Are You the Person To Lead a Change?
A Self-assessment For Would-be Change Agents
By Doug Wesley
Copyright 1992, 1996 All Rights Reserved.
Please read our copyright notice.
This article identifies and defines personal skills and qualities vital to
operational leaders in a major organizational change process. A self-assessment form is
included. The skills and qualities are: Managing, Path Finding, Personal Learning,
Coaching, Psychological Hardiness, Positive Political Skills, Trust and Candor.
Who's Fit to Manage a Major Change?
In a turbulent corporate change, it's a stretch to call the process management at all.
Does the cowboy on a bucking bronco manage the horse or the process? Surely not. Though he
never knows the next move the horse will make, he must know generally how horses buck and
how to react to them. If he doesn't understand the process of riding a bucking horse,
he'll be hurt. He may be hurt anyway. So, you want to be a change leader . . .
Over the past decade many authors have contributed to an heroic profile of the ideal
change leader:
"a calculating risk-taker, committed and persevering to the point of
obsession" (Donald Clifford and Richard Cavanagh, The Winning Performance)
"a lover of change and a preacher of vision . . . egotistical, disruptive,
energetic, passionate, idealistic, pragmatic, cunning, impatient" (Tom Peters, Thriving
on Chaos)
"persistence and self-knowledge, willing to take risks and accept losses,
committed, consistent, and challenging" (Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders)
"ethical, open, empowering, and inspiring" (John Naisbitt &
Patricia Aburdene, Megatrends 2000)
"conceptual, imaginative, unpredictable, gentle and empathetic, soft,
impulsive, warm-hearted, spontaneous, curious, relaxed, casual, easy-going . . ."
(Craig Hickman, Mind of a Manager Soul of a Leader)
"preoccupied with purposes, values, morals, ethics; oriented toward long-term
goals without compromising human values and principles; . . . proactive, catalytic, and
patient" (Stephen Covey, Principle-Centered Leadership)
"persistent, . . . virtually obsessed with seeing their visions become reality,
. . . a sense of personal responsibility for the continuing success of the business"
(Terrence Kennedy and Allen Deal, Corporate Cultures)
"an unconventional outsider who becomes the physical embodiment the desired
culture" (John Kotter and James Heskett, Corporate Culture and Performance)
A certain kind of personality and orientation take you a long way down the road as you
develop your ability to lead an organizational change, but no natural quality takes you
all the way there.
A specific set of skills is required to implement organizational change. Will,
commitment, vision, hard work, and energy -- even with successful management experience --
are not enough.
The Manager and the Change Leader
"Nothing Fails Like Success" (Stephen Covey, Principle-Centered
Leadership)
Seasoned, professional managers are often blindsided by unexpected failures when they
attempt to apply their experience to lead a group through the change process. When they
rely on familiar tools and techniques -- practices that have predictably rewarded them
with success -- to lead an organizational change, they are often dismayed by the chaos and
pain that results. Like a Chinese finger puzzle (or any other good trap) the more they
apply logical means to extricate themselves, the tighter they are bound. To free your
fingers from that simple, straw tube, you must push deeper into the trap; pulling only
draws it tighter. The paradox of change is that successful leadership often requires you
not just to ignore the rules of sound management, but to purposefully act against them.
The management of success in a stable organization commonly is driven by three values: control
(knowing what's going on at all times and minimizing the impact of uncontrollable
variables), consistency (getting the same results time after time), and predictability
(active management of the controllable variables so that there are no surprises). (Block, The
Empowered Manager) Scientific managers have learned to use realistic objectives and
budgets to predict just where the organization will be in a month or a year and to know
how much it will have cost to get there. People in organizations learn to follow the plans
and directions of their leaders, staying within guidelines and policies, sacrificing their
immediate interests for the progress of the group (trusting they will be taken care of
later).
