How Leaders Create An Irresistible Case For Change
Richard B. Roolvink
Managing Consultant at ICG Integrated Consulting Group - Rijnconsult
This article does not focus on the need for change. In 2018 we have all sufficiently understood and accepted that change is vital and the new normal. Any company in any business sector will need to adapt or it will soon become obsolete and ultimately die. A tsunami of articles and books are hitting us every day and also in the coming years, we will be bombarded with an endless stream of management mud.
No, this article takes the need for change as a given whilst focusing on the challenge HOW to deal with change once you know WHY you want it. Let’s face it, if it comes to change many leaders jump around being fearful to miss out on the latest trends or they just copy their competition (because we cannot afford to lag behind).
Too few leaders spend too little time and too little distance on formulating;
Why Do I Fundamentally Want To Change?
Every change needs a ‘’case for change’’, without it any change program will fail as nobody will understand it nor support it. So how can you solve this?
8 Ways To Find Your Case For Change
- Create a burning platform. What is your sense of urgency that underpins the reason why change is the only option and hence, standing still is not an option? Without this urgency, people will not change. Unfortunately, one of the least popular yet most effective ways to mobilize people is to visualize the pain they will suffer in the case of status quo.
- Be crystal clear on what you aim to achieve and why you want this. Don’t mix up ambition/vision with strategies/targets. Avoid a situation whereby discussions about the future are bogged down by the targets for today and tomorrow.
- Ensure your team develops a shared interest. If this doesn’t exist, everyone goes their own way or even worse, 'yes' is said and '' no '' is done.
- Be bold and reach for the stars. Ambition requires courage because small changes do not exist. If it does not feel uncomfortable enough, it is not a real change.
- Be 100% clear on the upside. Be 100% clear what pleasure we all experience when this change is successfully implemented.
- Be 100% clear about the pain. Be 100% clear that change is not a free lunch and what pain we should be willing to suffer.
- Stimulate all to join. Make clear that participation is not voluntary. You are either in or out. Every employee is expected to bring their part to the party. All need to contribute how the journey to the final destination will take shape, as long as he understands that the endgame will not change.
- Show the endgame but also how to get there. Make the intangible tangible. Translate the ambition into tangible steps people can relate to by painting the big but certainly also the small picture.
You might think that all this seems quite obvious. But if this would be the case, why is it so many leaders are struggling with change? It’s more likely that I might have lost you because you’re still stuck in analysis paralysis of not knowing how to formulate your own compelling case for change. For those, there are some ‘’alternative’’ ways that might trigger your inspiration as these ways force you to elevate yourself and your team to another level of looking at your business. These ways will really push you out of your box. In fact, they stimulate you to think as if there’s no box.
6 Ways To Further Elaborate Your Case For Change
1. Pick A Green Field
Forget all you’ve achieved so far and imagine how a brand new start will look like. There are no constraints in terms of time and resources, there’s is just that virgin green grass waiting for you to play your ballgame on. Looking at the current world, with the customer and competition of today, where would you begin and what would you do differently (stop, start, do less or more)? And most importantly, why would you make other choices (than you made so far) and what hampers you from making these?
2. Attack your own company (or concept)
Suppose you have an unlimited budget and all the possibilities of the world, what would you do to attack your own organization, product or concept? Analyze in which areas your current organization is really hard to beat. Then formulate the initiatives you would take if you have the chance to hurt your own organization, product or concept from the outside.
3. Think Like Pipi Longstocking
Logic will take you from A to B, imagination will take you anywhere (Einstein) or the equivalent in the words of Pipi Longstocking: I’ve never done this before, so I think I can do this. Most of our limitations are imaginative, they are actually mental barriers based on assumptions. It is the constraints in an individual’s mind or an organization’s culture that tend to be what limits us. Once, we can overcome these, we can achieve much more.
