The Movement Manifesto: Why We Need to Stop Managing Change

In our fast-paced world obsessed with transformation, we often hear the rallying cry for "change." Organizations launch change management initiatives, leaders create change strategies, and coaches help clients change behaviors. Yet despite all this focus on change, many efforts ultimately spring back to their starting point once the pressure lifts.

What if we've been approaching transformation all wrong? What if instead of forcing change, we need to facilitate movement?

These two concepts might seem similar at first glance, but they operate from profoundly different principles. Let me share the key distinction I've observed through years of systemic work:

Change is about making what currently exists different. It focuses on outcomes, targets measurable goals, and typically follows a predetermined path. Change is usually initiated and led from the top down. It requires focus, effort, and often considerable resources to maintain.

Movement, on the other hand, is about releasing what's stuck. It allows natural flow to resume where blockages once existed. Movement focuses on process rather than outcome, and its results often exceed what we could have imagined possible.

As I've witnessed in countless organizations and coaching relationships, while change requires constant pressure to maintain, movement, once initiated, sustains itself naturally.

Have you ever experienced these situations?

• A meticulously planned organizational restructuring that looks different on paper but somehow feels remarkably similar in practice

• A new performance management system that creates initial improvement but slowly reverts to previous patterns

• A personal habit you've worked hard to change that mysteriously resurfaces during times of stress

These are classic examples of change without movement. The surface-level transformation occurs, but the underlying dynamics remain stuck. Like painting over wood that's still wet inside, the beautiful new surface eventually warps and cracks as the underlying moisture reasserts itself.

Movement operates on a deeper level. Rather than focusing on the visible problem, it addresses the underlying patterns and system dynamics that created the situation in the first place.

Consider this example from my consulting work: A department consistently missed deadlines despite implementing various change initiatives—new project management software, clearer responsibilities, even adding staff. Nothing worked sustainably.

When we explored the situation through the lens of movement rather than change, we discovered something remarkable. Two experienced team members had been dismissed years earlier for making serious mistakes. The remaining team carried an unconscious fear about taking responsibility for decisions. Their missed deadlines weren't the problem—they were a symptom of a deeper stuck pattern.

By acknowledging this history and creating space for this fear to be recognized, something shifted. The team naturally began completing work on time without additional pressure or resources. The movement happened when what was stuck became unstuck.

Here are some practical approaches to create movement:

• Ask questions that extend beyond the visible: Instead of "How can we meet deadlines better?" ask "What might this ongoing pattern of missed deadlines be protecting?" or "For whom might the current situation actually be a good solution?"

• Maintain high quality presence: Create space where people feel safe to explore what's really happening beneath the surface. Pull back your agenda and allow silence to become part of the process.

• Look for patterns rather than incidents: Single events can be addressed through change, but recurring patterns require movement.

• Trust that natural flow exists: We often work too hard pushing for outcomes. Movement reminds us that the natural state of systems is flow. Our job is to identify and release what's blocking that natural state.

• Zoom out to see the larger system: Problems that resist change are often symptoms of dynamics in the larger system. Movement happens when we address the appropriate level.

Facilitating movement requires courage. It means acknowledging that we don't control outcomes. It means trusting processes that don't have predetermined paths. It means being willing to discover what's really happening rather than imposing our vision of what should happen.

Change asks: "How do we make things different?" Movement asks: "What's preventing things from flowing naturally?"

In my experience, organizations, teams, and individuals who understand this distinction waste far less energy fighting against natural forces. Instead, they invest their energy in creating the conditions where movement can occur naturally.

The paradox is beautiful: when we stop trying so hard to create change and instead focus on facilitating movement, transformation happens with less effort and greater sustainability.

What area of your work or life might benefit from movement rather than change? Where are you pushing against resistance that might actually be signaling something important? What might happen if, instead of trying harder, you explored what's keeping the natural flow from happening?

As one of my clients beautifully put it after experiencing this shift: "I realized I'd been trying to build a dam when what the river really needed was for me to remove the fallen tree that was blocking its path.”