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A people-centered approach to leading perpetual transformation
TONY OâDRISCOLL
Business is tough, and getting tougher. Since the year 2000, just over half of the names of companies on the Fortune 500 list have disappeared.58 Today, the average life-span of a typical publicly traded company is two-and-a-half times shorter than the average life-span of a typical employee. Organizations are dying prematurely because they simply canât keep up with the intensifying levels of change and complexity within their business ecosystem.59
Ensuring organizational survival in the face of increased uncertainty presents a pernicious paradox for leaders. On one hand, they must continue to run their core business as efficiently as possible. On the other, they must develop and implement strategies to effectively change their business in response to swift and sweeping ecosystem shifts.60
To make matters worse, most transformation interventions focused on changing structure, governance and process are falling-flat.61 Research reveals that organization transformation efforts fail more than 70 percent of the time.62 In an ever-evolving business ecosystem where changing the business on an ongoing basis becomes table stakes for survival, the low level of transformation success and the increasing rate of organization mortality signal an urgent need for a fundamentally different, people-centered, approach to leading organizational change.
The People Centered Transformation (PCT) Framework
Brightlineâs People Manifesto argues that people form the link between strategy design and delivery.63 People turn ideas into reality, they are the strategy in motion. People are the organizationâs most important source of competitive advantage and yet, paradoxically, they are often also the organizationâs most misunderstood and least leveraged asset.
Organizations cannot change unless their people change. Most transformation efforts fail because leadership overemphasizes the tangible side of change and under emphasizes the emotional one. Organization change works when you identify the key beliefs and behaviors you want to change and then create new structures, processes and governance mechanisms to support those new beliefs and behaviors.64 Not the other way around.
Successful organization transformation requires an empathic, people-centered approach to change that nurtures a culture of aspiration, alignment, autonomy and accountability.65 The remainder of this paper will explore the ten key elements of such a people-centered transformation (PCT) framework (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: The People-Centered Transformation (PCT) Framework
Each element of the PCT framework requires three key leadership shifts to activate it. Successfully completing all the shifts across each of the ten elements, will yield an organization that is resilient, responsive and agile; a culture of aspiration, alignment, autonomy and accountability; and an employee base that is fully engaged and willing to tap into their discretionary effort and go the extra mile to make change really happen in your organization.
Next, we will examine the elemental insight, supporting evidence and leadership shifts for each PCT element in the framework.
PCT Element 1: Create a compelling change narrative
The Elemental Insight: On 18 August 1963, in his renowned speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King did not say âI have a plan.â Instead, he shared a dream that led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act on 2 July 1964.
Since transformation efforts require a change in the status quo, communicating a compelling narrative that makes a purposeful, passionate and emotionally resonant case for the change motivates people to let go of the status quo and reach beyond their comfort zones to create a brighter shared future.
In essence, people need to believe that the achievement of a shared aspiration is possible and worthy of their effort before they are willing to change their behavior to make it happen. Creating and communicating a credible and compelling image of a desired future that people can create together motivates this behavioral change.
The Supporting Evidence: Leadership is the art of getting things done through other people. Daniel Golemanâs research argues that leadershipâs primary task is to articulate a message that resonates with peopleâs emotional reality and sense of purpose.66 A research paper by Nathan Witta and Orla Leonard shows that teams who successfully deliver against transformational objectives spend 54 percent more time setting direction and crafting an aspiration that serves as a guiding light.67
The Leadership Shifts: In order to communicate a clear, concise, consistent and compelling narrative that makes a purposeful, passionate and emotionally resonant case for change, leadership behavior must shift from:
- focusing on required actions to creating a shared aspiration.
- stressing the problematic present to envisioning a positive future.
- monitoring the actionable what and how to illuminating the purposeful why.
PCT Element 2: Act to think differently
The Elemental Insight: With regards to leading change, Mahatma Gandhi embodied his belief that âYou must be the change you want to see in the world.â
In essence, authentic and visible changed behavior on the part of leadership is the single longest lever to motivate changed behavior within an organization. Leadership can generate respect and followership from others by personally, authentically and openly modeling the changed beliefs and behaviors needed to transform the organization.
The Supporting Evidence: While conventional wisdom holds that changing the way a person thinks can change the way they behave, recent research in the behavioral sciences suggest that the quickest path to changed behavior goes in the opposite direction: Getting someone to act differently can dramatically change their thinking.68 Herminia Ibarraâs research has shown that leaders who deliberately âact their way into a new way of thinkingâ are more successful in changing their own behavior and in motivating changed behavior in others.69
The Leadership Shifts: In order to generate respect and followership from others by personally, authentically and openly modeling the changed beliefs and behaviors required to transform organizations, leadership behavior must shift from:
- demanding changed behavior to demonstrating changed behavior.
- being authoritarian and overbearing to being authentic and open.
- thinking and planning ahead of time to testing and learning in real time.
PCT Element 3: Embrace situational humility
The Elemental Insight: Almost a century ago, in 1924, the organizational pioneer Mary Parker Follett observed, âLeadership is not defined by the exercise of power, but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led.â
In essence, the reality today is that individual leaders do not have the capacity, expertise or experience to make sense of all the change swirling around them. Instead, they need to distribute leadership responsibility, complementing hierarchy and formal authority with a collaborative and distributed leadership system that is responsive, resilient and adaptable to change.
The Supporting Evidence: To build a collaborative and distributed leadership system, leaders must embrace what Amy Edmondson calls âsituational humilityâ by showing vulnerability, seeking help, asking questions and demonstrating that failure is acceptable. Humility helps build a foundation of trust and psychological safety that gives others the confidence to engage in open, transparent and authentic interactions around change.70 Research by Alison Reynolds and David Lewis has shown that the trusted reciprocal interaction derived from showing humility is crucial to ensuring that people can successfully work together to make change happen.71
The Leadership Shifts: In order to show vulnerability, seek help, demonstrate that failure is acceptable and constantly seek to increase the autonomy and accountability of others,...
