Are We Really Ready for Change?
While this reflection is fueled by a personal experience, it resonates even more deeply with me professionally.
Recently, my son completed his end-of-grade competency testing. Reading comprehension proved challenging for him in a few areas. Around the same time, he began asking more questions about my favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. A first edition sits prominently in our family room. Years ago, we even named our first family dog, Radley, after one of the book's most misunderstood characters - a fitting name for a pup whose quiet, observant nature slowly revealed itself over time.
My son knew the title. He knew a few of the characters. But our conversations about the story had always remained at the surface.
As his curiosity grew, and with middle school just around the corner, we decided to make To Kill a Mockingbird our summer reading project, reading it together chapter by chapter and hopefully impacting the next round of EOGs.
What struck me most was not his struggle with the vocabulary or the historical context. It was the genuine confusion that emerged when we reached the trial of Tom Robinson. He kept searching for the moment when justice would prevail. He assumed the evidence would matter. He believed the truth would be enough.
Then the verdict came.
His reaction was immediate.
"How could they do that?"
He could not reconcile how so many people could hear the same facts and still arrive at such a profoundly wrong conclusion.
As parents, we hope our children learn critical thinking and reading comprehension through books. What I did not anticipate was the mirror this moment would hold up to the systems we continue to operate within today.
The novel may have been published more than sixty years ago and set even further in the past, but the questions it raises remain remarkably relevant.
Do we still assign credibility based on titles, positions, or influence rather than facts?
Do we allow the loudest voices to dominate discussions while quieter, yet more informed, perspectives go unheard?
Do we avoid asking uncomfortable questions because we fear the answers, or because those answers might require us to change?
Do we allow narratives to become accepted truth because they are convenient rather than accurate?
Do we choose comfort over courage when difficult decisions are required?
And perhaps most importantly for those of us entrusted with serving children and families: when we say we want change, are we truly prepared to do the work that meaningful change demands?
Research on organizational change management tells a sobering story. Most change initiatives fail to achieve their intended outcomes. While studies vary in their estimates, the consistent finding is that sustainable change is extraordinarily difficult, not because organizations lack vision, but because people, processes, and systems often revert to familiar patterns. Too often, resistance is viewed as the enemy.
Yet perhaps we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking, "How do we eliminate resistance?" we should be asking, "What is resistance trying to teach us?"
When someone challenges a long-standing practice, points out an inequity, questions a decision, or raises an uncomfortable truth, our instinct is often to label them as difficult, disruptive, or resistant. We focus on restoring harmony rather than understanding the source of the tension.
But what if those voices are exactly the voices we need most? What if the individual disturbing the norm is not the problem, but rather the symptom of a problem we have yet to acknowledge?
In our work, we frequently talk about psychological safety. Too often, however, psychological safety is confused with agreement. Real psychological safety is not the absence of disagreement or discomfort. It is creating an environment where people can respectfully challenge assumptions, ask difficult questions, and surface concerns without fear of retaliation or exclusion.
Healthy organizations do not fear dissent; they cultivate it.
Meaningful change requires a willingness to sit in the tension of competing ideas. It requires vulnerability from leaders and staff alike. It requires us to resist the urge to defend our current practices and instead become genuinely curious.
Tell me more.
What are you seeing that I am not?
What assumptions are we making?
Who benefits from this process?
Who is burdened by it?
What truth are we avoiding because acknowledging it would require us to change?
If we are serious about improving outcomes for children and families, then we must become equally serious about creating environments where constructive dissonance is welcomed. The goal should not be consensus for the sake of harmony. The goal should be a deeper understanding that emerges from honest dialogue, healthy challenge, and shared accountability.
As I sat reading beside my son, I could not help but wonder how often adults make the same mistake that frustrated him so deeply in those pages. How often do we see what we expect to see instead of what is actually there? How often do we defer to authority, tradition, or convention rather than asking whether our actions are producing the outcomes children and families deserve?
My son's reaction reminded me that injustice is often easier for children to recognize because they have not yet learned to rationalize it.
Perhaps that is the lesson I needed to hear.
If a child can look at a situation and immediately recognize that something is unfair, harmful, or incomplete, what is preventing us from doing the same?
The families we serve do not need us to talk about change. They need us to embody it.
They need leaders willing to ask hard questions.
They need professionals willing to challenge assumptions.
They need systems willing to examine themselves honestly.
And they need all of us to recognize that better outcomes rarely come from maintaining the status quo.
So the question is not whether change is necessary.
The question is whether we are willing to embrace the discomfort that change inevitably brings. Whether we are willing to listen to the voices that challenge us. Whether we are willing to seek understanding before judgment. Whether we are willing to ask the follow-up question instead of dismissing the messenger.
Because history, and experience, suggest that those voices are often the ones helping us see what we would otherwise miss.
And the children and families we serve deserve nothing less.
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