On Leading Organizational Change: 15 Things I Believe (For Now)

Last year, I started teaching a new undergraduate seminar at Stanford on Leading Organizational Change. My aim is to introduce students to pertinent academic theory and research, to have students meet people who have led change and hear their stories, and to give them a taste of the messy business of trying to change organizations for the better.

This year, I taught the class with the remarkable Ryan Stice-Lusvardi, a doctoral student in Stanford's Center for Work, Technology and Organization. We started by introducing the 29 students to a bit of organizational theory. We read Jim March's classic 1981 article "Footnotes to Organizational Change." My favorite point in this piece is that organizations are more flexible than many so-called experts claim; but they rarely change in ways that any particular stakeholder wants (including senior management). Here is March's key quote (with citations removed):

"What most reports on implementation indicate, however, is not that organizations are rigid and inflexible, but that they are impressively imaginative. Organizations change in response to their environments, but they rarely change in a way that fulfills the intentions of particular group of actors. Sometimes organizations ignore clear instructions; sometimes they pursue them more forcefully than was intended; sometimes they protect policymakers from folly; sometimes they do not. The ability to frustrate arbitrary intention, however, should not be confused with rigidity; nor should flexibility be confused with organizational effectiveness." 

Diverse guests talked to the class about lessons they learned from leading large-scale change efforts. We had a rhythm where, after each leader's visit, a student team would present what they learned from our guest and lead a class discussion about organizational change and, often, what they learned from the guest's career path (as these students are at the start of their careers). Our guests included Clara Shih (CEO of Hearsay Systems, pictured above), David Kelley (founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school), Eric Colson (Chief Algorithm Officer emeritus at Stich Fix), Jacob Jaber (CEO of Philz Coffee--pictured with his dad Phil at the top of this post), Thuan Pham (CTO of Uber), and Shona Brown (Former Executive Vice-President at Google and board member at places including Atlassian, Doordash, and Code for America).

We also visited a class called d.leadership at the Stanford d.school and listened to a dozen rapid-fire presentations from student duos about ongoing early-stage change efforts they were working on with partner organizations. These ranged from a project with Levi's ("How might we reinvent the online and in-person fitting experience?") to one with the Stanford Blood Center ("Our goal is to find ways to significantly increase our first-time donor base in 2020").

During the ninth week of the term, our class was led by Kursat Ozenc. He is co-author (with Margaret Hagen) of the useful, fun, and visually-compelling book Rituals for Work. We read the book and Kursat taught us about the logic, evidence, and methods for designing rituals. Our students then worked with Stanford Vice-President for Human Resources Elizabeth Zacharias and members of her team to develop prototype rituals to enhance their work with each other and other Stanford administrators, and to strengthen connections between HR staffers and Stanford students.

Although the two classes with Stanford's HR leaders just happened last week, I didn't know how pertinent they would be to a challenge that Ryan Stice-Lusvardi would face a few days later. Much of the work HR staffers do is virtual, over the Zoom platform. So some of the prototype rituals that our students performed for Zacharias and her colleagues were aimed at creating norms and rhythms to improve meetings where some or all participants attend via Zoom rather than in-person. For example, one team proposed a two-minute "flight-safety demonstration" at the start of each Zoom meeting where participants are reminded of etiquette and a "Zoom advocate" is selected to "make sure that everyone is heard, seen, and is following conversation."

As I write this, it is the Sunday before the final week of class for the Winter 2020-21 quarter. Because of the infection risk created by the COVID-19 virus, our final two classes will be held over Zoom (all in-person Stanford classes are cancelled for the rest of the term)--so the pressure is on to turn theory into practice! I was inspired to write this post in response to this challenge. Writing it helps me, and I hope will help our students, feel a stronger sense of closure about this class even though we won't be able to meet in-person again (despite the emotional hollowness and friction that often accompanies online classes). LinkedIn readers may also be interested in what our students did and learned this term-- and I want these students to know how proud of I am of the work they did during this loosely-structured learning adventure.

