Change from the top

I am indebted to Phil this week for his thought provocation about John Kotters 8 step change framework.  I have been involved in change for nearly 20 years and still consider myself a student (there is always so much more to learn). Phil's comment about Kotters model being too top down got me thinking about change in companies.  I can see why the model can be seen as being heirarchical, but Phil's comment got me to step back and consider the bigger picture in organisations; revisiting some of the drivers for change and then the approaches to it. We can agree that all change affects individuals at the intra-personal level, and this in turn has an effect on how they may behave during change.  Of course any change that is generated and driven by self volition will produce greater levels of commitment.  Therefore at the personal level since it was initiated and driven by the individual, there is more likelihood of it being followed through and achieving the desired outcomes.  In companies, this isn't very often the case.

Apart from a general desire to improve the working environment and create a more conduce and enjoyable climate (which could be initiated and driven from by the individual or lower unit level of a company) most big organisational change has a more strategic origin and by its very nature comes from the top.  The need to be quicker, smoother, more efficient, customer centric, more productive etc tends to prompt someone at the top to think about what the organisation needs to be like in order to increase the chances of their business goals being achieved. Someone at the top has concluded that to achieve strategic aspirations in chosen markets, carrying on in the same way won't do.  So change is required. All of a sudden, therefore, change comes from the top down. Pondering further on Phil's comment, however, I got to reflect on some recent research I was involved in in the last couple of years.  One of the very strong conclusions the research came to was that leading change is not the same as managing change.  While I don't want to get too reverential about Kotters model, I do think it has stood the test of time and he has added some observations in recent years that I think are pertinent here.

As soon as we accept the strategic imperative for change in companies, then leading it, I think, does become a top down issue. In his 8 step model Kotter does make the point about creating energy and enthusiasm for the change, so that it is driven into and through the organisation - and eventually becomes integrated into the way the company operates. In his book "The Heart of Change" published in recent years, Kotter makes a very strong case for leaders to really focus on the people aspect of change.  In fact, (and I'm paraphrasing) he argues that the balance of leadership effort - as opposed to management effort - should be weighted towards the people side of things; creating enthusiasm, engaging employees and helping them make the change their own.  This I think, is one of the key aspects of leadership whch is different to managing change.

My own experience working with companies going through change is that the 'managing' part tends to be the easier bit. Integration of systems, processes, policy and procedures - the mechanics of the business - gets done relatively smoothly.  What organisations struggle with the most - and this is the element that potentially has the most dragging effect on the above - is dealing with potential resistance or inertia from those most affected by the change.  In the recent research I was involved in three change leadership characteristics, or attributes, had the most positive impact on achieving the intended change outcomes.  These are: personal adaptability, driving change and building commitment, and building commitment outweighed the other two by at least 30%.  We all know the statistics around how many change efforts fail or don't fully achieve their intended outcomes, so ensuring that the top of the organisation is putting its best efforts in helping the wider organisation to embrace the change and make it their own become an even greater imperative.

So if we place organisational change in its strategic context, I believe that the evidence suggests that their is a real requirement for change to be led from the top, and for change leaders to really focus their energies in creating employee engagement around the change and providing what ever they need to empower them at the ground level.  It seems to me that when this really starts to happen then we might say that the change starts to get driven from the bottom up and the chances of success increase dramatically.

So leaders, no pressure then!