Leading change

“The Change Problem” Total quality management, Six Sigma, re-engineering, scorecards, downsizing, outsourcing, restrategizing and “cultural renewal” are just a few of the many change initiatives that corporate America has undertaken. Some companies benefi ted from these programs. Others witnessed colossal fl ops. Eight errors consistently contribute to failed initiatives. They are: 1. “Allowing too much complacency” – If you could bring a complacency meter into organizations undergoing new strategic initiatives, you would notice something interesting. In organizations where the complacency meter reads “high,” transformation always fails. Complacency and successful transformation are mutually exclusive. You must create a sense of urgency throughout your organization. 2. “Failing to create a suffi ciently powerful guiding coalition” – Experts often counsel that change initiatives can’t succeed without support from the top, but it actually takes a lot more than that. True, you need the CEO’s support, but you also need the active involvement of department heads, business-unit presidents, general managers, divisional managers and perhaps another 50 individuals committed to pulling together to convert your company’s future vision into reality. In successful case studies, this “guiding coalition” is very powerful. It includes the majority of the company’s most successful executives, and many others who have the formal titles and the tacit or explicit authority to move mountains and get things done. Without this powerful “A globalized economy is creating both more hazards and more opportunities for everyone, forcing fi rms to make dramatic improvements not only to compete and prosper but also to merely survive. ” This summary is restricted to the personal use of John Collins (johnwcollins@eaton.com) LoginContext[cu=798351,asp=1131,subs=1,free=0,lo=en,co=US] 2013-10-30 04:49:51 CET Leading Change © Copyright 2005 getAbstract 3 of 5 backing, your initiatives may succeed for a while, but eventually they will be tied down by all the Lilliputian political struggles working against you behind the scenes. 3. “Underestimating the power of vision” – Change requires vision that tells the troops where to go. Understanding the vision tells them when they’ve arrived. Vision inspires, motivates and provides a sense of direction. If people wander around without a clear sense of purpose, your transformation project will lose impetus. 4. “Undercommunicating the vision by a factor of 10 (or 100 or even 1,000)” – Change often calls for sacrifi ce. A few meetings or inter-offi ce memos just won’t do. Leaders communicate in both word and deed. Overcommunicate your vision and make sure your actions send the same message as your words. 5. “Permitting obstacles to block the new vision” – It really doesn’t matter whether the perceived roadblock is mental or as real as a drawbridge stuck in the upright position. The fact is you must overcome whatever gets in the way. If your company’s organizational structure is slowing things down, perhaps it’s time to shake up the structure. Your worst opponents will be the passive resisters. If someone in a high position can get away with obstructionist behavior, what does that tell line employees about the sincerity of your company’s commitment to change? 6. “Failing to create short-term wins” – Transformation is a marathon, not a sprint. However, if you don’t stop to recognize a few landmarks on the way, the journey can get pretty discouraging. Many individuals have diffi culty visualizing the signifi cance of events beyond an 18-month horizon. Without intermediate achievements, your program could lose momentum. The answer: create “short-term wins. ” Establish several achievable short-term goals in the fi rst year of the new system to award transformation leaders, recognize key contributors and celebrate shared success. 7. “Declaring victory too soon” – One of the worst things you can do is suggest to people that the battle already has been won. Change needs to penetrate very deeply into the culture to have a lasting effect, but once you sound the trumpet call of victory, you’ll have to fi ght everyday to keep people from going back to business as usual. It’s not uncommon for executives to hire consultants to assist with an initiative for a few years, declare victory, write them a check and send them on their way. 8. “Neglecting to anchor change fi rmly in the corporate culture” – Did you ever ask why something is done a certain way, only to be told, “That’s just the way we do it around here. ” Well, until your change initiative soaks so deeply into your corporate culture that it’s considered “just the way we do things around here,” you risk slipping back to the old way of doing things. As soon as the urgency that fi rst brought on the initiative starts to fade, individuals may begin to regress back to the tried, true and comfortable way of doing things. Anchor change in your organization by promoting leaders and managers who have successfully advanced it, ensuring that the next generation of managers will be ready to take over where your effort ends. All of these errors are avoidable if you understand how corporate leadership, not just mere management, is needed to guide an organization through the diffi cult process of change. “The Eight-Stage Process” Every management faux pas listed above also suggests a fl ip side, a right way to do things. So much inertia opposes any transformation that your organization needs to follow an eight-step process to implement change. The obvious way to approach these stages is sequentially, in a logical, linear manner. This is how most people instinctively proceed, because they have been trained as managers to think step-by-step. While nothing is wrong with analysis itself, transformation requires leadership. When companies tackle “Whenever human communities are forced to adjust to shifting conditions, pain is ever present. But a signifi cant amount of the waste and anguish we’ve witnessed in the past decade s avoidable. ” “By far the biggest mistake people make when trying to change organizations is to plunge ahead without establishing a high enough sense of urgency in fellow managers and employees. ” “This error is fatal because transformations always fail to achieve their objectives when complacency levels are high. ” “Those who attempt to create