(adapted from blog 15 September 2017)
The company has a new chief, with 100 days to show the stock market some quick wins. BIG wins: transformation is the game. Hurry up and reinvent the whole company.
But where to begin? That’s easy: at the “top”. Where else when there’s such pressure. Louis XIV said “L’état, c’est moi!” Today’s CEO says “The enterprise, that’s me!”
John Kotter of the Harvard Business School has written the widespread word on such transformation. Here is his model, in eight steps:
1. Establish a sense of urgency.
2. Form a powerful guiding coalition.
3. Create a vision.
4. Communicate the vision.
5. Empower others to act on the vision.
6. Plan for and create short-term wins.
7. Consolidate improvements and produce still more change.
8. Institutionalize new approaches.[1]
Please read this again, asking yourself, every step of the way, who does each? The chief. Beyond an inner circle, everyone else is there to pursue the vision, obediently. Indeed, the article states that “powerful individuals who resist the change effort” must be removed. What if they have good reason to resist? Can there be no debate, no discussion? Is the contemporary corporation the court of Louis XIV?
“Establish a sense of urgency”, to barrel ahead: the wolves of Wall Street are braying at the door. “A guiding coalition,” of “senior managers, ”will “create a vision”: out of the thin air of the top? Then “Communicate the vision” to that obedient staff on the ground, by “empowering [them] to act on the vision”, as if people hired to do a job need permission to do it. And keep those “short-term wins” coming with “still more change.”. Where is continuity, to avoid anarchy? Finally, “institutionalize” the whole thing: this holy writ. Where is learning, communityship?
If change is so good, how come such models of change rarely change? Kotter promoted this one for decades, following a similar one by a few years earlier.[2] So , instead of a model of top-down transformation, how about a process of grounded engagement—a model to recognize experience at the base, as well as communityship throughout, to expect ideas from unexpected places?
Michael Beer et al., colleagues of Kotter at Harvard, have offered a model in this spirit, in six steps[3]:
1. Mobilize commitment to change by joint diagnosis of business problems. The process is initiated usually by a general manager of a unit in order to solve a specific business problem.
2. Develop a shared sense of vision of how to reorganize and manage. Once a core group is committed to a particular analysis, a manager leads employees towards a task-aligned vision of the organization, defining new roles and responsibilities. This could be achieved by creating a task-force from different levels and functions to further refine the vision.
3. Nurture consensus, the competencies to see it through, and cohesion to move the vision Along. Once new roles and responsibilities have been defined, employees need to develop the necessary skills and attitudes.
4. Spread revitalization to all departments without pushing from the top. In order for teams to be effective, the functional and staff departments that they interface with must support their role as team decision-makers. Allow each department to “re-invent the wheel”, finding it’s way to the new organization.
5. Institutionalize revitalization through formal policies, systems, structures. This new approach must become entrenched. (This step should not be initiated earlier in the process, if the changes areto be successful.)
6. Monitor and adjust strategies in response to problems in the change process. To create a learning organization that can adapt to the changing market, this responsibility must be shared.
[1] Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail” Harvard Business Review (March-April 1995, January 2007) Some words have changed in later versions, but not the steps or the ton
[2] Dave Ulrich with colleagues, while involved with the GE WorkOut program around 1990, developed a similar model in steps, called the Change Acceleration Process (date reported to me in personal correspondence)., with some striking similarities: 1. Ensure leadership commitment, 2. Create a shared need, 3. Articulate a desired direction or vision, 4. Mobilize commitment, 5. Turn the long-term change into short-term decisions, 6. Institutionalize change. 7. Monitor progress and learn along the way.” (Dave Ulrich, Mary Ann Von Glinow, Todd Jick, Arthur Yeung, and Steve Nason. 1993. Learning Organization, Culture Change, and Competitiveness, Monograph prepared for the International Consortium of Executive Development and Research. For a later rendition: Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood. 2013. Leadership Sustainability: Seven disciplines to achieve the changes great leaders know they must make, McGraw Hill.)
[3] M. Beer, RA Eisenstat, and B. Spector. “Why Change Programs Don’t Produce Change.” Harvard Business Review 68, no. 6 (November–December 1990): 158–166