Change management - How to identify who is going to make a difference ?

They only make up 5% of staff members, yet they are the ones who need to be mobilized.

A buzzword of our time is transformation. Digital transformation, cultural transformation, agile transformation, transformational dogmas (that of liberation or of holacracy): everything today can and inescapably will be subjected to transformation, from the army to small businesses, from the State to our schools. The world is changing – in this respect, the philosopher Michel Serres talks of our time as undergoing a third major anthropological revolution in the history of humanity – and its movement is generating a number of turbulences, each of them having their own impact on organizations. Some attempt to idealize this transformation as a form of science or absolute truth: we must transform because that’s the way it will be, because ceaseless motion and adaptation will define the world of tomorrow.  Firms with the most cumbersome, sluggish and sometimes even demotivating organizations however aren’t ready for such change.

 “We opened the cages and people didn’t come out.”

If transformation were to have a clear imperative, then it would be to place humans at its center. By definition, each business transformation is unique, and that’s why transformation isn’t primarily a matter of tools, of technologies or of methodologies, but a matter of people. To allow yourself, on a personal level, to break free from mindsets you’ve been stuck in, to transgress your own rules, to change your habits and to get out of your comfort zone, that’s what constitutes the very beginning of a transformational process. But it isn’t always easy. As the CEO of a major retail company once confessed to me when recounting his attempt to “liberate” his employees: “We opened the cages and people didn’t come out. They didn’t get it. Maybe they just weren’t ready…” And yet, when people accept to evolve and transform their day-to-day habits, they slowly but surely impact their corporate culture and redefine it in time. This process of transformation, when initiated by a firm’s social collective and amplified by its cultural medium, can finally anchor itself at the organizational level. Individual => Culture => Structure: if there was a recipe for transformation, it could be summed up in this logical order, like that of falling dominoes. But actually, this logical order implies that there can’t be a single, definite recipe, a “one size fits all” of corporate transformation: the social fabric of each company is unique, singular. It is the product of a particular history, of diversities that have found meeting grounds, of developments which grew through time. The base ingredients being unique, no recipe can end up with the same result. And yet, what is there more difficult to “shift” than human complexity itself?

Shifting focus

This transformation can’t be a goal in itself, even if a capacity for perpetual change remains an absolute prerequisite for the business of tomorrow. For us to accept this this need for change, and hence for the transformation process to be initiated by the men and women who make up the social fabric of companies, it is imperative that the transformation process itself be a vehicle of meaning. The model of “transformation for survival” just isn’t enough anymore. We must think of corporate transformation as offering a broader perspective and as reawakening our hopes and dreams, in order to lift spirits and to find these lost sparks of personal engagement within a firm that will most certainly bring about change. But then how do we attain such goals?

Even though each transformation process is unique, common traits between processes exist, notably concerning the absolutely necessary ingredients to shift a social model in its culture and organization. Two major principles have to be accounted for: the strong hold of executive management on the community of people who make up a firm needs to be released, and in turn this community needs to be given more responsibilities. Our focus is shifted in order to benefit the organization’s base structure.

This opening up of management’s grip must occur, but it cannot be forced either. It is the result of a long maturation process on both a personal and a professional level. It implies having the ability to accept at a given point that your company’s transformation will, in the most part, be led by its human capital. We must accept not knowing exactly where we’re headed, and we must accept not knowing with whom we are going on this adventure, while also letting go and dealing with uncertainty as it comes. Finally, we must accept to trust those who constitute the “soul” of the company, not only to carry out change, but more importantly to think and envision it. This is where our efforts prove the most daring, because it entails accepting a new vision of what business is and of how it operates. But who can we count on to make this happen? Some profiles, who often represent less than 5% of the employees, can have a real impact, with their involvement boosting the entire company. They will rally the sluggish and shush the doubtful once they prove that change is possible through action, even as they move slowly but surely from a diagnostic to a plan of action, from a plan of action to a prototype, and from a prototype to wide-scale transformation. And the more the company’s own community is passionate, corrosive, and embedded with small and big stories of both love and hate, the more chances we have of finding these leaders of transformation. Indeed, firms with a rich cultural heritage, those which have impacted generations of staff members are filled with men and women eager to deeply change the rules of the game, and this staff knows the firm better than anyone else.

Different but complementary

These transformers can be divided into two widely different, yet complementary, character-types. On the one hand there are the “loudmouths”, those who are well-known even by the board of directors, and who are run-down, embittered, and in all truth saddened. They were once madly in love with their job, and today can still be major agents of change if they realize that the free rein given to them in the transformation process isn’t just a form of corporate courtesy, that they really have been given the power to experiment on key strategic subjects (management or governance models, systems of performance evaluation, …). If this first category of transformation leaders will spontaneously volunteer to answer the calls for applicants of change, the other main character-type of transformation however does not, because this category consists entirely of introverts. Always flying under the radar of human resources and board members, these employees find meaning in both setting things in motion and critically investigating them. Within this transversal and in some ways disruptive approach, they discover their own hidden potential and find the means to fully realize it. They have always felt a bit cramped in the box they were put in, in the job description they had to fit into… And no one would be willing to bet on these silent types, not even them! But other staff members that know them – and we can bet that those “bigmouths” have already taken notice– will be the ones to put them in the spotlight. After they have been revealed, they will have to be approached with caution, and convincing them to participate in change won’t be an easy task.

When Patricia, a factory worker with 25 years of experience, asks you why she should step out of her comfort zone to stir up the order of things she has grown accustomed to over the past two decades, you better be prepared. And the answer to give her isn’t so obvious either: is it to commit herself to the company so that it can continue to survive? Or is it to make her more important? Or simply more useful? All these answers sound empty… and sometimes fake. There is only answer we can bring to such a question, an answer which may seem vague and philosophical yet is everything but that. Here’s the right answer: Because businesses of tomorrow will be more beautiful, more virtuous, more respectful and more humane than what she had experienced before. Because her commitment and her energy will contribute to shape companies which we’ll be proud of tomorrow, and which proudly transform today. Because beyond the evolution or revolution of ways of functioning, whether they be cultural, managerial or organizational, what is truly at stake is the company’s deeper reason for existing, its raison d’être, and that is where the true meaning of transformation lies. There may exist a third way between the dry capitalism of Milton Friedman and the different forms of social and solidarity economy which exist today. These “businesses with a mission” would have an augmented corporate purpose, on par with the human, environmental and economic impact which they already have. It is only by giving such an ambitious answer that we’ll be able to convince both the “loudmouths” and the introverts to break free from their organizational cage. 

Emmanuelle Duez

Founder, The Boson Project