Leading people through an organizational change is more like exploring unmapped
territory than like scheduling the timely and efficient delivery of products down familiar
highways. We don't know where we'll be in a month and we really don't know how much it
will cost to get there. Business life challenges us with more than just the risk and
excitement of this exploration, though: we must continue to deliver product at a profit
while exploring new territory at the same time.
In the change process, mixed messages from leadership are the rule. "Continue to
satisfy our customers with high quality today while you experiment with new ways of doing
things for the future" means "Control your performance so that it is consistent
and predictable while you try brand new techniques and explore untested
possibilities." There is a natural tendency for people to rebel or to freeze. New
techniques must be introduced to keep them moving and producing and changing, too.
Leaders in successful businesses have traditionally marched at the head of the parade,
confident that their people are in place, lined up, and playing in tune as they follow his
(yes, usually it's his) lead. The change process works best when the people are
active participants in the exploration. An entirely different type of leadership is
required.
No major organizational change takes place until the people who do the actual work in a
company change their capabilities and change their behavior to support new values. As they
go through the learning process, often slower is better than faster. Making mistakes is a
positive sign of trying out new ways. Where once you saw efficient productivity and pride
in skills you will see people floundering with unfamiliar tasks, losing self-confidence,
cursing the organization for doing this to them.
Are you the person to lead a change? Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Change leadership is one
of those responsibilities that is so risky (to the leader as well as to the organization),
it must be a volunteer proposition. Read the next few pages and take a good look at
yourself: at your natural strengths and also your vulnerabilities as a change leader.
Whether you lead or not, in such a situation, you're on the journey with everyone else.
"Success will come to those who love chaos -- constant change --
not to those who attempt to eliminate it."
-- Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos
Personal Fitness Assessment
Issue #1: MANAGING
You possess basic personal competence in the areas of analyzing, planning,
organizing, communicating verbally and in writing, negotiating, supervising, and leading
people.
These are management skills. If change leadership is so different from managing success
why are these necessary? Implementing change in an operating organization is like
replacing the engine in a truck while it's still making deliveries. Change leaders don't
have the luxury of working in a laboratory. Because they work in a living company, change
leaders cannot be wildly creative, undisciplined, mavericks.
In most cases, the responsibility for implementing a change is added to those of
a full time management job. If you are still learning the basics of getting jobs done
through people you will cave in under the weight of the divergent responsibilities of
implementing change.
Because most organizational change takes place in operations that are stable and
functioning, change agents must understand and respect the company's processes and rules
of operation (before they begin breaking them). Whether you are bringing in new
technology, a new product, a new structure of management, or a new way of relating to the
outside world, much of a change agent's communication is with managers. And the way to
establish a strong working credibility with managers is to relate positively to the issues
that concern them most: analyzing, planning, organizing, supervising, and getting results
through people. These sensitivities may be crucial to develop and sustain the support
needed from senior executives, too.
Here's some evidence that you possess these skills:
- A history of setting and achieving quantifiable objectives;
- An example of a detailed plan of action you drafted for a
project, one that includes timetables and contingencies;
- A pattern of finding and effectively utilizing organizational
resources to accomplish goals;
- Successes in developing an individual's working potential,
turning around problem performance, stabilizing a work group,
and improving a team's performance.
People who attempt to lead an organizational change without these skills find it
difficult or impossible to get the support from others that is necessary to complete the
change project. They may fail to get or retain the authority and resources needed from the
top of -- or elsewhere in -- the organization. They may find themselves undermined or
attacked by the managers responsible for keeping the organizational systems operating
efficiently. They may fail to mobilize the people who must actually change.
Personal Fitness Assessment
Issue #2: PATH FINDING
You comfortably engage new situations, working with little direction or support,
achieving your goals, handling rejection and antagonism, creating solutions to unfamiliar
problems, and exercising initiative within organizational boundaries.
These are issues of self-reliance, self-confidence, resilience, adaptability, and
courage. In an ideal situation, the person who implements a change will have adequate
support from above and an open partnership with those who sponsor the change. Ideally,
there will be a close working relationship with those who are most directly affected. No
organizational change is implemented in the ideal situation, though.
