
Baron Joseph Lister (1827-1912), who discovered the importance of antiseptic procedures in surgery. Before his innovative work, infections were believed to be caused by airborne agents — "bad air." Surgeons were not required to wash hands or instruments between patients. Meanwhile, midwives, who at the time did wash hands and instruments, had been experiencing infant mortality rates much lower than surgeons. This fact went unexplained until Lister's work. Photo courtesy U.S. National Institutes of Health, from a collection entitled Images from the History of Medicine in the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
On October 14, 2011, the Apple iPhone 4S first became available for sale. Lines formed at Apple stores around the world, and pre-release sales of a million units broke all records for mobile phones. Though no buyers had yet seen it, they felt that the new phone was a welcome change.
On September 21, 1867, the British Medical Journal published a pioneering paper entitled, "On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery," by British surgeon Joseph Lister (1827-1912), in which he advocated sterilization of instruments to prevent infection following surgery. His methods were rapidly adopted throughout Britain. Not so in the United States. The failure of the U.S. medical community to embrace the changes Lister advocated was most unfortunate for President James Garfield, who, on July 2, 1881, was the victim of an assassination attempt in which two bullets struck him. Efforts by surgeons to trace one of the bullets, using their unwashed fingers and unsterilized instruments, led to massive infections. Garfield finally succumbed to a heart attack on September 19.
One change was overwhelmingly welcomed; the other shunned. Why? It's an important question, because our assessments of the net value of changes can be most unreliable. Here's Part I of a catalog of factors that can distort our assessment of changes.
- Inability to grasp circumstantial complexity
- All change involves both losses and gains, but between them there is a fundamental asymmetry. When we experience a loss, it's usually a loss of something we know well. When we experience a gain, it's usually a gain of something we don't yet fully appreciate. Because we don't have it, it's difficult to understand the full scope of its benefits.
- Like all circumstances, the full circumstances of the new status quo are complex. Until we fully adapt to the change, we tend to understand our losses more easily than our gains. That's one reason why our assessment of the net value of a coming change can tend to bias us against it.
- The seductiveness of simplicity
- Some changes appear All change involves both
losses and gains, but
between them there is a
fundamental asymmetrysimple. Whether by design or by happenstance, these changes seem to be minor, or they promise to simplify dramatically some parts of our lives. We tend to welcome these changes even before we understand their full implications. - The error we make here is confusing the change, which seems simple, with the circumstances surrounding the change, which are always complex. This error is responsible for many of the mishaps we call unintended consequences. For most systems, which are far more complex than we appreciate, changing one element can ripple through the system in ways we can understand only after the system demonstrates them to us.
In Part II, we'll examine how social factors can influence our assessment of the goodness of a change. Next issue in this series
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Even though the U.S. medical community spurned Lister's methods, some were convinced. In 1879, Listerine was first formulated. At the time, it was intended as a solution for sterilizing surgical instruments. For more about Joseph Lister, see his biography in Wikipedia. See Wikipedia also for more about Listerine. For the story of James Garfield, see the new book by Candice Millard: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President.
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Related articles
More articles on Organizational Change:
Look Before You Leap
- When we execute complex organizational change, we sometimes create disasters. It's ironic that even
in companies that test their products thoroughly, we rarely test organizational changes before we "roll
them out." We need systematic methods for discovering problems before we execute change efforts.
One approach that works well is the simulation.
Comfortable Ignorance
- When we suddenly realize that what we've believed is wrong, or that what we've been doing won't work,
our fear and discomfort can cause us to persevere in our illusions. If we can get better at accepting
reality and dealing with it, we can make faster progress toward real achievement.
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?
The Expectation-Disruption Connection
- In technology-dependent organizations, we usually invest in infrastructure as a means of providing new
capability. But mitigating the risk of disruption is a more powerful justification for infrastructure
investment, if we understand the Expectation-Disruption Connection.
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.
See also Organizational Change and Organizational Change for more related articles.
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- Modern firms in competitive, dynamic markets draw on many types of employer/employee relationships, including contractors. By providing privileges and perks preferentially among these different types, they risk creating a caldron of resentments that can reduce organizational effectiveness. Available here and by RSS on June 4.
And on June 11: More Things I've Learned Along the Way: VI
- When I gain an important insight, or when I learn a lesson, I make a note. Example: If you're interested in changing how a social construct operates, knowing how it came to be the way it is can be much less useful than knowing what keeps it the way it is. Available here and by RSS on June 11.
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