What We Know About Change
According to a global study on employee engagement by Right Management, less than half (43%) of employees are confident in their organization’s change process.
The biggest downfall for senior leaders is the perception that they do not follow through on what they say they will do.
Many change initiatives are sold using fear. While these “Do or Die” messages can motivate in the short term, they are not as sustainable as we may think in the long run.
The most successful change programs recast or reframe the reason for change.
Dr. Dean Ornish created a successful change program for reversing heart disease by replacing the “fear of death” with a new vision of the “joy of living”, convincing heart patients they could feel better, not just live longer.
Lou Gerstner, shortly after taking on the job of reforming IBM in the early 1990s, discovered that all of his experience and expertise in strategy and finance wasn’t going to get the job done.
Instead, Gerstner’s turnaround efforts would depend critically on reframing the mission of the company toward services rather than mainframes.
Similarly, Steve Jobs’ turnaround at Apple succeeded largely by shifting the focus from a “marginalized player vanquished in the battle for market share” to “creative innovators who dared to ‘Think different'”.
Contrary to popular belief, we’ve also learned that radical, sweeping and comprehensive changes often are easier for people than small, incremental changes.
IBM’s turnaround, for example, hinged on a radical shift from selling computer hardware to providing services. This required a tremendous and rather immediate cultural shift.
Most organizational transformations (restructuring, retooling and rightsizing) often are complete within two to three years, and tend to be drastic in their execution. And, almost always, these organizations enjoy quick, tangible results.
So, the next time you are leading a change initiative, remember to reframe the reason for change in a way that is positive and compelling rather than negative and frightening. This will increase the odds that others will be enrolled in the change program.
And, be prepared to move beyond existing paradigms in a non-linear fashion to implement comprehensive change whenever you can. Taking decisive action creates tangible results more quickly and keeps people on board for the long haul.