One of the more memorable lines from the 80s-era movie industry is Gordon Gekko’s “Greed, is good!” from the 1987 film Wall Street. Whether you agree or disagree, the salient point is that a desired behavior was identified and then developed and sustained through motivation and reward.
As business strategy, the slogan is long retired. But as a communication device, Gekko’s statement remains powerful and effective–simple and visceral. Would it not be desirable to have a similarly effective way to stimulate organizations to achieve ongoing success in the face of all the challenges and opportunities they face today and tomorrow; be they recognized, emerging, predictable, or unforeseen?
Typically, change is regarded as something that is done to us, imposed from some nefarious external source. The implication is that change is undesirable, uncomfortable, unplanned–something to be resisted, even inoculated against as a harmful bacteria. But history shows that the truth about change is quite the opposite. Consider IBM, GE, HP, Cisco, Southwest Airlines, and Gulfstream, for example. These are companies that, by embracing change have prevailed and prospered through enormous shifts in their environments and businesses, whether they were driven internally, externally, or both.
On the other hand, consider Polaroid, Braniff Airlines, Eastern Airlines, DEC, and the original ATT–companies that failed, having been unable to adjust to the challenges (and opportunities!) they faced.
Though many unique factors apply in each case, it is undeniable that how each company dealt with change was a major determinant to its future. In fact, the ability to manage change is perhaps the single most powerful characteristic that differentiates business winners and losers.
But what exactly does it mean to manage change? One idea is to accomplish change by edict. For example, “Tomorrow (or next week, or next year…) we shall be different from today and therefore everything will be better!” Maybe that would work in a zoo where placing fighting animals in separate cages will restore calm. It is unlikely to work, however, in an organization of people, functions, and processes.
At the other end of the spectrum we might suggest: “You are all good people, so just keep doing what you are doing and we will prevail!”
Buggy whips anyone? Clearly, there must be something more to this.
The underlying assumption here is that any change should be beneficial to the organization or business. If so, then why is change so often resisted and so difficult to achieve?
Coupled with the human tendency to be emotionally more comfortable with the known vs. the unknown, maybe Sir Isaac Newton provides a clue from physics: Bodies at rest (or in motion) tend to remain at rest (or in motion)–unless acted on by some external force. In business, this can well translate to the natural tendency to “Just keep on keepin’ on!” Anything that is so natural to people easily becomes habit–a whole set of habits, in fact. Together these then establish what we would generally describe as culture.
So, to effect change in a business organization, we really need to understand that it is the organization’s culture that must be addressed–with respect to both the source of barriers to change as well as a vehicle for achieving change. The essential question is: “How?”
Successful culture change is actually a consequence, the product of the relentless application of a set of disciplines that yield information, insights, and actions that collectively move an organization from one place to another. Those places can be products, processes, people, or results–any element of the business.
The trick, as Newton has shown, is that it takes an external force to make this happen. In this case, that means an external source of the required disciplines. In some instances, that might translate to New Management–often bringing in someone from the outside. Such action either explicitly or implicitly acknowledges the need to be untied from the existing habits–culture–of the organization, e.g., Lou Gerstner with IBM; Alan Mulally with Ford; Jim McNerney with Boeing; and even Bob Nardelli with Home Depot.
In those cases, the general view is that the new driver must quickly apply new disciplines (before he or she gets absorbed into the existing culture), and demonstrate their ability to achieve rapid change in such a way that shows clear advantages of the new way vs. the old way. When this works, the results are often greeted with much fanfare. The fanfare suggests that it is particularly noteworthy to see habits (and cultures) change from the inside (even with new insiders).
There are a variety of change-agency consultants available in the marketplace today, and they each bring a separate set of tools, consultants, and methodologies. In seeking assistance, be sure to work with a team that is committed to results, delivered by a team of advisors that have clearly been there themselves at the highest levels of management and is willing to tie at least a portion of their fee to a measurable return on investment.
Through a successful internal-external change partnership, organizations can come to understand the true nature of their culture, define how it must and can be different, and ultimately demonstrate through tangible results that “Change is good!”
Peter Cohen is a Resultant® with Thomas Group, a business process improvement and culture change consulting firm based in Irving, TX. Peter can be reached at pcohen@thomasgroup.com. This paper was inspired by a draft of a paper “Culture and Performance: Overcoming the Hidden Barriers to Transformational Change” written by John Bridgewater, also of the Thomas Group.