The hands in the image are not juggling.
They are manipulating something that was already there - something that had a structure before they arrived, and that continues to have a structure in their hands. The light between them forms a double helix: two outer strands running in parallel, connected at regular intervals by crossing bridges. The classic form of DNA made in neon.
The hands are not making the structure. They are working with it.
This is the proposition of the image: change has a structure. Not a random field of events that requires ongoing improvisation. Not a cascade of surprises to be managed as they arrive. A double helix: two parallel strands, each carrying information the other doesn’t, held together by the points where they connect.
What the two strands carry
The DNA helix in the image has two running strands - orange/amber and cyan/blue - that spiral around each other without merging. Between them, crossing bridges mark the points where the two strands are in relationship.
In the framework of organisational change, these two strands have a name.
One strand carries what is moving toward the future state: the new process, the new system, the new capability being built. This is the strand that the change program tends to focus on - the deliverables, the milestones, the adoption metrics. The strand of what is being built.
The other strand carries what is moving away from the current state: the existing process that is being retired, the skill set that is becoming obsolete, the identity that people held in the old configuration. This strand receives far less attention in most programs, but it is structurally present throughout. It does not disappear because it is not discussed.
The helix in the image runs both strands simultaneously, connected, held in tension by the bridges between them. The change that ignores one strand while building the other is working with half the architecture.
The bridges are not optional
Look at what holds the helix together in the image. The outer strands spiral independently. They could, theoretically, run in parallel indefinitely without ever touching. They do not. At regular intervals, the cyan/pink bridges connect them - crossing from one strand to the other, establishing the relationship that makes the structure coherent.
These bridges are the integration checkpoints. The moments in a change program where the two strands are brought into contact: where the technology team and the people team compare what each strand has built, where the adoption data and the delivery data are read together rather than in separate reports, where the emerging new capability is tested against the still-present old way of working.
Without the bridges, the strands are just two separate programs running in parallel. With the bridges, they are a helix - a coherent architecture in which each strand is informed by and connected to the other.
Multiple hands on the same structure
The last element in the image: the hands. Not one pair, not two. Multiple. Positioned at different points along the helix, working different sections of the same structure.
No single pair of hands holds the entire helix. This is not a limitation. It is an accurate description of what holding a complex change structure actually requires. The CTO’s hands are on a different section of the helix than the HR director’s hands. The front-line managers’ hands are at a different point than the executive sponsor’s hands. Each pair is working their section - holding the local part of the structure, managing the bridges in their vicinity.
The helix holds because all the hands are working on the same structure, not because any one person has their arms around the whole thing.
The change that ignores one strand while building the other is working with half the architecture. The bridges are not optional checkpoints. They are what makes the two strands a helix rather than two separate lines.
References: Bridges W, Managing Transitions 1991.
Read next: The Club Pass Is a Contract - the exchange between two parties that creates a shared structure neither holds alone.