a good story

The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.

Richard Powers

The Overstory. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018, p. 336.

empathic communication

Business practices evolve rapidly, but there’s one technique business leaders should always rely on to effectively motivate and lead: empathic communication. Develop and show empathy for everyone involved in your corporate transition, and you’ll lead a team that feels valued, included, and driven to help your initiative succeed.

Patti Sanchez

"The Secret to Leading Organizational Change Is Empathy," Harvard Business Review. December 20, 2018

acknowledge fears

While you may need to keep some facts private during a transition, the general rule is that the more informed your people are, the more they’ll be able to deal with discomfort. So, learn about your team’s specific fears, then acknowledge them openly.  

Patti Sanchez

"The Secret to Leading Organizational Change Is Empathy," Harvard Business Review. December 20, 2018

how information is communicated

When I sat down with the CEO and her executive team to think through their communication plan, I asked not about the change itself, but about how her employees might feel about what’s ahead. We started with her team because, in my work as a communication consultant, I’ve observed the same thing time and time again: how information is communicated to employees during a change matters more than what information is communicated. A lack of audience empathy when conveying news about an organizational transformation can cause it to fail.

Patti Sanchez

"The Secret to Leading Organizational Change Is Empathy," Harvard Business Review. December 20, 2018

the possibilities to become

Jesus believed in his followers, not alone for what they were, but for what they had the possibilities to become. While others would have seen Peter as a fisherman, Jesus could see him as a powerful religious leader—courageous, strong—who would leave his mark upon much of mankind. In loving others, we can help them to grow by making reasonable but real demands of them. Jesus gave people truths and tasks that were matched to their capacity. He did not overwhelm them with more than they could manage, but gave them enough to stretch their souls. Jesus was concerned with basics in human nature and in bringing about lasting changes, not simply cosmetic changes.

Spencer W. Kimball

"Jesus, The Perfect Leader" January 15, 1977. From an address delivered to the Young Presidents organization, Sun Valley, Idaho. 

the behavior of its leaders

The culture of a company is the behavior of its leaders. Leaders get the behavior they exhibit and tolerate. You change the culture of a company by changing the behavior of its leaders. You measure the change in culture by measuring the change in the personal behavior of its leaders and the performance of the business.

Dick Brown

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan with Charles Burck. 2002. Crown Business, NY, NY. p. 105, 106

a new way of thinking

We don't think ourselves into a new way of acting, we act ourselves into a new way of thinking.

Larry Bossidy

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan with Charles Burck. 2002. Crown Business, NY, NY. p. 89. See also It’s Easier To Act Your Way Into a New Way of Thinking Than To Think Your Way Into a New Way of Acting – Quote Investigator®

the personal connection

The personal connection is especially critical when a leader starts something new. The business world is full of failed initiatives. Good, important ideas get launched with much fanfare. but six months or a year later they're dead in the water and abandoned as unworkable. Why? Down in the organization, the managers feel that the last thing they need is one more time-consuming project of uncertain merit and outcome, so they blow it off. "This too will pass," they say. "just like the last bright idea of the month." Result: the company wastes time, money and energy, and the leader loses credibility, usually without realizing that the failure is a personal indictment. 

The leader's personal involvement, understanding, and commitment are necessary to overcome this passive (or in many cases active) resistance. She not only has to announce the initiative, but to define it clearly and define its importance to the organization. She can't do this unless she understands how it will work and what it really means in terms of benefit. Then she has to follow through to make sure everyone takes it seriously. Again, she can't do this if she can't understand the problems that come with implementation, talk about them with the people doing the implementing, and make clear - again and again - that she expects them to execute it. 

Larry Bossidy

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan with Charles Burck. 2002. Crown Business, NY, NY. p. 65

a test of leadership

In the monthly "performance call,"... [the leader], his COO, and his CFO began hosting Monday-morning conference calls of the company's roughly top 150 leaders. These calls are essentially an ongoing operating review, in which the company's performance for the previous month and the year to date is compared with the commitments people have made. The calls provide early warning of problems and instill a sense of urgency. People who fall short have to explain why, and what they are going to do about it....

