4 Discussion "Radical Change, the Quiet Way"

Radical Change, the Quiet Way

by Debra E. Meyerson

AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER, many managers experience a spang of conscience—a yearning to confront the basic or hidden assumptions, interests, practices, or values within an organization that they feel are stodgy, unfair, even downright wrong. A vice president wishes that more people of color would be promoted. A partner at a consulting firm thinks new MBAs are being so overworked that their families are hurting. A senior manager suspects his company, with some extra cost, could be kinder to the environment. Yet many people who want to drive changes like these face an uncomfortable dilemma. If they speak out too loudly, resentment builds toward them; if they play by the rules and remain silent, resentment builds inside them. Is there any way, then, to rock the boat without falling out of it?

Over the past 15 years, I have studied hundreds of professionals who spend the better part of their work lives trying to answer this question. Each one of the people I’ve studied differs from the organizational status quo in some way—in values, race, gender, or sexual preference, perhaps (see the sidebar “ How the Research Was Done”). They all see things a bit differently from the “norm.” But despite feeling at odds with aspects of the prevailing culture, they genuinely like their jobs and want to continue to succeed in them, to effectively use their differences as the impetus for constructive change. They believe that direct, angry confrontation will get them nowhere, but they don’t sit by and allow frustration to fester. Rather, they work quietly to challenge prevailing wisdom and gently provoke their organizational cultures to adapt. I call such change agents tempered radicals because they work to effect significant changes in moderate ways.

How the Research Was Done

THIS ARTICLE IS BASED ON a multipart research effort that I began in 1986 with Maureen Scully, a professor of management at the Center for Gender in Organizations at Simmons Graduate School of Management in Boston. We had observed a number of people in our own occupation—academia—who, for various reasons, felt at odds with the prevailing culture of their institutions. Initially, we set out to understand how these individuals sustained their sense of self amid pressure to conform and how they managed to uphold their values without jeopardizing their careers. Eventually, this research broadened to include interviews with individuals in a variety of organizations and occupations: business people, doctors, nurses, lawyers, architects, administrators, and engineers at various levels of seniority in their organizations.

Since 1986, I have observed and interviewed dozens of tempered radicals in many occupations and conducted focused research with 236 men and women, ranging from mid-level professionals to CEOs. The sample was diverse, including people of different races, nationalities, ages, religions, and sexual orientations, and people who hold a wide range of values and change agendas. Most of these people worked in one of three publicly traded corporations—a financial services organization, a high-growth computer components corporation, and a company that makes and sells consumer products. In this portion of the research, I set out to learn more about the challenges tempered radicals face and discover their strategies for surviving, thriving, and fomenting change. The sum of this research resulted in the spectrum of strategies described in this article.

In so doing, they exercise a form of leadership within organizations that is more localized, more diffuse, more modest, and less visible than traditional forms—yet no less significant. In fact, top executives seeking to institute cultural or organizational change—who are, perhaps, moving tradition-bound organizations down new roads or who are concerned about reaping the full potential of marginalized employees—might do well to seek out these tempered radicals, who may be hidden deep within their own organizations. Because such individuals are both dedicated to their companies and masters at changing organizations at the grassroots level, they can prove extremely valuable in helping top managers to identify fundamental causes of discord, recognize alternative perspectives, and adapt to changing needs and circumstances. In addition, tempered radicals, given support from above and a modicum of room to experiment, can prove to be excellent leaders. (For more on management’s role in fostering tempered radicals, see the sidebar “ Tempered Radicals as Everyday Leaders.”)

Idea in Brief

How do you rock your corporate boat—without falling out? You know your firm needs constructive change, but here’s your dilemma: If you push your agenda too hard, resentment builds against you. If you remain silent, resentment builds inside you.

What’s a manager to do? Become a tempered radical—an informal leader who quietly challenges prevailing wisdom and provokes cultural transformation. These radicals bear no banners and sound no trumpets. Their seemingly innocuous changes barely inspire notice. But like steady drops of water, they gradually erode granite.

Tempered radicals embody contrasts. Their commitments are firm, but their means flexible. They yearn for rapid change, but trust in patience. They often work alone, yet unite others. Rather than pressing their agendas, they start conversations. And instead of battling powerful foes, they seek powerful friends. The overall effect? Evolutionary—but relentless—change.

