Patrick, the baby of my extended family, started kindergarten this year. As a
graduate of pre-school, we thought he’d be right at home in his new class. But after
the very first day, he firmly announced that he wouldn’t be going back to school.
When questioned about this decision, he admitted that the teacher was nice enough,
and all his friends were glad to see him, but (and to Patrick, this was the deal
breaker) there was no naptime.
No naptime! In Patrick’s school, 5-year olds are being asked to “pay attention” from
8 am to 3 pm without an opportunity to rest and recharge. Have we learned nothing
about educating young children?
Which started me thinking about my work . . .
I’ve spent the past twenty years helping individuals and organizations thrive on
change. Yet, recently, I’ve seen leaders making some of the same mistakes I noticed
two decades ago. Have we learned nothing about managing change?
I don’t mean to minimize the complexity and chaos that leaders are facing. Rapidly
changing technologies make yesterday’s choices obsolete. The turbulent economy
increases pressure to “do more with less.” Companies rely on a shifting stream of
alliances – competitors one day and partners the next – and sometimes both at the
same time. Corporate reorganizing is becoming an annual affair. Mergers and
acquisitions are on the rise. Customers are demanding “better, faster, cheaper”
everything. Competition is fierce. The pace of change is accelerating. And
employees are increasingly skeptical about committing to business strategies that
are constantly being redefined.
Yet this is our reality – and in this world, leadership success belongs to those who
can keep a work force resilient, positive, and engaged while dealing with the
tsunami of change that is turning our organizations upside down. Here are the most
common mistakes leaders make managing large-scale organizational change and
the lessons we need to reinforce.
Mistake: Not understanding the importance of people. As high as 75 percent of all
major restructuring fails, not because of faulty strategy, but because of problems
with the “human dimension.” After years of research studies and statistics, we know
this for a fact. And yet, as recent as last month, a vice president facing the
transformation of her department asked me if she really had to include her
employees in planning for the change.
Lesson: Organizations don’t change. People do . . . or they don’t. If employees don’t
trust leadership, don’t share the organization’s vision, don’t understand the reason
for change, and aren’t included in the planning, there will be no successful change
regardless of how valid the need or how brilliant the strategy.
Mistake: Neglecting the emotional side of change. Transformation requires a
redefinition of who we are and what we do. It’s often unpredictable (responding to
unforeseen circumstance) and unnerving (requiring employees and businesses to
reinvent themselves while they are at the top of their game). It can twist people’s
past success into their greatest obstacle for the future. It’s highly emotional.
Lesson: To lead an organization (or a department or a team) through
transformation, it is not enough just to appeal to people’s logic, you also have to
touch them emotionally. Change leadership is about creating meaning. Employees
need to be engaged by a vision of the future, and to be inspired to execute that
vision. This takes leaders with a deep understanding of human emotion, who can
see the power of intangibles and can capture the imagination of an entire work force
in the pictures they paint and the stories they tell.
Mistake: Not being candid. Under the rationale of protecting people, leaders present
change with a too positive “spin.” And the more they “sugar-coat” the truth, the
wider the trust gap grows between management and workers. Organizational
communicators, perceived as the purveyors of corporate propaganda, lose
credibility as well.
Lesson: Honest communication goes beyond simply telling the truth when it’s
advantageous. It requires an unprecedented openness and transparency: a
proactive, even aggressive, sharing of everything – financials, strategy, business
opportunities, risks, failures. People need pertinent information about demographic,
global, economic, technological, competitive, and industry trends. They need to
understand the economic reality of the business and how their actions impact that
reality.
Mistake: Defining “change communication” as what employees hear or read from
officially sanctioned sources. Reflecting this belief, leaders focus most of their
attention on traditional communication vehicles — speeches, newsletters, videos,
intranets, email, etc. Yet, from the employees’ perspective, traditional
communication accounts for only ten percent of what convinces them to change.
Lesson: The most powerful change communication, accounting for 90 percent of
what impacts a work force, is divided evenly between organizational structure
(whatever punishes or rewards) and leadership behavior. Rhetoric without congruent
action quickly disintegrates into empty slogans. A communication strategy that is
not aligned with organizational systems and the actions of leaders is useless.
Mistake: Trying to lead change with command and control tactics. In a command
and control culture, only top executives are expected to solve problems, make
decisions, and set the change agenda. Such a limited view not only places an
enormous burden on senior management to come up with all the answers, it also
restricts the contributions of the rest of the organization and widens the division
between them and us.
Lesson: A company’s competitive advantage is a combination of the potential of its
people, the quality of the information that people possess, and the ability to share
that knowledge with others in the organization. During transformation, leadership’s
primary challenge is to link these components as tightly as possible. The most
successful change strategies are highly collaborative. Developed in participative
sessions, these strategies capitalize on the wisdom, experience, and creativity of
employees throughout the organization.
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. coaches executives, facilitates management retreats,
helps change teams develop strategies, and delivers keynote speeches and seminars
to association and business audiences around the world. Carol is the author of nine
books, including “This Isn’t the Company I Joined” – How to Lead in a Business
Turned Upside Down. She can be reached by phone: 510-526-1727, email:
CGoman@CKG.com, or through her website: http://www.CKG.com.