Embracing real change

While change is a constant in life, meaningful transformation—what we call vertical change—takes significant courage.  This is for the simple reason this type of change means giving up the known in favor of the unknown.

Living well means learning how to ride the waves of change well.  Leading well, means learning how to guide ourselves and others through the challenges and opportunities that change presents.

Few of us, and fewer of our organizations, will choose to give up what we have for what we might become. To make this meaningful change even more tempting to avoid, life is full of superficial possibilities that feel like change, but that take us away from the outcomes we might be seeking.

However, individuals and organizations that adapt to this type of change will find power, durability, and opportunity to live and serve more fully.

Read on for the first in a multi-part inquiry into:

1. The types of change (horizontal and vertical)
2. Why individuals and groups avoid change
3. How to use these principles to help you and your team guide meaningful change

The difference between Horizontal and Vertical Change

Change can be divided broadly into two categories: horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal change occurs when we alter external aspects of our lives—changing jobs, partners, or homes—without fundamentally changing who we are.

While these shifts may disrupt the way things look in our lives, they don't change the way look at our lives.

Vertical and Horizontal Change in Individuals

Here’s a story that gets at the heart of this: Many years ago I was unsure whether to stay or end a relationship that felt unfulfilling for both me and my partner. A mentor 20 years my senior shared his own experience of repeatedly changing partners only to find the same issues cropping up in every new relationship. After much partner shopping, he discovered that the problem wasn’t the partners or even the relationships—it was him.

This gets to the essence of horizontal change: we might change our surroundings, switch partners, change jobs, etc., but our core perspective remains the same. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it except that we expect something different to emerge from it.

Some other examples of personal horizontal change include:

• Starting a New Hobby: Picking up a new activity, like learning an instrument or joining a gym, believing this change will make us feel more fulfilled. While it might provide a temporary boost, the underlying feelings of dissatisfaction or lack of purpose persist if we haven’t addressed what truly makes you feel connected to yourself.
• Buying Things: Shopping for new clothes, gear, a new car, or even moving into a bigger house to feel happier or more successful. The temporary excitement of having something new fades, while feelings of inadequacy or emptiness can resurface because the core beliefs driving those feelings haven’t changed.
• Going on Vacation to Escape Stress: Taking a trip to get away from the pressures of work or life, hoping that a change of scenery will relieve the stress. While the vacation might offer temporary relief, the stress returns as soon as we’re back because we haven’t addressed the causes of anxiety or burnout.

On the other hand, vertical change is developmental. It’s about expanding or deepening our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. Unlike horizontal change, vertical change doesn’t require altering external circumstances. In fact, it often begins with the recognition that we can’t fundamentally change our situation until we change ourselves.

Just don’t confuse vertical change with ascension from the complexities or the messiness of life.

Vertical change can broaden our understanding, like going upward for a wider perspective on the territory of our lives; seeing and including more parts of ourselves, more perspectives, more interdependence, and more complexity.  It can also mean going downward, in the sense of more deeply understanding any of those parts, in all their messy, earthy, mortal aspects.

Returning to my mentor’s story, he found temporary relief from his challenges by changing partners, but the cost of avoiding vertical change was high. Not only was he continuing to encounter the same frustrations in each new relationship, but his negative impact on others was also spreading with each relationship  Eventually, he realized that true change (and to some degree, freedom from this limiting part of himself) wasn’t in finding a new partner, but in turning the lens of change inward.

Other examples of personal vertical change include:

• Reevaluating Our Values: Instead of quitting our job for a new one, we find ways to learn what truly gives us fulfillment and purpose. Whether this internal change leads us to approach our current roles with a new perspective or leads us to pursue a completely different career it will be out of alignment with those values rather than escapism.
• Self-reflection in Relationships: Rather than jumping from one relationship to another, we take time to reflect on our patterns, fears, and emotional habits. By working on these aspects of ourselves, we’re able to show up differently in our relationships, breaking patterns and creating deeper, more meaningful connections.
• Facing Internal Fears: Instead of moving to a new city for a fresh start, we begin to confront the internal dissatisfaction or restlessness that led us to feel unhappy in our current environment. Through personal reflection or guidance of others, we work through those emotions, realizing that the true change we seek isn’t external, but a shift in how we relate to ourselves and life.