Since the actions of tempered radicals are not, by design, dramatic, their leadership may be difficult to recognize. How, then, do people who run organizations, who want to nurture this diffuse source of cultural adaptation, find and develop these latent leaders? One way is to appreciate the variety of modes in which tempered radicals operate, learn from them, and support their efforts.

To navigate between their personal beliefs and the surrounding cultures, tempered radicals draw principally on a spectrum of incremental approaches, including four I describe here. I call these disruptive self-expression, verbal jujitsu, variable-term opportunism, and strategic alliance building. Disruptive self-expression, in which an individual simply acts in a way that feels personally right but that others notice, is the most inconspicuous way to initiate change. Verbal jujitsu turns an insensitive statement, action, or behavior back on itself. Variable-term opportunists spot, create, and capitalize on short- and long-term opportunities for change. And with the help of strategic alliances, an individual can push through change with more force.

Idea in Practice

Tempered radicals use these tactics:

Disruptive Self-Expression

Demonstrate your values through your language, dress, office décor, or behavior. People notice and talk—often becoming brave enough to try the change themselves. The more people talk, the greater the impact.

Example:  Stressed-out manager John Ziwak began arriving at work earlier so he could leave by 6:00 p.m. to be with family. He also refused evening business calls. As his stress eased, his performance improved. Initially skeptical, colleagues soon accommodated, finding more efficient ways of working and achieving balance in their own lives.

Verbal Jujitsu

Redirect negative statements or actions into positive change.

Example:  Sales manager Brad Williams noticed that the new marketing director’s peers ignored her during meetings. When one of them co-opted a thought she had already expressed, Williams said: “I’m glad George picked up on Sue’s concerns. Sue, did George correctly capture what you were thinking?” No one ignored Sue again.

Variable-Term Opportunism

Be ready to capitalize on unexpected opportunities for short-term change, as well as orchestrate deliberate, longer term change.

Example:  Senior executive Jane Adams joined a company with a dog-eat-dog culture. To insinuate her collaborative style, she shared power with direct reports, encouraged them to also delegate, praised them publicly, and invited them to give high-visibility presentations. Her division gained repute as an exceptional training ground for building experience, responsibility, and confidence.

Strategic Alliance Building

Gain clout by working with allies. Enhance your legitimacy and implement change more quickly and directly than you could alone. Don’t make “opponents” enemies—they’re often your best source of support and resources.

Example:  Paul Wielgus started a revolution in his bureaucratic global spirits company—by persuading the opposition to join him. Others derided the training department Wielgus formed to boost employee creativity, and an auditor scrutinized the department for unnecessary expense. Rather than getting defensive, Paul treated the auditor as an equal and sold him on the program’s value. The training spread, inspiring employees and enhancing productivity throughout the company.

Each of these approaches can be used in many ways, with plenty of room for creativity and wit. Self-expression can be done with a whisper; an employee who seeks more racial diversity in the ranks might wear her dashiki to company parties. Or it can be done with a roar; that same employee might wear her dashiki to the office every day. Similarly, a person seeking stricter environmental policies might build an alliance by enlisting the help of one person, the more powerful the better. Or he might post his stance on the company intranet and actively seek a host of supporters. Taken together, the approaches form a continuum of choices from which tempered radicals draw at different times and in various circumstances.

But before looking at the approaches in detail, it’s worth reconsidering, for a moment, the ways in which cultural change happens in the workplace.

How Organizations Change

Research has shown that organizations change primarily in two ways: through drastic action and through evolutionary adaptation. In the former case, change is discontinuous and often forced on the organization or mandated by top management in the wake of major technological innovations, by a scarcity or abundance of critical resources, or by sudden changes in the regulatory, legal, competitive, or political landscape. Under such circumstances, change may happen quickly and often involves significant pain. Evolutionary change, by contrast, is gentle, incremental, decentralized, and over time produces a broad and lasting shift with less upheaval.

Tempered Radicals as Everyday Leaders

IN THE COURSE OF THEIR DAILY actions and interactions, tempered radicals teach important lessons and inspire change. In so doing, they exercise a form of leadership within organizations that is less visible than traditional forms—but just as important.

