Someone posted an article recently about how to create a “rebel alliance” in an organisation: how to identify rebels and build a support network for them so that they can drive transformation.
There are some real problems with the very idea of rebels, not least of which is an implicit acceptance that everything must already be so bad that people have to set themselves against what exists to do anything valuable. This binary perspective isn’t necessarily the healthiest starting point for change.
And potentially, identifying rebels and rewarding them is the beginning of making them special. And this group of special people — a group who demand a disproportionate amount of attention — is potentially mirroring the status quo rather than challenging it. It’s ultimately an alternative hierarchy.
Then there’s also the danger of making quite mundane change seem rebellious. In the article I read those things which marked out the rebels were often slightly different ways of working, or technology preferences. Are these the kinds of rebellions we should be championing? If we’re going to rebel at all what would be the truly worthwhile causes?
But perhaps the most damaging thing around the idea of rebels is the way in which it continues the kind of combative language that is all too prevalent in business already. Do we really want to couch things in terms of incumbents and rebels or are there better ways to think about these things?
Tensions and problem-finding can be powerful ways of making changes. But finding problems and bringing together people as some sort of invading force might do little more than exacerbate things, back people into corners, escalate. How else might we do this? How else might we describe what needs to be done and the people who can do it?