Change

Agile organisations develop products five times faster, make decisions three times faster, reallocate resources to highest priorities quickly and effectively (McKinsey, 2019). However middle management makes or breaks that agility, remaining a barrier to adoption and blocking the potential gains that come with holistic transformation to the agile way of working. “Managers like to take ownership and enforce a controlled leadership style. For organisations trying to adapt agile ways of working into their business, this presents a real problem as it goes against the very essence of what agile tries to promote,” says Marc-Olivier Hilgers, principal, agile transformation and enablement, at Capgemini. “Middle managers, in particular, are among the biggest challenges in becoming agile”, says Mick Burn, head of organisational change management, Europe, at Infosys Consulting. Most middle managers, rose to that opportunity by building specific leadership skills and competencies, the agile model does not have the same roles whichContinue Reading

Why is it so difficult to achieve change? You can get everyone aligned to achieving the goal and yet still deal with significant resistance. According to authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey the main reason is that most of us have a built in immunity to change. “Doctors can tell heart patients that they will literally die if they do not change their ways, and still only about one in seven will be able to make the changes. These are not people who want to die. They want to live out their lives, fulfill their dreams, watch their grandchildren grow up—and, still, they cannot make the changes they need to in order to survive.” Robert Kegan from “Immunity to Change” https://mindsatwork.com/books-publications/ Organisations don’t change – People do Boaz & Fox (McKinsey, 2014) write about how organisations move quickly from setting performance objectives to establishing a program of change initiatives. TheseContinue Reading

Change

Article from SmartBrief by Dana Theus, Published 9th June 2020 Dana explores the Change Leadership lessons that are coming from COVID19 and the Black Lives Matter protests. Its clear that there are no simple answers but she suggests two leadership truths to help guide through the crisis. Stories, Facts and BeliefsFacts do not lead to beliefs and facts could not guide us even if we knew them. Our unconscious bias will always be the ‘invisible hand’ that sets how we think, assess and respond. “The truth is that when we become aware of how our beliefs and biases contribute to how we see facts, we gain control over the stories and beliefs that guide us and those we tell to others to guide them. Whether in a company, nonprofit or a public institution, great leaders do not confuse facts, beliefs and stories; they understand and accept their role in creatingContinue Reading

Synopsis of an article from HBR, by Robert H. Schaffer, Published 26th October 2017 This article provides an important context for management, that in effect to seperate out change from day to day management is actually removing the central aspect of the role. Rather than making change a specialty role, it is central to the accountability of the leader. He suggests there are ways to empower leaders and staff with tools to focus on continuous change and continuous improvement. Schaffer states “The job of management always involves defining what changes need to be made and seeing that those changes take place. Even when the overall aim is stability, often there are still change goals: to reduce variability, cut costs, reduce the time required, or reduce turnover, for example. Once every job in a company is defined in terms of the changes to be made (both large and small), constant improvementContinue Reading