In other words, as Kursat might say, I am using this post as part of the ritual that Ryan, my students, and I are using to wrap-up the Leading Organizational Change class. The list below is inspired by lessons from the 35+ years that I've taught variations of an introduction to organizational behavior class. About 15 years ago, I developed a closing ritual for that class in which I discuss this list of 15 Things I Believe. Given the content of that organizational behavior class-- especially leadership, teams, organizational design--that list focuses on "Biased but mostly evidence-based opinions on management and life." I maintain it on LinkedIn and tweak it every now and then--and it is my pinned tweet in Twitter

I developed a sister list to wrap-up my newer Leading Organizational Change class. I would love to hear from LinkedIn readers (and students in my class) about what rings true on this list and about your ideas for additions, subtractions, and edits. After all, this is just the current prototype. Here goes:

1.    “Change is difficult and takes a long time” is true, but dangerous to think about too much. Leading change requires an odd blend of patience and impatience. Change requires patience because it is difficult and takes so long. And it requires impatience about the progress that you are making RIGHT NOW. If you don’t keep learning and moving ahead every day, change will take even longer and may never happen at all.

2.     Sometimes the best advice is “don’t just do something, stand there.”  Periods of reflection and listening are hallmarks of more effective – and faster – change.

3.    Silence is not golden. It signals that people believe the change “isn’t not my job,” they are afraid to speak up, or just don’t care.

4.    Leading change requires a blend of organizational design and therapy. It is partly about making objective changes in things like as structures, roles, rules, and incentives. And it is partly about anticipating, shaping, and reacting to others’ worries, fears, and hopes.

5.    Leading change requires the confidence to act on your convictions and the humility to realize that you might be wrong—in other words, what some scholars define as the essence of wisdom.

6.    Don’t think of people who resist change as idiots. Instead, ask yourself what might be wrong with the change or how you are implementing it.

7.    There is a difference between what you do and how you do it.  Change often entails actions that upset and hurt good people. The best leaders find ways to limit such damage – they devote particular attention to treating people with dignity and respect.

8.    The best leaders think of their organization as much like a malleable product.  They ask themselves questions like: “Do people know how to use the organization?” “What is too hard to do?” “What is too easy?” “What is easy to fix and what is going to be difficult and take a long time?”

9.    Beware of the difference between posers and doers. Posers use smart talk and throw dumb money at problems as substitutes for action. Doers know that plans, announcements, decisions, and hiring people isn’t enough—they focus on actions, progress, setbacks, and keeping people moving forward.

10. One of the rarest – and most important – talents for leading change is the ability to link short-term actions to long-term goals. 

11. History, habit, and mindless imitation are double-edge swords.  It is impossible to run an organization without relying on them constantly. Yet it is impossible to make the right changes without constantly questioning ingrained and widely used practices: Consider the case of annual performance evaluations at Adobe.  

12. Calls for the elimination of hierarchy, managers, specialists, rules, and processes are nonsense. It is impossible to scale, run and change organizations without these and other defining elements of “bureaucracy.” I believe that hierarchy is essential and that less isn’t always better.

13. Change requires addition and subtraction.  The best leaders clear the way for adding necessary new things by constantly subtracting unnecessary old things. In particular, the path to excellence entails traveling from “bad to great.”

14. Fear the clusterfuck: Fiascos that result when powerful people suffer from deadly brew of illusion, impatience, and incompetence. The ill-fated launch of Google Glass is a splendid example of scaling clusterfuck.

15. If you expect organizational change to proceed in an orderly, comforting, and calm manner, you are living in a fool’s paradise. Often, all you can do is to embrace the mess, muddle forward the best you can, and hope that, eventually, the fog will clear.

I am a Stanford Professor who studies and writes about leadership, organizational change, and navigating organizational life. I have written seven books, including the bestsellers Scaling Up Excellence, The No Asshole Rule, and Good Boss, Bad Boss. Follow me on Twitter @work_matters, and visit my website and posts on LinkedIn. My main focus these days is on working with Huggy Rao to develop strategies and tools that help leaders and teams change their organizations for the better--with a particular focus on organizational friction. Check out the two seasons of my "Friction Podcast" at Stanford ecorner or itunes.