Predictably, your sponsors will have a clear vision of the end result desired, but will
be blind to -- even naive about -- the enormous work necessary to get there. You must
expect to be working with their tacit, not active, support most of the time. Your sponsors
have a company to operate and their own principals to serve. Their attentions will be
divided. There will be times when they seem to be -- and are, in fact -- resisting the
very change they ordered. The strength of your confidence and dedication to the change
will, more than once, make the difference between continuation and abandonment of the
project. It's vital that the change agent refuse to abdicate responsibility for planning
and implementing the change: even to the boss. The sense of professionalism (loyalty to
appropriate and ethical change processes and detachment from short-term politics that
interfere) is a potent capability in sustaining the authority you must maintain.
It's natural that people on whom change is imposed will see the change agent as an
adversary at some time during the process. You must care more about the mission than about
appreciation or acceptance from those who have to change.
Organizational change is not a by-the-numbers proposition; it's always a custom job.
You are back-fitting new systems on people and operations that are working effectively
already. Problems encountered will be unique and the solutions that work best will be
invented on the spot with a broad sensitivity to both human and technical aspects.
If the person in charge of implementing a change is too much of a follower, the change
sponsors tend to lose confidence and either replace the agent or begin taking over the
agent's job. The latter can be disastrous since the sponsor loses the "big
picture" perspective necessary to his/her role. Change agents assume the most
challenging leadership responsibilities in the world of work; absolute dedication to the
mission creates a power that no formal lines of authority can match. People in unfamiliar
territory look to you for solutions you just don't have and to maintain the leadership
role, you must provide them (by inventing them or by consulting outside the organization).
Imagine the results if a surgeon continually roused the patient to ask for approval, then
conceded, in the midst of the operation, saying "I just don't know how to handle
this."
Personal Fitness Assessment
Issue #3: PERSONAL LEARNING
You possess -- or are willing to gain -- fundamental personal and technical skills
in the area to be changed.
Organizational changes require the development of new capabilities within the company.
Some of these are interpersonal behaviors and others are technical in nature. In most
cases, both are involved. While it is absolutely unnecessary -- maybe even, undesirable --
that you master these new skills prior to implementing the change, you are the
broker who brings them into the organization. In the beginning, you will know more about
the new ways than those who must learn them. Your goal is for the people to surpass your
ability to operate with the new skills and technologies. Your job is to work yourself out
of the change agent's job.
What change is proposed in your organization? What will people be doing later that they
are not doing now? Be as specific as you can in answering these questions. What types of
new equipment or technology will be introduced? Your responsibility is to know enough
about the equipment and the technologies to feel comfortable and confident discussing them
and even demonstrating them. You will be expected to act as a model of new interpersonal
skills as well.
Most structural changes involve not just the introduction of new capabilities into
corporate culture, but a change in corporate values and traditions, as well. Change
leaders -- both sponsors and agents -- must model these new values. This may even
mean a change in your management style.
One of the great change leaders of our times is Mikhail Gorbachev. In implementing
Perestroika (structural change) in the Soviet Union, he demonstrated flashes of brilliance
and he also committed some of the predictable errors we all make during this process. One
of the radical, new behaviors he introduced was glastnost (openness). In one painful,
televised all-day session of their congress, he sat quietly as speaker after speaker rose
to criticize him. He allowed these public speeches. This was modeling glastnost. However,
there came a time when he'd had enough; he stood and told the audience that he was the
leader and, as such, he knew more than they did, he knew what was good for them, that they
should show him more respect. We saw this as a lapse into his old ways (though Mr.
Gorbachev may have labeled it strong leadership).
It is difficult to model a new method when you are a product of the old system. Change
agents don't have to be perfect. They don't have to flawlessly model the new ways. But
they must understand the new ways well enough to know when they have lapsed. Recognizing,
acknowledging, and publicly correcting your own lapses will improve your credibility with
people who are struggling through the change.
When we expect people to do difficult new things that we, ourselves, are unwilling to
do, we feed resistance to change.