The trick for organizations is to locate and nurture this subtle form of leadership. Consider how Barry Coswell, a conservative, yet open-minded lawyer who headed up the securities division of a large, distinguished financial services firm, identified, protected, and promoted a tempered radical within his organization. Dana, a left-of-center, first-year attorney, came to his office on her first day of work after having been fingerprinted—a standard practice in the securities industry. The procedure had made Dana nervous: What would happen when her new employer discovered that she had done jail time for participating in a 1960s-era civil rights protest? Dana quickly understood that her only hope of survival was to be honest about her background and principles. Despite the difference in their political proclivities, she decided to give Barry the benefit of the doubt. She marched into his office and confessed to having gone to jail for sitting in front of a bus.

“I appreciate your honesty,” Barry laughed, “but unless you’ve broken a securities law, you’re probably okay.” In return for her small confidence, Barry shared stories of his own about growing up in a poor county and about his life in the military. The story swapping allowed them to put aside ideological disagreements and to develop a deep respect for each other. Barry sensed a budding leader in Dana. Here was a woman who operated on the strength of her convictions and was honest about it but was capable of discussing her beliefs without self-righteousness. She didn’t pound tables. She was a good conversationalist. She listened attentively. And she was able to elicit surprising confessions from him.

Barry began to accord Dana a level of protection, and he encouraged her to speak her mind, take risks, and most important, challenge his assumptions. In one instance, Dana spoke up to defend a female junior lawyer who was being evaluated harshly and, Dana believed, inequitably. Dana observed that different standards were being applied to male and female lawyers, but her colleagues dismissed her “liberal” concerns. Barry cast a glance at Dana, then said to the staff, “Let’s look at this and see if we are being too quick to judge.” After the meeting, Barry and Dana held a conversation about double standards and the pervasiveness of bias. In time, Barry initiated a policy to seek out minority legal counsel, both in-house and at outside legal firms. And Dana became a senior vice president.

In Barry’s ability to recognize, mentor, and promote Dana there is a key lesson for executives who are anxious to foster leadership in their organizations. It suggests that leadership development may not rest with expensive external programs or even with the best intentions of the human resources department. Rather it may rest with the open-minded recognition that those who appear to rock the boat may turn out to be the most effective of captains.

The power of evolutionary approaches to promote cultural change is the subject of frequent discussion. For instance, in “We Don’t Need Another Hero” (HBR, September 2001), Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr., asserts that the most effective moral leaders often operate beneath the radar, achieving their reforms without widespread notice. Likewise, tempered radicals gently and continually push against prevailing norms, making a difference in small but steady ways and setting examples from which others can learn. The changes they inspire are so incremental that they barely merit notice—which is exactly why they work so well. Like drops of water, these approaches are innocuous enough in themselves. But over time and in accumulation, they can erode granite.

Consider, for example, how a single individual slowly—but radically—altered the face of his organization. Peter Grant 1 was a black senior executive who held some 18 positions as he moved up the ladder at a large West Coast bank. When he first joined the company as a manager, he was one of only a handful of people of color on the professional staff. Peter had a private, long-term goal: to bring more women and racial minorities into the fold and help them succeed. Throughout his 30-year career running the company’s local banks, regional offices, and corporate operations, one of his chief responsibilities was to hire new talent. Each time he had the opportunity, Peter attempted to hire a highly qualified member of a minority. But he did more than that—every time he hired someone, he asked that person to do the same. He explained to the new recruits the importance of hiring women and people of color and why it was their obligation to do likewise.

Whenever minority employees felt frustrated by bias, Peter would act as a supportive mentor. If they threatened to quit, he would talk them out of it. “I know how you feel, but think about the bigger picture here,” he’d say. “If you leave, nothing here will change.” His example inspired viral behavior in others. Many stayed and hired other minorities; those who didn’t carried a commitment to hire minorities into their new companies. By the time Peter retired, more than 3,500 talented minority and female employees had joined the bank.

Peter was the most tempered, yet the most effective, of radicals. For many years, he endured racial slurs and demeaning remarks from colleagues. He waited longer than his peers for promotions; each time he did move up he was told the job was too big for him and he was lucky to have gotten it. “I worked my rear end off to make them comfortable with me,” he said, late in his career. “It wasn’t luck.” He was often angry, but lashing out would have been the path of least emotional resistance. So without attacking the system, advancing a bold vision, or wielding great power, Peter chipped away at the organization’s demographic base using the full menu of change strategies described below.

