The company has a new chief, with 100 days to show the stock market some quick wins. Not the usual wins:\u00a0transformation<\/i>\u00a0is the game. Hurry up and reinvent the whole company.<\/p>\n
But where to begin? That\u2019s easy: at the \u201ctop\u201d. Where else when there\u2019s such pressure. Besides, any chief who has been to a business school or reads the business press knows that it\u2019s all about\u00a0leadership: the boss who does the thinking that drives everyone else. Louis XIV said \u201cL’\u00e9tat, c’est moi!\u201d Today\u2019s corporate CEO says \u201cThe enterprise, that\u2019s me!\u201d<\/p>\n
John Kotter has written the widespread word on transformation, at the Harvard Business School, where so many of the cases are about the chief.\u00a0 Here is the Kotter model, in eight steps.<\/p>\n
Please read this again, asking yourself, every step of the way, who does each? The chief. Beyond an inner circle, everyone else is there to pursue the vision, obediently. Indeed, the article states that \u201cpowerful individuals who resist the change effort\u201d must be removed. What if they have good reason to resist? Can there be no debate, no discussion? Is the contemporary corporation the court of Louis XIV?<\/p>\n
\u201cEstablish a sense of urgency\u201d, to barrel ahead: the wolves of Wall Street are braying at the door. \u201cA guiding coalition\u201d\u2014with \u201csenior managers [always at] the core\u201d\u2014will \u201ccreate a vision\u201d: out of the thin air of the top? Is this any place to understand what\u2019s happening on the ground? No wonder so many big companies can\u2019t get past me-too strategies they call \u201cvisions\u201d. Then \u201cCommunicate the vision\u201d to that obedient staff on the ground\u2014to continue with the clich\u00e9s, by \u201cempowering [them] to act on the vision\u201d, as if people hired to do a job need permission to do it.<\/p>\n
And keep those \u201cshort-term wins\u201d coming with \u201cstill more change\u201d\u2014more and more and more change. Where is continuity in all this, given that change without continuity is anarchy? (Be careful of words like \u201ctransformation\u201d, because change has to be about sustaining what\u2019s good no less than changing what isn\u2019t.) Finally, don\u2019t forget to \u201cinstitutionalize\u201d the whole thing: after all, this is the holy writ. And whatever you do, and wherever you are, top or bottom, don\u2019t learn, at least about the vision\u2014that was finalized in Step 3.<\/p>\n
If change is so good, how come such models of change hardly change? Kotter has been promoting essentially this one since 1995.\u00a0 How about a change of perspective for a change: recognizing the top as a misguided metaphor that can distort behavior. Are the best strategies really formulated from on high, by looking down? Or do they form amidst the clutter of the real life of the organization: making products, providing services, attending to customers? Everyone deeply involved can think constructively, CEOs too, although sometimes the best thinking comes from unexpected sources, such as a worker who sews the seeds of a great new vision. Imagine that!<\/p>\n
Actually, you don\u2019t need to imagine that. Instead, consider this story from IKEA, about selling much of its furniture unassembled, so that customers can take it home in their cars, saving money for them and the company.\u00a0 This powerful guiding vision transformed the IKEA business model as well as much of the furniture business. So where did it begin? With a worker. \u201cExploration of flat packaging begins when one of the first IKEA co-workers removes the legs of the L\u00d6VET table so that it will fit into a car and avoid damage during transit\u201d (from IKEA.com).<\/p>\n
But someone had to come up with the key insight that \u201cIf\u00a0we<\/i>\u00a0have to take the legs off, maybe our customers have to do so as well.\u201d That needed to be someone on site, maybe that worker, or a foreman, perhaps even the CEO, since the best entrepreneurs spend much of their time on site. But if it was someone else, then this insight had to be conveyed to the chief so that he could sprinkle holy water on it. And this suggests an organization of open communication, throughout, not one fixated on tops and bottoms, where so many ideas like this get lost. In such an open organization, sustaining culture matters a lot more than transforming everything.<\/p>\n
John Kotter acknowledges that major change can take years.\u00a0 I asked someone in IKEA how long it took to develop this new business model fully. He said 15 years! Wait a minute: according to the stock market, you\u2019re not supposed to do that. Why couldn\u2019t they just get it done in 100 days? Please list all the furniture companies that succeeded by doing that.<\/p>\n
So instead of a model of top-down transformation, how about a process of grounded engagement? I call it\u00a0communityship:<\/a>\u00a0don\u2019t look for the word in the dictionary, let alone at the top of any organization.\u00a0 Here are a few basics of it\u2014not steps, no order, non-linear, just a composite, like change itself.<\/p>\n Effective organizations are communities of engaged human beings, not collections of passive human resources.<\/b>\u00a0(I have used this sentence many times before, and will keep using it until it is taken seriously.) These organizations have no tops or bottoms, no \u201cleader\u201d who has to think for everyone else. Everyone is engaged; communityship is fundamentally indigenous.<\/p>\n Anyone can come up with a great idea for change.<\/b>\u00a0 Have you ever told a joke? Good, because you can change the world. Most jokes, and creative ideas, are just little switches. (See my blog on\u00a0\u201cThe Extraordinary Power of Ordinary Creativity.\u201d)<\/a>Here\u2019s an example: \u201cI want to die like my grandfather died, quietly, in his sleep. Not like those other people in the car who died yelling and screaming.\u201d The little switch: grandpa was not in bed after all. At IKEA, the little switch, the critical insight, was: \u201cIf\u00a0we<\/i>\u00a0have to take the legs off\u2026\u201d Such little switches are no big deal, even if they can launch very big deals. I\u2019ll bet that people who take that top seriously tell fewer jokes, or worse ones, than people whose feet are firmly planted on the ground.<\/p>\n Communication is open, so that ideas get shared easily.<\/b>\u00a0With no top and bottom in communityship, people just connect, for the sake of progress. A fixed hierarchy gives way to flexible networks. That insight at IKEA must have made its way to a management that was listening all around, not looking down.<\/p>\n Strategies, whether as overall visions or market positions, emerge gradually from grounded learning; they are not immaculately conceived.<\/b>\u00a0Many of the greatest\u00a0strategies really do form<\/a>, rather than being formulated, in a process nurtured by an engaged management that cares, not a heroic leadership that cures. And this process is not primarily about doing competitive analyses, although these can sometimes help. It is about committed people prepared to learn their collective way to unexpected strategies, one switch at a time. (In the last paragraph of his article, Kotter notes that \u201cIn reality, even successful change efforts are messy and full of surprises.\u201d This sentence belonged in the first paragraph, where it could have changed many of the other paragraphs.) Of course, there is the need to pull diverse insights together, which is usually overseen by a management that\u2019s on top of what\u2019s going on, not on top of a hierarchy.<\/p>\n One final point: Often companies turn to the fix of transformation after a spell of disconnection. Those companies that stay connected, through communityship, don\u2019t need step-by-step fixes. So please, all you serious managers, professors, and pundits, come down to earth, symbolically and literally. Get a bit playful with your strategies and your jokes: you just might find that effective change balanced with continuity follows, naturally: No need for transformation!<\/p>\n (This was first published as a TWOG in September 2017)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n About the author:<\/strong><\/p>\n Henry Mintzberg,\u00a0Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University, is the author of\u00a0Rebalancing Society<\/i><\/a>, and a\u00a0weekly\u00a0TWOG<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The company has a new chief, with 100 days to show the stock market some quick wins. 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