Personal Fitness Assessment
Issue #4 COACHING
You have developed individuals who are now respected for the capabilities you
developed.
Organizations are given life by people. And people are the primary units of change.
Training and developing change an individual's capabilities, actually increasing their
potential. Focusing and Confronting encourage effective, "in-bounds"
performance. Mentoring creates highly-valued relationships with skilled people, often
expanding their sense of the possible. (See The Coaching Game: Calling the Right Play
by The Hall Wesley Group, Inc.)
The pivotal capability of the change agent is leading others to develop and use new
skills and behaviors. This always includes training: moving a person from inability to
ability with a task. Training in a changing environment is nearly always done on-the-job
yet nearly never a matter of copying masters. An entirely new training technology has been
developed in the past decade to allow us to teach skills that we haven't mastered.
While coaching to develop a person's unchallenged potential is an extracurricular
activity for most managers, it's the name of the game for change agents. When it's all
going right, people quickly outgrow the change agent's personal ability with the new
skills. Momentum is sustained and excellence in the new area is achieved by coaching:
supporting people as they grow far beyond your own potential to perform their jobs (and
making the challenge fun, to boot).
Mentoring is a powerful process of keeping those who have surpassed the coach's
technical abilities connected to goals and strategies. Mentoring gives leaders a
competitive edge in keeping people who have every opportunity to make more money (and
suffer less disruption) elsewhere.
In the late seventies, the electric power industry was just beginning to stabilize
from jolting structural change forced on it by energy price increases after the OPEC oil
embargo. For decades, the industry had been made up of friendly local bureaucracies;
employees were generally respected in their communities. Attacked by customers,
newspapers, and the government, companies had to tighten up and earn respect for their
ability to manage. A large utility made a major commitment to management development and
hired a recent industrial psychology graduate to run the program. The graduate was no kid.
He was white-haired and a retired Senior Master Sergeant. Over fifteen years later, he
retired from essentially the same position, respected by senior officers and board members
as their "mentor," one of the reasons they made it to the top.
Developers of people are recognized by their footprints, not by their faces. Who calls
you their mentor? Who did you train or coach that has made the big time? Effective coaches
are just as potent with stars as they are with rookies; they turn their subordinates into
superiors. Great developers deal in possibilities with people, not probabilities. They
challenge people to accomplishments that are beyond reasonable expectation.
Personal Fitness Assessment
Issue #5: PSYCHOLOGICAL HARDINESS
You have overcome adversity.
The issue has been called stress tolerance and toughness. It's evidence of successful
persistence against obstacles. This factor empowers the change agent to deal ethically
with those who face failure in the change process.
Change agents must remain confident when fighting what seems to be a losing battle. At
times that confidence will be the only light of hope for people who are confused and
bewildered, yearning for the old, comfortable system. People who have experienced failure
and know that they will survive it can afford to stay committed, no matter what.
The sad fact is that some people fail to make the transition when the overall change
succeeds. Many come dangerously close to failure during the process. Leaders who lack
personal experience with failure tend to give up too early on those who are struggling.
They are too quick to replace them from the outside with "better prospects."
While this is certainly more efficient in getting the new ways up to speed, it extracts a
pervasive cost in the morale of the group. People begin worrying, protecting themselves,
avoiding risks. Fear replaces excitement.
Leaders for whom failure is an unknown find it difficult to relate -- at an emotional
level -- with those who are doing poorly. A coldness pervades the relationship,
diminishing the dignity and the sense of personal value of those who could be victimized
by the change .
Though change agents must recognize those who cannot adapt and replace them, the
highest level of sensitivity must be expressed. "Hatchet man" is a term commonly
used for people appointed to bring about organizational changes. This destructive
reputation has been brought to the role by smug outsiders who are sure they will win,
personally, no matter who else loses. We believe that the practice of employing
"hatchet men" and similar reckless "turn-around artists" is one of the
factors that has driven down the success rate with organizational changes.