At one of the first meetings, [Dick Brown, CEO of EDS] recalls, "one of the executives made the statement that he was worried about growing anxiety and unrest in his organization, worried about rapid and dramatic change. His people were asking, 'Are we moving too fast, are we on the threshold of being reckless? Maybe we should slow down, take it easy, reflect a bit.'"

Brown turned the issue around - not incidentally, creating a forceful coaching lesson. "I jumped all over that. 'This is a test of leadership,' I said. 'I would like anybody on this call who is really worried about where we are going and worried about the fact that we will probably fail, tell me so right now. Don't be afraid to say you are. If you think we're making a big mistake and heading for the reef, speak up now.'

"No one did. So I said, 'If you're not worried, where's the worry coming from? I'm not worried, and you're not worried. Here's where it is: some of you say one thing, and your body language says another. You show me an organization that's wringing its hands, listening to rumors, anxious about the future, and I will show you leadership that behaves the same way. People imitate their leaders. If your organization is worried, you've got a problem, because you said you're not.'

"And I put it right back on that. 'Here's your test of leadership; now calm your organization, give them information; strike right at the heart of their worries. I can't believe that their worry is fact-based. I believe their worry is ignorance-based. And if that's the case, it's your fault.'"

Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan 

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan with Charles Burck. 2002. Crown Business, NY, NY. p. 48-50

the world revolves around change

The world revolves around change. Birth and death, growth and destruction, rise and fall, summer and winter. It’s never the same from one day to another no matter how much it might seem that it is.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice…” – Heraclitus

Our minds would love to predict and plan for everything that’s going to happen. But it’s simply not possible. And these expectations not only have a negative effect on our emotional state, they actually leave us less powerful than we really could be. 

It’s so much more effective to simply take things as they present themselves, to live in the moment (like there’s another moment you could live in), and solve issues and items as they arise, than to constantly expect.

It’s not that I’m anti-planning (I most certainly am not), but the stone-cold attachment to the plan (and all the expectation therein) is a little like falling out of a rowboat and continuing to row even through you have no oars and no boat under you anymore. Your plan (and image) of how this should have gone is no longer relevant but you still struggle to reconcile the space between your expectations and reality. 

Life can be like that at times. On some occasions you have to realize that the game has changed (sometimes dramatically so) and you need to pivot. Deal with your reality.

Wake up, you’re in the water. Stop waving your arms about and paddle to shore, dammit!

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself: Get out of your head and into your life by Gary John Bishop. Harper One. 2017. p.175. 176

involve me and I learn

Tell me and I forget,

teach me and I remember,

involve me and I learn.

Quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, although no substantive evidence that Benjamin Franklin crafted this expression. The earliest partial match known to QI occurred in the writings of Xunzi (Xun Kuang), a Confucian philosopher who lived in the third century B.C.E.

Quote Investigator. "Tell Me and I Forget; Teach Me and I May Remember; Involve Me and I Learn". Accessed on July 5, 2023. 

organizations launching multiple change programs

What should organizations launching multiple change programs do differently? First and foremost, they should take the holistic view. The top management team (TMT) orchestrating change management should draw up a map of all the initiatives, planned or ongoing, occurring within the organization. This map should incorporate all of the vantage points that matter: not only the perspectives of top management, but also those of middle management and front-line employees. Middle managers and employees may perceive inconsistencies among these change initiatives more clearly than TMTs can, and they may well offer practical ideas about how to address inconsistencies upfront.

Once the organization has mapped out all employees’ perceptions of inconsistency in various initiatives, it should consider how to address these inconsistencies from the start. TMTs can stay ahead of the game by preparing a clear, consistent communication narrative explaining the necessity for multiple initiatives as opposed to one, detailing exactly how they fit together. Such a narrative can preempt the perception of inconsistency on all three levels: content, procedure, and normative expectations.

The timing and pacing of each initiative are additional key considerations. TMTs should have a clear idea of which initiatives can be wrapped up quickly and which may take years — and when to launch or stop each one. With a clearer time frame, they can ward off inconsistency by ensuring, for example, that one team isn’t assigned two conflicting tasks at the same time or that teams aren’t saddled with a storm of changes that could overwhelm their capacity.

