After reading the article in the Learning Activity “Do Your Organizational Dynamics Determine Your Operational Success?,” (attached pdf) what are two elements of dysfunction mentioned in the reading? Do these apply to an organization you belong to? If so, please share an example that is applicable to the description. If they do not apply to an organization you belong to, share an example that shows how one element of dysfunction does not apply. Do all of the elements listed change your view of functional organizations? Why or why not?
HBR / Digital Article / The Most Successful Approaches to Leading Organizational Change
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The Most Successful
Approaches to Leading
Organizational Change
A closer look at four distinct ways to drive transformation.
by Deborah Rowland, Michael Thorley, and Nicole Brauckmann
Published on HBR.org / April 20, 2023 / Reprint H07J54
Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images
Management of long-term, complex, large-scale change has a
reputation of not delivering the anticipated benefits. A primary reason
for this is that leaders generally fail to consider how to approach change
in a way that matches their intent.
Consider Ling Yen*, a client of ours and finance director at an industrial
manufacturing company. She sat with her leadership team, aware that
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the board’s decision to set up a global organization for the company’s
specialist functions would not sit well with them. They had been
through two global restructures in the last four years — with mixed
success. Those changes had required endless governance-reporting
back to HQ, as well as tool kits and implementations that change-weary
local businesses were finding only partially relevant. Ling Yen decided
that she couldn’t ask her people to go through that type of change
again. How could she approach this change in a way that was different,
sustainable, and less effortful?
When we ask leaders what they think about when deciding how to go
about any major organizational change, they often struggle to answer.
Too often, their attention is focused on the what of change — such as a
new organization strategy, operating model or acquisition integration —
not the how — the particular way they will approach such changes. Such
inattention to the how comes with the major risk that old routines will
be used to get to new places.
Any unquestioned, “default” approach to change may lead to a lot
of busy action, but not genuine system transformation. Through our
practice and research, we’ve identified the optimal ways to conceive,
design, and implement successful organizational change.
Four change approaches
Our change-approaches framework, comprised of four distinct
approaches to change, steers leaders through their choices, helping
them assess what model they currently use and make decisions about
the optimal approach to take. This often requires a shift in leadership
attitude and skill.
• Directive change: A tightly controlled series of steps and recipes are
prescribed by top management, who alone decide on the direction
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of the change (the what) and the way to get there (the how). There
is close control over what needs to be done, change is led through
marshaled programs, and buy-in is demanded. There is minimal
capability building, and communications are in one-way “transmit”
mode. The predominant leader mindset is “I can manage change.” To
Ling Yen, this sounded familiar.
• Self-assembly change: While top management has a clear definition
of the change direction, implementation (including adaptation) is
largely delegated to local management. In this approach, you see a
proliferation of tools, templates, and workshops to launch change, and
while these activities are closely tracked, their impact is overlooked.
There might be some minimal capability building led by the tool/
initiative providers (e.g., a central program management office). The
predominant leader mindset is “launch enough and something will
stick.” Ling Yen really felt her anxiety rising when she read this.
• Masterful change: Change direction is led through top management
and held in a consistent manner across the organization, and leaders
spend extensive time and energy on high-quality engagement and
dialogue with multiple stakeholders to refine it. Within this clearly
defined frame, top management gives people freedom to implement
as they see fit and supports them with significant change-capability
building. Formal and coordinated networks are set up to spread
learning. The predominant leader mindset is “I trust my people to
solve things with me.” Ling Yen felt relief when considering this option
(“If only!” she said).
• Emergent change: Leaders have a guiding intention and a loose
direction, but within this expansive frame, only a few “hard rules”
govern the actions of those involved in the change. Rather than
having a fixed, grand plan, leaders focus their action on a few hot
spots and leave room for experimentation and learning from rapid
feedback loops. Change moves in a step-by-step fashion, and leaders
stay alert and responsive to dynamic changes in the environment. The
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HBR / Digital Article / The Most Successful Approaches to Leading Organizational Change
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predominant leader mindset is “I can only create the conditions for
change.” Ling Yen felt that the technical complexity of her tax function
could be compromised if this approach were followed, at least for now.
