My Lens
“Rebecca takes people to a whole different level as to what they see as possible – from this experience, they create previously only imagined results. Not only is this extraordinary, but also what we need in this world right now.”
Arthur "Butch" Blazer, Past President, Mescalero Apache Tribe; Deputy Under Secretary, Environment, USDA (2011-2016)
Seeing What Others Miss
Many leaders believe they are solving problems when they are actually navigating transformational conditions.
The distinction matters.
Problems can often be analyzed, resolved, and put behind us. Transformational conditions are different. They reshape the assumptions, relationships, capacities, and possibilities that define what comes next. Yet, because the ways they announce themselves as transformation are not widely understood, they are frequently mistaken for operational, strategic, or personnel problems rather than signs of pending growth and development.
As a result, leaders respond with solutions when a different form of understanding is required. They move quickly to define the problem, determine a course of action, and drive implementation. Sometimes this works. Often it does not—not because the solution is wrong, but because the nature of the situation has been misunderstood.
The challenge is not simply deciding what to do. It is learning to recognize what kind of condition you are facing and to read the terrain in which it is unfolding.
Today's leaders operate in environments characterized by overlapping and accelerating change. Markets shift. Expectations evolve. Technologies emerge. Organizational structures strain under new demands. Different groups often experience the same reality in dramatically different ways. What appears to be progress in one area may feel like uncertainty, disruption, or loss in another.
In such environments, the ability to read the terrain takes precedence over the ability to formulate the plan.
Many leaders believe they are solving problems when they are actually navigating transformational conditions.
The distinction matters.
Problems can often be analyzed, resolved, and put behind us. Transformational conditions are different. They reshape the assumptions, relationships, capacities, and possibilities that define what comes next. Yet, because the ways they announce themselves as transformation are not widely understood, they are frequently mistaken for operational, strategic, or personnel problems rather than signs of pending growth and development.
As a result, leaders respond with solutions when a different form of understanding is required. They move quickly to define the problem, determine a course of action, and drive implementation. Sometimes this works. Often it does not—not because the solution is wrong, but because the nature of the situation has been misunderstood.
The challenge is not simply deciding what to do. It is learning to recognize what kind of condition you are facing and to read the terrain in which it is unfolding.
Today's leaders operate in environments characterized by overlapping and accelerating change. Markets shift. Expectations evolve. Technologies emerge. Organizational structures strain under new demands. Different groups often experience the same reality in dramatically different ways. What appears to be progress in one area may feel like uncertainty, disruption, or loss in another.
In such environments, the ability to read the terrain takes precedence over the ability to formulate the plan.
How This Perspective Emerged
For more than three decades, I have worked with leaders, organizations, communities, and multi-entity groups navigating significant transformation. Across sectors, disciplines, and cultures, I began noticing patterns that appeared regardless of the specific issue at hand.
Organizations described different problems. Leaders pursued different goals. The content varied widely. Yet beneath those differences, similar dynamics seemed to be unfolding. Again and again, the visible challenge proved to be only one expression of a larger process taking place within the system.
Over time, I became less focused on the problem itself and more interested in the landscape in which it existed. I found myself paying attention to the assumptions people held, the realities they were operating from, the capacities they possessed, the possibilities they could not yet see, and the patterns of change shaping the environment around them.
Again and again, this broader perspective revealed opportunities and pathways that would otherwise have remained hidden.
For more than three decades, I have worked with leaders, organizations, communities, and multi-entity groups navigating significant transformation. Across sectors, disciplines, and cultures, I began noticing patterns that appeared regardless of the specific issue at hand.
Organizations described different problems. Leaders pursued different goals. The content varied widely. Yet beneath those differences, similar dynamics seemed to be unfolding. Again and again, the visible challenge proved to be only one expression of a larger process taking place within the system.
Over time, I became less focused on the problem itself and more interested in the landscape in which it existed. I found myself paying attention to the assumptions people held, the realities they were operating from, the capacities they possessed, the possibilities they could not yet see, and the patterns of change shaping the environment around them.
Again and again, this broader perspective revealed opportunities and pathways that would otherwise have remained hidden.
A Question That Changed Everything
Early in my consulting career, I worked with a group of scientists who were seriously stuck. Discussions circled the same issues, frustrations were high, and progress had stalled. As the group began exploring their situation through a different lens, they surprised themselves with renewed momentum, more collegial interactions, and new ways forward.
At the conclusion of the engagement, the lead scientist asked a question that stayed with me: "How can you be smarter than I am about a subject I've spent my career studying?"
I wasn't smarter about the science. I couldn't have been. What made the difference was my ability to see beyond the content itself.
While the scientists were understandably focused on their area of expertise and the problems they were trying to resolve, I focused on the larger context in which their work was unfolding. I noticed patterns, dynamics, relationships, and possibilities that were difficult to see from within the system itself and used questions and observations to help the group explore them together.
As their understanding expanded, challenges that had previously seemed isolated began to reveal themselves as part of a larger picture. What had looked like discrete problems became easier to interpret, navigate, and address. The work had not changed. Their ability to see it had.
