Change Leadership for Middle Managers

“I read Kotter’s book, Curmudge. The eight stages of creating a major change are: Establishing a Sense of Urgency, the three we discussed last time (Guiding Coalition, Vision, and Communication), Empowering Broad-Based Action, Generating Short-Term Wins, Consolidating Gains, and Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture.”

“You are the consummate student, Jaded Julie. I’ll give you a gold star for last week. Let’s see…they are here in my desk somewhere...”

“(Consummate? I guess if that didn’t mean really good, I wouldn’t be getting a gold star.) So, Curmudge, we’ve gotten the CEO squared away. Do we move on to the senior leadership and middle managers?”

“Right. But before we proceed, let’s make some simplifying assumptions. If our transition is to a Lean culture, it can be treated as a gradual change rather than a the-sky-is-falling crisis. That should make the change leader’s job easier. Second, let’s endow our managers with leadership qualities; then we can consider middle managers to be, effectively, ‘middle leaders’.”

“Good idea, Curmudge. Remember also that with Lean’s inverted organizational pyramid, the changes will give the workers in gemba more responsibility. Unfortunately, middle managers may find change to a Lean culture somewhat traumatic if their authority is reduced.”

“The role of a senior leader should not be very different from that of the CEO, especially if he or she is a member of the guiding coalition. He shouldn’t stop reading here, however, because he may have to guide his direct report middle managers through some stressful times.”

“I presume that a middle manager must play a dual role. She communicates the new vision from top management down to gemba, and she must also coach the workers on new ways of doing things.”

“Julie, these tasks will be easier for the middle manager if she has acquired leadership skills to accompany her change management tools. Because of their joint dependency, we’ll discuss leadership after we finish with change management.”

“If I were a middle manager, I would first have to come to grips with the effects of the change on my own position. I couldn’t be a tower of strength for my direct reports if I felt like a bowl of Jell-O inside.”

“Find out from the most authoritative sources how your job will change. ‘Don’t cry before you are hurt.’ You may have to accept some ambiguity, but don’t let it paralyze you. This may provide the opportunity for you to redesign your position into something you have always wanted. Make your personal action plan and try to implement it.”

“So, now that the middle manager has her head on straight, how can she help the troops?”

“Julie, if I were coaching a manager faced with guiding her people through an organizational change, my first advice would be, ‘Don’t try to wing it.’ It’s not too different from a bone marrow biopsy; don’t try to do it until you have learned the technique. That’s something that the patient—and your coworkers—will appreciate.”

“(I sense a teaching moment coming up—probably with a reading assignment.)”

“Although people insist that they don’t have time to read, it’s really not too difficult to click on a URL and scan a few paragraphs. Here are some that should be very helpful to someone faced with leading or managing change:
Leading change management involves some simple, but too often forgotten rules. By C. Worley and Y. Vick. http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/052/change.html

The biggest mistakes in managing change. By C. Goman
http://www.winstonbrill.com/bril001/html/article_index/articles/501-550/article506_body.html

Seven dynamics of change. By R. Bacal http://www.work911.com/articles/change7.htm

Managing change to a continuously improving culture. By S. Hajec
http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c080107a.asp

Making the journey toward cultural change in healthcare. By A. Yelton
http://healthcare.isixsigma.com/library/content/c050302a.asp

And for Affinity employees, here’s a link to the Affinity Learning Center:
http://alc.affinityhealth.org/object/leadership-changemodel.html

Finally, for someone who does have time to look at another book in addition to the one by Kotter, there is: Change Management By J. Hiatt and T. Creasey.”

“I expect, Curmudge, that next time we get together you are going to share some words of wisdom from the documents you listed.”

“Of course Julie. You know me; I am an inveterate teacher.”

“An invet…? What kind of teacher? Oh well, Curmudge. I understand that using long words is just a habit that you have had for a long time.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon