An Accidental Author
Having now written five books (8 if you include the three small business books for Bookboon), people are surprised when I call myself an accidental author. But that is how it all started.
The discovery
In 2010, my wife and I, operating as Macanta Consulting, delivering services in IT Service Management, launched the eco-ITSM service. eco-ITSM enabled organisations to use their existing service management framework to improve the sustainability of IT and the goods and services they provide.
It was based on the best practices in ITIL Version 3. It raised awareness that implicit guidance can assist organisations in addressing their operations' environmental challenges at every service lifecycle stage. The framework allowed environmental targets to be built into new and existing products and services through the lifecycle stages of service strategy, design, transition, operation, and continual service improvement.
Our first customer was Deakin University, and CIO.com published an article, “Deakin Uni takes a course in ‘green’ IT service management”, in 2010.
It was eco-ITSM that led to my continued search for information on sustainability.
While researching, I came across the Network for Business Sustainability (NBS). Founded in 2008, NBS is housed at the Centre for Building Sustainable Value at the Ivey Business School (Western University, London, Canada). Ivey Business School inspires leaders to create a sustainable and prosperous world. It provides evidence-based sustainability guidance for leaders who are thinking ahead.
A piece of research on the NBS website was about to change my life. In 2010, NBS commissioned a systematic review of the body of knowledge concerning “embedding sustainability in organisational culture.” The results were published.
In Embedding Sustainability in Organizational Culture: A Systematic Review of the Body of Knowledge, Dr. Stephanie Bertels, Lisa Papania, and Daniel Papania presented their research on how companies make sustainability an everyday, enduring part of their organisations.
After reviewing 15 years of research and 179 studies, they produced a framework for embedding sustainability into corporate culture. This comprised identifying 13,756 academic and practitioner articles and reports related to the subject matter. Preliminary screening narrowed the pool to 701 sources, and a detailed review reduced it to 96. This included 82 academic articles,14 practitioner articles and books, and 83 sources that examined analogous cultural interventions. This set of 179 studies was to be extensively analysed and synthesised.
The framework
The 74-page PDF contained this image on page 14.
This is what got me excited!!
The analysis of the 179 sources that comprised this review revealed many ways organisations could embed sustainability into their culture. Ultimately, the researchers identified 59 distinct practices and grouped them in ways they believed would be meaningful for businesses. The practices varied on two main dimensions: intent and approach.
Vertical axis goals – INTENT: what are you trying to accomplish?
Fulfillment
Practices aimed at fulfilment were those targeted at delivering on current sustainability commitments or implementing current sustainability initiatives. These practices involved discussions about what the organisation ‘should do’ and emphasised compliance, operational excellence, and targeted reinforcing or refining of what the organization was already doing around sustainability.
Innovation
In contrast, practices aimed at innovation attempted to find ways to do things differently or better. These practices involved discussions of what the organisation ‘could do’ and involved experimenting, learning, and trying new things.
Horizontal axis goals – APPROACH: how are you going about it?
Informal
Informal approaches to shaping an organisation’s culture target people’s values and social norms. A social norm is an expectation that people will behave in a certain way. Other organisation members enforce norms (as opposed to rules) using social sanctions. Norms and values are generally passed on and shaped through observation or experience. Thus, informal approaches aim to establish and reinforce shared values and shared ways of doing things that align the organisation with its sustainability journey. This is often accomplished through discussion, experiences, and modelling desired behaviours.
Formal
Formal approaches to shaping an organisation’s culture involve guiding behaviour through the rules, systems, and procedures. The idea is to codify and organise values and behaviours that have developed informally. This is often accomplished by generating documents and texts such as codes of conduct, procedures, systems, and training materials and implementing programs.
The practices
As shown in this excerpt from the review, the framework's four dimensions contain 20 categories, which include 59 practices.
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The accident
When I examined the categories and practices, it was clear that this framework was not just about embedding sustainability into an organisation but about any change.
So, what about using it to embed IT service management change into an organisation and making it stick? Hell yeh!
I reached out to NBS and asked if I could use the framework in a white paper and/or presentation, to which they said, “Absolutely, just acknowledge the source.
So, I started on a white paper on a long weekend in Melbourne, and by the end of the weekend, I knew I had more than a white paper.
When I returned to NBS and said, “I have a book on my hands,” they advised me to contact Dr. Stephanie Bertels, the professor at Simon Fraser who led the research. I thought I would have to jump through hoops to obtain permission to use the research in a book, but I was mistaken. I had her blessing, and all she asked was that I acknowledge her PhD students.
The accident happened. I did not set out to write a book, but “Balanced Diversity: A Portfolio Approach to Organisation Change” was published in 2011 and targeted the IT Service management industry.
The shift
I found that I had one foot in the IT service management industry and the other in organisational change management. I was asked to discuss the framework, its construct, how to use it, and how to help organisations apply it.
I realised my passion for organisational change, so I undertook formal education and certification in response to organisations’ requests! The Chief Information Officer Group (CIOG) at the Australian Department of Defence was one of the largest consumers, purchasing 50 books. The CIO insisted that all his service management staff read it, and I was asked to present the framework to the whole CIOG.
As more organisations sought help with organisational change, I became more ensconced in the industry. While I still work in service management, my work primarily concerns change, resilience, and leadership.
A revised edition of the book was published in 2020. There were two reasons for this. First, traditional methodologies, models, frameworks, and approaches to organisational change were no longer effective. Most were based on the premise that Kurt Lewin, a German American psychologist, supposedly claimed that change could be achieved in three steps: unfreeze, transition, and refreeze. Research has shown that Lewin never made this statement. The refreeze phase was meant to establish stability once the change had been implemented. However, stability is now a thing of the past, and we are in total slush! Therefore, the first significant change was the approach used to apply the framework.
The second was to apply the framework to any industry, not just IT service management. This edition targeted a much wider audience – everyone.
The approach
The framework's success relies on organisations implementing change from all four quadrants. A balanced approach to change is essential, like the necessity of consuming from each of the four food groups. This strategy enables organisations to fulfil current commitments while assisting them in progressing further down the path of change and innovation.
Change leaders can select a balanced portfolio of diverse practices to foster successful change.
It is an essential component of the change leader’s toolkit. It should be used as a reference guide for every strategic, tactical, or operational organisational change in any industry vertical and organisation of any size.
LIMITED OFFER: Order your copy of Balanced Diversity: A Portfolio Approach to Organisational Change by 31 March 2025, and enter code DIVERSITY at checkout to receive your 15% discount.
The following image is the framework as it appears in my book.
Summary
You never know where your wanderings might lead you, but when you encounter something that excites you, chase it. Would the subsequent seven have existed if I had not written this book? This book gave me the confidence I needed to pursue my passion. It may have been accidental, but the universe intended it to happen.