See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals on HBR.org.
In four rounds of research across two decades, we’ve found that the two
change approaches most present in successful, high-magnitude change
are masterful and emergent. Masterful was particularly present in
successful long-term change, emergent in change at pace. Conversely,
directive and self-assembly change are most present in stories of low
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success in complex change, with self-assembly being negatively related
to change outcomes in all circumstances. Such simplistic approaches,
while the most dominant across our research, won’t cut it in today’s
dynamic, interconnected world.
Here’s how business leaders can use the change-approaches framework
to move toward the two modes of implementation most correlated with
success.
Masterful change in action
After learning about the four change approaches, Ling Yen was
considering trying out masterful change and worked on getting support
from the board:
Due to my own exhaustion, I was finding it hard to create the space
to think differently. I also felt a personal responsibility to lead my
people closely to contain their anxiety to ensure we could get better
at change. I voiced my concerns to my board members and agreed
that so long as the broad organizational principles and benefits in
the business case were met, they would support a different approach
to change.
Here’s how Ling Yen put the masterful change approach into action:
1. Naming what had been difficult about previous large-scale changes
and consciously agreeing on what to do differently with her team.
Ling Yen’s speaking about her own doubt led her team to be open
about theirs. That candor helped them start to form a strategy: “We
noted that in the previous single-minded focus on delivery and doing
what the global project management office told us, we had stopped
talking to the people most affected. That had to change,” Ling Yen
told us.
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2. Her team then put significant resources into discovering and
understanding their stakeholders and networks, using design
thinking. What did the stakeholders want and how would they like to
work? How could they share the load of this complex project? “Just as
the board was trusting me with a new approach, we were also trusting
others. This was a revelation, and it enabled us to decide where to put
our effort and where not to.” Deeper understanding led her team to
take further new action.
3. They then put significant investment into dedicated change skillbuilding initiatives, including having conversations that got beneath
the surface to detect and work with systemic issues as they arose
rather than after the event. They also looked at the underlying forces
that would support or hinder change — for example, the company’s
tax function might now have to pay a price for the change.
4. They relaxed control and created a place for learning. Previously
in directive change, they had been spending inordinate time just
monitoring and managing the program and not hearing about the
learning that was occurring. The feedback from this approach was
that “no-one listens to us” and “the left hand doesn’t know what the
right hand is doing” — in other words, people felt ignored. Now by
including stakeholders, they created formal learning networks that
regularly fed back what needed to be adjusted to make the mandated
change to their function effective.
These basic changes made a large difference. While the change solution
— the restructure — was set from the top, people felt more engaged
and had ownership of the change. Creative ideas about how to make the
model work flowed in from local geographies. The project was delivered
because leaders trusted their people to solve things with them.
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Emergent change in action
Another client of ours, a charity, saw its primary source of revenue drop
by 47% due to the closure of its physical retail shops during the Covid
pandemic. Pre-pandemic, the shops had been managed regionally with
a standard set of operational principles. All of this was about to change.
At a critical meeting of the board of trustees, they agreed to use their
volunteers as a resource. Here’s how Julian, the charity head, adopted
an emergent change approach:
1. Julian set a loose intention that united the whole system — in this
case, halting revenue decline had become the number-one priority.
Emergence requires an aligning “ripe issue,” yet the solution is not
pre-determined (as it was in Ling Yen’s case).
2. It was time to experiment and use the passion and energy of the
thousands of volunteers who worked with the organization. Julian’s
board of trustees specifically agreed that they had to create an
environment of high trust and rely on the volunteers’ experience of
running retail and hear their ideas.
