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[](https://jamienotter.substack.com/) # [Between Systems](https://jamienotter.substack.com/) Subscribe Sign in # How Change Systems Work in Organizations ### Stop blaming “resistance,” and start strengthening the system. [](https://substack.com/@jamienotter) [Jamie Notter](https://substack.com/@jamienotter) Feb 27, 2026 69 Share In my recent [“gridlock” post](https://jamienotter.substack.com/p/dont-block-the-box-how-organizational), I argued that there are systems in your organization (which may be invisible to you) that nudge people into doing things they think make sense at the time, but ultimately cause significant performance and speed issues for the organization as a whole (i.e., gridlock). I named three systems that contribute to this: (1) culture (specifically your culture patterns), (2) conflict, and (3) change. Culture is a system that most people already know they have, and I’ve written a whole book about culture patterns (*[Culture Change Made](https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Change-Made-Easy-Workplace/dp/1646871790/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8)**[Easy](https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Change-Made-Easy-Workplace/dp/1646871790/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8)*), so there are already resources to help you there, but when I started digging into conflict systems and change systems, I quickly realized this was mostly uncharted territory. There are volumes upon volumes written about conflict and change, of course, but very little of it takes a systems approach. Challenge accepted\! [](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0HRY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F474a8aad-4428-4ae6-aa6d-285a532f00d0_1200x900.jpeg) I am just wrapping up a new Essay on conflict systems (keep an eye out for the announcement next week!). **The Essay maps out the core concepts of what conflict systems are, how they work, and how you can make them more effective.** [This post](https://jamienotter.substack.com/p/the-most-important-thing-you-didnt) provides a high level view of the outcomes and components of conflict systems, and [this post](https://jamienotter.substack.com/p/what-good-conflict-feels-like) was my first one about “good conflict,” which is, ultimately, the product of effective conflict systems. Again, the full Essay will be out next week (available only to paid subscribers). Today, I’m switching gears to start the conversation around change systems. Change systems in organizations have some structural similarity to conflict systems—they both accomplish certain functions or achieve certain outcomes in your organization, and they also both have specific areas where you can pull some levers to make the systems more effective. And they are both, well, systemic. Neither change nor conflict are merely stand-alone projects or events that happen in your organization. There is an interconnected system that guides how they unfold. Your change system, however, operates a little differently, because change is different than conflict. While both are inevitable, change is more pervasive, more constant. **Conflict happens in every organization, but change touches everyone, nearly all the time.** In that sense, your change system operates at a omewhat higher level than your conflict system. The outcomes of your conflict system, for example, are about right issues, right people, right time, right conversations, right pace, and right resolutions. These are tangible and discrete. The results of your change system, on the other hand, are about higher-level functions: - **Selection**. The system must identify and prioritize the right changes, frame them correctly, and make the necessary trade-offs. When selection fails, organizations either change the wrong things, try to change too many things, or mess up the sequence of the changes, which sets the system up for failure from the get-go. - **Support.** The system must generate real alignment, resources, and behavioral follow-through to support the changes it has selected. When support fails, changes get approved on paper but never gain the sustained support they need to survive contact with reality. - **Completion.** The system must ensure that changes actually become the new normal, not just launch and fade, or revert back to the previous reality. When completion fails, organizations accumulate half-finished initiatives that consume energy without delivering results or producing the learning that will take them to the next level. These are the core functions. If your system is inadequate, then you’ll be disappointed in the results you get within each function, and change becomes frustrating and difficult. Traditional change management provides specific solutions and models that address these failures, though they don’t usually consider the functions systemically. The majority of the field focuses on the support function—helping people move through the change—but it often takes both selection and completion for granted. Selection is assumed to have already happened, and completion is treated as a fairly minor final stage in the process. The functions are where you will see the breakdowns in your system, but responding to the breakdowns—strengthening your change system—requires you to understand and develop three core capacities: - **Clarity.