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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe 13th<\/sup> Global Peter Drucker Forum again raised business critical questions such as: \u201cCan big businesses be humanized\u201d and \u201cHow fast should you transform your business. The answers were: \u201cYES you can humanize a big company \u201c, and \u201cyou need to CHANGE your perception on how fast a strategic change of your business will be\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article is one in the \u201cshape the debate\u201d series relating to the 13th Global Peter Drucker Forum<\/a><\/span>, under the theme \u201cThe Human Imperative\u201d on November 10 + 17 (digital) and 18 + 19 (in person), 2021. Parallel Panel #7 \u2013 Can Big Business be (Re)humanized?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moderator<\/strong><\/em> Speakers<\/strong><\/em> Parallel Panel #9 \u2013 Leading People through Change \u2013 Hoch much? How fast?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moderator<\/em> Speakers<\/em> Can big businesses truly be humanized<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The focus of this year\u2019s Drucker Forum was on the leader him- or herself. Many top leaders are indoctrinated by the old- stereotyped picture of a leader- the hero, who knows it all and will guide his or her people on what to do and how do it. In a VUCA world, 80% of leaders, according to Hubert Joly, understand and want to adopt the new humanized leadership model, better suited for the current dynamic economy, but find it very hard to do. According to Joly, leaders\u2019 true purpose is to transform from only being great business leaders to also become great human leaders. Today\u2019s leaders must lead with, not only the brain, but also with their heart and soul. Therefore, leaders need to start with themselves and ask: \u201cwhat is my true purpose as a leader?\u201d. Getting some coaching help could be one way of managing this transformation, as mentioned in last year\u2019s Forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another factor that plays an important role in humanizing businesses is who the board select as the next CEO. According to Maurice Levy, board rooms are haunted by Milton Friedman and his maximizing shareholders\u2019 value mantra as the ultimate duty of any board. Whilst boards recognize this may not be useful anymore, they struggle to discard it. Perhaps if boards started seeing and accepting the importance of an CEO as a great human leader, as well as a great business leader, they might recognize that better performance comes from better human qualities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How fast should leaders push the transformation of their businesses<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The panel shared the view that many leaders should \u201cslow down\u201d the transformation to achieve true strategic change of their business. The hunt for quick wins, could according to Dr. Elsbeth Johnson play some role to demonstrate success, but is not in any way a proof for true long-term change, which demands a true shift in mindset and of the technical system. Instead, leaders should view a transformation more long-term and understand that for a real change to happen, behavior need to change, supported by changes in structure, compensation and more. This reminds me about the excellent model developed by Schein and Schein (2017) in their book \u2018The Corporate Culture Survival Guide\u2019 in which they discuss cultural transformation from three perspectives: social culture (behavior), technical culture (the design), and the macro culture (influences from outside, for example fads such as Holacracy, Lean, and more).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, the leader should during a transformation focus on \u2018outcomes\u2019 and ask the right questions to their people in the organization, rather than take on the role of the central agent for change. Johnson referred this phenomenon to \u2018Magic Delusion\u2019 in which the leader over values his or her own role and contribution to change. The risk then is that the change process will stop as soon as that leader has left the company. Other risks are the; \u2018Drama delusion, the Activity delusion, and the Agency delusion. With the Drama delusion Johnson means that the change needs to be perceived as fast and action packed but is then also very risky. With Activity delusion she refers to the risk of focusing on quick wins, rather than on a long-term change. Finally, with Agency delusion she means the same as Schein and Schein (2017) stated, namely that a change in people and their behavior is not enough for a change. Instead, a change requires also changes in the technical system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An excellent example on a leadership team that BOTH has humanized their company and <\/em>successfully managed a long-term transformation, from being a cash cow to start being a winner in the digital age, is the leadership team at GE Appliances (GEA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The team did 4 simple things:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n a) Defined a leading goal<\/p>\n\n\n\n b) Promoted and role modelled a new set of beliefs (culture)<\/p>\n\n\n\n c) Reinvented the organizational structure and how different units were to be aligned with each other<\/p>\n\n\n\n d) Redefined the compensation system<\/p>\n\n\n\n The transformation of GE Appliances was not falling into any of Johnson\u2019s \u2018delusion traps.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us start with the first one, \u2018Magic delusion\u2019. The transformation was and is not conducted by Kevin Nolan, the CEO himself. Instead, he got advice from Mr. Liang at Haier, and he consulted his senior leadership team and asked them to suggest solutions for working more \u2018user focused\u2019 and to become a winner in the North American market. Nolan trusted his senior leaders, so that important decisions were made based on senior leaders\u2019 involvement and competences. Further, Nolan also avoided the \u2018Agency delusion\u2019, as GEA, after Nolan\u2019s alignment with senior leaders, performed technical changes of management processes, structure, and compensation system, which in turn required a new behavior as well from leaders, between units, and between people on different levels. Regarding the \u2018Drama delusion\u2019, GEA did several of the big changes already during the first 12 months. However, the leadership team perceived the risk to stay \u2018AS-IS\u2019 as larger than to perform the changes during the first year- and they had key stakeholders with them. So even if many changes were done during a short time period, the team was not looking for quick wins (the \u2018Activity delusion\u2019) as they believed they had to change to stay relevant in the digital age. Their focus was, and still is, long-term and their transformation journey has not stopped. Neither will it, as the external environment continuous to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For more information about GE Appliances transformation, please read: <\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/must-there-be-a-human-imperative-at-the-core-of-organizations-by-annika-steiber\/ <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Or<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/benjaminlaker\/2021\/09\/17\/here-are-the-four-simple-steps-that-transformed-ge-appliances\/?sh=25eb50d763ff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n About the Author:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Annika Steiber<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is a Professor, Best-Selling Author, Speaker, Founder, Investor and the Director of the Rendanheyi Silicon Valley Center. She is the author of eight management books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 13th Global Peter Drucker Forum again raised business critical questions such as: \u201cCan big businesses be humanized\u201d and \u201cHow fast should you transform your business. The answers were: \u201cYES you can humanize a big company \u201c, and \u201cyou need to CHANGE your perception on how fast a strategic change of your business will be\u201d.[\u2026]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"categories":[313,297],"tags":[298,292],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3528,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3524\/revisions\/3528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Drucker Forum 2021<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>
#DruckerForum<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Amy Bernstein<\/strong>\u00a0Editor, Harvard Business Review & VP Harvard Business Publishing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hubert Joly<\/strong>\u00a0Senior Lecturer Harvard Business School; former CEO, Best Buy
Claudio Fern\u00e1ndez-Ar\u00e1oz<\/strong>\u00a0Executive Fellow for Executive Education, HBS
Maurice L\u00e9vy<\/strong>\u00a0Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Publicis Groupe
Patricia Pomies<\/strong>\u00a0Chief Operating Officer, Globant<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jenny Darroch<\/strong> Dean, Farmer School of Business, Miami University in Oxford<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roger L. Martin<\/strong> Strategy advisor; former Dean, Rotman School of Management
Sara Mathew<\/strong> Non-executive Chair, Freddie Mac; former CEO Dun & Bradstreet
Elsbeth Johnson<\/strong> Senior Lecturer MIT\u2019s Sloan School of Management, Managing Director, SystemShift
Michael Watkins<\/strong> Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at the Institute of Management Development and Co-Founder of Genesis Advisers<\/p>\n\n\n\n