How to not stay the same, as we change
#leadership #change #business #transformations
Change management is about choosing the essential and uneasy way over what is not necessarily useful yet established and comfortable.
According to Professor Richard Badham from Macquaire Business School, what most likely can go wrong during transformations is the wrong perception about the real-world circumstances by organizations or businesses. Badham uses an allegory of the slope at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London that eliminates the level playing field in the pitch. (Explained in the video below).
When running a change program, one must try to be wise enough to consider that there are inevitable frustrations, barriers, and opposition.
So, don’t:
- misdirect efforts, get consumed by inescapable issues, burn out;
- complain about things being not as they “should be”;
- try to remove the oppositions.
And do:
- identify what you can change and what you can’t, appreciate the “given”;
- as batsmen at Lord’s adapted to the slope, be creative and proactive to face problems.
Ignoring the “given” leaves some organizations(businesses) with four main biases in transforming the way they work:
1. A bias for the head over the heart and the hand: when the organization is treated as machines or organisms, neglecting the importance of culture.
Initiatives and decisions on disruption or changes come from top management, while the people within the company may know what is best. It took Microsoft engineers several months to “sell” the idea about the paid search to the heads. When finally Microsoft senior staff approved the initiative, it was a catchup program rather than a shift.
2. A bias for design over implementing: when how and with what tools something is done is more important than what is actually being done.
Specialists quote Carl Rogers and say that true change is a process, not a state of being. So the implementation of a new IT system or a technology will not be a cure-all for problems and guarantee the transformation.
3. A bias for strategizing over executing: when you look before you leap, but never leap.
Gary Hamel, a professor and a management lab director at London Business School says that “the change is not engineered”, if we expect it to be truly transformational, we should understand that “by its definition, the change can’t be entirely scripted, entirely predetermined”. Overplanning may slow-walk and, eventually, challenge the execution of an organizational change.
4. A bias for reform over results: when program evaluation is postponed or avoided, initiating reforms is of high interest.
McKinsey estimates that only 26% of change programs achieve their goals. It is employees who resist the forced changes that account for this number.
Having open eyes and minds towards these biases helps us avoid changing for the sake of change, and, eventually not remain the same. After all, when proceeding to the change program, we are taking the red pill, not the blue one.