Disruptive Self-Expression

At the most tempered end of the change continuum is the kind of self-expression that quietly disrupts others’ expectations. Whether waged as a deliberate act of protest or merely as a personal demonstration of one’s values, disruptive self-expression in language, dress, office decor, or behavior can slowly change the atmosphere at work. Once people take notice of the expression, they begin to talk about it. Eventually, they may feel brave enough to try the same thing themselves. The more people who talk about the transgressive act or repeat it, the greater the cultural impact.

Consider the case of John Ziwak, a manager in the business development group of a high-growth computer components company. As a hardworking business school graduate who’d landed a plum job, John had every intention of working 80-hour weeks on the fast track to the top. Within a few years, he married a woman who also held a demanding job; soon, he became the father of two. John found his life torn between the competing responsibilities of home and work. To balance the two, John shifted his work hours—coming into the office earlier in the morning so that he could leave by 6 pm. He rarely scheduled late-afternoon meetings and generally refused to take calls at home in the evening between 6:30 and 9. As a result, his family life improved, and he felt much less stress, which in turn improved his performance at work.

At first, John’s schedule raised eyebrows; availability was, after all, an unspoken key indicator of commitment to the company. “If John is unwilling to stay past 6,” his boss wondered, “is he really committed to his job? Why should I promote him when others are willing and able to work all the time?” But John always met his performance expectations, and his boss didn’t want to lose him. Over time, John’s colleagues adjusted to his schedule. No one set up conference calls or meetings involving him after 5. One by one, other employees began adopting John’s “6 o’ clock rule”; calls at home, particularly during dinner hour, took place only when absolutely necessary. Although the 6 o’ clock rule was never formalized, it nonetheless became par for the course in John’s department. Some of John’s colleagues continued to work late, but they all appreciated these changes in work practice and easily accommodated them. Most people in the department felt more, not less, productive during the day as they adapted their work habits to get things done more efficiently—for example, running meetings on schedule and monitoring interruptions in their day. According to John’s boss, the employees appreciated the newfound balance in their lives, and productivity in the department did not suffer in the least.

Tempered radicals know that even the smallest forms of disruptive self-expression can be exquisitely powerful. The story of Dr. Frances Conley offers a case in point. By 1987, Dr. Conley had already established herself as a leading researcher and neurosurgeon at Stanford Medical School and the Palo Alto Veteran’s Administration hospital. But as one of very few women in the profession, she struggled daily to maintain her feminine identity in a macho profession and her integrity amid gender discrimination. She had to keep her cool when, for example, in the middle of directing a team of residents through complicated brain surgery, a male colleague would stride into the operating room to say, “Move over, honey.” “Not only did that undermine my authority and expertise with the team,” Dr. Conley recalled later, “but it was  unwarranted—and even dangerous. That kind of thing would happen all the time.”

Despite the frustration and anger she felt, Dr. Conley at that time had no intention of making a huge issue of her gender. She didn’t want the fact that she was a woman to compromise her position, or vice versa. So she expressed herself in all sorts of subtle ways, including in what she wore. Along with her green surgical scrubs, she donned white lace ankle socks—an unequivocal expression of her femininity. In itself, wearing lace ankle socks could hardly be considered a Gandhian act of civil disobedience. The socks merely said, “I can be a neurosurgeon and be feminine.” But they spoke loudly enough in the stolid masculinity of the surgical environment, and, along with other small actions on her part, they sparked conversation in the hospital. Nurses and female residents frequently commented on Dr. Conley’s style. “She is as demanding as any man and is not afraid to take them on,” they would say, in admiration. “But she is also a woman and not ashamed of it.”

Ellen Thomas made a comparable statement with her hair. As a young African-American consultant in a technical services business, she navigated constantly between organizational pressures to fit in and her personal desire to challenge norms that made it difficult for her to be herself. So from the beginning of her employment, Ellen expressed herself by wearing her hair in neat cornrow braids. For Ellen, the way she wore her hair was not just about style; it was a symbol of her racial identity.

Once, before making an important client presentation, a senior colleague advised Ellen to unbraid her hair “to appear more professional.” Ellen was miffed, but she didn’t respond. Instead, she simply did not comply. Once the presentation was over and the client had been signed, she pulled her colleague aside. “I want you to know why I wear my hair this way,” she said calmly. “I’m a black woman, and I happen to like the style. And as you just saw,” she smiled, “my hairstyle has nothing to do with my ability to do my job.”

