Implementing change... What is the role of the change agent?

Welcome to my second Smarticle published in the spirit of sharing with my business network the research I’ve done as part of completing my MSc on Strategic Leadership and Change.

The aim of my Smarticles series is to critically analyse the role of change agency in the successful implementation of innovation through organisational ambidexterity.

I hope you find it useful and insightful!

The Problem Statement

We live in a turbulent world. Societies, macro markets and technologies are evolving continuously and unexpectedly. As stated by the well known author Hamel...

‘Innovation is the only defense against margin-crushing competition...’

According to Hamel, the macro organisational context analysis shows, clearly, that sudden radical changes or longer periods of transition are numerous, varied and often unavoidable. Nevertheless, implementing innovation is linked to implementing change and change remains one of the most complex tasks in modern management. One of the key factors to enable change is the range of human dynamics within an organisation, with these being most crucial during any period of innovation implementation. It is inevitable that people and organisations need to adapt and renew their mind-sets, practices and capabilities to prosper within new contexts.

There is unprecedented agreement amongst scholars and practitioners that organisations face the biggest challenges in managing high levels of changes. As a consequence, my research has revealed that...

80% of change initiatives fail

Whilst authors from Harvard and Stanford Universities affirm that ambidextrous organisations are more likely to succeed in managing change to implement innovation. Moreover, a study conducted by O’Reilly and Tushman shows that...

90% of companies implementing a model of ambidextrous organisation to innovate do succeed - provided they are managed with the right change agency.

Further, according to an analysis done by another Harvard Business School professor shows that of 68 change initiatives carried out in the UK National Health Service (NHS), a high proportion owe their success to the change agents involved – and their network within it. As such, they affirm that...

the likelihood of an organisation successfully adopting change often depends on the specific characteristics of the change agent’s network, when engaged in the change process.

This adds to the importance of the results shared from this research and the need to explore models of ambidextrous organisations to effectively implement innovation and organisational ambidexterity, whilst analysing the role of change agents as enablers of this change.

To recap on the meaning of ambidexterity in this context…

Organisational ambidexterity refers to an organisation’s ability to use a dual strategic approach of exploration and exploitation.  In other words and according to the definition given by well known academic authors, an ambidextrous organisation as one with the ability to be equally efficient at serving today’s customer’s demands, whilst simultaneously being proactive to implement innovation.

Moreover, organisational ambidexterity allows companies to implement innovation and change at a higher rate of success than other type of change management practices.

The role of the change agent…

Of utmost importance to implement ambidexterity is an effective change agency model. The paradigms of traditional models of leadership over the last century have been top-down and highly bureaucratic. Authors like Drucker add that most of our assumptions on leadership have outlived their time.

Moreover, Hamel warns companies of the need to revert the pyramid of management structures and move away from the notion of the CEO as the visionary and the captain of the ship. Lastly, but of equal importance as mentioned earlier, in the implementation of change are the change agents’ networks within in which they operate.

Next... we will explore the types of change agents networks…