Malcolm Ryder has a recent piece that looks at Change, Change How You Change, that provides some steps to consider on the way to creating change within the organization. His focus is strategy setting, and as I read his article, I saw some parallels to the Theory of Constraints' focusing steps, which can be thought of as a way to focus strategy. Here are Malcolm's steps and the TOC focusing steps (somewhat revised):
Theory of Constraints
Identify the constraint
Decide how to best utilize the constraint
Align everything else with this decision
Elevate the constraint
If the constraint has moved in this process, return to step 1
Malcolm Ryder
we learn or otherwise acknowledge that needs are not requirements
identify the right problem to solve
choose your pain
change how we change
The focusing steps usually start with a "step zero" that looks like "Define the goal of the system," and Malcolm has a similar comment in that the organization needs to decide what their purpose is, rather than defining the solution up front.
While the parallels aren't perfect, the ideas seem to be the same, particularly in the "Identify the constraint" and "Identify the right problem to solve" parallel. This path to creating change is not focused on the change itself, but on changing how the organization sees itself. From the TOC perspective, the difficulty is that organizations don't know their constraint, so they have nowhere to focus. With no focus, there is no alignment, and no growth. With that focus and alignment come vast capabilities for improvement. And this change happens without mounting an explicit effort to create change in the organization.
Here is Malcolm's perspective on "changing how we change:"
Changing how we change does not necessarily produce a different outcome -- instead, the point of it is to be able to produce the needed outcomes in a different way. Developing a strategy is creating a way of being; and changing a strategy is changing a way of being. Being strategic is a competency, not an event.