Does leaving work at 6 PM or wearing lacy socks or cornrows force immediate change in the culture? Of course not; such acts are too modest. But disruptive self-expression does do two important things. First, it reinforces the tempered radical’s sense of the importance of his or her convictions. These acts are self-affirming. Second, it pushes the status quo door slightly ajar by introducing an alternative modus operandi. Whether they are subtle, unspoken, and recognizable by only a few or vocal, visible, and noteworthy to many, such acts, in aggregation, can provoke real reform.

Verbal Jujitsu

Like most martial arts, jujitsu involves taking a force coming at you and redirecting it to change the situation. Employees who practice verbal jujitsu react to undesirable, demeaning statements or actions by turning them into opportunities for change that others will notice.

One form of verbal jujitsu involves calling attention to the opposition’s own rhetoric. I recall a story told by a man named Tom Novak, an openly gay executive who worked in the San Francisco offices of a large financial services institution. As Tom and his colleagues began seating themselves around a table for a meeting in a senior executive’s large office, the conversation briefly turned to the topic of the upcoming Gay Freedom Day parade and to so-called gay lifestyles in general. Joe, a colleague, said loudly, “I can appreciate that some people choose a gay lifestyle. I just don’t understand why they have to flaunt it in people’s faces.”

A Spectrum of Tempered Change Strategies

THE TEMPERED RADICAL’S SPECTRUM of strategies is anchored on the left by disruptive self-expression: subtle acts of private, individual style. A slightly more public form of expression, verbal jujitsu, turns the opposition’s negative expression or behavior into opportunities for change. Further along the spectrum, the tempered radical uses variable-term opportunism to recognize and act on short- and long-term chances to motivate others. And through strategic alliance building, the individual works directly with others to bring about more extensive change. The more conversations an individual’s action inspires and the more people it engages, the stronger the impetus toward change becomes.

In reality, people don’t apply the strategies in the spectrum sequentially or even necessarily separately. Rather, these tools blur and overlap. Tempered radicals remain flexible in their approach, “heating up” or “cooling off” each as conditions warrant.

Stung, Tom was tempted to keep his mouth shut and absorb the injury, but that would have left him resentful and angry. He could have openly condemned Joe’s bias, but that would have made him look defensive and self-righteous. Instead, he countered Joe with an altered version of Joe’s own argument, saying calmly, “I know what you mean, Joe. I’m just wondering about that big picture of your wife on your desk. There’s nothing wrong with being straight, but it seems that you are the one announcing your sexuality.” Suddenly embarrassed, Joe responded with a simple, “Touché.”

Managers can use verbal jujitsu to prevent talented employees, and their valuable contributions, from becoming inadvertently marginalized. That’s what happened in the following story. Brad Williams was a sales manager at a high-technology company. During a meeting one day, Brad noticed that Sue, the new marketing director, had tried to interject a few comments, but everything she said was routinely ignored. Brad waited for the right moment to correct the situation. Later on in the meeting, Sue’s colleague George raised similar concerns about distributing the new business’s products outside the country. The intelligent remark stopped all conversation. During the pause, Brad jumped in: “That’s an important idea,” he said. “I’m glad George picked up on Sue’s concerns. Sue, did George correctly capture what you were thinking?”

With this simple move, Brad accomplished a number of things. First, by indirectly showing how Sue had been silenced and her idea co-opted, he voiced an unspoken fact. Second, by raising Sue’s visibility, he changed the power dynamic in the room. Third, his action taught his colleagues a lesson about the way they listened—and didn’t. Sue said that after that incident she was no longer passed over in staff meetings.

In practicing verbal jujitsu, both Tom and Brad displayed considerable self-control and emotional intelligence. They listened to and studied the situation at hand, carefully calibrating their responses to disarm without harming. In addition, they identified the underlying issues (sexual bias, the silencing of newcomers) without sounding accusatory and relieved unconscious tensions by voicing them. In so doing, they initiated small but meaningful changes in their colleagues’ assumptions and behavior.