TMTs should also monitor whether each key initiative has been allocated adequate resources. Remember that strategic change is exhausting, and periods of high activity should be followed by intervals of rest or less-intense work. The alternative to careful timing may well be burnout, which is an even greater threat to change performance than inconsistency.

Ultimately, successful change managers shift their focus from single initiatives to the dynamics among multiple initiatives. A successful transformation typically does not rely on any single change initiative but emerges from the careful management of multiple, integrated initiatives that interact and reinforce one another over time. One key success factor is to be alert to emerging inconsistencies among various initiatives regarding content, procedures, and normative expectations. These emerging inconsistencies can cause initial supporters to resist change, ultimately undermining the initiatives. Instead, taking the deliberate, comprehensive approach described here can drive your success in leading change.

Quy Nguyen Huy, Rouven Kanitz, Julia Backmann, and Martin Hoegl

"How to Reduce the Risk of Colliding Change Initiatives," MITSloan Management Review. June 3, 2021

multiple, simultaneous efforts

Most prescriptions for organizational change have focused on how to launch a single change initiative. This made sense in a stable world in which undertakings were planned and executed gradually and sequentially — like controllers directing airplanes taking off on a single runway, one at a time and well distanced from one another. However, the challenges of coping with dynamic markets, global crises, and advancing technologies are forcing organizations to transform quickly, which can require multiple, simultaneous efforts on several fronts. When time-pressured controllers launch many airplanes in close succession, the risk of collision increases significantly. Yet change managers have a very limited understanding of how such “collisions” happen or how to reduce those risks.

Failure to manage interrelationships between change initiatives can generate poor overall performance in three ways. First, it can lead to a large number of seemingly discrete initiatives with unclear prioritization and insufficient resources allocated for implementation. Second, it creates misaligned incentives for managers whose concern for their own key performance indicators inhibits cooperation across departmental siloes, when cooperation could better generate the desired benefits. Third, it prevents managers from perceiving connections between their own initiatives and those occurring elsewhere in the organization, creating unexpected conflicts about resource allocation or the timing of implementation. These conflicts undermine each change initiative and decrease overall corporate performance.

Quy Nguyen Huy, Rouven Kanitz, Julia Backmann, and Martin Hoegl

"How to Reduce the Risk of Colliding Change Initiatives," MITSloan Management Review. June 3, 2021

the ikea effect

The Ikea effect was popularized by a Harvard Business School research paper. In one study, two sets of subjects were asked to price a set of Ikea storage boxes. The first group had built the boxes themselves; the second group simply took a look at the furniture before coming up with a price.

The result? The persons who built the boxes placed much higher value on the product, leading to an insightful conclusion: 

When you participate in the building process, you value the result more.

Justin Bariso

"Twitter's New CEO Keeps Repeating 1 Word. It's a Brilliant Lesson in How to Create Change," Inc. May 15, 2023 

open-source change management

Open-source change management embraces employees as active participants in change planning and implementation. It requires three shifts in thinking:

• Involve employees in decision-making. This isn’t about allowing employees to vote on every change; it means finding ways to infuse the voice of those most impacted into your planning. Gartner research has found that this step alone can increase your change success by 15%. It makes change management a meritocracy, where you increase the odds that the best ideas and inputs are included in decision-making.
• Shift implementation planning to employees. Leaders often don’t have enough visibility into the daily workflows of their teams to dictate a successful change approach. And leaving the workforce out of change implementation can increase resistance and failure. Gartner research has found that when employees own implementation planning, change success increases by 24%.
• Engage in two-way conversations throughout the change process. Instead of focusing on how you’ll sell the change to employees, think of communications as a way to surface employee reactions. Holding regular, honest conversations about the change will allow employees to share their questions and opinions, which will drive understanding and make them feel like they’re part of the commitment to change. Gartner research has found that this step can increase change success by 32%.

Cian O Morain and Peter Aykens

"Employees Are Losing Patience with Change Initiatives," Harvard Business Review. May 9, 2023

prioritized change

Prioritized change means leaders show employees where to invest their energy by communicating their backlog of priorities, including change initiatives. Without such guidance, employees are likely to give 110% for each change, resulting in a blowout.