4. Adopt The Most Advanced Yet Acceptable (MAYA)
In the car industry, designers make concept cars that are only shown in exhibitions. In doing so they test whether something really progressive will be accepted by the frontrunners in the market. From this principle, you first stimulate maximal creativity where nothing is too crazy and everything is possible. This way ambition is pushed to an ultimate level whereby the reality check is deliberate of a later concern. You will achieve much better results than when you take the existing situation as a starting point and extrapolate from there.
5. Double Your Bet
In order to break existing patterns, you can double the bet. Ask questions like 'what if we want to be 10 times as big?', 'How can we reduce 100 to 0?' or 'What if the world would be our playing field?' If the answer is still easy to give, double the bet again. Just until there are no easy answers anymore. If you reach this point you are forced to look at it from another perspective. Stretch yourself and the team to the level that it starts to feel uncomfortable and at which point you don’t have the (easy) answers anymore. Remember, there’s no such thing as small change!
6. Involve Unusual Suspects
It is often the same bunch of people within an organization that are asked to think about the future and to shape vision and strategy. In the long term, this will lead to the same debate, the same assumptions, tunnel vision and obstructing convictions. Why not involve a completely different group of 'unusual suspects'? Think of employees, customers or people who are not even customers or suppliers. And why not involve children, even when these are not your target, it doesn’t matter as children have entirely different, original and non-judgmental perspectives. There are no old roads to new destinations!
How I’ll Keep To Myself As A Leader, While Transformation Is Requested?
Now after all this ‘’hard stuff’’, your biggest challenge is probably the ‘’soft stuff’’. Actually, the soft stuff is always harder than the hard stuff… So, even when your case for change is crystal clear and well understood by your team, you still have a huge challenge to galvanize all into the need for transformation.
The way how you as a leader drive change is crucial for success. Because you are a role model who is expected to know how success looks like and to act accordingly. How can you become the change you want to see? Obviously, every leader has his personal preferences and style. Also, every challenge and context differs. But there are some universal behavioral aspects every leader should be aware of and can benefit from.
8 Leadership Traits That Help You To Drive Change
- Always hold on to your original dream even when others tell you it’s unrealistic.
- Be the change you want to see. Be aware that a leader should lead by example.
- Be honest what you feel about the progress. Tell it like it is.
- Stay open to other views and approaches of your team or peers.
- Be prepared to change your views on the HOW, yet remain adamant about the WHY.
- Give prevalence to the facts but respect feelings and intuition (of others and yourself)
- Celebrate all, even the smallest steps of progress.
- Make success measurable and tangible, but also the efforts to get there.
Takeaways
The need for change is widely accepted, no doubt about it. Starting change without a well-articulated idea about its reason is irrational and doomed to fail. Yet in today's quest for short-term results too few leaders afford themselves to take sufficient time and distance to find their case for change and the support needed to reach the endgame they have in mind.
Many leaders are just busy going nowhere, showing action with the perception that stagnation is always worse as it means decline. The 8 ways as described above to first capture the key motivations for change and the 6 kick starters to further elaborate the case for change, might help you as a leader to land change successfully from a hard i.e. content perspective. The 8 leadership traits might be helpful to drive change from a soft i.e context perspective.
From my personal experience in many diverse transformation processes, I learned that the time and effort spent into finding common ground about the WHY and WHAT change intends to bring, right from the start, will be paid back five times over later in the transformation process. Even in these ultra-modern times and old saying is still a valuable advice:
Look before you leap!
Thanks for reading and do feel free to comment, like or share the article if any part of this post sparks an interest. I would be honored to serve as your thought and sparring partner in formulating the case for change for your business. Together we can implement your vision with business strategy, transformation, and leadership development. I have a history of working as a trusted advisor to many marketing and business leaders in top-tier companies as well as start- and scale-up ventures, specializing in ‘next practices’ for those who know that only the imaginative survive.
Richard B. Roolvink is an entrepreneur in marketing leadership and owner of ROOLVINK MANAGEMENT & CONSULTANCY BV. He helps brands and people to unlock their business potential and to accelerate growth.
+31 6 46 31 29 39
Earlier publications on LinkedIn:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/richardroolvink/detail/recent-activity/posts/
