It has been a priviledge for me to work with many leaders who are tasked to lead change in their organization. Sometimes this is a result of an opportunity they have chosen to seize, or more often, they must respond to a change not of their choosing.
Most of these leaders are earnest in their desire to get a grip on the tsunami of change, to find and apply tools and strategies that can help them turn chaos into order. They naturally want to bring the organization back to a steady state -- one with a level of predictability and consistency.
In providing to leaders some of what is known in the universe of change management I trust that in my role of Facilitator I have provided them both concrete tools as well as ideas that catalyze their own creative responses to change.
But fundamentally, I think too many of us are getting change management wrong in organizations today. Here are some ways we may be off track and also some different perspectives on where we need to be.
These fundamental assumptions are faulty:
1. This state of change is temporary and things will soon settle down if we can just put our shoulders to the wheel for a short while and apply specific strategies.
Not true. What I am seeing is that change is increasingly an endurance exercise over long periods of time in which people are prone to become tired, lose hope and adopt a cynical "compliance" attitude the longer the change goes on. A set of known strategies is necessary but not sufficient.
2. We can ignore what isn't working in the change and just push ahead. It will come out alright in the end.
We have only to look at HP to see a glaring example of broken processes, broken hearts and poor leadership to see what happens when the underlying issues are ignored.
3. There is a "Change Curve" of emotions that people naturally go through in a kind of chronological order. If we give people time they will come around to the change.
The concept is a good one and validated by Kubler-Ross, Bridges and others. However, it is too often applied as an intellectual exercise. We fool ourselves into thinking of people in the aggregate--- as generic and predictable, blithly moving through the stages of loss to a steady-state of commitment and engagement. These change curves or models that speak of emotions were most helpful in past decades when change was more local and incremental and there was time and support for allowing people to come to terms with change. Today, these models are too often a conigitive crutch and a false comfort for organizations while people's feelings are far more complex, less predictable and more varied -- particularly when multiple complex changes continue over years. Not everyone reaches that ideal commitment state desired by the organization, and opportunities to go beyond "getting through the change" to real breakthrough thinking are missed.
4. Leaders have the information and are empowered to steer the change in a positive direction.
Too many leaders find themselves -- unless they are at the C-level -- in the dark about the why of the change and without real leverage or power to affect it. In other words, many leaders feel sandwiched between expectations to move their team ahead and the reality of no sincere inspirational message or driver to make that happen.
5. The role of a leader in change is to move people to accept the change and "get them back on board."
Here our expectations are skewed. Leaders are told that they must help people move to a place in which they are no longer angry, sad, confused or in denial. Employees need to embrace the change and become productive as quickly as possible -- in order not to lose time, money or market opportunities. While these are laudable goals, the focus is below the line. Expectations for the change and for the people involved could be much more inspiring.
So how might we re-think our assumptions about Change Leadership?
1. It is important to reframe a leader's role today. Leaders must see themselves as Broadscale Change Agents. This means that they accept a change role that is universally and permanently proactive --- anticipating change where possible, coaching and developing their team members to learn how to seize the value in change before it occurrs, as well as while it is happening. It means that leaders adopt a "first break all the rules" attitude of acutely observing the status quo and prototyping new ideas. Adopting an overarching framework that defines a leader's fundamental role as anticipatory, creative, disruptive and strategic --- a role that focuses on the future, and on competitive challenges and market trends -- one that provides context for change, rather than tools and techniques for managing change after the fact.
2. We need to flip the pyramid in the midst of sudden, complex, crtical change. Here a leader needs to move from telling to probing and listening. When broadsided by unplanned change, a leader can use it as a signal to immediately bring employees together (and continue to do so often) to hear clearly: what is the impact? what do you need to know right now? what are the opportunities inherent in this unplanned change? how shall we mine this change for innovation? A leader has the opportunity to make even the most jarring changes an opportunitiy to learn and to create new possibilities.
It is less important for leaders to tell employees that they understand the range of emotions than to listen and hear the emotional truth as it is experienced in the moment.
3. Leaders would do well to remember the old saying "It is easier to ask for forgiveness than to seek permission." While many leaders often feel less than empowered and have little perceived leverage from their position, taking well-thought out risks is a vastly under-rated leadership capability. Change calls leaders to idea generation, creativity, innovation and new ways of doing things. It's a time for risk taking and for catalyzing others to see the possibilities. It's a time for speaking up -- for not focusing on only that which has been "proven" but also on creative, unproven ideas and opportunities.
4. And finally, leaders experiencing change can adopt a mantra: "Seek and listen to the truth." This is in contrast to relying solely on a model or framework or on what others have done or said in the change process. If the truth diverges from the organization's messaging, leaders can find ways to provide feedback up the chain of command and to revise the messaging to be more real and sincere --- therefore connecting more powerfully and positively with those affected by the change.
There is some wonderful knowledge, strategies and tools available to leaders to help frame the experience of change --- change is now ubiquitous -- and Silicon Valley once thrived on change leadership --- leading the nation and the world in seizing opportunities and bringing new ideas forward.
However, today's complex changes require leaders to take individual courage and responsibility to use the proven strategies and past innovations to learn how to break away and lead in a brand new way -- to become Broadscale Change Agents.
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