Finding course

I am tilting at windmills, perhaps, but I think that corporate America has bought a bill of goods called change management. Actually, it’s hard to believe that it is a practice that has been around for 50 years and yet has such a dismal track record. Studies measuring long-term effect of change management practices provide a disappointing set of metrics, at best, like maybe 25% of them have the desired effect.

My point is not to disparage change management, as much as it is to challenge leaders to bypass the focus on change and lead the troops to what really matters: how the business organizes and energizes its people to perform against the purpose of the business.   

What to do?

If you are the leader, you make a decision, set firm direction, and generate buy-in; or slip into the abyss, eventually adopting a self-preservation strategy that is characterized by lack of commitment and passion, and ultimstely resulting in a slow descent to the bottom of the pool.

Study winners, but chart your own course

Being in a business that is operating sub-optimally is an exercise in day-to-day drift. Decisions linger. Energy dissipates. Attention scatters. The frustration of this condition leads to the search for the silver bullet. We turn to success stories and see our future in their prescription.

“We need to do what they did!” Before you know it, we fill our minds with how our problem is exactly what their problem was and now they are thriving. So, we have an offsite and sure enough, we arrive at the solution we had diagnosed!

I have watched clients delude themselves with the self-fulfilling diagnoses that, as its applied, is diametrically opposed to the course of action that is best suited for the firm and its people. One such firm adopted Six Sigma after reading some of the great success stories flowing from the success General Electric experienced with the regimen. Before 24 months had passed, the management team found themselves picking up the pieces of a demoralized workforce who loathed the complexity it delivered and a disenchanted customer base missing the love they once felt from the firm.

In Cervantes’ novel by the same name, Don Quixote consistently misinterprets actions and motives—of his own, his adversaries, and his allies—that regularly result in misapplied exploits followed by undesirable outcomes.

After a decade of studying this leadership challenge, and after witnessing what works, you would do well to bring a fresh perspective on diagnosing your organization and the challenges of its environment.

Begin with genuine, self-discovery. Set the example in seeking the intellectual truth about the firm and its challenges. Challenge the management team to objectively assess its strengths and weaknesses. Juxtapose the findings against the opportunities and threats in your business environment.

Yes, this is a SWOT analysis. That’s old school. However, it seldom disappoints if conducted with an eye toward reality testing and true self-development by leaders who recognize and embrace the vision of the organization realizing its business goals. There is ample evidence that “change” is not the objective that will best serve the organization. Rather, it is about recognizing the unexploited choices of the firm, specifically, extensions of the reality that operate in their hearts and minds.

Performance is tied to individuals and their interactions

In their work regarding high performing teams, Katzenbach and Smith (2015) point to four specific findings that help firms and groups reach their highest level of performance.   

1. Commitment to performance goals and common purpose is more important to team success than team building;
2. Opportunities for teams exist in all parts of the organization;
3. Real teams are the most successful spearheads of change at all levels;
4. Working in teams naturally integrates performance and learning; Team "endings" can be as important to manage as team "beginnings."

The real message here is not that we need to put to rest the many change management schemes that have been concocted over the last 50 years; but, rather, that we focus our efforts on the business and how it will create vitality by deploying the talents and desires of its people to the needs and wants of customers.

We’ll close with an observation by R. Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Change is energizing.

Katzenbach, J. R., and Smith, D. K. (2015) The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.