Time capsules can be a metaphor for transformation; a prediction of what we think people should know in the future, based on what we know today.
Why time capsules?
The picture to the right is one UK readers might recognise. It shows Richard Bacon and Katy Hill, the then presenters of the popular BBC children’s TV show Blue Peter, burying a time capsule under the Millennium Dome in 1998.
The capsule was supposed to be unearthed again in 2050. Unfortunately, it was accidentally dug up by construction workers in 2017, 33 years too soon. Its location had been lost and forgotten and the contents ended up going back to Blue Peter and never reburied.
The story of the Millennium Dome time capsule provides an interesting metaphor for organisational transformations. Jason Feifer describes in a podcast episode how time capsules are an attempt to communicate with the future. They are a prediction of what we think people will want to know at some point in the future. Further, that prediction is based on what we know about the way we live our lives today.
However, what generally happens is that time capsules are lost or forgotten about, and never opened as a result. Others get accidentally discovered and damaged early like the Millennium Dome capsule. Moreover, when they are opened as intended, they are disappointing, with the contents being far from as exciting or interesting as was originally anticipated. Trying to predict and communicate what people will want to know in the future is usually a fruitless exercise.
What’s that got to do with transformations?
That description of the fate of time capsules seems similar to many organisational transformations. They start out as a prediction for what we think people should be doing in the future. Subsequently, they end up forgotten about, abandoned early as failures, or just not delivering the benefits that were anticipated.
What does this mean for transformations? Rather than looking to the future, we should focus on the present. We should stop trying to design an end state and close the gap from where we are now. Instead, we should consider the current state and try to make that more ideal. By focussing on where we are now along with the next adjacent possible ideal states, we can start to make small immediate improvements. As a result, the small improvements build up to move us in the right direction.
In other words, we move from our current state, to the next ideal current state, and to the next ideal current state after then, and so on. That allows us to learn on the way, navigate around unexpected obstacles, and take advantage of unanticipated benefits.