A flawless history of success can be a curse to the person leading a change. Personal
failures not only develop depth and perspective to work against the odds, they bestow the
gift of empathy. And this is a fine quality to create rapport with those who have no
choice in the change.
If you have scars, show them proudly as a change agent. If you have failed, be open
with your war stories. When failure is a real possibility, it cannot be feared or
despised. It must be accepted as a healthy part of living, even succeeding.
Change agents who have never worked through pain, who haven't experienced the indignity
of failure, cannot relate to the people most affected by change. And they probably
shouldn't be trusted by those people.
Personal Fitness Assessment
Issue #6: POSITIVE POLITICAL SKILLS
You have gained the respect of people who didn't respect you at first.
"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in
hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in
the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those
who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders among those who may do
well under the new." -- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
People who are told they must change look for reasons that the demands made on them are
unrealistic or unfair. They've heard that the best defense is a good offense. It doesn't
take long for them to see that if they can discredit the person responsible for
implementing the change, they will have won an important -- if not crucial -- battle.
The process of organizational change is both technical and political. Winning the
respect of adversaries and opponents is essential to developing and maintaining political
power. The term "political" is used here in its most honorable aspect: gaining
and sustaining the support of the population involved in, and affected by, your project.
The greatest test of political skills is in dealing with those who are invested in the
failure of your proposition. The elegant practitioner is able to avert, diminish, or
neutralize the damage adversaries intend to inflict on the change process while still
keeping the relationship open for -- sometimes with -- more positive possibilities. The
skills of diplomacy are essential.
Here are some signs you possess these abilities.
- Individuals who disagree with you on significant points of principle speak highly of
you and specifically acknowledge your special values.
- People who are vigorous opponents on one issue work as an ally on other issues.
- You've built friendships with people who continue to differ with you in important
areas.
If you are unable to earn the respect of a few tough adversaries early on, you create a
dilemma for yourself. You must remove one or more of them, bringing on an atmosphere of
fear and insecurity that compromises the change process, or you must ignore them and turn
your attention to those who are more open to the change, allowing your adversaries to
develop increasing support.
Personal Fitness Assessment
Issue #7: CONFRONTING
You have made -- and successfully implemented -- decisions that resulted in
discomfort and pain for other people.
While compassion and sensitivity to human needs are essential qualities for a change
agent, the role demands that you push people out of secure, comfortable positions. In some
cases, the change you represent will render obsolete skills and crafts people have proudly
employed all their lives and even for generations in their families.
You must make change non-negotiable for people in pivotal positions. Those people must
hear -- and believe -- that their continued employment here is dependent on their
willingness and ability to adapt. You must replace key people who cannot or will not
change.
An innovative entrepreneur bought a trucking company with plans to turn it into an
overnight package delivery service connecting rural areas with commercial flights out of a
central airport. Consultants advised that he replace nine of the ten dispatchers: a
position crucial to running the operation on a necessarily tight timetable. Compassionate
and determined, the CEO resisted the advice. He resolved to rehabilitate these old-timers
who had grown up with schedules measured in weeks, not in hours. After (too many) months
of training courses, coaching, pressuring, counseling, and cajoling, he admitted defeat.
He replaced them. It was too late, though. His company failed: a victim of change
resistance.
If you are a skillful agent working for an ethical organization, many -- if not most --
of these displaced people will have the opportunity to continue working with the new
technology or elsewhere in the company.
The fault of the trucking company owner described above was not in failing to fire the
dispatchers immediately, but rather in allowing them to believe that the success of the
change was dependent on their agreement to adapt. He allowed them most of a year to
continue working the old way and to become firmly set in their resistance. Since he was
unwilling, in the beginning, to tell them the stakes they were playing for, they believed
they could stall and win in the end. They lost their bet. And, after a two-year drive
toward success, he lost his new business.
Many -- if not most -- attempts to implement structural change in a stable organization
fail. Your strength of conviction from the outset is crucial to establishing the belief of
those who must change that the vision is inevitable.
