“Let us forget the past, and think of the present.” – Nelson Mandela, shortly after his release from 27 years in prison
Nelson Mandela was a great leader. He was able to change and transform not just a society but also the entire nation and possibly the entire African continent.
Yet in today’s world of business, companies are struggling to make change stick. A new study by Towers Watson has found that only 25% of change management initiatives are successful over the long term. The added difficulty of running a business in today’s corporate world is that leaders today are operating in a condition popularly known as “VUCA” – a business environment characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. No wonder 28% of CEO who get fired by their board, get fired because they “mismanaged change”, (IBM global CEO study).
An obvious remedy or natural reaction by organizations is to hire change management experts. Change management is concerned with getting buy-in from employees through the use of sophisticated tools, templates, communication and training. It is designed to minimize impacts on employees by creating understanding, awareness, reduce resistance and thereby enhancing change initiative success. But this is not the answer.
The truth of the matter is we need more change leadership than change management or managing change. According to John Kotter, change leadership is the engine of change. It is about big vision. It is about a sense of urgency and empowering people to change from the status quo to the “promised land”. If you look carefully at an organization change initiative, the number one reason for failure is that “leadership is not capable of leading the change” (IBM global CEO study).
My past experience in several large-scale organization transformational initiatives, which turned out to be reasonably successful, reaffirms the importance of change leadership. We would hire consultants for their technical knowledge to augment our change team. Our in-house team would handle the change.
But that wasn’t all. The real reason for our success was in all those change initiatives, leader was leading from the front not behind a wall of change consultants. They were able to connect with employees and turned them into believers and followers. They (the leader) led the change initiative with integrity and tenacity. They inspired us with a sense of higher purpose.
Mind you it was not all rosy. If we missed our deadline, we would know about it! Interestingly, leaders were both supportive and showed concerns about the well being of their employees during the change journey.
To summarize, put your leader at the center of your change initiative not at the periphery. The only time you want your leader at the background is when you are communicating bad news. Don’t throw your money at management consultants. It might not be the right insurance policy against failure. A better way would be a combination of change management consultant but more of your change leadership in the mold of transformational leader* like Nelson Mandela.
Suvit Chansrichawla, next-generation HR consultant under the brand Serendipity&Co., partner of the Curve Group in Thailand.
*Transformational leadership concept was first developed by James MacGregor Burns and further extended by Bernard M. Bass