That experience revealed something I would encounter repeatedly throughout my career: people are often mired in realities they have never been invited to examine together. Expanding collective understanding creates possibilities that problem solving alone cannot.
The ability to perceive the landscape—and to make meaning of it in real time—often determines what becomes possible next.
Early in my consulting career, I worked with a group of scientists who were seriously stuck. Discussions circled the same issues, frustrations were high, and progress had stalled. As the group began exploring their situation through a different lens, they surprised themselves with renewed momentum, more collegial interactions, and new ways forward.
At the conclusion of the engagement, the lead scientist asked a question that stayed with me: "How can you be smarter than I am about a subject I've spent my career studying?"
I wasn't smarter about the science. I couldn't have been. What made the difference was my ability to see beyond the content itself.
While the scientists were understandably focused on their area of expertise and the problems they were trying to resolve, I focused on the larger context in which their work was unfolding. I noticed patterns, dynamics, relationships, and possibilities that were difficult to see from within the system itself and used questions and observations to help the group explore them together.
As their understanding expanded, challenges that had previously seemed isolated began to reveal themselves as part of a larger picture. What had looked like discrete problems became easier to interpret, navigate, and address. The work had not changed. Their ability to see it had.
That experience revealed something I would encounter repeatedly throughout my career: people are often mired in realities they have never been invited to examine together. Expanding collective understanding creates possibilities that problem solving alone cannot.
The ability to perceive the landscape—and to make meaning of it in real time—often determines what becomes possible next.
From Observation to Framework
As these observations accumulated, I began searching for a language capable of describing what I was seeing. What emerged was the Thresholds of Change™ framework.
Rather than focusing primarily on how people react to change, the framework represents the underlying structure through which transformational change unfolds. It provides a practical way of recognizing where individuals, teams, organizations, and communities are within a larger developmental process and identifying the thresholds that signal movement.
The framework did not begin as theory. It emerged from practice. I developed it to describe patterns that had already proven useful in my work across hundreds of real-world situations.
Learn more about the Thresholds of Change™ framework.
As these observations accumulated, I began searching for a language capable of describing what I was seeing. What emerged was the Thresholds of Change™ framework.
Rather than focusing primarily on how people react to change, the framework represents the underlying structure through which transformational change unfolds. It provides a practical way of recognizing where individuals, teams, organizations, and communities are within a larger developmental process and identifying the thresholds that signal movement.
The framework did not begin as theory. It emerged from practice. I developed it to describe patterns that had already proven useful in my work across hundreds of real-world situations.
Learn more about the Thresholds of Change™ framework.
The Book
Over time, it became clear that a framework alone could not encompass the larger body of insight from which it emerged.
The resulting book, Thresholds of Change: The Way through Transformational Times, explores transformation not as a management challenge but as a deeply human experience. Drawing from decades of practice as well as insights from history, literature, philosophy, theology, science, and the arts, it examines the recurring patterns that shape growth, uncertainty, adaptation, loss, possibility, and renewal.
Neither a traditional business book nor a self-help guide, it offers a broader lens for understanding why change unfolds as it does and what becomes possible when we learn to work with it rather than against it.
The book represents the most comprehensive articulation to date of the body of work that informs my practice today.
Over time, it became clear that a framework alone could not encompass the larger body of insight from which it emerged.
The resulting book, Thresholds of Change: The Way through Transformational Times, explores transformation not as a management challenge but as a deeply human experience. Drawing from decades of practice as well as insights from history, literature, philosophy, theology, science, and the arts, it examines the recurring patterns that shape growth, uncertainty, adaptation, loss, possibility, and renewal.
Neither a traditional business book nor a self-help guide, it offers a broader lens for understanding why change unfolds as it does and what becomes possible when we learn to work with it rather than against it.
The book represents the most comprehensive articulation to date of the body of work that informs my practice today.
What Becomes Possible
When leaders learn to read the terrain more clearly, things shift.
Problems that once appeared intractable reveal new possibilities. Organizations discover capacities they did not know they possessed. Teams move beyond entrenched conflict and recurring frustration. Adversarial relationships become productive partnerships. People become more curious, creative, adaptive, and effective.
Most importantly, leaders begin responding not only to what is happening, but to what is becoming possible.
The work is not about managing change. It is about perceiving reality more clearly so that better decisions, stronger organizations, and more meaningful outcomes can emerge.
That pursuit has been at the center of my work for more than three decades and continues to inform my writing and my current advisory, educational, and speaking practice.
When leaders learn to read the terrain more clearly, things shift.
Problems that once appeared intractable reveal new possibilities. Organizations discover capacities they did not know they possessed. Teams move beyond entrenched conflict and recurring frustration. Adversarial relationships become productive partnerships. People become more curious, creative, adaptive, and effective.
Most importantly, leaders begin responding not only to what is happening, but to what is becoming possible.
The work is not about managing change. It is about perceiving reality more clearly so that better decisions, stronger organizations, and more meaningful outcomes can emerge.
That pursuit has been at the center of my work for more than three decades and continues to inform my writing and my current advisory, educational, and speaking practice.
