This is the last of my yearlong series of book-in-progress excerpts,
and the last edition of this newsletter in its current form—more on that below.
It's also a bit longer, which feels fitting for the Truth about time.
These two sections, which open the final chapter, will take ~7 mins of yours.

I’ve always been in a hurry.

When I was young, I was in a hurry to be older. When I was early in my career, I was in a hurry to be successful. When I was managing a change, I was in a hurry to see results.

I still feel that sense of urgency, that race against time. When I started this book, I thought I’d be finished in a matter of months. Two years later—which were full of unexpected and richly rewarding projects that needed my focus—I’m finally coming to the end of my first draft.

This is not a problem, in fact it’s been a gift. More time with these ideas has meant more depth. I’ve had opportunities to test and hone them with leaders and organizations I work with, and you’ve had the opportunity to hear their stories share your stories.

Still, even as I write these words, the truth is I’m in a hurry to start editing the thing.

It might be partly my personality—I’ve always been eager for change, for progress, for what’s next. But it’s also the nature of the cultures many of us live and work in. The tyranny of urgency is real, a paradigm we can’t always see but we can always feel.

It’s often manufactured urgency, made up to spur us forward but activating our amygdalas in the process. It’s often cloaked in language of “efficiency” and “results,” as if speed is the most important element of success.

What are the costs? That’s an honest question I’m putting to you, especially if you too feel like you’re always in a hurry. What is the impact of all this rushing? What does it do to the quality of your thinking? To your emotional capacity? To your physical health?

And what about the impact on the change itself? What do we miss when we are focused on the need for speed?

One thing I know for sure: had I written this book in 6 months as originally intended, it would be a very different book. And not for the better.

“Since we don’t live at the end of history, I assume that new light will be shed in more dark corners, new frameworks of what justice and equality should look like will arise. That we are, as ever, in the middle of the story.”

—Rebecca Solnit, from her life-giving new book
​The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change​

TRUTH #10: CHANGE IS INFINITE

The True Shape of Change

When in pursuit of a purposeful vision, we are always keenly aware of how far away it is. So we push ourselves relentlessly, believing the harder and more consistently we push, the further we’ll get, and faster.

Skillful change leaders know this is a fast track to burnout for ourselves and our teams, but there are other costs too. A continuous drive forward strains the system, making it more rigid and fragile, so when (not if) things go wrong, resilience is lower and recovery takes longer.

We can also miss the ways that the change itself is changing, or needs to. When we are fixated on getting to our goal as quickly as possible, for example, we’re less likely to ask whether we’re still pursuing the right goal. It was set under different conditions. As the system is changing, its needs, capabilities and potential are changing too.

These are all reasons why we’ll frequently remind one another, as we feel our way forward in the messy work of change, that “it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”

It’s a useful metaphor, but not always accurate.

Think about it: where is your finish line? If you’re launching a new technology, you’ve set your go-live date. But will your change be complete on that day? Or will you need to continue with encouraging adoption, troubleshooting issues and iterating the tool?

And that’s a tactical example. For those of us working on organizational development, social change or even a personal relationship, it’s even clearer:

We will never be finished. Change is infinite.

But, as we’ve been learning all along, its infinity isn’t linear. It doesn’t move in a straight line—or even the rather crooked change curve I’ve offered you for the purposes of this book. It moves in circles, or more accurately, in cycles.

Cycles are everywhere in nature, from the rotation of our planet to the phases of the moon to the turning of the seasons. Migration patterns, ocean tides, circadian rhythms. The water cycle that hydrates our planet, the carbon cycle you’re participating in right now, with every breath you take.

​The business world has quarterly earnings cycles, budget cycles, performance review cycles. Politics has election cycles. Our own routines move in quotidian cycles around school and work, while the profundity of our life cycle comes freshly into view when a new baby arrives or when we lose a loved one.

If cycles are everywhere we look, why does the linear urgency persist? Usually it’s because we aren’t taking a long enough view. So we compress time into sprints and see events moving from creation toward completion—some final judgment or ultimate resolution that will make the grind worth it. That will make it all make sense.

And how’s that going for us?

We used to know better. The cyclical nature of reality is core to many indigenous cultures and ancient wisdom practices. Celtic and other pagan traditions celebrated the turning of the seasons, solstices and equinoxes with festivals to live in harmony with the natural world. In many Native American cultures, these cycles are sacred, intricately connecting earth and sky, animals, plants and humans in one circle of life.

More specifically, nations like the Haudenosaunee—which maintains one of the world’s most durable matriarchal models—practice looking seven generations backward to their ancestors and seven generations forward to their descendants, in a never-ending cycle of responsibility and care.

Buddhism, which carries as a core tenet the inevitability of change we explored in Truth #1, also focuses on the infinitude of change through the repetition of cycles. The nature of human experience is called samsāra, a cycle of rebirth, which is perpetuated—with much suffering—by our tendencies to desire what feels good, reject what doesn’t, and forget that everything is connected and nothing lasts.

It was in Buddhist practice—and all the paradigm shifts it represented to my materialist mindset—that I started to understand that all my rushing was not only a waste of energy, but a hindrance. It was yet another paradox, counterintuitive but undeniable.

Moving at speed was slowing me down. If I wanted to make real progress toward my goal—which was, in the case of my Buddhist practice, a sense of deep and abiding peace—I needed to slow down. I needed to honor the cycle. I needed to flow with life as it was, not as I wanted it to be.

My wise teachers offered me a new shape—one that I’ve applied to my practice, and now offer you for practicing with these 10 Truths of change:

Change as a spiral. Cycles repeating, but not in precisely the same way. The growth (or decay) that occurred in one cycle starts the next cycle in a different place. We will gain insight and skill from our experience with these Truths, and we’ll keep re-learning the lessons over and over.

The cycle continues, and the system evolves—as long as it isn’t busy breaking down.

What makes the difference between growth and decay? Some of it has to do with whether a system has reached the limits of its growth. (Yes, growth has limits! We cover that later in the chapter.) But much depends on our relationship to change and the strategies we use to bring it about.

It’s everything we’ve been exploring together—from possibility to paradigm shifts, from feelings to fractals to feedback loops—that allows a system to grow stronger through a progression and a return, a push forward and a backlash, an overreach and a correction.

And now, with this final Truth, we both return to the beginning of our journey—to the inevitability of change beyond the finish line that doesn’t exist—and continue onward together into the infinite unknown.

A New Cycle at Radiant Change

First, deep gratitude to everyone who has engaged with this year’s book-in-progress series. Your experiences, insights, questions and feedback have made the book stronger, and I can’t wait for you to read it in full! As we move toward this milestone, a few things are changing around here:

• The community has adjourned. After three years, the Radiant Change community of practice closed yesterday. To the 50+ leaders who practiced with us, thank you for the wisdom, care and openness you brought to our work together. That work continues, in a different shape…
• This newsletter is returning to Substack. Starting in December, you’ll receive these notes under the banner We Can Change. I'm excited to continue building community using Substack’s audio, comments and chat tools. 🤗
• The Radiant Change Residency is taking shape. It’s a year-long program designed for organizations and individuals to build their capacity to lead change. Residents will apply the 10 Truths of Radiant Change to a real change, with all the training, tools and support they need to achieve meaningful and sustainable impact. Sign up here to learn more about the Residency and other Radiant Change programs.​

Onward together.

Kristen Lisanti
​Radiant Change​
​How Change (Really) Works