When it comes to implementing organizational change, statistics suggest that failure is much more likely than victory. In a survey of nearly 3,000 executives that asked them about the success of their enterprise transformation efforts, McKinsey found the failure rate to be greater than 60%. A similar Harvard Business Review study put the figure at 70%.
Even if they aren’t aware of these eye-raising stats, though, senior executives intuit how hard effective change leadership can be. They know it’s a big deal. This explains why they devote countless resources to planning out the perfect change management initiative.
Yet the statistics above don’t lie: no matter how devoted management leaders are, change is too often unsuccessful. In my experience, the problem is that leaders’ focus is often misplaced. To raise the odds of success, leaders shouldn’t start by transforming their organizations. Truth be told, they’d be far better off starting closer to home: with themselves.
Effective Change Leadership Begins With…
Watch Ron talk about the importance of honesty, fairness, and transparency in leading change in this TEDx talk
“Be the change,” Gandhi famously advised. As it turns out, this wisdom, popularized by the human rights leader, cuts across time, religion, and culture. In the Book of Matthew, Jesus—the ultimate student of human nature—points out that it’s easier to see the tiniest foibles in your neighbor than your own flagrant fouls. The oracle at Delphi instructed visitors to “know thyself.”
In other words, criticizing or telling other people what to do is easy. But truly understanding our own motivations, and how we can become better, more effective versions of ourselves? A lot harder. With that in mind, here are some tips for becoming the change—and inspiring your team members to do the same.
Open Yourself Up
Difficult undertakings—like, say, implementing a costly, time-intensive organization overhaul—can make leaders feel vulnerable. And what do people do when they feel vulnerable and anxious? They try to distance themselves. This helps them to avoid feeling culpable in all the messiness and inevitable challenges to come.
Take the CEO I worked with who had recently been brought in to “shake things up” at her software firm. A few weeks into our partnership, I started noticing a distinctive pattern in her language.
When she referred to the significant challenges coming to the work environment, she consistently spoke in third-person references—they, them, those people. And when speaking about possible changes that needed to be made, she spoke only in first-person language: I will, I don’t.
Her contempt for the organization was palpable. Instead of building confidence in her employees’ future, she was unwittingly fueling anxiety, distrust, and low morale. Deeper reflection revealed she was trying to emotionally distance herself from the mess because of an underlying fear that she might fail to turn things around.
To win the trust of those who have to live with the changes you create, you have to engage as part of them, not apart from them. The quicker you can lose your outsider status, the sooner your team will open to doing what needs to be done.
Emotional intelligence, and willingness to be vulnerable in a challenging situation, is one of the most important change management leadership skills.
Call-out/Tip
Like racecar drivers and hotdog eating contest winners, successful change leaders are made, not born. If you don’t immediately see results, don’t despair—this stuff takes time. Keep modeling the change you expect from others, and you should start seeing subtle but encouraging shifts in your organization and relationships.
Rewrite the Script
Several years ago I worked with a newly appointed CEO who’d been brought in to lead a massive digital transformation at his company, a plumbing parts manufacturer. The organization’s culture had historically been slow and unresponsive, with decision making reserved largely for those at the top.
To increase adaptiveness, he redesigned the organization to create a culture where decision rights were distributed to lower-level employees on the front line who were better equipped to solve problems and direct resources. That left only the most strategic decisions with him and his management teams.
This was all good and well—except that he himself was struggling to take action on critical decisions, decisions the rest of the organization depended on to execute the decisions they were now empowered to make. The result? The CEO was perpetuating the very problem he sought to fix.
When our company digs into the roots of a leader’s unproductive behavior, we look for what we call the “operative narrative”: the “tape” playing at an unconscious level that’s driving unwanted behavior. (There’s a bit of psychology for you.)
So that’s what I did with this CEO: try to uncover what his tape looked like. As it turned out, beneath this very accomplished leader’s behavior was a reel of perfectionism, a voice declaring, “If you’re wrong about this, it’s all on you.” His fear of being wrong and blamed for failure prevented him from using his brilliant mind to weigh all available options and ultimately make the call.
Are You Standing In Your Own Way?
3 ways senior leaders end up building instead of removing barriers to employee success
Through his paralysis, he modeled . . . well, paralysis. He didn’t know himself, so he couldn’t rewrite his script, thereby changing the narratives that justified his indecisive behavior.
Great leaders, on the other hand, can correct a narrative that’s not serving them or their team. They can see the big picture beyond their individual hangups. Even if it’s a struggle at times, they model the kind of behavior they want their team members to follow, whether it’s showing up on time or providing stable, level-headed leadership through change.
For those who struggle with their script, here are two useful techniques for rewriting it.
Winston Churchill
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
Know Who and What Triggers You
One behavior that keeps us locked in a negative cycle is “transference,” which happens when we transfer our feelings onto someone else. In moments of transference, a leader’s behavior is shaped and motivated more by their past experience than what is happening in the present.
One client of ours realized early in the process of leading the turnaround of a flailing division that her impatience was making performance worse and weakening confidence in the future. We later discovered that her exasperation was symptomatic of deeper issues.
When top management asked questions meant to clarify the change, she interpreted them as resistance to her vision or passive-aggressive doubt about her ability. They were neither, but her angry responses created the very resistance and passive-aggression she feared.
This leader needed to see her team’s questions as an opportunity to further secure their commitment to her leadership and change, not view them as personal attacks on her vision. A look back at her career path revealed a long history of unjustly having to prove herself, receiving unfair critique, and feeling second-guessed by those whose approval she desperately wanted. Each question from her team triggered past transference, compounded by the natural anxieties of leading high-risk change.
Breaking the cycle of triggers that transfer past experiences onto current situations begins in deep self-reflection. When you are leading the process, be ruthlessly honest about who and what your trigger points are.
Remember, though: this isn’t meant to be an exercise in harsh self-criticism. Simply paying attention, without judgment, is the way to enlightenment—and effective leadership change.
Write Out the Narrative
That said, simply identifying situations or people most likely to trigger you may not be enough to effect change.
Many leaders interpret trigger points too specifically (for example, “Boy, he really pushes my buttons every time I’m with him” or “I’m fine presenting to anyone in the company, but when it comes to her, I lose a week of sleep”). But they stop short of uncovering the narrative beneath those triggers that leads to unwanted behavior.
Leadership Change is Effective Leadership Change When
One option here is to work things out on paper. Forcing yourself to visualize your narrative(s) provides a simple but powerful way to put your finger on the larger forces shaping your behavior. This requires humility and the ability to detect patterns of behavior recurring in times of change.
When a leader uncovers the answer to the question, “Why do I keep doing that?” they bring themselves one step closer to rescripting their narrative. With a much more useful tape now playing, the leader will be far better equipped for successful change leadership.
When it’s all said and done, an organization will transform a leader as much as they transform it. And that’s one thing that’s not going to change.