** The system produces shared understanding of what’s changing, why, how, what’s not changing, and what success looks like. Without clarity, people fill the vacuum with assumptions, and the organization fragments into competing interpretations of what it’s trying to do and even what’s actually happening. - **Empowerment.** The system distributes authority, information, and bandwidth so that change can be executed where the work needs to happen. Without empowerment, decisions can bottleneck at the top, and the people closest to the work wait for permission instead of acting. - **Coherence.** The system maintains fit between its parts — across changes, between commitments and resources, and between what’s landing and what’s still in flight — without relying exclusively on central control. Without coherence, individually smart changes collide, compete, or contradict each other, and the organization works harder without making progress. Underlying these three capacities are the core concepts of **agency and control** that I wrote about in my [earlier change post](https://jamienotter.substack.com/p/there-are-6-parts-of-your-culture). The very short answer to the question of “how do we make change easier and more effective?” is to increase agency and lighten control. > **The more complete answer is to intelligently increase agency and lighten control across the three capacities of clarity, empowerment, and coherence, in order to address the specific breakdowns you’re having across the functions of selection, support, and completion**. That, I believe, is the true essence of effective change management, change leadership, or whatever you want to call it. Your change system, of course, is connected to the other two systems of culture and conflict. In that earlier post I already talked about the “change drivers” that exist in your culture (again, rooted in agency and control). They feed into the three capacities. And conflict and change are highly correlated in my data, so your conflict system is going to plug into both building the capacities and implementing changes that will improve the functions. So give me some time to flesh out the full Essay on change systems. In the meantime, upgrade to the paid subscription so you can get access to the full conflict Essay next week (it’s 30 pages!). A few weeks following the release, I’ll schedule a live substack session for paid subscribers to field questions about the essay and discuss application. I’ll do the same, of course, following the change system essay, so stay tuned. \-- *For more information on my speaking or advisory services, visit [JamieNotter.com](https://jamienotter.com/).* 69 Share #### Discussion about this post Comments Restacks Top Latest Discussions No posts ### Ready for more? © 2026 Jamie Notter · [Privacy](https://substack.com/privacy) ∙ [Terms](https://substack.com/tos) ∙ [Collection notice](https://substack.com/ccpa#personal-data-collected) [Start your Substack](https://substack.com/signup?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_content=footer) [Get the app](https://substack.com/app/app-store-redirect?utm_campaign=app-marketing&utm_content=web-footer-button) [Substack](https://substack.com/) is the home for great culture This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please [turn on JavaScript](https://enable-javascript.com/) or unblock scripts

In my recent [“gridlock” post](https://jamienotter.substack.com/p/dont-block-the-box-how-organizational), I argued that there are systems in your organization (which may be invisible to you) that nudge people into doing things they think make sense at the time, but ultimately cause significant performance and speed issues for the organization as a whole (i.e., gridlock). I named three systems that contribute to this: (1) culture (specifically your culture patterns), (2) conflict, and (3) change. Culture is a system that most people already know they have, and I’ve written a whole book about culture patterns (*[Culture Change Made](https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Change-Made-Easy-Workplace/dp/1646871790/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8)**[Easy](https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Change-Made-Easy-Workplace/dp/1646871790/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8)*), so there are already resources to help you there, but when I started digging into conflict systems and change systems, I quickly realized this was mostly uncharted territory. There are volumes upon volumes written about conflict and change, of course, but very little of it takes a systems approach. Challenge accepted\! [](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0HRY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F474a8aad-4428-4ae6-aa6d-285a532f00d0_1200x900.jpeg) I am just wrapping up a new Essay on conflict systems (keep an eye out for the announcement next week!). **The Essay maps out the core concepts of what conflict systems are, how they work, and how you can make them more effective.