Book Club: Epic Change by Timothy Clark

Hub member Tim Clark sent me his book on change. I like it a lot. Here are some excerpts - from the flyleaf and a few sections that I enjoyed - to give you a taster. I particularly like his points about how the leaders' ability to draw out people's discretionary efforts is more important in success than strategy or other issues that are usually assumed to be primary success factors. I also like his central point that the leader's role is largely one of energy management within an organization; generating, releasing and channeling people's energy:

EPIC CHANGE: HOW TO LEAD CHANGE IN THE GLOBAL AGE BY TIMOTHY R. CLARK

From the flyleaf
The EPIC (Evaluate, Prepare, Implement and Consolidate) approach for change management draws on the research-based “power curve of change.� As Clark explains, change fails less often for poor strategy or technical difficulty. Rather, it is a leader’s inability to draw out the discretionary efforts of people that usually signals failure. The EPIC approach teaches leaders the critical points of leverage for energy management within an organization and offers a comprehensive guide to change leadership – arguably the most critical competency of the twenty-first century.

Don't assume a goal is shared

A standard definition of leadership, taught in the nation’s colleges and universities, is the ability to influence people to achieve a shared goal. But if we’re talking about change leadership, this definition crucially misses the mark. It’s a midstream definition that assumes a shared goal. That is seldom the case. Once a goal is identified, the change leader’s first order of business is to make it a shared one, something that can be the hardest and most time-consuming part of the process. Until a goal is shared, there is only dormant potential to achieve it, and people won’t yet permit you to lead them. The goal will simply be denied or ignored.

Great results over time isn't a mark of a great leader, it's often a sign of a 'Teflon' leader

I was more than a bit startled to hear a quartet of prominent leadership scholars recently declare that “superior results over a sustained period of time is the ultimate mark of an authentic leader.� My own research comes to a very different conclusion. What I find instead is a pattern in which capable leaders at every level are struggling with unremarkable results and are often checkered with failure. The leader who is able to move through a career with sustained results and uninterrupted success is the rare exception indeed. Often these are the leaders who are either not playing hard enough or gaming the system to select low-risk opportunities that are likely to return professional success. So-called Teflon leaders are more often those who have ridden market waves but successfully avoided down cycles.

There will be no hiding place for leaders who play to avoid failing and to look good

I still witness leaders who manage to survive only because they don’t visibly fail. Leaders in this category typically project the appearance of success through rhetorical careers: they talk and represent accomplishment while nothing really substantive happens. They like to tinker at the margins while the real focus is maintaining status by running a compromise machine and taking a so-called course of moderation and consensus.

Leaders in this category are content to believe that a busy schedule suggests a life full of purpose. But this cohort too represents a dwindling population: leaders everywhere face market upheaval, rapid obsolescence, and short strategy cycles. Every leader in the global age will and should expect to see heavy combat.

In every sector, whether business, health care, government, education, or non-profit, there’s a steady stream of adaptive challenges that is antagonistic and inhospitable to comfort-seeking managers. External changes sets in motion a train of consequences that arrives at the doorstep of every leader. Eventually it looks you in the eye and challenges your individual capacity to respond. It will most likely expose and exploit your weaknesses if you’re not prepared.

Extracted from:

EPIC CHANGE: HOW TO LEADER CHANGE IN THE GLOBAL AGE by Hub member Timothy R Clark