Personal Fitness Assessment
Issue #8: TRUST and CANDOR
You generally trust people and are naturally more candid than cautious in sharing
information with them.
American employees generally lack trust in their managers. Survey after survey over the
past two decades has reported this fact. Leaders who purposefully turn their followers'
lives upside down face a crisis of trust.
A major insurance company was famous with its employees for adopting every new fad that
came along. Old-timers there were seasoned, successful change resistors. The corporation
was run as an autocratic family organization in which the boss knows all, is always right,
and no one who lasts past an initial probationary period is fired. To resist change,
employees would smile and pretend to play along while waiting for management enthusiasm to
fade. When the company realized that -- though successful now -- it had to create much
closer relationships with its customers to survive over the long term, veteran agents and
managers joked about this program as the latest top brass whim. To announce the change,
managers were brought to the home office in groups of thirty for seminars. After the
fourth day, they were treated to the "officers panel" in which a half dozen vice
presidents answered any and all questions about the future. The VP's shocked the audience
by answering most of their questions about the future with, "I don't know." For
the first time, the people of the company began to believe that they really were headed
into unknown territory.
A change agent is the merchant of possibilities. The rightness of the future you are
building cannot be proved. Thus, the trust of those who must change is a pivotal asset.
People offer trust easiest to those who trust them first. Evidence of trust is openness
with information, even -- perhaps especially -- with sensitive information. Leaders with a
track record of candor are most likely to be trusted. Those who are known to have withheld
important information are more likely distrusted.
Here are some signs you are trusted as a leader:
- Employees ask you for advice on career decisions that could take them out of your
group.
- People tell you about mistakes when you'd never find out otherwise.
- Information on the office grapevine is more personal and trivial than political and
strategic. You're included in the grapevine.
- The break room doesn't get quiet when you walk in.
Personal Fitness Assessment
How do your skills and qualities stack up
Against the demands made on a change agent?
What personal experiences are evidence that you are prepared for
the challenge?
1. MANAGING. You are competent in the areas of analyzing, planning, organizing,
communicating verbally and in writing, negotiating, supervising, and leading people.
What evidence demonstrates you have these capacities?
How do you rate your qualifications in this area?
Less than adequate
Adequate
More than Adequate
2. PATH FINDING. You comfortably face new situations, work with little direction
or support, achieve professional goals, handle rejection and antagonism, create solutions
to unfamiliar problems, and exercise initiative within organizational boundaries.
When have you faced a new situation like this and performed like this?
How do you rate your qualifications in this area?
Less than adequate
Adequate
More than Adequate
3. PERSONAL LEARNING. You possess -- or are willing to gain -- basic technical
and personal skills in the area to be changed.
What brand new skills have you learned in the past five years?
How do you rate your qualifications in this area?
Less than adequate
Adequate
More than Adequate
4. COACHING. You have developed people who are now respected for the
capabilities you developed.
Who is an example of this in your past?
How do you rate your qualifications in this area?
Less than adequate
Adequate
More than Adequate
5. PSYCHOLOGICAL HARDINESS. You have overcome adversity.
When have you persisted to succeed against the odds?
How do you rate your qualifications in this area?
Less than adequate
Adequate
More than Adequate
6. POSITIVE POLITICAL SKILLS. You have gained the respect of people who didn't
respect you at first.
What was a situation in which you did this? How did you do it?
How do you rate your qualifications in this area?
Less than adequate
Adequate
More than Adequate
7. CONFRONTING. You've made and implemented decisions that resulted in
discomfort and pain for other people.
What decisions have you made that meet this test? What was the result?
How do you rate your qualifications in this area?
Less than adequate
Adequate
More than Adequate
8. TRUST and CANDOR. You generally trust people; you are more candid than
cautious in sharing information.
What evidence demonstrates this in your history?
How do you rate your qualifications in this area?
Less than adequate
Adequate
More than Adequate
Copyright 1992, 1996 All Rights Reserved.
Please read our copyright notice. |