Many leadership teams already rank the most important organizational projects and initiatives, but that knowledge often isn’t shared beyond leadership team discussions. Communicating this more broadly can help teams more effectively manage their energy and efforts.

Cian O Morain and Peter Aykens

"Employees Are Losing Patience with Change Initiatives," Harvard Business Review. May 9, 2023

transformation deficit

Business transformation will remain at the forefront in 2023, as organizations continue to refine hybrid ways of working and respond to the urgent need to digitalize, while also contending with inflation, a continuing talent shortage, and supply-chain constraints. These circumstances, which require higher levels of productivity and performance, also mean a lot of change: In 2022, the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes — such as a restructure to achieve efficiencies, a culture transformation to unlock new ways of working, or the replacement of a legacy tech system — up from two in 2016, according to Gartner research.

While more change is coming, the workforce has hit a wall: A Gartner survey revealed that employees’ willingness to support enterprise change collapsed to just 43% in 2022, compared to 74% in 2016.

We call the gap between the required change effort and employee change willingness the “transformation deficit.” Unless functional leaders steer swiftly and expertly, the transformation deficit will stymie organizations’ ambitions and undermine the employee experience, fueling decreased engagement and increased attrition.

Cian O Morain and Peter Aykens

"Employees Are Losing Patience with Change Initiatives," Harvard Business Review. May 9, 2023

failure to engage

Design thinking suggests that failure to engage the affected parties at the very beginning of the process ensures resistance to change and the potential failure of the change programme itself.

Design thinking recognises that people impacted by change have the best and most nuanced view, not only of the solution, but the actual problem itself. When design thinking is incorporated into a change management programme, practitioners are able to get a deep understanding of the problem from the perspective of all affected parties. Subsequently, the same people can devise a solution that satisfies the needs, feelings and attitudes of all, be they management who recognise there is a problem or the people who will ultimately action the solution itself.

Colleen d’Offay

"5 ways to improve change management through design thinking," Inside HR. April 13, 2018

nature, scale, and timing of change

There are two diagnostic questions that business leaders and their executive teams should use to assess the nature, scale, and timing of the change required in their specific context:

1. Is the strategy fit to purpose? This question establishes whether the current or proposed strategy is valued by an attractive and accessible audience — measured by size of market, willingness to pay, and business model appropriateness — and the level of resource outlay required to scale the strategy.
2. Can relative advantage be sustained? This question assesses whether the current or proposed strategy delivers meaningful differentiation — that is, a “difference that makes a difference” to the attractive, accessible audience — and the durability of the competitive advantage created by that difference.

"Changing How We Think About Change" by B. Tom Hunsaker, Richard Ettenson, and Jonathan Knowles. MITSloan Management Review. August 13, 2020.

magnitude, activity, or direction

Change can involve magnitude, activity, or direction, and the first step toward a clearer vision for change is to clarify what form of change should be considered:

• Magnitude: “We need to enhance our execution of the current path.”
• Activity: “We need to adopt new ways of pursuing the current path.”
• Direction: “We need to take a different path.”

Companies that have doubled down on flawed or outdated business strategies, for example, Kodak, Nokia, Xerox, BlackBerry, Blockbuster, Tower Records, and J.C. Penney are guilty of believing that a change of magnitude was sufficient instead of either a change of activity, such as adopting new technologies or distribution channels, or a change of direction, such as exiting certain businesses altogether.

Contrast these examples with companies whose ambitions led to risky changes in direction when their context called instead for changes of activity or magnitude: GE’s attempts to be a first mover in green energy and the industrial internet of things through Ecomagination and Predix; Sony’s move into entertainment content; or Deutsche Bank’s efforts to become a global investment bank.

Many of the most impressive and successful corporate pivots of the past decade have taken the form of changes of activity — continuing with the same strategic path but fundamentally changing the activities used to pursue it. Think Netflix transitioning from a DVD-by-mail business to a streaming service; Adobe and Microsoft moving from software sales models to monthly subscription businesses; Walmart evolving from physical retail to omnichannel retail; and Amazon expanding into physical retailing with its Whole Foods acquisition and launch of Amazon Go.

"Changing How We Think About Change" by B. Tom Hunsaker, Richard Ettenson, and Jonathan Knowles. MITSloan Management Review. August 13, 2020.