My article in Data Driven Inwestor published 19th of October 2018.
Executive trainers tell us that a key to successfully transforming an organization is clearly defining business goals, ensuring that leaders maintain good relationships with people across the organization, and choosing the right communication tools. Although I agree with this approach, I propose another prerequisite: personal experience.
I am convinced that any change I plan to achieve within my organization should rest on a personal foundation. The process of change should be anchored firmly in my own value system and resonate with every part of my psyche I consider genuine, mature, and vital. In other words, the potential, extent and direction of the change I want to effect in my organization depends largely on my beliefs and psychological abilities.
Look for role models in surprising places
I am hardly the first business leader to set out to change an organization. I am not inventing the wheel; I do not have monopoly on knowledge; I am not irreplaceable. When intervening in my organization at key moments, I draw on lessons I’ve learned from the achievements and experiences of others. But it is crucial to choose the right role models and examples.
If effective leadership is about being flexible, thinking outside the box, being bold, taking risks, and being creative, the implications of where one searches for knowledge are truly enormous. My approach is to follow my own cognitive habits while challenging them as needed, finding advice that has previously been hidden from me because it was (perhaps) unpopular, incompatible with my own value system, controversial, or formulated by people distant from my own spiritual self. Once I open myself to inspiration from any source, the results can be (and have been) revelatory.
Find stories that engage
While searching for examples of leaders who have changed their organizations in remarkable ways, I came across a funny but powerful story of John Hammergren, the CEO of the pharmaceutical firm McKesson. Asked how to run a company effectively, he described how he realized he, too, would one day become a patient and a customer of the healthcare system. This realization strongly influenced his management style and business behavior. Can you imagine a more compelling story of management taken to a personal level? If I were a mid-level McKesson manager listening to Hammergren, I believe I would be deeply inspired by his example. I, too, would envision myself as a future patient and think about what I needed to do now as an employee of the pharmaceutical company to help myself in the future. All in all, I am convinced that leaders capable of personally relating to transformation achieve greater results, and have a greater impact, than those who limit themselves to PowerPoint presentations, no matter how meticulously prepared. The idea is to show how change in an organization can be of personal relevance to the leader. The leader must find a key example that will illustrate the importance of the transformation to himself and to the people who are close to him. Once the leader gives his workers a story they will recognize as meaningful to him, it will become meaningful to them, and they are likely to redouble their efforts.
The questions I start with
When searching for ways to change an organization, there are many questions I ask myself. As I go along, they pop into my head, like an avalanche. The more issues I encounter along the way, the more questions arise. Then, however, there are other fundamental questions that I ask myself at the outset, before key decisions are made, and even before I make my choices about how to effect the transformation. These questions help me define the underlying purpose of the change and, as a result, enable me to see what resources I have, who I can count on, and what risks I’ll be facing. I think the courage to ask difficult, foundational questions is essential for mustering the resolve necessary to execute a transformation that will entail a reorganization.
For example, Do I understand the essential meaning of the changes that my actions will bring? Do I know how to communicate the critical points? Will I be able to get the attention of those I presume will be opposed to change? Do I know what resources I have at my disposal and whether they are sufficient for achieving my goals? Can I make the new values I’m proposing become part of the organization’s culture? Can I imagine what the company will look like a few years after the changes have been implemented?
These are some of the many questions that all leaders should ask themselves at the start of a transformation. The key is to draw up the list and use it for more than simply enumeration. Connect it become part of your value system, a reminder of why you’re doing what you’re doing as you manage the process.
Asking the right questions – not just of yourself but of the people with whom you’re working – is crucial. An effective leader does not lead people by command; he or she asks the right questions of the right people at the right times. It’s much like coaching and provides my co-workers with a sense of autonomy that reveals the potential of every individual to contribute to the process.
Read more in the full article.
Related articles:
– Reflections on ethical leadership
– Automation will not destroy all jobs
– Uncertainty has its upside. Leadership in digital economy
– Surviving in the digital age, future-proofing your business
Norbert Biedrzycki
Norbert Biedrzycki
Real reasons for technology disruptions. So true 🙂
SimonMcD
I do not agree with opinion about Amazon. I recommend the book “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google” to better understanding how “Amazon plays”.
John Accural
In today’s global economy, the humanities are essential since we deal with a wide variety of cultures, political systems, economies and religions. In business we always said: Forewarned is forearmed.
Zoeba Jones
Agree on most, but we have to recognize poor-paid workforces, lack of personal insurance etc as well.
tom lee
If you can shape the direction of the organization, you have tremendous power to affect much of what it does and consequently the futures (and power) of others in the firm.
Adam Spark Two
Knowledge is power, as they say, and how you gather and distribute it is a source of power, whether it is technical or social information.
Experts often work in this way, protecting their elevated status by hiding the sources of their knowledge and exacting high prices (whether financial or social) for their learned opinions.
John McLean
Spot on!
Norbert Biedrzycki
Thank you
Karel Doomm2
Last year was a watershed year for leaders articulating a point of view on sociopolitical issues such as DACA, diversity and inclusion, immigration and refugees. Remaining quiet or staying out of the fray is no longer an option. In 2019, we will see a big emphasis on C-suite leaders developing their ability to be ambassadors for the values of their companies. New recruits will demand to know.
AndrewJo
Good one
John Accural
Globally, 79 percent of financial services professionals believe that artificial intelligence will change the way financial institutions will collect data and interact with their customers while 76 percent believe that within the next three years, financial institutions will use artificial intelligence as their main method for interacting with their customers, according to Accenture.
Zoeba Jones
For instance, in 2006, Salesforce.com went all-out with change across the whole organization from the start and successfully completed a transformation from traditional management to Agile management in just three months. But even here, Salesforce already had a team in the organization that had already successfully run a high-visibility project using iterative methods. This experience served as an example for other teams.
SimonMcD
Indeed, instead of creating self-organized, empowered teams, it looks like you want to create these old functional silos again. But this depends on how prepared your organization is – have cross functional teams. you don’t necessarily have to do that right now. Start with a cross-functional team with a business connection, plan and build in one- or two-week cycles, show everyone your real, running, tested software after each cycle and after each cycle sit down and devise real ways to improve. It’s important to recognize you likely can’t do this right now, and even if you could it wouldn’t happen over night. It’s more important to understand what you’re giving up by keeping teams that aren’t cross functional.
Based on the benefit, you may decide that having a functional and working backlog should come before (rather than at the same time as) cross functional teams. IE: there’s not a lot of benefit to a cross-functional team if they dont’ have that business connection. part of your strategy for that connection could be this backlog. so you need that in place and stable before you make the teams cross functional.
Zidan78
Most organizational change occurs in reaction to something that isn’t right and needs to be changed. Awareness of a problem may grow out of frustration with an existing system or a crisis that highlights its problems. Your company may fail to complete an important order because the office hasn’t sent word to the manufacturing department. As a result, the product isn’t produced in time, and you lose a necessary account. This incident may force you and your managers to reflect on the fact that your communication systems are inadequate, and start brainstorming about possible solutions.
Norbert Biedrzycki
Some critics argue that the two positions transhumanists propose, rejecting human enhancement through augmentation and implants entirely or wholeheartedly embracing everything the transhumanist movement represents is a false dichotomy.
Jack666
.. I would say all of them
TomCat
Great article 🙂
Mac McFisher
Important question always starts with the leader
Andrzej_Ko
🙂