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The Top Nine (Costly!) Mistakes Leaders Make During Times of Change
Big Mistake #1: Assuming the change is technical vs. adaptive or transformational and that a traditional PMO or internal change management function can handle this kind of change.
It can feel like you are on top of the change when you are looking at tools like your internal PMO’s red, yellow and green scorecard or ProSci’s change metrics or Bain’s Results Dashboard. These tools often give a false sense of security during times of turbulent change.
While these tools can be helpful, particularly during times of what we call “technical” change (where there are more knowns than unknowns), they are woefully inadequate for a transformational or adaptive change where there are material known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns. Traditional ‘adoption’ and compliance-centric approaches do not help leaders manage in a way that helps the organization learn and fail-forward and they cannot begin to help the executive juggle the complexity of transformation.
Big Mistake #2: Applying the wrong change approach.
Big change has important nuance; unfortunately, most executives have only seen a few change approaches in their careers and therefore miss that important nuance. Subsequently, they make the mistake of misapplying an approach they’ve seen before to a new change challenge – which may or may not be the right approach. Or they apply the way they think to the way the organization thinks. Sometimes transformation must appeal to logic (“it just makes sense that we should do this rather than that”). Sometimes transformation is cultural in that ways of working need to shift and change. Sometimes the end-state or how the organization will get there is so obscure, it needs to evolve over time. And sometimes, the organization simply needs to be forced to make a change (“on or off the bus”). The key is to make sure the right approach is used based upon a series of criteria, not just the executive’s experience or gut feel.
Big Mistake #3: Leaders do not have a sober and complete understanding of the change.
Merely parroting the strategic plan is insufficient; leaders must assess how the new strategy will impact their organization—whether the effect is very high, high, moderate, low, or negligible. For each area significantly affected, leaders need a clear understanding of the current state, including the maturity level of each function, the team’s performance, skill gaps, and what needs to be added, increased, or eliminated in the future. They must also identify any obstacles—such as technology, compensation systems, or employee engagement—that could hinder progress.
This work is critical, yet many leaders lack the necessary skills to perform it effectively, and HR departments are often not structured to support this process. Additionally, some leaders may find it easier to navigate this work than others, which poses a challenge, as the success of the change program often hinges on its weakest link. Therefore, it is essential to involve transformation experts to facilitate this critical process.
Big Mistake #4: Not moving fast enough and not taking on enough.
While it is true that companies need to make sure they don’t take on more change than the organization can handle, in our experience, companies don’t take on enough and/or they move too slowly, fearing the organization will not be able to catch up or absorb all the changes. Smart change leaders know ‘picking up the pace’ is often necessary at the beginning of any transformation to help ‘wake the company up’. Companies rarely take on too much – at least at the start. The root cause of the feeling “we are going too fast” or “taking on too much too soon” comes from a lack of ‘change elasticity.' Change elasticity can be built while change is occurring, provided the organization employs the right tools at the right time to help shepherd the organization through the change.
Big Mistake #5: Assuming the existing system (built for running the business) within the company will be able to effectively lead a “change the business” program.
Most companies are inherently designed for efficiency, predictability, and scale, making them ill-equipped for change. To facilitate transformation, organizations must adapt their structures, decision-making processes, risk management, and business systems across functional and organizational boundaries. CEOs and transformational leaders may mistakenly believe that change can simply be absorbed into existing meetings. Instead, what’s needed is an "alternative organizational construct" to effectively manage and lead change. When operating in a "change-the-business" mode, the organization must plan, make decisions, and lead differently. Traditional decision-making processes may need to be modified, including who has the authority to say "no." Sponsors must be empowered to grant different decision rights to navigate these changes successfully.
Big Mistake #6: Under-thinking and under-valuing the role and the selection of the “change master."
You would likely never attempt to climb Mount Everest on your own, especially without years of expert climbing experience. Rather, experienced “sherpas” help a group of would-be climbers to prepare (right equipment, enough food, right shelter, etc) and execute a climb (when and how to manage to each camp on the way up the mountain). Leading transformational change is no different. Leading change requires common or mastery of more leadership skills and know-how than any other leadership position.
Too many CEO’s see the strategic formulation stage as the most engaging part of the transformation when in fact, the company is just getting started. Choosing the right sherpa is one of the most overlooked decisions a CEO can make.
This role is incredibly difficult to find and staff (especially internally). According to the research of TalentTelligent, there are 35 knowledge, skills, and attributes (KSAs) of a leader. A change master needs to be either proficient or achieve mastery across 18 and many of these skills are either ‘hard’ or ‘very hard’ to develop – making this role one of the most challenging roles in business. On one side, informed CEO’s should look to assign a role like this to an internal “high performer” in order to further stretch the candidate and develop “C” suite skills. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to develop transformational leadership skills organically, and the change requires someone who can lead ‘right now’. Many legacy leaders actively work to undermine any internal change leader by either using their title (if the leader is more junior) or position to thwart what they perceive as succession envy or just being forced to change. As such, this role must be immune to the political games played inside the organization – or at least savvy enough to effectively wield them to their advantage. This role is crucial to ensuring active and ongoing alignment.
Big Mistake #7: Leaders not investing enough time working with their peers connecting strategy to execution.
“Ready, set, go! Everyone play to win!” A divide-and-conquer, everyone stay in your own swim lanes approach is not going to work during transformational change. Too many changes require cross-organizational, interdependent interaction that require a siloed structure to be eradicated, and an alternative organizational structure imposed just for change-the-business activities.
Alignment during transformation requires executives to spend more time together – often double what they are used to. Transformational change requires an entire new business rhythm to effectively manage all the moving parts. Early in the change process, executives often push back on the number of hours required in change-the-business meetings and the mandatory attendance and no proxy rules we establish; but they quickly realize how vital this time is and how much more efficient they can be with leading their teams through the change as a result. Client who employ our approach often achieve their strategic objectives early or obtain results far beyond what they thought was possible simply due to this enhanced focus and the internal synergies it produces.
Big Mistake #8: Not taking the opportunity to develop leaders on-purpose during transformational change resulting in leaders not having a tuned their ears to the organizational sounds of apathy and resistance.
There are two enemies of change: apathy and resistance. The organization’s culture is designed to fight off anything new or foreign (but more on that topic in our 3rd article in this series). During transformational change, leaders must be taught to identify and work to address apathy and resistance when it pops up. Further, sometimes those who sound like they are being resistant have something really important to say – understanding when complaining is just complaining vs. when complaining is indicating organizational pain that must be addressed is a crucial skillset that must be built over time and with experienced transformation experts.
Prior to engaging the organization, the leadership team must be equipped with what apathy and resistance will likely sound like and how the communication strategy (including formal and informal) will address it and how leaders will follow up on it to ensure collective alignment and accountability to the outcomes.
Big Mistake #9: Failure to move decisively and removing obstacles (people, process, technology).
Identifying the obstacles to change are often not difficult. It is the speed at removing the obstacle that usually gets in the way. A traditionally high-performing or long-tenured employee is actively resisting the changes. A legacy system that everyone is accustomed to using isn’t fit-for-purpose and is retarding the changes. An internally developed manual process is preferred over a better or more efficient one. The fear of loss often outweighs the potential of the new and the better. Leaders are often loathe to address these obstacles, as doing so is often upsetting to the employees…so they don’t take action on the problem employee. They wait for employees to begin embracing a new system or process. Meanwhile, the change lags…