Culture, Change and Complexity – Aligning for Impact

By Dr. Aiden M.A. Thornton 

“My complexities as a leader relate to organisational culture and introducing and managing change…”. 

This quote from Leading in Complexity: An Initial Enquiry in Tasmania captures a reality that many leaders feel acutely: the pressure to manage change at the pace it is unfolding. It’s where good intentions collide with deep-rooted cultural norms, where beautifully formatted strategic plans meet the peculiarities of human behaviour, and where leaders often feel both responsible and stuck. 

We are living in a time of continuous transformation. Whether driven by tech disruption, evolving social expectations, increasing political polarities, or economic pressures, the demand for effective change management has never been greater. And yet, despite an abundance of models and tools, many change efforts fall short. 

Why? One explanation may stand out: many traditional change management approaches don’t adequately account for the complex, adaptive nature of social systems such as organisations. 

The Shortcomings of Traditional Change Management 

The field of change management is filled with well-known frameworks: Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model, Prosci’s ADKAR and 3-Phase Models, McKinsey’s 7S Framework, Bridges’ Transition Model, the Kübler-Ross Change Curve, and Nudge Theory. 

While these models vary in emphasis, many of them tend to revolve around five familiar questions: 

1. What’s the case for change? This is typically addressed via a burning platform for change and/or a compelling vision for the future. 
2. What’s changing, and to what extent? This is typically addressed via a change sizing exercise that analyses the gap between current and future states.
3. Who will be impacted, and how? This is typically addressed via a change impact analysis on various stakeholder groups.
4. How ready, willing, and able are people to adopt the change? This is typically addressed via a change readiness analysis.
5. How do we ensure the change sticks? This is typically addressed by any number of change management interventions such as stakeholder management, communications, and training. 

These questions are essential. But they often emphasise the psychological and behavioural aspects of stakeholders: motivations, resistance, adoption. 

That’s not wrong. But in the context of  21st century complexities, it’s incomplete. 

In many organisations, change isn’t just about influencing stakeholders. It’s about responding to interconnected structures, emergent behaviours, and systemic patterns that evolve in unpredictable ways. In these contexts, change doesn’t unfold linearly from planning to execution. It unfolds adaptively, depending on how the organisational system reacts, resists, or reconfigures. 

Systems, Not Just Stakeholders 

One early signal of this challenge comes from a rapid literature scan (NOT a formal or systematic literature review) on the term “change readiness.” A brief exploration suggests a revealing trend: while some approaches explore the dynamic characteristics of systems, many—possibly most—emphasise the cognitive, emotional, motivational, and behavioural aspects of stakeholders. 

Consider the following snapshot of 21 widely referenced definitions from both academic and applied change management literature: 

There is no doubt that stakeholder readiness matters. Understanding how people feel, think, and behave in response to change is essential. But if that’s where our analysis stops, we may be short-changing ourselves and the organisations we work with, particularly when it comes to large, multi-layered change initiatives. 

A scan of the literature may tentatively suggest that far fewer definitions of change readiness account for system-level dynamics, such as: 

• Interdependencies between subsystems 

• Influence of informal networks and norms 

• Hidden feedback loops 

• Cross-functional misalignments 

• Structural rigidity or overload 

If we assume that stakeholders are the only meaningful unit of analysis, we risk overlooking the systemic patterns that enable or disable organisational change at scale. These patterns don’t reside in any one stakeholder or stakeholder group. They emerge from relationships, histories, design flaws, broader structures, and context.  To effectively manage change in such environments, we need a lens that sees beyond individuals and into the system. Until we build this capacity, we risk mistaking small shifts in mindsets and behaviours for deep, sustainable change in systemic structures. 

A Complexity-Informed Approach to Change Management 

As introduced in the white paper Leading in Complexity: An Initial Enquiry in Tasmania, the Complexity Leadership Skills Framework is an early attempt to identify the capabilities that may help individuals and collectives lead more effectively in complex conditions. 

This framework emerged from a participatory process that I facilitated in collaboration with Tasmanian Leaders along with insights from a complexity leadership skills survey, and is now being further explored through ongoing research at the ANU Complexity Leadership Lab. 

The framework organises leadership capabilities across three levels: 

• foundational skills (e.g. resilience & grit, emotional regulation and group dynamics) 

• relational skills (e.g. creating collaborative spaces, boundary spanning and relationship building) 

• systemic skills (e.g. systems thinking and foresight, systems thinking and practice) 

Importantly, this framework is preliminary and conceptual. It has not yet been empirically tested, and whether or how these skills are linked to effective leadership in complex contexts remains an open question. Nevertheless, it provides a structured starting point for exploring what complexity leadership might require and how it can be cultivated. 

