Burning Platforms

Exploring change as individuals and groups

Once upon a time, I met a leadership coach who did not believe that fear was the best motivator to foster change. Instead of setting platforms on fire and watching them burn, he was trying his best to create “safe spaces”.

The first time

The first time we met, he was reading again an old mid-20th century book about “holding environments” by Donald Winnicott, which he found inspiring (he added that it was often more valuable for him to reread a book than to read it for the first time).

As a pediatrician and a psychoanalyst, Winnicott considered that “the foundations of health are laid down by the ordinary mother in her ordinary loving care of her own baby” (The Child, the Family, and the Outside World, 1973), central to which is the mother’s attentive holding of her child, both physically and emotionally.

Extrapolating the concept of holding from mother to family and the outside world, Winnicott considered that the continuation of reliable holding was key to healthy development and a smooth transition to balanced autonomy. As a therapist, he underlined the importance to create a symbolic “holding environment” for his patients.

While being compassionate and empathic, Winnicott was careful to also maintain a “frame” in the treatment, where reliability, consistency, trustworthiness, and clear boundaries setting were key. In doing so, he provided a safe place for his patients to explore and experiment with new possibilities.

The second time

The second time we met, he was about to accompany a group of senior executives to transition through organizational changes. He was setting the stage so the group could provide a holding environment for each other.

The holding environment he was inciting and supporting became a transitional space where the participants were in (e)motion and could begin to feel safe enough to explore change as individuals and as a group. He was present as a container of the group’s emotions, as much as of his own emotions. The participants faced their ontological solitude — alone in front of the change and not lonely, as they allowed themselves to feel a human connection, get to know each other better, and forge stronger bonds with each other.

There, you could witness leadership group coaching happening.

He used a one-slide only Power Point presentation, on which you could read:

It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. — Irish Proverb

Participants began to have the courage to uncover some of their vulnerabilities and to relate on a deeper level with each other. They began to tolerate better the anxiety of the unknown, of “not-knowing what will happen next” and did not feel the urge to ask questions such as: “And what do we do now?!” to reassure themselves.

They could deal with the frustration of feeling “stuck” for a while, without freaking out, and really started to think together.

Eventually, the group, made up of participants belonging to the same organization and whose meaning and impact of actions influenced and depended on this context, learned to tolerate and even appreciate the contradictory opinions and dissents a bit better.

The holding environment slowly allowed space for shared meaning to emerge through common understanding, providing the foundation for trust.

Trust is found where we feel safe.

This is how he chose to support change processes.

Of course, he could have preferred to stoke the fire of fear by lighting a “burning platform” and cheered the participants to walk on coal to feel the heat and the urgent need for change (“Now jump!”).

There would be casualties and collateral damage (quickly forgotten, the show must go on)*. With time people would maybe even forget what was the change they were pushed to accept or even wanted to change.

Survivors would accommodate themselves with the new reality, for a while. He did not choose to go on that path. He had long stopped believing that to foster change (this counts for changing someone’s mind too) you have to become more persuasive.

How to create a collaborative organization

In the corporate world, when employees feel that they are given room to open up, to express themselves and they can raise problems without their sense of self being threatened, when it’s ok to face questions they do not have answers to, when they fear no retribution for looking “stupid”, “foolish”, “naïve” or “idealistic” (which in some environments has a negative connotation attributed to it), they become more collaborative, share more information and are much more committed; their sense of ownership becomes perceptible and they find the courage to become subjects of the story and not merely passive spectators of “another meeting”.

To change, we have to accept to face some imbalance and accept the fact that there is no need to adapt at all costs to every situation.

When we dare to enter into imbalance together, recognize some of our hopes and fears through dialogue, and have the courage to face the past that continues to influence our present instead of being dominated by it, we eventually begin to find out what is preventing change and get ready to prepare for it.

Some say revolutions (the ones that bring democracies, for example) arise through such a process. Not all governments, organizations or corporations will be tempted to go through such a process though (which may not come as a huge surprise).

More platforms will certainly continue to be set on fire. The expression “burning platform” hits a sweet spot, it brings some illusion of control and sounds like the title of a good superhero movie. Not realistic, but easy to understand and at the same time mysterious, intimidating, and entertaining.

*The metaphor “burning platform” comes from a real incident dating back to July 6th, 1988. On that date, an oil-drilling platform in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland exploded — the result of a failure to check some systems that had worked faultlessly for the previous decade. The explosion caused a massive fire and 166 crew members and 2 rescuers died.

Inspirational sources
Billeter, J.-F. (2018). Contre François Jullien. Paris: Editions Allia.
Bion, W. (1967). Seven Servants. New York: Jaron Aroson.
Casement, P. (1997). Further Learning from the Patient. The analytic space and process. London: Tavistock/Routledge.
Kets de Vries, M. F. R. (2002). Can CEOs Change? Yes But Only if they Want to, INSEAD Working Paper No 2002/36/ENT.
Winnicott, D. W. (1973). The Child, the Family, and the Outside World. Harmsworth: Penguin.