Supporting adaptive change

Thanks to Bob Carlton at The Corner for pointing me off to this article in a recent Fast Company that quickly summarizes a lot of what we know about change. Among other insights, it points to the crucial role of emotions, and also the reality that people will often respond better to radical change which makes a clear difference, than incremental change that they cannot see. Finally, the article points to Lakoff’s work on reframing. One piece it doesn’t point to, though, which I suspect is also useful in this context, is Heifetz’s notion of “adaptive change.” So… what would these ideas mean for communities of faith? I think Scott Cormode has some useful ideas in his exploration of the gardening metaphor for church leadership.