One skill of particular relevance in the context of change is Systems Thinking and Practice, which the white paper defines as: 

“The ability to see the whole system and how different parts of a system interact. This skill focuses on recognising interdependence, identifying systemic patterns, and being willing to intervene bravely when necessary for the overall health of the system.” 

Importantly, this is not just a mindset. Systems thinking may turn out to be a developable skill—and one that can be cultivated through deliberate practice, reflection, and feedback. One way to build that capability may include engaging with some ideas introduced through the Cybernetic Leadership white paper written by the ANU School of Cybernetics. 

Cybernetics offers a powerful lens for leading in complexity. It focuses on how systems adapt, self-regulate, and learn—often in ways that are distributed, nonlinear, and difficult to predict. The Cybernetic Leadership model distills this into four key dimensions: Feedback, Connections, Plurality, and Synergy. 

These dimensions offer leaders practical entry points for managing change, acting with awareness, and responding to complexity in more effective and adaptive ways. In the context of change, they can help leaders stay attuned not just to plans and deliverables, but to the way systems behave in motion.  To support that application, here are four sets of coaching questions aligned to each dimension: 

Feedback:  Being attuned to how systems respond and adapt. Feedback is both a source of learning and a signal for adjusting action. It includes consideration of formal data, informal signals, emotional cues, and consequences over time. 

Change Management Coaching Questions: 

1. What signals are you noticing that suggest how the system is responding to this change? 
2. What forms of feedback (formal or informal) are you listening to, and what are you missing? 
3. How do you differentiate between noise and meaningful insight in feedback? 
4. What has the system taught you since the change began? 
5. How might you act differently based on recent feedback? 

Connections:  In complex organisational systems, influence flows not just through formal roles, but through trust, shared meaning, and informal networks that span departments, hierarchies and silos. Recognising and working with these relational dynamics is essential for enabling sustainable change. 

Change Management Coaching Questions: 

1. Where do connections across teams, functions or boundaries need strengthening for this change to succeed?
2. Who are the people or roles that connect otherwise disconnected parts of the organisation?
3. What patterns of interaction (formal or informal) are enabling or obstructing change?
4. How are you joining the dots between different aspects of the organisational system? e.g., customer, people, structure, culture, governance, technology, process, etc. 
5. What conversations, collaborations or alliances still need to happen to bring the system into better alignment? 

Plurality:  Plurality is the capacity to recognise that complex systems often contain multiple co-existing interpretations of what is happening and why. These differences may be embedded in roles, processes, disciplines, technologies or institutional histories. Change management requires the ability to work these differences to avoid oversimplification and to ensure key aspects of the system are not overlooked. 

Change Management Coaching Questions: 

1. Where do different parts of the organisation view this change effort through different lenses or priorities?
2. How are different groups framing the challenge in distinct ways?
3. What would it look like to integrate conflicting viewpoints about the change without forcing agreement?
4. How are existing processes or practices reinforcing different ways of working across the system?
5. How do you create space for constructive disagreement while maintaining forward momentum? 

Synergy:  Synergy is the ability to work productively with competing tensions and goals—for example, between short-term delivery and long-term capability, standardisation and flexibility, centralisation and decentralisation, or cost control and innovation. These tensions can’t always be resolved, but they can be navigated in ways that avoid gridlock and create progress. 

Change Management Coaching Questions: 

1. Where are competing goals or priorities creating operational friction in this change effort?
2. Which parts of the organisation are working to different timelines, objectives, or constraints?  And how are these interacting?
3. What trade-offs need to be surfaced and managed for progress to be made?
4. Where is closer coordination needed to avoid duplication, delays, or conflicting outcomes?
5. What structures or decision-making processes could help manage competing demands more effectively? 

Final Reflections 

To lead change in the 21st century, leaders may need to go beyond traditional change management toolkits. They need the ability to sense system conditions, navigate interdependence, and respond with agility when conditions shift. 

Consider the following: 

• Am I leading change for stakeholders only, or for the system as a whole? 

• Where are unintended consequences emerging? 

• How am I using feedback, connection, plurality, and synergy in my change management practice? 

• What complexity capabilities do I need to strengthen? 

At the ANU Complexity Leadership Lab, we are continuing to explore how complexity-informed approaches can support more effective leadership in the context of 21st century complexities. 

If this resonates, or you’d like to explore the work further, we’d welcome a conversation. 

Follow Aiden on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/aidenmathornton