** [This post](https://jamienotter.substack.com/p/the-most-important-thing-you-didnt) provides a high level view of the outcomes and components of conflict systems, and [this post](https://jamienotter.substack.com/p/what-good-conflict-feels-like) was my first one about “good conflict,” which is, ultimately, the product of effective conflict systems. Again, the full Essay will be out next week (available only to paid subscribers). Today, I’m switching gears to start the conversation around change systems. Change systems in organizations have some structural similarity to conflict systems—they both accomplish certain functions or achieve certain outcomes in your organization, and they also both have specific areas where you can pull some levers to make the systems more effective. And they are both, well, systemic. Neither change nor conflict are merely stand-alone projects or events that happen in your organization. There is an interconnected system that guides how they unfold. Your change system, however, operates a little differently, because change is different than conflict. While both are inevitable, change is more pervasive, more constant. **Conflict happens in every organization, but change touches everyone, nearly all the time.** In that sense, your change system operates at a omewhat higher level than your conflict system. The outcomes of your conflict system, for example, are about right issues, right people, right time, right conversations, right pace, and right resolutions. These are tangible and discrete. The results of your change system, on the other hand, are about higher-level functions: - **Selection**. The system must identify and prioritize the right changes, frame them correctly, and make the necessary trade-offs. When selection fails, organizations either change the wrong things, try to change too many things, or mess up the sequence of the changes, which sets the system up for failure from the get-go. - **Support.** The system must generate real alignment, resources, and behavioral follow-through to support the changes it has selected. When support fails, changes get approved on paper but never gain the sustained support they need to survive contact with reality. - **Completion.** The system must ensure that changes actually become the new normal, not just launch and fade, or revert back to the previous reality. When completion fails, organizations accumulate half-finished initiatives that consume energy without delivering results or producing the learning that will take them to the next level. These are the core functions. If your system is inadequate, then you’ll be disappointed in the results you get within each function, and change becomes frustrating and difficult. Traditional change management provides specific solutions and models that address these failures, though they don’t usually consider the functions systemically. The majority of the field focuses on the support function—helping people move through the change—but it often takes both selection and completion for granted. Selection is assumed to have already happened, and completion is treated as a fairly minor final stage in the process. The functions are where you will see the breakdowns in your system, but responding to the breakdowns—strengthening your change system—requires you to understand and develop three core capacities: - **Clarity.** The system produces shared understanding of what’s changing, why, how, what’s not changing, and what success looks like. Without clarity, people fill the vacuum with assumptions, and the organization fragments into competing interpretations of what it’s trying to do and even what’s actually happening. - **Empowerment.** The system distributes authority, information, and bandwidth so that change can be executed where the work needs to happen. Without empowerment, decisions can bottleneck at the top, and the people closest to the work wait for permission instead of acting. - **Coherence.** The system maintains fit between its parts — across changes, between commitments and resources, and between what’s landing and what’s still in flight — without relying exclusively on central control. Without coherence, individually smart changes collide, compete, or contradict each other, and the organization works harder without making progress. Underlying these three capacities are the core concepts of **agency and control** that I wrote about in my [earlier change post](https://jamienotter.substack.com/p/there-are-6-parts-of-your-culture). The very short answer to the question of “how do we make change easier and more effective?” is to increase agency and lighten control. > **The more complete answer is to intelligently increase agency and lighten control across the three capacities of clarity, empowerment, and coherence, in order to address the specific breakdowns you’re having across the functions of selection, support, and completion**. That, I believe, is the true essence of effective change management, change leadership, or whatever you want to call it. Your change system, of course, is connected to the other two systems of culture and conflict. In that earlier post I already talked about the “change drivers” that exist in your culture (again, rooted in agency and control). They feed into the three capacities. And conflict and change are highly correlated in my data, so your conflict system is going to plug into both building the capacities and implementing changes that will improve the functions. So give me some time to flesh out the full Essay on change systems. In the meantime, upgrade to the paid subscription so you can get access to the full conflict Essay next week (it’s 30 pages!). A few weeks following the release, I’ll schedule a live substack session for paid subscribers to field questions about the essay and discuss application. I’ll do the same, of course, following the change system essay, so stay tuned. \-- *For more information on my speaking or advisory services, visit [JamieNotter.com](https://jamienotter.com/).* No posts