Our Blog: "The LAST Word on Change"

Getting Sucked into Complex Change Management Solutions (Pt 2)

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My post last week started a discussion about how, exactly, we as Change Leaders can allow costly and distractive complexity to creep into the change management process.  In that post, I started by reflecting on what my experience and research have revealed about how we contribute to this as internal leaders of change (though I am a consultant now, I have served as a corporate officer in Strategy and in HR where I've led transformation efforts on behalf of several companies). 

Today, in Part 2, the focus is on external change leaders and consultants, my current role (one you may share, or engage as part of your own change efforts). 

Again, change is frought with trial and error, let alone cycles of disappointment and rationalizations about progress or impact.  When change fails (70% of the time by widely published measures), there is plenty of blame to go around.  Rather than point fingers, however, my goal here is to use the role of the external leader or consultant to illustrate what I've learned about the psychology and circumstance of change that others may find helpful.

As you reflect on your past transformation and change efforts (or "projects"), consider the following elements and whether an awareness of these things may point to opportunities for improvement--i.e., realizing more complete benefits or creating a more fulfilling change experience for you and your organization, particularly as it may point to areas where you can kill  complexity and replace that with simplicity and authenticity.  I look forward to your comments and feedback as part of the dialogue.

Places or ways in which the External Leader of Change can introduce complexity to an already-complex process:

__Overstating complexity to create demand for consulting assistance;

__Overselling nuance (most guidance in any two models are 90% the same substance—though they may use different wording and break the change process down into more/fewer phases as part of their “proprietary” models, tools, and guidance);

__Reinforcing adversarial relationships (e.g., identifying resistors as obstacles to be overthrown or "stakeholders" as naive or dunder-headed leaders who need to be "managed");

__Fostering the growth of in- and out-groups based on the flow of information, training, and participation; and

__Allowing “outs” for their internal partners by engaging in finger-pointing, allocating blame, and rationalizing results.

Again, the purpose of this post is not to point fingers.  I have been blessed to learn from and work with many exceptional and authentic leaders of change (yes, even consultants like myself), but every week I encounter change leaders and consultants who drive complexity (often unwittingly) due to the dynamics outlined above.  It doesn’t have to be that way.

Leadership is real work and authentic influence in complex change can, indeed, be trying.  This is the point of much of my recent work—for OCM to be successful, we must help organizations focus support on the REAL human element in change—change leadership.  Without successful change leadership, all support and focus thrown at what the guru’s have taught us is the human element in change (the natural born resistors) amounts to blaming the horse for failing to lead our cart to a previously unknown destination (is the horse really “resisting?”). 

I wish you the very best in your own Change Leadership and look forward to your thoughts.

Again, the research mentioned here, my examination of those factors that distinguish successful from unsuccessful transformation and change initiatives, has shed valuable light onto (a) how traditional change management guidance can, though well-intended and valuable as process education and support, be valuable, be costly and distractive in some ways; and (b) how to develop a New Discipline that fosters a greater focus on leadership and the leader's role of creating meaning and simplicity in the complex journey of change.  If you find this reflection valuable, you can learn more in a preview of my new book:

http://www.lastwordonchange.com/our-new-book-on-change-management