3. Emergent change is not a free for all, so they agreed that there should
be a minimal set of principles (i.e., “hard rules”) within which the
physical retail offering could be adjusted: a) No new financial or
contractual obligations. b) Retail space can be used for anything that
contributes to the generation of revenue. c) Project teams post their
learning on the nationwide knowledge-sharing platform
4. Julian fostered conditions of connectivity and rapid feedback loops.
Previously organized in regional pockets, technology enabled the
volunteer network to collaborate at a national level. This network
provided valuable insights into how retail worked as a whole. After an
initial idea-generation forum, smaller networks began to form around
ideas about what might halt the decline of revenue. “It was amazing,”
Julian said. “It felt as if we had unlocked and released a huge wave of
energy that was up for anything.”
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5. Julian engaged the periphery and allowed differentiation. Without
formal managed control but following the “hard rules,” shops were
now being tried and tested based on their ideas for what would work
in their specific area. Differentiating ideas for urban versus rural
contexts arose and proved impactful. The volunteers had also created
safe spaces for people to come and meet and learn about the charity,
leading to longer-term donor relationships.
Julian perfectly summed up this approach to change: “We can only
create the space and permission for change to happen — the rest is up to
the others.”
How to approach change
Here’s how leaders can implement the change-approaches framework at
their organizations:
• Start by determining your change intention. Broadly, what will the
change generate? How complex will this change be? Consider its scale,
time horizon, and impact on different stakeholders and areas of the
organization, as well as how many variables will require change.
• Use the change-approaches framework to diagnose the current and
past approaches and what might be needed now. We’ve found
masterful change to be most related to success in long-term change,
and emergent change to be well-suited for when you need change to
happen quickly.
• Revert to your intention. If your change requires a deep
transformation in underlying beliefs and new ways of working in
complex contexts, it’s more than likely that a combination of masterful
and emergent change approaches will be the most successful.
• If there is a gap between how you currently approach change and the
approaches you most need now, investigate the underlying leadership
mindsets that might need adjusting.
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• Communicate your conscious decision about the change approach
clearly and consistently to your organization. How you plan to go
about the change is of equal importance to what the change is going
to be about. Get feedback from your organization as you implement
change to keep you and your team honest. Ask, “Does the way in which
we go about change now feel genuinely different?” Maintain a curious
approach.
• Build change literacy and capability broadly within your organization
— it’s not just you who needs to know about these change approaches.
•••
The first step to being a successful change leader is to be aware
of the change-implementation choices available to you. Then, make
a thoughtful, intentional choice about which approach to take, and
consistently hold to that choice throughout the implementation.
* Names have been changed throughout.
This article was originally published online on April 20, 2023.
Deborah Rowland is the co-author of Sustaining Change:
Leadership That Works, Still Moving: How to Lead Mindful Change,
and the Still Moving Field Guide: Change Vitality at Your Fingertips.
She has personally led change at Shell, Gucci Group, BBC Worldwide,
and PepsiCo and pioneered original research in the field, accepted as
a paper at the 2016 Academy of Management and the 2019 European
Academy of Management. Thinkers50 Radar named as one of the
generation of management thinkers changing the world of business
in 2017, and she’s on the 2021 HR Most Influential Thinker list.
She is Cambridge University 1st Class Archaeology & Anthropology
Graduate.
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Michael Thorley is a qualified accountant, psychotherapist,
executive psychological coach, and coach supervisor integrating all
modalities to create a unique approach. Combining his extensive
experience of running P&L accounts and developing approaches that
combine “hard”-edged and “softer”-edged management approaches,
he works as a non-executive director and advisor to many different
organizations across the world that wish to generate a new
perspective on change.
Nicole Brauckmann focuses on helping organizations and
individuals create the conditions for successful emergent change to
unfold. As an executive and consultant, she has worked to deliver
large-scale complex change across different industries, including
energy, engineering, financial services, media, and not-for profit.
She holds a PhD at Faculty of Philosophy, Westfaelische Wilhelms
University Muenster and spent several years on academic research
and teaching at University of San Diego Business School.
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