How Change Happens, by John Kotter, Jane McConnell & Dr Jen Frahm

Anyone who has worked in, or with, a large organization knows how painful change feels there. The much-invoked agility is often just an empty mantra, contradicted at every moment by the reality of facts. Good ideas tend to have a harder time progressing than bad ones, and even what starts as inspiring calls to action get digested into targets, goals, budgets and dashboards, only increasing “workforce anxiety and fear”, impeding action.

The latter observation is found in Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times co-authored by John P. Kotter, Vanessa Akhtar and Gaurav Gupta (Wiley). I have been lucky to work with these talented individuals, and I couldn’t wait to read their recently published book. Around the same time, two other authors and change experts I highly respect published their own books on change: The Gig Mindset Advantage: Why a Bold New Breed of Employee Is Your Organization’s Secret Weapon in Volatile Times by Jane McConnell (Figure 1) and Change. Leader: The Changes You Need to Make First by Dr Jen Frahm. I was curious to explore what these books tell us, individually and together, about organizational change. What valuable lessons can we draw from their singular perspectives??

Before anything, there is no doubt that these authors know their field. John Kotter , Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at Harvard Business School and the author of numerous leadership bestsellers, collaborated on this latest book with experts Vanessa Akhtar and Gaurav Gupta of the Kotter management consulting firm’s research and development department. Jane McConnell has more than 20 years of experience as a researcher and consultant on leadership and work culture in the digital age, including assembling and publishing seminal studies on organizational change between 2006 and 2017. Co-founder of The Agile Change Leadership Institute, an executive coach, and already the author of several books, Dr. Jen Frahm is recognized in the field of organizational change and transformation.

Change presents a very comprehensive synthesis of the approach advocated and developed by Kotter, with many stories – including one I was personally part of in a pharmaceutical company. The main concepts are brought together and connected: "human nature" – our resistance or capacity for change, and how these can be modulated – the nature of modern organizations – and how they can, by adding a second system, remain reliable and efficient while becoming fast and agile – and the guiding principles of successful change. Examples picked in the field of Strategic Planning, Digital Transformation, Restructuring, M&A... indicate the paths to take, as well as those to avoid. The successful paths may seem obvious (creating energy and passion around a positive opportunity, mobilizing the diversity of many, relentlessly celebrating victories...) but I can tell from experience that they are not. Most of the time, organizations rely on top-down strategies, cascading, small groups of experts, and live in the illusion they can generate adoption and engagement through persuasion and communication.

The Gig Mindset Advantage describes the drivers, struggles and necessity of this “new breed of employee who dare to challenge the traditional thinking and ways of working (…), unseen and not yet recognized for their impact”. You can read an excellent review of the book here by Ana Neves . Backed by numerous charts, graphs and frameworks stemming from McConnell’s extensive research, this book is a precious vademecum for “movers”, aka internal change agents. Why would they need one? Well, because gig mindsetters face all sorts of resistance, even threat and punishment, from the very organizations they are striving to evolve. Just ask my former colleague referenced in the book with a great case study, or myself – we have bewildering stories to tell and I’m sure you have too. The book offers organizations and senior leaders concrete ways to promote the development of the gig mindset. Anyone dealing with jobs, performance evaluation, recruitment… and people management in general will find useful advice.

Change. Leader posits that no change is possible unless the leader demonstrates in action, his/her ability to change first. But change what? The book provides 33 leadership areas that we can make small, effective personal changes in to be a better leader of change.?It breaks them down in 65 Change Actions that we can implement right away – or rather, use as guiderails for on-going “gymnastics” (because change work is ceaseless). Laden with conceptual references and with self-reflection, Frahm’s book invites us to cultivate and grow the skills that are required for change: self-awareness, collaboration and communication, creativity and exploration, uncertainty-compatible decision-making, inclusive leadership… This quick overview does not do justice to the book, which is very specific on all these topics. I highlighted many passages, including this one on relatedness in times of Covid: “People are fractured, the intensity of fear and trauma experienced in the year has resulted in micro-communities that don’t always relate well to others”. This is why, in order to be effective in leading change, we “need to establish commonalities”. Spot on.

Back to the title of this post. How does change happen? The three books offer three possible starting points:

• In Change, Kotter et al. suggest change happens when organizations take on a different way of achieving their goals: one that involves more leadership by more people, that creates a virtuous cycle of positive energy and tangible improvement. For this to work, the decision must be taken and visibly, persistently supported at the highest possible level of an organization. It takes visible and constant commitment from senior leadership to “authorize” the rest of the organization to work differently.
• In The Gig Mindset, McConnell suggests change happens when organizations support their “movers” instead of restraining them – and when these, in parallel, grow their “positive deviance” skills. Hopefully McConnell book helps team leaders, senior managers, HR business partners and others understand that the future of their organization depends on the enablement and expansion of a gig mindset. It only makes organizations more resilient and successful in volatile times.
• In Change. Leader, Frahm suggests change starts with the leader him/herself, investing time and energy in self-awareness, self-development, and connection with others. Frahm walks the walk, having invited several thought partners to co-create the book with her. With change, coherence is essential! One cannot preach openness, collaboration, agility etc. for others only, and refrain from change oneself. Yet this is what happens all the time. I lost count of clients asking for executive training on change, without questioning their traditional ways of working. People hardly see how they themselves reproduce the very systems they’d like to change.

It is easy to see that these pathways for change are not exclusive and could be considered together (if you can, read the 3 books and identify the connection points – there are many).

One thing I particularly enjoyed in each book:

• From Change: an amazing story of a Kotter approach-inspired plant closure. Employees at five divested plants were literally given ownership of the closing process, which went better than expectations on all accounts (including employee satisfaction). If successful change can be achieved in such dire circumstances, it can be achieved anywhere. There are no excuses! Good change is a matter of leadership choice, not of employee obedience nor luck.
• From Gig Mindset: how intertwined digital and change acceptance are. The more digitally mature, the more corporate cultures are conducive of interpersonal trust and of change agency. Reachability (“people anywhere in the organization can be reached directly and individually in near real time”) is a key enabler of resilience. Also, I enjoyed the balanced approach to the gig mindset: it is not an absolute, but a dynamic balance that McConnell invites us to manage as a polarity.
• From Change. Leader: how approachable and operational the book is. Frahm’s proposals for change are clever and accessible, not dogmatic. I also loved the acknowledgement of country at the beginning of the book, and the chapter on anti-racism and gender equality at the end. Indeed, this is a big part of the changes we expect leaders to bring about through action. “Most of the barriers to?change are personal”, Michelle Redfern writes in Frahm’s book. It's time to stop blaming others for the difficulty of change, and start the work of change from ourselves.

Warm congratulations to the authors for these intelligent readings. To readers: what did you think? I would love to read your comments! And to those who haven't started these books yet: happy reading!