Lessons from leading transformation: vision, barriers and discomfort
Before starting on any change journey, we have to recognise that there is no “end”. The best transformations come from a process of continual evolution that aims to prevent the dire straits that create the need for revolution.
While revolution may be sexy and exciting, all too often it results in avoidable pressure on an organisation’s people, time and finances, which in turn diverts attention and resources away from the main mission.
In this article, I’m going to cover some of the key elements of successful transformation from my own experience:
Comfort with discomfort is the most important tool a leader can have in their toolbox. No transformation has ever run smooth and while there are things you can do to make the process easier (some of which are hopefully clear below) there is nothing that removes 100% of the stress, pressure and challenge of leading change.
"Uncertainty is the only certainty there is,?and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security." –?John Allen Paulos
Creating a shared and compelling vision
As a leader, we may know exactly where we want to go. We might know exactly what the “finished product” is. But no one else does. We can try to explain it, we can draw diagrams, provide examples and give presentation after presentation, but I soon learn one thing:
Sharing your vision is not the same as creating a shared vision. [Tweet this]
Creating a shared vision can be intimidating as a leader. It requires entering a space where the outcome is uncertain and uncertainty is uncomfortable. It is, however, a required part of the process.
There are many ways to create a shared vision but the key is to help people feel invested. If our teams are part of the process, they are invested in its outcome. They want it to come to fruition and that means they will work to help make it happen.
“If you don’t get buy-in from the players, then the first time it doesn’t come off, that’s it – they won’t be trying again.” – Dean Smith
When I arrived at the Cystic Fibrosis Trust my team felt they were constantly fire-fighting to stop people using the brand incorrectly. Only when we took the time to consider the the rest of the charity's perception of the team did we understand that the team were seen as blockers not helpers.
My vision for the team was one of openness and friendliness. In just a few sessions – including inviting key people from other departments into the process – the team developed a vision that didn't included "friendliness" but rather to be seen for the professionals they were. Together, we developed that vision to one of a team that didn’t just “do the work”, but actively added value to the ideas that were brought to them.
I would never have come up with that articulation on my own; it needed the team to come up with it collectively. More importantly, once they came up with it, they were invested in making it happen, which made the process of achieving it far easier than if I had imposed my vision on them.
Visibility, transparency and inclusion
Call it what you will – review, restructure, reorganisation – changing the shape of an organisation is one of the hardest transformations to achieve while bringing people with you. Which is why the concept of inclusion from the development of the vision has to continue into the process itself.
It’s impossible, except in very small organisations, to actively include and involved people in every step of the process, but employee representatives become crucial. Whether formal or informal, they are the voice of their colleagues and can help not only with shaping the vision, but also communicating it in a different way to the top down communication that is a necessary part of the process.
The biggest enemy to successful change is rumour. People will talk, it’s impossible to have control over that. What you can control is what they talk about.
When difficult decisions have to be made – about departments and roles, for example – confidentiality is often necessary (and correct). But there is so much in transformation that is treated like it's confidential when it's not.
"A lie can travel round the world before truth has even put its boots on." – Terry Pratchett, 'The Truth'
Opening up about progress, about thinking, about timings and being honest in addressing people’s fears is a surprisingly simple process. I’ve been part of reviews from both sides of the leadership table and I’ve seen mistakes made both times. Not only that but I’ve also made different mistakes when I've led change. Almost all of those mistakes were the result of poor communication and a lack of transparency.
Where people are involved, emotion will be involved. When there is emotion involved, emotional intelligence in leadership is a must. Visibility, transparency and inclusion are the core elements that will ease a scary process, even if it will never fully remove our natural emotional reactions. Empathy, understanding and kindness go a long way.
Removing barriers
Culture:
We all lead differently. I’ve always believed in empowerment: setting clear expectations for my team, shared goals and targets and then trusting them to go away and deliver. Other leaders work differently and those differences can lead to a harmfully siloed approach.
Successful transformation requires the silos that already exist in an organisation to be broken down to align everyone on the same goal.
Leaders, then, must be willing to flex their styles and natural tendencies to ensure each team is getting the same information at the same time in the same level of detail. Silos thrive on differentiation; removing them relies on unity.
Doubt:
When an organisation has tried and failed in transformation projects before it creates a huge loss of confidence in the ability of a new effort to succeed.
That confidence sits in two places: faith in the leadership of the organisation as a whole (they couldn’t get us over the line before, so how do we know they can do it this time?) and individuals themselves (I couldn’t do it before, so I won’t be able to do it this time).
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"There has been a time in the history of everything that works when it didn’t work." Aaron Sorkin, 'The West Wing'
Seeds of doubt are sown at the start of a process and will grow faster than a bamboo forest if left unchecked. Small wins will help to slow the growth and develop people's belief in themselves and the process.
Each element of a transformation should be broken down into small steps regardless – it's impossible to achieve anything if it's not – and each step, no matter how small, needs to be recognised and celebrated to keep building that belief.
Inertia:
All organisations have certain entrenched methods of doing things. Time after time we come across systems or processes that are there because “this is just the way we do it”. This inertia is hard to break.
Creating momentum is hard to start but soon begins to build. Pushing a boulder down a hill requires enormous effort to get it moving and then it gathers pace and becomes easier to push. It may not reach the bottom in one go – it might crash into a tree on its way – but once you’ve got it going you know you can do it again.
Momentum comes from group effort. That's why communication, visibility and inclusion are so important. As more people become involved and invested, the boulder begins to roll and others understand what it takes to move it. They start travelling in the wake of the people who joined before them.
By the end, even those who aren’t convinced that the boulder will keep rolling will start to follow it down the hill because they don’t want to be left at the top on their own.
Cynicism:
Those people at the top of the hill are often the ones sat around, drinking tea and talking amongst themselves as the leaders and supporters lean their shoulders against the boulder. These people will sit and stare and tell anyone else who will listen that there’s no way it’s going to work.
Cynics will always exist. I've come across plenty in my time. The key is not to let their voices get too loud. Since we can’t simply smother them (much as we may want to…), we can only anticipate their objections and be prepared with responses.
Often, the best way to do that is by working with the cynics rather than against them. If we are able to see them and treat them not as cynics, but as critical friends, they can help us see the weaknesses in our plans and give us the chance to address them.
I’ve frequently found that changing this view in my own mind and involving them more in the process can, in turn, start to change their views. While they may never be fully on board with every element of what's happening, when they see their fears and objections being listened to, they start to see their own place in the change.
Measurement and reflection
"Failure is an event, not a person." – Zig Ziglar
Transformation is easy to measure. Or at least it should be. If you didn’t start by setting out what success looks like then your process is broken.
Change doesn't always have to be (and sometimes can't be) based on concrete metrics. Culture change, for example, isn’t a thing you can directly measure, but there are simple proxies: anecdotal feedback and surveys of our people to name just two.
In 2013 at World Vision UK I worked with colleagues in social media around the global partnership to build a shared strategic approach that place emphasis on the value of speed of delivery of content added to our work.
When Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines in 2014, hitting some of our projects directly and decimating the work we’d been doing, our teams of local people on the ground understood how important content was and almost immediately started sharing images where they could.
This shift – and their incredible bravery and stoicism – allowed us to be the first to show the world what had happened. The emergency appeal became the second largest in the partnership’s history behind the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004.
I’m not going to claim this was all down to our social media approach, but the groundwork we had laid on the soft side (collaboration and joined-up strategies around the world) helped make sure that our more concrete measures increased (engagement, click-through-rate, last-touch conversion).
Taking the time, as we did then, to look back over the good, the bad and the ugly of our efforts is as important to the process as setting the vision in the first place. We could see the data, but we also took time to look at how we worked collectively. We could see a lot of duplication of effort (not just within social media) and we could see areas where our processes fell down.
These conversations, particularly in the middle of a project, are difficult but crucial. Reflection needs to be built into the process to make sure that the same, easily-avoidable mistakes don’t continue throughout the whole programme.
Ever-present discomfort
?“To fly we have to have resistance.” – Ana?s Nin
Change is hard. It’s complicated, it’s frustrating, it demands a huge amount of effort, but without the resistance we face we will never achieve the heights that we know we can.
This article isn’t an exhaustive list how to lead change – entire books have been written about organisational change, digital transformation and other such things by people far better qualified than I – but I hope it serves as a primer of sorts if you’re just starting out on your own transformational change journey, or if you’re taking stock midway through.
During projects I’ve led on or been part of, I’ve often been reminded of an adage from William Goldman, the screenwriter behind films like All the President’s Men and The Princess Bride: “Nobody knows anything.”
We are all scrabbling to find our own way through and we will all have different ideas and approaches. None is necessarily better than others – unless your process is dependent on simply telling people to change – they are as individual as leadership and management styles.
Find what’s best for you, for your organisation and for your people. But remember: if you’re uncomfortable and unsure, you’re probably doing it right. If you're not doing it right, make sure you have surrounded yourself with people who will tell you that. And listen to them.
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