Jaded Julie Learns about Change Leadership

“Where have you been, Curmudge? We haven’t had a conversation in a couple of weeks. Were you on spring break?”

“I wasn’t gone, Julie. This time of year I like to pause and let the snow melt off my brain.”

“That isn’t snow, Curmudge. It’s white hair, and most of it has melted away. So let’s continue our conversation from last time. You promised to tell how a CEO gets the flywheel to accelerate and move the organization toward excellence.”

“Effective change leadership is a big part of it, Julie. An organization with big problems that doesn’t change remains an organization with big problems. For a CEO, bringing about a major change in the culture of his corporation—especially a change like Lean that must endure—may be the toughest challenge of his career.”

“Sounds like a job for a Level 5 leader. So how does the CEO do it?”

“It’s not just the CEO. Managerial personnel at every level will need to facilitate change at some point in their career. Some might even be CEOs-in-training.”

“Maybe even me. Right, Curmudge? Where do we start? Are there good books and articles, or must I depend on your curmudgeonly wisdom?”

“There’s a ton of stuff out there. To me, some of it deals with changing an organization, and other publications focus on aiding individuals in accepting change.”

“But isn’t successful corporate change just the aggregate change of the individual employees?”

“It sure is, Julie. But the biggest immediate issue for a CEO is building his team and aligning their efforts to initiate the transition. At the moment, he is less concerned over how to allay Mary Smith’s anxiety over doing her job differently. So let’s begin by looking at change from the CEO’s global perspective. My favorite book on this is John Kotter’s Leading Change. When I was reading it, Mrs. Curmudgeon thought the book that I couldn’t put down was Ken Follett’s World Without End.”

“If Kotter’s book is that good, please tell me more.”

“I knew you would ask. Kotter describes an ‘Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change.’ We don’t have time to discuss all of the stages, so let’s address some of those that are most important. As our flywheel showed, changing the direction of a corporation is too much for the CEO alone. Thus one of the first steps is the Creation of a Guiding Coalition. Members of the guiding coalition must possess and exhibit position power, expertise, credibility, and leadership. Essential team characteristics are trust and a common goal, so ‘snakes’ and those with big egos must be excluded.”

“Snakes! One would hope that those ‘trust-killers’ had been kicked off the bus several weeks ago.”

“The next stage is Developing a Vision. It must be brief, compelling, and capture the passion of the employees. Creating the vision usually requires that the CEO and the guiding coalition think, dream, and draw deeply on their collective reservoir of talents. Hopefully, the vision will address what, when, and how the organization will fulfill its mission.”

“Then what, Curmudge? Do we shout our vision from the rooftops?”

“Almost. Despite all of the high-powered mental exercise that went into it, the vision must be straightforward enough to be understood and adopted by everyone. Remember, we want the vision to guide the employees’ hands, head, heart, and emotions for the next several years. That’s why the next stage is Communicating the Vision, although probably not by shouting it from the top of the parking ramp.”

“Several months ago we talked about the importance of the CEO’s communications about Lean. I’m sure that applies here, too.”

“Exactly. Communications by the CEO and his team members must be simple, completely candid, without ‘spin’, consistent, and repeated again and again.”

“Hey Curmudge, Kotter described an eight-stage process, but you have only touched on three. What about the rest?”

“Now Julie, this is a blog, not an encyclopedia. Like any good student, you’ll have to go to the literature to learn the whole story.”

“Curmudge, even though you covered only three stages, that’s really valuable advice. I’ll certainly use it when I become a CEO. But actually, the kind of change I had hoped to learn about was how to change my husband from being a couch potato.”

“Don’t complain, Julie. At least you know where he is when you are working the night shift.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon