p.8 Managing change... is more about small, timely and quiet insertions made to release the immanent forces of change always already present in every organizational situation... Obliqueness of engagement is key to managing sustainable change in a world that is itself ever-changing.

p.9 Allowing change to occur of its own accord... constitutes a much more indirect form of intervention, in that the quiet insertions subsequently made are more dependent on timeliness and selectivity of engagement rather than on the weight or superiority of force needed. It is this notion of apparently effortlessly 'letting change happen' that I wish to pursue here.

p.9-10 In this reflective piece, I attempt to show that embracing changefulness as a natural, global feature of social reality may release us from the Cartesian anxiety associated with the cultivated penchant for stability, order, certainty and control. Such an alternative changeful worldview jibes better with the reality of the world that we are confronted with on a day-to-day basis; one that experienced management practitioners, unlike many management academics, are much more familiar with and can instinctively relate to in their everyday dealings. Such seasoned practitioners are often intuitively aware that their own internalized 'logic of practice' is irretrievably change-oriented and time-dependent, and hence often alien to the static logic of analysis that underpins much of academic research and theorizing (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 86). It is their practical nous [JLJ - from Aristotle, Intelligence], acquired through having to operate in a constantly changing world that enables practitioners to cope with and respond to the exigencies of rapidly evolving situations they constantly find themselves in. Under such globally uncertain circumstances, large-scale planned changes in particular often come to grief because of the 'unanticipated consequences' (Merton, 1936) that ensue from such deliberate high-profile interventions.

p.10 In this paper, while I take sides with the emergent approach to change, I want to emphasize that it is the relaxing rather than incremental constructing of alternative organizational orders that will prove more efficacious in allowing lasting and sustainable outcomes to be realized.

p.10 Like the levees constructed to keep out the ravaging forces of the sea, 'organizations' are precarious social constructions designed to temporarily stave off and buffer the effects of relentless change always already taking place regardless of human intentions. From this process-philosophical outlook, managing change implies actively relaxing the established organizational order (i.e. gradually removing the organizational 'levees') and allowing change to take place of its own volition. Change initiatives, as such, must begin locally, be low-profile, and be cognizant of the natural propensity of things (Jullien, 1999).

p.11 The Emergent perspective... views outcomes as the result of the cumulative and oftentimes 'piecemeal' adaptive actions taken in situ by organizational members in learning to cope with the exigencies of organizational situations. According to this view, change is... a continuous, open-ended and iterative process of incrementally aligning and realigning organizational priorities with an ever-changing environment

p.11-12 change... As Weick (2000, p. 225) puts it well, it is about 'autonomous initiatives that bubble up internally; continuous emergent change; steady learning from both failure and success... innovations that are unplanned, unforeseen and unexpected; and small actions that have surprisingly large consequences'. Advocates of Emergent change appear to be much more attuned to how organizational actors, through their everyday practical coping actions, react to the demands put on them by responding appropriately and meaningfully despite inherently ambiguous and ever-changing organizational circumstances.

p.12 The idea, therefore, that incidental and seemingly insignificant actions can nevertheless give rise to dramatic systemic changes is one that needs to be given greater attention in the management of change literature. The emphasis is on the positive unintended consequences of local actions. In other words, the key implication of this research finding is that successful outcomes can be attained without any intention on the part of actors and it is the acknowledgement of this possibility, rather than whether it is incremental or planned and large-scale that truly differentiates the Emergent approach from the Planned approach to change.

p.13 Unintended but favourable outcomes can and often do ensue from apparently inconsequential actions taken. Thus, many social phenomena that we take so much for granted including, language, money, medieval cities, modern civil societies, and even the rise of economic order (see Chia & Holt, 2009, pp. 25 - 47) have all occurred spontaneously and unplanned. They are the unintended outcomes of local coping actions as the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson aptly concludes in his study of civil society.

Mankind... in striving to remove inconveniences, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate... Every step and every movement of the multitude... are made with equal blindness to the future, and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design. (Ferguson, 1767/1966, p. 122, my emphasis).

p.13 It appears that: the more directly and deliberately a specific strategic change is single-mindedly sought the more likely it is that such calculated actions eventually work to undermine their own initial successes, often with devastating consequences (Chia & Holt, 2009, p. x).

p.15

The 'imperious immediacy of interest', refers to instances where the actor's paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes the consideration of further or other consequences of the same act. (Merton, 1936, p.901).

p.15 Merton crucially identified what he called the 'imperious immediacy of interest', as a particularly important cause of unintended consequences. The 'imperious immediacy of interest' refers to a tendency to be overly focused and single-minded about achieving a particular intended outcome to the exclusion of possible others. For him this overzealous preoccupation or even obsession is what causes the unintended side-effects to arise. Somehow, the more direct and single-minded the action taken to forcibly effect a change, the more likely it is that it generates negative unintended consequences.

p.18 routine practices are not just the deviation-reducing devices but have a simultaneous deviation-amplifying effect (Maruyama, 1963); small adjustments made in response to changing local circumstances can precipitate significant and unexpected outcomes as we have seen. To appreciate the longer-term impact of these 'invisible' actions is to recognize the central role that silent, self-transformational processes play in the conduct of human affairs.

p.19 it is more the Heraclitean becoming of things (Wheelwright, 1974) that takes precedence over the being of stable, self-identical states. What is continually being produced and reproduced is a consequence of 'unowned' change processes... Change is all there is.

p.19 the underlying propensity of things (Jullien, 1999) plays a key role in shaping eventualities. The potency of human actions is thus moderated and, therefore, accorded less significance than our egos would have us believe. So much so that instead of forcibly 'making things happen' to accord to our wishes, it becomes more important to discern the inherent potentiality always already at work in the configuration of social reality and then to allow it to unfold to our advantage.

p.19 it is this heightened sensitivity to such micro-changes occurring often unnoticed at the periphery of attention that ultimately determines the chances of securing sustainable, longer-term success.

p.20 happenings in the world are often not within our control because the world is perpetually changing... uncertainty, incompleteness of understanding and even lack of coherence lies at the core of all human endeavours. Human decisions and actions are therefore not so much deliberate choices as they are arbitrary ontological 'incisions' made (Chia, 1994, p. 800; Whitehead, 1929, p. 58) into the flux of reality to temporarily stabilize an ever-fluxing and changing world in order to render it more predictable and hence more liveable.

p.22 To appreciate the relentless efficacy of silent transformation is to acknowledge that an ever-present internal dynamic of circumstances, configuration, structure and momentum shapes the propensity of situations disposing them towards particular outcomes.

p.22 Outcomes are born more of 'situational disposition' (Jullien, 1999, p. 17) than of purposeful agentic intention. This implies that reading situational circumstances and their propensities can enable us to make pre-emptive timely and quiet insertions that help guide what will naturally unfold in the fullness of time. It is to recognize that things 'tend' of themselves towards a particular outcome so that ends may be achieved quietly with no great effort needed if we align ourselves with this process and allow the momentum of situations, just like the flow of a river, to carry us along.

p.22 relying on the potential of a situation implies allowing the effect to happen irresistibly sponte sua so that 'with very little effort' one can nevertheless attain 'great effects' (Julien, 2004, p. 19). There is no longer any 'need to choose... or to struggle to attain an "end"' (Jullien, 2004, p. 40).

p.23 we advocate here a change strategy involving a close of reading the natural coursing of things and of then strategically 'letting change happen' through quiet and effortless insertions. This entails firstly the cultivation of an aesthetic sensibility that enables the systematic discernment of minute differences and changes always already taking place in social situations and then quietly applying small, innocuous and seemingly insignificant relaxing manoeuvres that blend seamlessly with evolving concerns. It opts for 'lighting small fires' and achieving 'small wins' rather than for bold schemes and grand visions. Instead of imposing grand designs upon the world, we instead 'rely on the potential inherent in the situation... (and) allow it to play its part' (Jullien, 2004, pp. 16 - 17).

p.24 Attending to the inconspicuous changes always already occurring within and without organizations is vital to the process of successfully managing strategic change.