Our Blog: "The LAST Word on Change"

In Parts I and II earlier this week, I posted thoughts on how endless demand to do more in today’s organizations is not merely the “New Normal,” but a failure of leadership (either the failure of strategic choice or the demand to simply make it work). 

I mentioned in Monday’s post that the good name of change management has been co-opted by two enemy tribes.  In Monday’s Part I, I discussed the first tribe:  The “Make-it-Work” Managers, whose efforts make everything important (…and when everything is important, nothing is important and change is sputters or fails).  Today, in Part II, I am describing the impact of the second enemy tribe, the “Shiny-New-Object” Executives.  Like the former tribe, these executives undermine the sustainability of change by creating unfocused, fatigued organizations.  In this case however, their weakness lies failing to make strategic choices—the tough choices that must be made to focus the organization and enable more tactical prioritization that fosters execution.

Forgive me this ONE strategic rant; please…I’m speaking for your people!  Somewhere along the way, the good name of Organizational Change, once tied to real business transformation, was co-opted by two enemy tribes:  (a) The Make-it-Work Managers; and (b) The Next-Shiny-Object Executives.  That’s a sad state that leads to misappropriation of resources and a lack of focus resulting in huge opportunity cost and repeated failure with change.  Our teams end up defining change as that condition in which they only take on MORE…not something new and inspiring.  As a result, organizations lose focus, our best talent burns out, and top management loses credibility (in an environment where everything is important, nothing is important!).

Last week, I walked past Steve Jobs’ book on display at the airport for the “umpteenth” time, but realized this time I was standing in front of it wearing my own version of Jobs’ iconic glasses and black mock-t (all similarity ends right there!).  It moved me to think about my own creativity and what it shares with Mr. Jobs.  My favorite thing about Jobs’ innovation is its simple and intuitive design.  From the operating system that first introduced a “windows” interface to the iconic Mac pc to the flywheel touchpad on the iPod to the touchscreen and utility of the iPad, I believe that the secret to Jobs’ success was intuitive design (not aesthetics or integration/connectivity). 

Participating in a Linked-in discussion forum this week, I was amazed at the technicalities and personal nuances that marked a professional group's discussion about "what we do."  For the purpose of context and disclosure, this was an "OD" (organization development) group...

Well…here’s some thinking for those who are feeling “stuck” in change (i.e., dealing with the difficult parts and wishing for a moment when the worst parts of any change experience would go away for a few hours).

Somewhere along the way, the mission, role, and focus of Change Leadership has been co-opted by process wonks and process “managers” who are, in fact, much more focused on power and control (the real focus of much Organizational Change Management (OCM) guidance). 

There is a lot written about change leadership as a quest to inspire hearts and minds (not the least of which is that by John Kotter, http://theheartofchange.com.  Still, at the end of the day, change is often still pursued in the plodding and plotting mechanical way we manage any other work (thanks to slavish commitment to “change management process”).  As a result, the pursuit of hearts and minds takes a back seat in the process.  Even the most committed hunters of hearts and minds admit that in reality, they spend very little time in this pursuit relative to all other activity.  In pareto-speak, change leaders often allocate 20% (or less) of their time to activity that drives 80% of change success…OUCH!

We launched this 4-part series on Change Mindset last week to spark a fire in leaders of large change initiatives…helping them introduce a discussion in their teams that re-energizes them and creates openness to change--in particular, taking a “sideways” look at some traditional Organizational Change Management (OCM) elements to “break their frames” and build new perspective.

Okay, it’s the dead of winter in the northern hemisphere and the middle of the calendar month we call “February”--Time for injecting some real energy into our change thinking.  For starters, you might note that this doesn’t fit the traditional “Named Month” event.  That is, the series of four weekly posts on this theme of Change Mindset is not neatly folded into your expectations—the calendar month.  This change or frame-break is just the beginning.