A central and purposeful direction for change

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) January 6, 2011 -- (Original article available at: http://www.globalblackswan.com/articles/central-and-purposeful-direction-change)

It is axiomatic that many change initiatives fail and yet we tend to plough on regardless in the hope that this time it will work out fine. There are, of course, many reasons why change tends to fail and in this series of articles I want to explore some of these reasons and how we can mitigate the risk of failure by adopting a different perspective. Einstein purportedly once said that we “cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” and this theme is central to my proposition about effective change management – if we are to effectively manage change then we need to ensure that we understand change from a range of different perspectives (not just our own); apply creative and connected thinking (not just repeat past logic and experience) and genuinely engage our teams (not just tell them where we want them to be). In this first article I want to explore the need for a central and purposeful direction for change.

Lewin’s oft-quoted three stage model of change identifies that we need to fully understand the current position before articulating a desired future position, and then mapping out the transition process between the two points. All very reasonable and logical, apart from the fact that the action-orientation of many leaders drives them to want to deliver action straight away without ‘wasting time on understanding what is happening today’. In effect, ready – fire – aim. When challenged the typical response is that they already know about today because they are living it and are frustrated by it, hence the need to change. The fundamental flaws here are quite clear, firstly there is a tendency to see the current state from our own perspective and secondly our perspective tends to be distorted by emotionality, borne of frustration.

These factors frequently compound and result in a drive to change by moving away from the current position, which is one of the main reasons that change programmes fail – moving away from something is very different to purposefully moving towards something, although at times they will feel remarkably similar. Change by moving away occurs in our personal lives and in our business lives. In the last week I have had conversations with a friend who wanted to leave a relationship, and with a business colleague who wanted to radically alter the way her business was operating. To each of them I asked the question “why do you want to change?” and each replied that they “just needed to get away from where I am”. The level of frustration that prompts these feelings of needing to get away are hard to ignore and indeed we ignore them at our peril. Emotions are a powerful driving force, but we need to ensure that we use them effectively. Change without direction is seldom likely to result in satisfaction in the medium – long term regardless of how good it may feel in the short term.

Indeed, how many times have we heard leaders say “I wanted to change the way things were , but I didn’t really plan to be here!”. Of course they didn’t plan to be here - they didn’t plan to be anywhere other than somewhere different from their start point. From the vantage of the start point almost any destination will suffice, but from the vantage of the end point we tend to become much more discriminating in our views and opinions.

So the answer is that we need to listen to the emotionality that comes with frustration with the current state of affairs but that we then need to harness and focus this with a dose of rational thinking and planning. We need, in short, to determine not what we want to move away from, but what we want to move towards. This then brings us to a change proposition that is much more likely to succeed. We will be able to plan the journey in more detail, communicate the change process more cogently, engage our people more consistently, and drive forwards with a clear pace and purpose. Excellent leadership manifests itself in constancy of purpose and consistency of approach; each of which difficult to achieve without a clearly defined desired future position.

This clear and purposeful direction tends to manifest itself in contemporary change literature as the Vision statement and yet too often these statements are loosely worded aspirational statements of intent that sound good but lack depth. It is hard enough to engage the workforce in change anyway but by having an ambiguous or disconnected vision we compound these difficulties and make the change programme much more likely to fail. Indeed I recall working with one organisation which had a Vision statement that waxed lyrical about growing the market capitalisation by x%. For the rest of this article please go to http://www.globalblackswan.com/articles/central-and-purposeful-direction-change

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