Here is an excerpt from an article written by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini for the McKinsey Quarterly, published by McKinsey & Company. To read the complete article, check out others, learn more about the firm, and sign up for email alerts, please click here.
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The problem with change management
Three intertwined assumptions limit the efficacy of the traditional model of change:
Change starts at the top. This mind-set implies that executives have the sole right to initiate deep change and are best placed to judge when it is necessary. Truth is, executives are often the last to know. They are insulated from reality by layers of managers who are often reluctant to sound an alarm. By the time an issue is big enough and unavoidable enough to attract the scarce attention of the CEO, the organization is already playing defense. That’s why most change programs are, in fact, catch-up programs. Moreover, risk-averse executives are seldom willing to launch a company-wide change program that ventures beyond the safe precincts of best practice. The result: change programs that are too little, too late.
Change is rolled out. When change is imposed from above, with both ends and means prescribed, it’s rarely embraced. Traditional change programs fail to harness the discretionary creativity and energy of employees and often generate cynicism and resistance. Senior executives talk about the need to get buy-in, but genuine buy-in is the product of involvement, not slick packaging and communication. To be embraced, a change effort must be socially constructed in a process that gives everyone the right to set priorities, diagnose barriers, and generate options. Despite assertions to the contrary, people aren’t against change—they are against royal edicts. The alternative: change that’s rolled up, not rolled out.
Change is engineered. The phrase “change management” implies that deep change can be managed, like a large-scale construction project or an IT overhaul. But if change is truly transformational—if it breaks new ground—it can’t be predetermined. Think for a moment about how our lives have been changed by the social web—Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter, and all the rest. No single individual or entity invented the social web. It emerged, in all its weird and wonderful variety, because the Internet is a powerful platform for making connections and because thousands of entrepreneurs were free to develop new business models to harness that power. When change programs are engineered, the solution space is limited by what people at the top can imagine. A change platform, by contrast, gives everyone the right to suggest strategic alternatives. The advantage: options that are diverse, radical, and nuanced.
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Here is a direct link to the complete article.
Gary Hamel is Visiting Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School. He cofounded the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) with Michele Zanini, who serves as its managing director.