An inside look at the personal, psychological, and practical journey of making transformation happen
Subroto Bagchi
(The following is an article adapted from a talk delivered by Subroto Bagchi on the occasion of UNICEF @70.)
When I was invited to speak at the 70th anniversary of UNICEF, I was asked to focus on a single topic: Change. I found this remarkably appropriate. An organization that has survived and thrived for seventy years on the global stage, dedicated to long-acting, transformational goals, must be doing something right. It must, at its very core, understand the process of change.
This topic is vital for all of us—for students just starting their journey, for leaders in the corporate world, and for professionals in the development sector. We are all, in our own ways, either buffeted by change or called upon to become agents of it.
But how does deep, transformational change actually work?
The Adversary Guarantees the Success
My first proposition is a counter-intuitive one: every great change needs a matching, colliding force.
Look back at history. When Moses took his people across the Sinai to the promised land, the power balance was not in his favor; it was overwhelmingly with the Pharaohs. When William Wallace, immortalized in Braveheart, took on the English empire, he was just one man angered by the tyranny of “bribed tax”. When Mahatma Gandhi began his work, he was one lawyer against the vast, ruthless British Empire.
In all these cases, the size of the adversary was monstrous. We are taught to see this as a disadvantage. We stop in our tracks, feeling helpless. We see this today in our own battles. When we in Odisha are told we have 46% stunting among our children, the problem feels impossibly large. When we are tasked with skilling eight lakh young people in three years, the scale is daunting. Whether it is polio, AIDS, terrorism, or gender inequality, the enemy is always larger than life.
But here is the secret: the size of the adversary often guarantees the success potential.
Why? Because people do not want to climb molehills. People want to climb mountains. When you take on an adversary that is larger than life, you create a shared vision so compelling that it draws people in. A small, incremental goal inspires no one. A mountain does.
The Anatomy of Change: Pain, Vision, Roadmap, Action
If you are to climb that mountain, you must understand the four components that make up the anatomy of any great transformation. It is a simple formula: Pain, combined with Vision, combined with a Roadmap, and finally, Action.
First, Pain. True change is not a left-brain, intellectual exercise. It is not a policy blueprint drafted by consultants. It begins when someone, somewhere, feels pain. Gandhiji famously said we must be able to feel the pain of others. When he, a lawyer from South Africa, traveled all the way to Bihar, it was to feel the pain of the indigo growers. If you do not feel the pain, the change is artificial.
Second, Vision. The word “vision” comes from the Latin videre, the ability to see. It is the capacity to see an apparition, a picture of a future that does not yet exist. A future free of hunger, free of apartheid, free of inequality. This is a uniquely human gift—animals do not do this. When you create a vision that is “larger than life,” others will join you to climb that mountain.
Third and fourth, Roadmap and Action. Vision without action is plain laziness. But action requires something more: personal sacrifice. This is where many well-meaning efforts fail. We expect the organization to sacrifice, the government to sacrifice, or businesses to sacrifice. But true transformational change only happens when the sacrifice starts at the “me, myself, and I” level.
If Gandhi had remained a non-resident Indian, coming to India only in December when the weather was pleasant, I can guarantee we would still be serving the British. He had to make the personal sacrifice. He had to get “mud on his boots”. Change is not a headquartered revolution. The theater of action is the field. It is in Malkangiri, not in Delhi.
Average People, Simple Tools
This brings me to the tools of change. We believe transformation is complex. It is not. The greatest freedom struggle in the world, India’s, was not delivered by a complex strategy from a high-intellect consulting firm. It was delivered with average people and simple tools.
Gandhi’s tools were non-violence and non-cooperation. These are so simple, everyone can understand them. Even a three-year-old child knows what non-cooperation is. When you tell them to drink their milk, and they refuse, what can you do? When the tools are simple, everyone can read from the same page.
This is powered by emotion, not just logic. It is a right-brain activity. Think of the UNICEF logo: a mother and a baby, the world, and olive branches. It is an emotional, iconic connection. Think of the charkha as a symbol of self-reliance, or the man standing before a tank in Tiananmen Square. These emotive icons galvanize millions.
And finally, change is driven by content. Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism were spread by the Bible, the Quran, and the Gita. Communism was spread by Das Kapital. Content is what gives hands and legs to ideas.
The U-Theory: The Personal Journey of Change
So, we have the mountain to climb, the anatomy to guide us, and the simple tools to do the work. But what is the internal process? What is the psychological journey we must take?
A brilliant systems thinker named Otto Scharmer studied this, and he found that all great change—personal, societal, or civilizational—follows a pattern. He calls it the “U” pattern.
The journey begins at the top left of the “U.” 1. Suspending: You cannot begin to change if your mind is full. The first step is to suspend your preconceived notions, your cynicism, and your belief that “things will only be like this”.
2. Sensing: Once you suspend, you begin the journey down the “U.” This is the sensing phase. You go to the field. You listen. You feel the pain, as we discussed.
3. Frustration: But as you sense, a funny thing happens. You do not get answers. You only get more questions. “How can we solve this?” “If we solve this, won’t it create three other problems?” It becomes daunting. This is the point where most people give up. They “jump out of the U,” deciding that India, or their company, or their life, can never truly change.
4. Presencing (The Bottom of the U): But if you persist—if you stay with the problem—you eventually become so fed up with asking questions that you just fall to the bottom of the “U.” You are tired. You are calm. This, Scharmer says, is the state of “Presencing.”
In this state, the answer presents itself. The mind is like a calm lake, and you can hear a single drop of water fall in the middle. Think of Gandhi, thrown off the train in South Africa. In that solitary, dark moment, he was not angry. He was calm. And in that calm, he heard the drop of water: this is not about me being insulted; this is about apartheid being fundamentally wrong. That was his moment of presencing. The world does not make breakthroughs because of smart people. The world makes breakthroughs because of adamant people who stay with the problem.
5. Letting Go & Letting Come: The journey down the “U” is called “Letting Go”—letting go of your ego, your old ideas, your questions. You must do this so you can begin the journey up the “U,” which is called “Letting Come”. When you let go, you evacuate your mind, and you allow new ideas, new associations, and new friends to come in.
6. Realizing (The Climb Out): Once you have the answer, the real journey begins. Life does not ask you to sleep at the bottom of the “U.” The climb out is the process of “Realizing,” and it is a struggle. It took 50 years from Gandhi’s night on that platform to the tricolor replacing the Union Jack. This is the action, the “mud on your boots,” the long, hard work of implementation.
This is the process of change. It is not an event; it is a journey. It requires us to face mountains, not molehills. It demands that we feel pain, hold a vision, and make personal sacrifices. And it asks us to have the courage to travel the “U”—to suspend our judgment, sense the field, stay with the problem when we are frustrated, find the calm of presencing, and then begin the long, hard climb to make that new reality come true.
(Subroto Bagchi is an entrepreneur, celebrated author, and co-founder of the global IT services company Mindtree. He is known for his visionary leadership in the corporate world and his deep commitment to public service, having formerly served as the Chairperson of the Odisha Skill Development Authority, Government of Odisha.)