When change is designed in an organization, there is an assumption that someone somewhere knows better or more than someone else. When we design conversations, we create the space for change to emerge without directing it—it occurs as a result of ownership derived from knowledge and connection to what really matters. Change actually emerges from a third space. This third space or what I refer to as coachspace—not mine, not yours, but ours—is less threatening, less directive and more representative of a mutual ownership and commitment to what is required.

In an era where everybody is smarter or as intelligent as everyone else, no one anywhere knows better or more than people inside the organization. In order to create continuous learning with gusts of discontinuous (quantum) change, we need a stable platform of processing increasing complexity and ambiguity. The platform created through conversations is the foundation for organizational agility—the capability to adapt readily and willingly to rapid change and uncertainty.

In essence, the key missing ingredient in all models derived from mechanical or inorganic methods of viewing business reality, are the connections that have to occur between the component parts. This creates holographic interactions where all of the parts contain a representation of the whole and are recognized from within and without as leadership everywhere.

Everyone in organizations today needs to be involved in strategic conversations—conversations from and with all perspectives. The person most efficient and trained to create that conversation is a business coach. The business coach helps to forward the integration of personal and business reality.

An integral or systems approach understood from an individual and collective viewpoint taken from a simultaneous internal and external perspective is required at differing levels of complexity and leadership. However to produce organic change, which is far less costly over time than inorganic or event-sponsored change, we must allow leadership (teaching and coaching systems) to carry the weight of change through effective conversations and interactions.

The design is not about change. The design is about creating a system to carry the weight of continuous natural adaptation—to support discontinuous change--through connected conversations around what really matters.