Innovation is a more immediate and visible mode of adjustment to mobility than is personal change, as we have seen in the preceding two chapters. Role innovation is widely reported by managers as a way of coming to terms with new jobs, while personal change is harder to detect. Our interpretation of these data is that role innovation is inherent in many managerial roles – situational adjustments are constantly required to maintain performance. It is also inherent in managerial motives, for we have seen how people are much more strongly drawn to challenge and achievement than they are toward the satisfactions of security and stability. Personal change is also widely reported but our direct measures show only small shifts in the immediate post job change period. This suggests that personal change has quite a different rhythm and pace to innovation. Innovation is immediate and direct, whereas personal change is time-lagged, incremental and cumulative.

This analysis is tantamount to a model of personal and social systems. Personal systems are anchors in the tides of change, but they shift their position over time to accommodate environmental evolution. Innovation is a direct form of exploration and creative adjustment within the immediate domain, a response that is evoked by the turbulence and uncertainty of contemporaneous environmental demands and ambiguities.