely, and even if the context were constant, we can't be certain that the initial circumstances are what we think they are, because we can't know all there is to know about them. That is, we choose our actions based on the situation, and that choice requires that we identify the situation. Since the world is far more complex than we can grasp, we use our intuition — we guess. And we can't be certain that we make the same guess in the same circumstances every time.
Given all this, a more accurate version of the slogan might be, "The definition of insanity is doing precisely the same thing over and over again, ensuring identical circumstances and a deterministic universe, and expecting different results." But then, that slogan isn't nearly facile enough for the intended effect.
One of the salient features of insanity (which isn't a clinical term anyway) must surely be an inability to grasp reality. It seems clear that the old saw defining insanity fails to grasp reality. When it comes to doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the same results might be even loopier than expecting different results. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Organizational Change:
Plenty of Blame to Go Around
- You may have heard the phrase "plenty of blame to go around," or maybe you've even used it
yourself. Although it sometimes does bring an end to immediate finger pointing, it also validates blame
as a general approach. Here's how to end the blaming by looking ahead.
When Fear Takes Hold
- Leading an organization through a rough patch, we sometimes devise solutions that are elegant, but counterintuitive
or difficult to explain. Even when they would almost certainly work, a simpler fix might be more effective.
Patching Up the Cracks
- When things repeatedly "fall through the cracks," we're not doing the best we can. How can
we deal with the problem of repeatedly failing to do what we need to do? How can we patch up the cracks?
Deciding to Change: Trusting
- When organizations change by choice, people who are included in the decision process understand the
issues. Whether they agree with the decision or not, they participate in the decision in some way. But
not everyone is included in the process. What about those who are excluded?
Learning-Averse Organizations
- A learning-averse organization is one that seems constitutionally unwilling, if not unable, to learn
new and better ways of conducting its operations. Given the rapid pace of change in modern markets,
one wonders how they survive. Here's how.
See also Organizational Change and Effective Communication at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming December 13: Contrary Indicators of Psychological Safety: I
- To take the risks that learning and practicing new ways require, we all need a sense that trial-and-error approaches are safe. Organizations seeking to improve processes would do well to begin by assessing their level of psychological safety. Available here and by RSS on December 13.
And on December 20: Contrary Indicators of Psychological Safety: II
- When we begin using new tools or processes, we make mistakes. Practice is the cure, but practice can be scary if the grace period for early mistakes is too short. For teams adopting new methods, psychological safety is a fundamental component of success. Available here and by RSS on December 20.
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