The myth of the hero’s journey—and why it’s killing change in your organization

There is a powerful narrative arc called the Hero’s Journey that is employed in stories like Star Wars. A hero, like Luke Skywalker, receives a call to adventure. He or she has doubts at first, but meets a mentor, crosses the first threshold, undergoes an ordeal and, once successful, receives a reward and returns home changed for the better. Franz Kafka offers a very different and less happy narrative in his unfinished novel, The Castle. The hero, “K.” receives a call from the mysterious castle that looms above the town. No one can confirm his authority, role or even what he’s supposed to accomplish. He gets lost in the machine, and is left feeling confused and alienated. The ugly truth about the corporate world today is that while transformation is sold as the former, it usually ends up looking like the latter. It starts with a big launch and lots of fanfare. But after the initial excitement, things get bogged down and eventually stall altogether before being abandoned. It’s a sad story. It’s also completely avoidable. We can do things differently. The call to adventure Every transformational initiative starts with an idea to vanquish an enemy, whether that is a competitor, a source of inefficiency, an operational snafu, or a problem to be solved. It usually originates with someone high up in the organization, but sometimes it emerges lower down. At some point, someone with enough clout decides to back it. That’s when the summons comes. Imagine yourself as a high-potential employee, someone seen as up-and-coming. You are tapped to lead the initiative. You’re told that great things await. You’re given a large budget and your choice of people to help you run the program. You’re promised staunch executive support and whatever resources you need. This is seen as a mission-critical initiative. You are also given a mentor, much like Luke had Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. In the corporate context, this usually means a change consultant or someone with a Prosci certification. You’re encouraged to create a sense of urgency, build awareness, desire and knowledge about the change. So you get down to work, creating a communication program to inspire the troops and designing a training program to empower them. Finally, you are ready to cross the first threshold: the big launch. The bold vision is unveiled, and there’s lots of excitement and enthusiasm. Things appear to be off to a good start, and the executive sponsor is pleased. Everything seems to be clicking. The future feels bright. Undergoing the ordeal, meeting the challenge Now that you’ve launched, you need to pursue your quest to vanquish the forces behind the problem you’re trying to solve. You execute your plan, communicating each step and stage. You identify allies, recruit them to join your cause, and people seem genuinely enthusiastic about the possibilities. Training sessions are well-attended and things seem to be moving forward. You do hear some grumbles. Some people don’t see the reason for change. They like the old way and the new one doesn’t seem worth the trouble. Others point to all of the other initiatives launched and then abandoned in the past few years. They wonder how this will be any different. Still others complain that they are just tired of change and want to be left alone to do their jobs. But then you remember Luke Skywalker. He had his own doubts and so did those around him. Han Solo didn’t take him seriously at first and mocked him when he began his Jedi training with the lightsaber. Yoda didn’t think he was ready, that he started his training too young. But he persevered, became a powerful Jedi and vanquished the evil empire. Still, with your career on the line you want to be sure. You arrange a meeting with your change consultant and she reassures you with performance metrics. She shows you how change management best practices were followed, training and program completion metrics are strong and, on a more anecdotal level, shares personal stories of teams that have embraced the change and are seeing early successes. You feel better. But there’s still an uneasy feeling gnawing at you. Descent into the Kafkaesque About six months in, you start feeling a sense of dread in the morning. The initial excitement has long worn off. Other initiatives have been launched that now people seem more excited about and, most worryingly, you do not see much operational impact to your initiative. You get an uneasy feeling walking the hallways, people seem to roll their eyes dismissively at you. You begin to notice things that you hadn’t before. The mild rumblings that you were scarcely aware of months ago are now voiced more openly. You begin to realize that there was an undercurrent of resistance all along. Yes, the training sessions were well-attended, but they were also mandatory. There were butts in seats, but the hearts and minds were elsewhere. You start to feel less like Luke Skywalker and more like K. You reach out to your executive sponsor, but cannot get a meeting. You send emails, but her replies come back seeming strangely official, vague, and contradictory. You seek out others, trying to build allies with some clout who can help you get things back on track. They’re receptive, but non-committal. As in Kafka’s famous novel, you find yourself wandering aimlessly, unsure of your status or authority in the organization. The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. Why were you summoned in the first place? How could the “mission-critical initiative” become so irrelevant? What was the point of it all? And where do you go from here? Change is not a hero’s journey, but a strategic conflict The truth is that change is not a hero’s journey. Just because you have a vision you believe in and are willing to fight for it doesn’t mean it will ever get any traction. That’s simply not how transformation works. You can’t simply will an idea into becoming a reality. The universe cannot be overpowered, you need to attract its forces to you. The true story of change is that of a strategic conflict between your future vision and the status quo, which always has inertia on its side and never surrenders its power gracefully. It has had years—and sometimes decades or even centuries—to build up the sources of its power and it will be ruthless in defending it.That’s why we always start every transformational effort by doing a resistance inventory, working to anticipate who will resist, what form that resistance will take, and how we can best mitigate it. Then we map the institutional forces that support the status quo, those that are open to the future vision, and those that are still on the fence. We also identify cultural triggers and how best to redesign rituals to encode new norms. Genuine change is possible, but you have to approach it clear-eyed and hard-nosed. You can’t just wordsmith fancy slogans, set up some training sessions and expect people to drop what they are thinking and doing and start thinking and doing something else. You need to build a thoughtful strategy, execute it wisely, and adapt as things develop. In the real world, most change efforts don’t fail because of a lack of heroes, but because they ignore the system they’re up against. If your strategy depends on heroism, it’s probably not much of a strategy.