Question
What is theory of change?
Quick Answer
Your model of how change happens determines how you approach change.
Example: Two managers face the same restructuring. One believes change is a linear process — announce the new org chart, train people on new roles, wait for adoption. She rolls out the plan in a single all-hands meeting and is baffled when six months later half the team is still operating under the old structure. The other manager believes change is an emergent process — people need to unlearn old patterns before they can absorb new ones. She starts with small pilots, creates feedback loops, and adjusts the plan as resistance surfaces. Same organization, same restructuring, different schema about change, radically different outcomes.
This concept is part of Meta-Schemas in the How to Think curriculum.
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Go beyond the answer
This topic is part of Change the System, Not Just the People — a guided sequence of 20 lessons.
After completing this path you will understand why organizations resist change (it's a systems property, not stubbornness), know how to read and translate the mental models others can't see, have stakeholder mapping and coalition-building skills that make good ideas actually happen, and be able to shift from frustrated critic to effective architect of organizational evolution.
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