My mentor’s story provided a powerful example for me.

It didn’t ultimately matter whether I stayed in that relationship or left. What mattered is that my perspective shifted from one of retreating from the problems I was facing, to turning toward those problems in myself.  With either choice I knew I would need to confront myself that were holding back that relationship, and any other I would enter into. I embarked on the long, slow road of self-reflection and, I hope, meaningful change.

Horizontal and Vertical Change in Groups:

Let’s think about how these two types of change apply to groups by considering organizational dynamics.

Horizontal change in organizations can look like rearranging the furniture but leaving the foundation untouched. I’ll take an even more cutting analogy from my work in prisons: horizontal change can be like putting new window dressings on the cell walls.

After the George Floyd murder at the height of COVID, there was a sweeping wave of DEI initiatives in corporate America,

We can think of this as a classic example of horizontal change: the creation of new DEI departments that siloed off the work and responsibilities of organizational culture and values to a single group of people. These same companies hired PR agencies at the same time they created DEI departments to adjust the “optics” of their organizations without addressing the fundamental ills of inequity, bias, greed, and misuse of power that are natural byproducts of seeking profit as the primary goal of work.

In this case, real change would likely have required the rethinking of the values, structures, and goals, in many cases the whole reason for existing, of the organization.  A few years later, many of these DEI departments are being eliminated with very little to show for their work.

Other common horizontal changes are things like:

• Job Reassignments: Moving employees between teams or departments may change their surroundings, without addressing the deeper dynamics of how the organization operates.
• Process Tweaks: Organizations may change workflows or adopt new software systems, but if the underlying mindset and culture remain the same, these changes are cosmetic at best.
• Title Adjustments: Altering leadership titles or improving office environments can give the illusion of progress, yet the deeper issues of teamwork, communication, or values continue unchecked.
• Training Initiatives: Sending staff to workshops might improve their skills on the surface, but unless those experiences prompt deeper reflection or behavioral shifts, the core of how work gets done remains unchanged.

Just as with personal vertical change, an organization’s developmental shift doesn’t depend on external circumstances but on evolving how it looks at itself and its work.

It often includes aspects of the following:

• Culture Change: Shifting from a profit-driven focus to a purpose-driven one, where the organization’s mission and values evolve, inspiring employees to see their roles in a new light. Purpose and value take first priority, not second, over profit.
• Organizational Transformation: Shifting culture also requires shifting the way an organization operates, oftentimes from the Board down to operations.  Funding, chains of command, decision-making, and project management will all likely shift as an outcome and support for Culture Change.
• Leadership Development: Leaders may approach their roles differently, emphasizing empathy, collaboration, and empowerment. As they change, their teams are impacted, and the organization begins to transform from the inside out.
• New Approaches to Conflict: Rather than blaming others or avoiding difficult conversations, teams start to reflect on their behaviors and engage with challenges more openly, fostering trust, creativity, and meaningful progress.
• Mindset Shifts: Instead of looking outward for solutions, individuals or teams recognize that the real change comes from rethinking their approach, and transforming how they see their work and their role within the organization. They stop solving problems with the same thinking that created them.

Like my mentor's realization that the problem wasn’t the partner but his perspective, vertical change in an organization starts with a shift in understanding—one that doesn’t just alter the circumstances but transforms the way people relate to them.

In both personal and organizational life, horizontal change may feel easier because the stakes are low, but real transformation, the kind that sticks, almost always requires the courage to go inward (personally and collectively), let go of some aspects of what we know, and move forward into the unknown.

The second part of this series will explore the biological, psychological, and sociological responses and reactions in the face of vertical change.  

Stay tuned!