Accelerate Sustainable Change

Successful change and transformations is one of the biggest opportunities and problems that modern organizations face. In our fast-changing world, the strategic goal to change is often clear: Without doing things differently, our company is unlikely to succeed, or even last.

Most change-management research e.g. from Harvard and McKinsey estimates that approximately 70 % of organizational change programs fail to achieve their goals. Research has time after time demonstrated that organizational change initiatives fails more often than they succeed. They fail despite of the amount of resources put into creating organizational design and change management processes.

Business leaders today would probably agree on: that organizational change is constant and leading change is difficult. Some of the major hurdles most companies face during transformations include resources being stretched, communicating efficiently, competing priorities, new systems to learn, fear, exhaustion, loss of momentum and managers facing issues they never dealt with.

The one thing almost all research shows is: that effective leadership are essential to successful change.

Topics that we also discussed before deciding to take on a major transformation, in a company where I previously have had executive management responsibility. We had been doubling in size (revenue and headcount) for years. Therefore, we were starting to suffer from the inevitable growing pains that organizations face. We were outgrowing legacy systems and processes, needed a culture upgrade, new talents, new acquisition strategies, new divisions, new internal processes a new approach to sales and marketing. The list just went on.

So, when I proposed that we should have leadership development programs and emotional intelligence training to better equip ourselves to successfully lead and communicating through change. You can imagine all the other eyes really started rolling... “Do you actually think that's a right priority?” a senior executive asked. “Budget are tight now, with increase in headcount, investment in the new software programs and facilities...,” a board member explained looking at the CEO.

I was not unexperienced, but way younger then everybody else, so I tried to show cases, research results and made a big pretty deal out of it. My point was that this was the best possible time to invest in leadership development programs using our existing 360-degree leadership feedback. Leaning on my past results in the company, I made them listen and we did used some of our precious time, getting the executives, leaders and key employees ready for leading and enabling change from their own perspective. This made a huge difference in commitment, but also in overall trust from our +600 employees.

Leading change is hard. But by investing in leadership improvement we expand the chances of transformation success dramatically.

After this experience, I have used over 10 years, working with and understanding the differences in leadership style between successful and unsuccessful change efforts. That’s also why my team and I conducted a study in 2011 where we asked over 450 senior executives in knowledge intensive industries worldwide with +250 employees, to reflect on successful and unsuccessful transformation, change and innovation efforts that they had been leading.

Our main objective was to understand and define the key leadership competencies necessary for change and transformations. Using this insight for making learning by doing educational programs and modules that addressed leadership behaviors, that could contribute success or being a part of failures.

The results revealed 11 critical leadership competencies of successful change efforts. The 11 change competencies can be further divided into 3 main categories for leading change processes and people. The one thing that unite an effective change leadership is trust, and we found that these three main categories enables trust the most:

Communication: Successful leaders communicated the ‘what and the why’ and they used strategic communication internally and with external stakeholders as a part of their change efforts. Leaders who explained the purpose of the change and connected it to the organization’s values, visions and strategy or explained the benefits created stronger buy-in and urgency for the change. Even stronger if leaders where able to involve employees through communication initiatives. Unsuccessful leaders or on the programs where you did not achieve the benefit of change, tended to focus only on the ‘what’ behind the change and did not use strategic communication as a part of the program.

Collaborating: Bringing people together to plan and execute change is critical. Successful leaders worked across boundaries, encouraged employees to break out of their silos, and refused to tolerate unhealthy competition. They also included employees in decision-making early on, strengthening their commitment to change - resulting in better organizational design, better results and much less impact on operation. Unsuccessful change leaders failed to engage employees early on and often throughout the entire change process – leading to that their key and best preforming employees took another job, missing out of the actual benefits, slowing down operations unnecessary and basically this lead to business as usual.

Committing: Successful leaders made sure their own beliefs and behaviors supported change. Change is difficult, but leaders who negotiated and made things happen successfully were resilient and persistent, and willing to step outside their comfort zone. They knew their limits and asked for the right help during the process. They also devoted more of their own time to the change effort and focused on the big picture. Unsuccessful leaders failed to adapt to challenges, expressed negativity, and were impatient with a lack of results. Blaming others, not able to see their own role in the process.

Our research also showed that without sound leadership at all levels during chaotic times, the mission can go south very fast. But leading an organizational change always starts with a good design and a bit of mindset transformation, because we usually must pull time, budget and resources from one important area to invest in another.

Let’s keep in touch

Mercedes Nadjafi

thought leader, futurista, innovator and driving digital strategy