The Lone Ranger: Trying to Implement Change by Yourself, Stop! Don't Do It!

Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!

Anyone remember that famous fictional masked Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend, Tonto. Yeah! The lone ranger and tonto taking on the outlaws from the west all by themselves and winning at the end. Boy, if it was so easy in reality. Trying to become a lone ranger as a leader in an organization and winning at the end is nearly impossible on a regular day, but trying to be a lone ranger to implement change to achieve success is impossible. 

One of my learning curve as a leader is understanding that you cannot do everything for yourself, you will eventually get burned out, and you will get nothing done. I learned to swallow my pride, admit I do not know everything, trust my team and ask for help. If you are trying to implement change in a toxic organizational culture and you have a fractured team of managers, I have news for you, that organization will forever be in a whirlwind of change, if the fundamentals are not addressed in a very meaningful manner.

For example, neglecting the people issues and focusing solely on improving the systems, processes, structure, etc. of the company can be an active enabler or an insurmountable obstacle to implementing change in an organization especially in the public sector. Although, some of the ‘hard’ factors, rather than merely the softer issues should take more prominence when implementing change, which in many instances is absolutely correct. However, focusing solely on these hard factors and neglecting culture, trust, values, engagement, etc. can render the whole change process absolutely useless.

People will determine if the change is a success, but it must start with the leadership of the organization working together to achieve the objectives of the change. The CEO along with other senior individuals in the organization have to take the responsibility and lead the change by example.

Change according to Beer and Nohria (2000) is difficult to achieve but some companies have successfully implemented change throughout the length and breadth of their organization. Whats the secret behind a successful change, one word, LEADERSHIP.

Organizational culture is a direct result of a leader's behavior and values, but more importantly, the leadership values are crucial to understanding corporate behavior since people tends to emulate the behavior of their leaders with the assumption that their behavior is right. All leaders must understand that Role modeling is an effective strategy to facility change; however, leaders must prepare to walk the talk of change to instill any credibility during the change process.

Organizational culture is highly susceptible to the influence of leadership behavior, and it creates unclear cues for what is important and how employees should act as it relates to the organization culture. Some CEOs are very articulate about what need to change; however, there is often a lot of confusion in the minds of many in the organization as it relates to the importance of the change.

In many instances an organizational culture is full of distrust for management simply because employees normally witness a complete reversal of what is being proposed. Additionally, there is also often a lack of urgency by management which creates a lot more problems, and as a result, there is resistance at every point of the change due to management inability to negate any conflicts and challenges which arise

So what should a leader do:

1.   Drop the ‘I can do it all by myself” nonsense. As a leader, you cannot implement change without the support from your team of managers and your employees. Every single person must work as a team, and you as the leader must make it happen. You have to be creative, swallow your pride and genuinely reach out to your team. If you do not get your team on board with the change it will not be successful.  

2.   You must walk the talk of change and continuously espouse the core values of the organisation to create that organization identity. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself according to Kotter (1995). 

3.   It is critical that a shared mindset and new behaviors are created within the organization particularly in the management level to achieve any type change, and as a result, managers have to continuously engage staff about the change and seek feedback to alleviate any concerns. As a matter of fact, all the members of the team are charged with this responsibility; it is imperative that the leadership demonstrate a passion and commitment to change.

4.  Everyone, starting with the leadership, must be held accountable for building that awareness in their department for change and ensuring that their staff is aware of the organization values. Also, the CEO along with the team of managers should develop that urgency about the change with the intention of upsetting the status quo while in the process justifying the need for change to employees who were not quite sure why this change is necessary.

5.   Be prepared for resistance. To execute change, one has to take into consideration the environment these employees have grown accustomed too. There should be objectives and a clear line of sight to determine if employees are achieving their goals.

6.   The leadership should be aware of the employee’s psychological contract and the impact on that contract because of the change. If management cannot adequately evaluate the impact of the changes taking place at the agency, this will lead to the nonfulfillment of the strategic objectives which will eventually lead to more resistance.

7.   Communication must be a priority. Although employees may be able to absorb a limited amount of information, the executive must ensure that people know where to go for more information if they need it, and management should be patient enough to answer any questions that come up.

8.   The most important stage of any change process is to know whether a change initiative has had the desired effect or not and which measures will be used to monitor and evaluate the change outcomes. Therefore, it is essential that one determine, at the outset of the change, what results are expected, how it will be measured and when.

A range of mechanisms through the performance management system can be introduced to monitor and evaluate the changes at the agency with the expectation that these steps will lead to better business returns. For instance, performance criteria should be established to measure the short-term performance of the changes even though the effort is a long-term, sustaining one. Performance measurement is necessary but in the context of a performance management system.

Change is a challenge and leaders have a critical role to play in delivering sustainable change in the fast moving and demanding business environment. Leaders need to be able to create a compelling vision of what things will be like once the change has been made and more importantly, communicating that vision, so everyone in the organization will share the same mindset.

Kotter (1995) argued that over 100 companies try to remake themselves into significantly better competitors; a few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful, however, in most instances some has been utter failures. The key is to understand the fundamentals of change, start with the seven point highlight above, solicit support from your team, constantly and consistently communicating with everyone and genuinely embrace the feedback from staff; this will give your organization a chance to succeed.

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Gifford is the founder of Leadership First, a rapidly growing leadership community with active users from over 15 countries. At leadership first, you will find the best articles and research on purpose, vision, trust, communication, change management, values, culture, employee engagement and motivation from the best leadership minds in the world. Subscribe to our community, share your expertise and lets change the leadership status quo to help influence other leaders into making their organization a great place to work.