Managing Change through Effective Leadership

Maltastar



As my brain is well set on an August holiday I thought I would quote verbatim from a lecture delivered in 1998 by Dr James P. Baughman on the topic of achieving change through effective leadership. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I had enjoyed hearing it.

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I have worked for some interesting CEOs in my life: The Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini and Jack Welch (ex-CEO of General Electric) to name just three. They shared many properties.` One of the things they shared was championship.

Championship

By championship, I mean not to win something, but to champion the idea of change. What they do very well is move a population of people, move a culture of society, or organisations through a series of questions.

`So the champion`s primary responsibility is to move through the catechism from it can happen here, to it might happen here, to it should happen here, to it must happen here, and indeed, to it will happen here`

First of all they deal with the question of: it cannot happen here. They address that by saying, well it is happening somewhere else.` That moves you to next question: It might happen here. Then they move to the question: it should happen here, and to the question: it must happen here.

And that`s only half the job, because then you have to demonstrate that it can happen here, and then you have to put in the right systems and structures to make sure that it will happen here.

So the champion`s primary responsibility is to move through the catechism from it can happen here, to it might happen here, to it should happen here, to it must happen here, and indeed, to it will happen here.

To do that they perform a number of operating routines, one of the most important of which is information: informing, informing, informing. But there is another side to informing that leaders experience what many people tend to forget. When I worked for Jack Welch, he and I made most of the speeches for the first two or three years of the GE change process.

And he came to me one day and he was almost in tears and he said: `Why do they keep asking me the same questions` Haven`t middle management told them We published our mission statement.` I have made hundred of speeches. And they ask the same questions`

Both being of the same age and the same level of intelligence, we figured out that what the general population was doing was not asking for information. What they were asking for was confirmation, and the role, the unique role, that leaders play is confirmation, confirmation and more confirmation, as well as information, information and more information.

That role very frequently is not perceived and not well executed. The leader believes that his job is to transmit and to receive and to transmit, but never really to confirm, to confirm and to confirm.

Discipline the process

Another specific role that the leader plays besides informing and confirming is that he or she is the proprietor of the discipline on the process. They discipline the process in an number of ways: through vocabulary, by moving to a common vocabulary; they discipline it by moving towards common analytics: what essentially is the proof that is required; they discipline the process through measurements; they discipline the process through incentives that they offer, and they discipline the process in ` most importantly ` terms of the values that are embedded in the change.

The leader of the change is ultimately the proprietor of the values that are embedded in the change.` If the values do not change, no change takes place. And at the end of the day, it is really the leader that is the sort of judge or exercises judgement and confirms, and confirms, and confirms the values. `Creating a burning platform means that through threat or opportunity, convincing others, through your force of will but through data demonstration, demand and diagnosis, that there is a reason to change, a benefit to change, and an imperative to change.`

But championship in that sense is an important ingredient, and the roles that I found the champion most skilful at, or most lacking ` depending on whether they are successful in their ability to inform or in their ability to confirm, and their ability to discipline the process, and ` particularly ` to discipline the values.` What they do is create a shared need- that is creating ` what is called as `the burning platform`.

The leader has a responsibility whether he or she uses threat or opportunity, to essentially challenge the status quo, and demonstrate through data, diagnosis and analytics that that there is a compelling reason to change.` Now there is a big difference between creating the shared need and shaping a vision.` Moving from creating a shared need to shaping the vision is what I want to spend a little time upon.

Creating a burning platform means that through threat or opportunity, convincing others, through your force of will but through data demonstration, demand and diagnosis, that there is a reason to change, a benefit to change, and an imperative to change.

I give an example of creating a shared need in a business that I experienced with Jack Welch. We had in General Electric a nuclear business. It had been one of the earliest nuclear businesses building nuclear reactors around the world, and in 1981 when he became the Chairman, we had the annual review of each business. The nuclear business came from California and they presented their strategic plan. They began the strategic plan by saying `In 1982 we will sell three nuclear reactors in the United States.`; that was the first line of their plan. He stopped the meeting at that moment. Five minutes into the meeting, and he said: `Excuse me, but we have not sold a nuclear reactor in the United States since 1972, ten years ago, and you have brought the same plan in for the last ten years, and I essentially want to give you the first sentence of the new strategic plan.` I want you to go back to California and when you thought it through come back and tell me whether we have a business or not. He said: `The first sentence of your plan is ` General Electric will never sell a nuclear reactor in the United States because of the Green Movement, because of the Government regulations and because of liability.`

He stopped the meeting, sent them back to California.` They came back in a couple of weeks and they said: `We have a business. We have a fuels business. We have a parts business. We have a service business and indeed we have a decommissioning business.`

He said: `Wonderful, now let`s continue the meeting.`

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`We can do it, we have to do it, we must do it, we will do it!` I could go on and on quoting Baughman`s experience how to pass from a shared need to shaping a vision and on to translating that into a formal action plan.` But it`s not necessary as the above proves the point I wanted to make. Change, if it is to be positive change, does not just happen.` It is made to happen. It is managed.` It is worked at firstly by creating a shared need for the change, then by creating a vision and finally by mobilising commitment and resources through a definite action plan.

Leaders don`t just spend their way through problems as the PN have been doing for the last 15 ways.` Leaders earn their way through problem solving and that it what this country needs and what the next Labour government has to provide. We can do it, we have to do it, we must do it, we will do it!