I don't want a holiday in the sun.

Humans are change animals. We thrive on it. We actively seek out the novel and crave the new in our everyday lives. Our brains react to novelty by releasing dopamine which makes us want to explore in search of a reward. Change literally makes us happy and attracts us to learning. Because we could learn, we adapted to all sorts of environments and evolved and survived. 

Many activists pressing for change in the STEM sector and motorsport engineering space are working tirelessly to persuade those in positions of power, from governing bodies to employers and new charitable foundations, to buy in and drive change.

So why is change so hard?

Even in relatively small organisations, like those in motorsport, for the arguments to reach the top, they need to be robust. Evidenced. Impact on the bottom line modelled, ROI forecast and risks managed. This takes time and is a massive challenge. When considering entire sports, industries or politics, this effect is very much amplified. Imagine how important information needs to be to get to, say, the leadership of the largest STEM employer in the UK, British Airways.

An entire industry has built up around this central problem of change management. To make change happen, you need to generate buy-in from the top. Internal communications. Frameworks to help layers of management and functional departments understand their role in the shift. Objectives and KPIs flow, and the transformation is mapped out on the page.

But the same human nature that drives us to seek novelty and new acts as a massive brake on this process. People need to feel a sense of agency. The power to find and do for themselves and their kin. Around 80% of people globally don't feel engaged in their work, suggesting very few people are fortunate enough to feel this way about their job. We don't operate well as conscripts.

Last week I watched Danny Boyle's recent series Pistol, a dramatisation of the story of the Sex Pistols. In homage to the social outrage caused by the release of God Save the Queen in 1977, Disney launched the show during this year's platinum jubilee commemorations. Then, working-class kids with "no future" made the establishment react like the world was ending. Apart from being a curious wormhole back to a time of double-digit inflation, strike action, governmental collapse, fake news being taken seriously and the National Front seeming to be in charge (!!), the scale of fear generated by John, Steve, Paul and Sid is quite something.

It's a paradox that organisations and institutions that can't change despite concentrated efforts could be so shaken into believing 4 kids and an album would change everything forever.

Management guru Gary Hamel reflected on the oxymoron of change management in a vlog post, concluding that actual change comes from the bottom up. A social-based movement where everyone has a voice and a goal, the end status is ambiguous. Participation is fun.  

Maybe change is hard because we see the task as persuasion rather than a mindset to question authority and have the freedom to create. Maybe punks not dead at all.