David Bowie knew a thing or two about change – he did it, he wrote about it. He exchanged one identity for another, frequently refreshing his career. Whilst the majority of Bowie’s contemporaries’ profiles blossomed and withered, his star continued to shine. His story has been well documented and offers us a credible masterclass in change management. But in spite of this - and numerous other case studies - I think we all have a problem when it comes to change; we talk about it rather than do it. As an example of where there is a marked difference in what people say and what people do, think about how many times have you heard someone say ‘I’m never flying with Ryanair again’ but what they do is book another amazingly cheap Ryanair flight within weeks of what they said.

I was out for a meal with friends very recently and once we had eaten our main course the subject of dessert was raised. Having successfully navigated the polite ‘should we or shouldn’t we’ question, a menu was once again consulted. Not being much of a pudding man and despairing at the staggering lack of imagination regarding the cheese board (Cheddar, Stilton and Brie…really!) I proposed to order a starter. Judging by the reaction of others, you would have thought I’d just suggested going on a debauched crime spree. I was put under so much pressure to conform that I really felt I had no option other than to order nothing. How interesting that in a place which exists to sell food, a place that presents you with a price list to help you buy that food, purchasing a starter as a ‘finisher’ could be regarded as heresy. And what a ringing endorsement of the concept of social proof; (the Psychology of Persuasion – Robert Cialdini 1984) ’you can’t do that, it’s not what people do!’ It seems the forces of compliance run deep, so deep in fact that even the most harmless and inconsequential proposal of change, (ordering a starter as a dessert), evokes feelings of fear. Are we such addicts to the status quo?

Staying with the concept of social proof, it’s interesting to note that there are over 4000 designs of tartan, only 500 of which have been produced, ie. woven (source: the Scottish Tartans Authority). With such a rich variety of patterns, could it be possible that people will choose a fairly unremarkable and basic looking, dare I say boring brown one? Well, yes when it’s the ‘Burberry Check’. Heaven forfend that the fashion conscious, when out buying a scarf for example, should choose from a stunning array of beautiful tartan designs when they can buy a brown one! But then, social proof is a compelling force constantly working against change. I once heard a manager say ‘Well change is the new constant’ (a little too pleased with himself) but actually, change is the constant constant. Take a moment to look around you now – everything you have and everything you are is the result of change. How much further could we have travelled if we were more predisposed to letting it in?

In a more work-related episode, I remember receiving borderline hostility from a group of delegates during a training session, to my suggestion that there will be laughter in fifty years’ time when the workers then look at pictures of us now wearing suits to work. My statement went down like the idea of pole dancing at a funeral. Yet we know today that it amuses us to see black and white footage of men, pre 1960, all religiously wearing bowler hats to work. Ask these same metathesiophobics (yes there really is a word for people who fear change) to name a great leader and as predictably as night follows day, they will nominate Richard Branson, the long haired, overtly non-suit-wearing people’s chairman. This is not supposition – all my colleagues in the training world will attest to having asked this question during various training sessions and predictably got the Branson answer. Again we can see a disconnection between what people say and what people do; ‘our greatest leader doesn’t wear a suit’ vs ‘we must cling on to our suits’.

In another work-related example of metathesiophobia, I was interested to be part of a conversation where a friend had been subjected to a draconian management style, known as X-Y theory, based on a belief that staff are inherently untrustworthy (The Human Side of Enterprise – Douglas McGregor 1960). She has the type of job that is not time sensitive eg. she doesn’t drive the 5am inter-city train from Norwich to London. She arrives at work half-an-hour before the rest of her team, she works many more hours than her contract requires, she beavers away on her Blackberry during her morning commute and - you guessed it - she gets chastised for being five minutes late every now and then. Her HR manager cannot abide the slightest softening of the company’s pseudo-Victorian work culture, de facto. One hugely demotivated member of staff, result: no change.

In Syria – and apologies for the drastic oversimplification – when the Arab Spring dared to pop its head above the parapet, Syrians asked of their leader ‘is there any chance of a softening of the country’s regime?’ Instead of responding positively to a request for change, (‘Yeah, let’s have a look at this’ is all he needed to say), the world has had to witness another masterclass; how to impose the maximum possible pain, suffering and death in response to a simple proposal for change. Yet the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, of course knows what it is like to be a citizen of a liberal western democracy, he has first-hand experience of a society with rights and freedoms that don’t pose a threat to a country’s leadership, because he lived and studied here in the UK for four years from 1990 - coincidentally the same year Bowie’s compilation album Changesbowie was released, though clearly all of this has passed him by.

An addiction to the status quo would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. Hundreds of years ago, if you were involved in scientific advancement you ran the risk of the accusation of religious heresy and a near certain death sentence. We still see vestiges of this resistance to ideas that challenge our thinking today, for example in the world of politics there is a collective view that ‘U’ turns are to be avoided. But if you think about it, whilst people have argued about who first proved the earth was round, there had to be a day when the political classes, presented with uncontroversial evidence, let go of their flat earth thinking and changed their minds - a ‘U’ turn by any other name. So why are so many convinced a ‘U’ turn is such a terrible and embarrassing climb down for a politician? Because to change how we think is, well … unthinkable.

Moving to pastures more positive, if you are lucky enough to work in a laboratory in GSK you have a block of core hours during which you must be at work. However, you can begin work at eight o’clock or ten o’clock, just as long as when finishing, you’ve done a day’s work and been present during the core hours. It’s not rocket science but it is enlightening. What a shame my friend’s HR manager does not entertain such modernity in her thinking. Change should be accessible, uncontroversial and normalized.

If I can offer a suitable vision it would be a place where people can effortlessly change one currency of thinking for another - a Bureau of Change. If we can each find the capability to resist our knee-jerk reaction of defending the status quo and be prepared to be the first to order a starter for dessert, or buy a scarf in a different tartan, or dump the suit, or challenge outdated notions of time management and of course listen to a people’s requests for greater freedom, hitherto unknown levels of motivation, empowerment and quality of life will surely be the new order. Don’t wait for others to blink first, because they probably won’t; you’ll spend a long time waiting and, as David Bowie said, you can’t change time.