Externalizing the Obstacle

Definition

One way leaders generate enthusiasm for change is to objectify whatever is impeding it as an external enemy the group can unite against, rather than as an internal flaw or an unavoidable feature of "the way things are." By splitting one ongoing story into an "old" version (containing the problem) and a "new" version (the problem defeated), the leader gives the audience a villain to fight collectively instead of a shortcoming to individually own or excuse.

In the Book

Denning's central example is Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, where "a new birth of freedom" reframes the war: Lincoln is no longer defending an "old Union" that contained and tolerated slavery, but proclaiming a "new Union" that fulfills the promise of liberty — splitting the nation's story into two so the old Union's flaw becomes an external thing being defeated, not an ongoing indictment of the people themselves. Denning draws a direct parallel to narrative therapists treating anorexia: by suggesting the illness is "an enemy striving to inhabit one's body," the therapist lets the patient "fight" it as an external antagonist and "become the heroine of the story, emerging victorious" rather than internalizing the illness as identity. He extends the mechanism to organizational restructurings, arguing this is often the real driving force behind them — a new administrative structure tries to externalize and objectify a new way of operating — but warns the technique fails if the new structure is cosmetic: absent a genuinely new story being lived by participants, the old culture reasserts itself and the restructuring accomplishes nothing.

Why It Matters

This gives a concrete answer to a common change-management failure mode: naming a problem as belonging to a person or group triggers defensiveness and paralysis, while naming the same problem as an external force gives the same people something to fight together. It applies wherever a change effort is stalling on blame — personal habits, team dysfunction, organizational culture, addiction and therapy contexts — by shifting the fight from "who is at fault" to "what is the enemy we're defeating together," with the caveat that the reframe only works if it's backed by a genuinely different way of operating, not just new labels on the same behavior.