How the best leadership creates a movement for change

Have you seen the Broadway show Kinky Boots?

There are many great lines in the show.

But, one of my favourite lines reminds me of what I believe many employees ask themselves when they’re sifting through announcements about the latest transformation.

The shop owner is excitedly explaining his ideas about expanding his shoe shop to Kinky.

And a bored Kinky asks the owner, “Are you going to get to the part about where it concerns me?”

In other words, Kinky is asking “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM) meaning, "How is this relevant to what I want?”.

I’m curious.

How often do leaders of major change and transformation programs charge into their offices and, similar to the shop owner, splatter the staff with content before answering the WIIFM question?

We have agendas, objectives and a mission to satisfy. That’s naturally where our thoughts live.

And we deliver all our tasks to satisfy the agenda. But our satisfying this agenda is of no importance to staff.

What is important to staff is feeling that they have been considered and thought about.? After all, we are still dependent on people to run the business and in transformations it is crucial to remember this. It is also one of the reasons why HR is such an important element of a successful transformation. Indeed, why the role of an HR business partner is changing. It is no longer an audit role. It is,” how do you get the the best out of the people?”

Post transformation, there is an expectation of a different process and behaviours that requires almost a reskilling agenda for the individuals. Potentially they also need a different sort of talent. All of which magnifies the WIIFM question if you’re going to bring people with you.

This draws me back to a podcast that I was listening to which was talking about “What is it that an organisation is built to do?”

It’s quite interesting because the whole idea was that every organisation at the end of the day protects a core value, not value as in power, but a core value that it believes in, and the processes and systems are built round it to protect that value.? So, when you try to enforce the transformation, automatically these processes and systems which are built to protect that core will push it back. That’s the organisational inertia trying to stop it because it thinks that the transformation will steal the value that it’s trying to protect.

When it comes from inside, when your organisation feels that the transformation will deliver a different value, the culture will align around it to ensure that the transformation is successful. It’s easier said than done, of course. For example, if a leader goes in trying to enforce something, it’s bound to fail. It’s almost designed to fail. But, if that design were to come from the inside out, and obviously the leader can play role in that, then things will tend to align better, ensuring that it is more successful.

What we are talking about here is values and you could even say culture. Transformation is a challenge to the culture of the organisation and, if it’s a strong culture, the culture binds together stronger and your chances of success for the transformation is almost nil. There’s no way that transformation will be successful. The culture is too strong.

The question then becomes “how do you negotiate this hurdle” and this is where good leadership comes in.

This isn’t necessarily a single leader, more a collective leadership of an organisation, looking through what they want to transform in the business. How do they start creating the story around that transformation and communicate it to start building that inside out appetite for change. This is where WIIFM comes in. You can throw all the money, all the resources, all the bodies at the programme, but if you never hit that frequency, you might as well pack up and go home.

It’s simply human nature. Someone comes along and says you have to do something differently; you have to relearn, you have to do it this way, you have to do it that way. Whilst the person is thinking, “I’m actually doing a good job”. In fact, thinking, “most of us are doing a good job, but now you’re telling me I have to do it differently.”

So, this becomes the organisation inertia.? Unless that person and those people are clear, what’s in it for them, they have no desire for change and will push back. Change doesn’t happen and, as we all know by now, the organisation then becomes one of the 70% that fails.? Remember Blackberry, Nokia, Blockbuster.? Blackberry didn’t believe the iPhone would work. Nokia didn’t believe the App Store would either.? Everyone thought they were doing a good job. No one saw a need to change. No one told a story that made the case for change credible.

Often, it seems, the story is underrated, but when people buy into the story that will probably be the game changer. They will look at WIIFM and they can see themselves in the story. They will believe their interests or concerns are addressed and now think, “yes, this is something I can get behind.” They’ll go “okay, I’m on board”.

They will buy in to the Big Why – the vision and the part they will play in that – and into the Little Why – the benefits for me. The WIIFM. Indeed, WIIFU. The benefits for us.

That’s when the corporate inertia visibly starts to dissipate, and you get a whole movement of people collaborating to make the change happen and make it successful.

And the alternative?? WHOGAS.??

At risk of saying what we all know… “Who gives a…”