Variable-Term Opportunism

Like jazz musicians, who build completely new musical experiences from old standards as they go along, tempered radicals must be creatively open to opportunity. In the short-term, that means being prepared to capitalize on serendipitous circumstances; in the longterm, it often means something more proactive. The first story that follows illustrates the former case; the second is an example of the latter.

Tempered radicals like Chris Morgan know that rich opportunities for reform can often appear suddenly, like a $20 bill found on a sidewalk. An investment manager in the audit department of a New York conglomerate, Chris made a habit of doing whatever he could to reduce waste. To save paper, for example, he would single-space his documents and put them in a smaller font before pressing the “Print” button, and he would use both sides of the paper. One day, Chris noticed that the company cafeteria packaged its sandwiches in Styrofoam boxes that people opened and immediately tossed. He pulled the cafeteria manager aside. “Mary,” he said with a big smile, “those turkey-on-focaccia sandwiches look delicious today! I was wondering, though . . . would it be possible to wrap sandwiches only when people asked you to?” By making this very small change, Chris pointed out, the cafeteria would save substantially on packaging costs.

Chris gently rocked the boat by taking the following steps. First, he picked low-hanging fruit, focusing on something that could be done easily and without causing a lot of stir. Next, he attacked the problem not by criticizing Mary’s judgment but by enrolling her in his agenda (praising her tempting sandwiches, then making a gentle suggestion). Third, he illuminated the advantages of the proposed change by pointing out the benefits to the cafeteria. And he started a conversation that, through Mary, spread to the rest of the cafeteria staff. Finally, he inspired others to action: Eventually, the cafeteria staff identified and eliminated 12 other wasteful practices.

Add up enough conversations and inspire enough people and, sooner or later, you get real change. A senior executive named Jane Adams offers a case in point. Jane was hired in 1995 to run a 100-person, mostly male software-development division in an extremely fast-growing, pre-IPO technology company. The CEO of the company was an autocrat who expected his employees to emulate his dog-eat-dog management style. Although Jane was new to the job and wanted very much to fit in and succeed, turf wars and command-and-control tactics were anathema to her. Her style was more collaborative; she believed in sharing power. Jane knew that she could not attack the company’s culture by arguing with the CEO; rather, she took charge of her own division and ran it her own way. To that end, she took every opportunity to share power with subordinates. She instructed each of her direct reports to delegate responsibility as much as possible. Each time she heard about someone taking initiative in making a decision, she would praise that person openly before his or her manager. She encouraged people to take calculated risks and to challenge her.

When asked to give high-visibility presentations to the company’s executive staff, she passed the opportunities to those who had worked directly on the project. At first, senior executives raised their eyebrows, but Jane assured them that the presenter would deliver. Thus, her subordinates gained experience and won credit that, had they worked for someone else, they would likely never have received.

Occasionally, people would tell Jane that they noticed a refreshing contrast between her approach and the company’s prevailing one. “Thanks, I’m glad you noticed,” she would say with a quiet smile. Within a year, she saw that several of her own direct reports began themselves to lead in a more collaborative manner. Soon, employees from other divisions, hearing that Jane’s was one of the best to work for, began requesting transfers. More important, Jane’s group became known as one of the best training grounds and Jane as one of the best teachers and mentors of new talent. Nowhere else did people get the experience, responsibility, and confidence that she cultivated in her employees.

For Chris Morgan, opportunity was short-term and serendipitous. For Jane Adams, opportunity was more long-term, something to be mined methodically. In both cases, though, remaining alert to such variable-term opportunities and being ready to capitalize on them were essential.

Strategic Alliance Building

So far, we have seen how tempered radicals, more or less working alone, can effect change. What happens when these individuals work with allies? Clearly, they gain a sense of legitimacy, access to resources and contacts, technical and task assistance, emotional support, and advice. But they gain much more—the power to move issues to the forefront more quickly and directly than they might by working alone.

When one enlists the help of like-minded, similarly tempered coworkers, the strategic alliance gains clout. That’s what happened when a group of senior women at a large professional services firm worked with a group of men sympathetic to their cause. The firm’s executive management asked the four-woman group to find out why it was so hard for the company to keep female consultants on staff. In the course of their investigation, the women discussed the demanding culture of the firm: a 70-hour work week was the norm, and most consultants spent most of their time on the road, visiting clients. The only people who escaped this demanding schedule were part-time consultants, nearly all of whom happened to be women with families. These part-timers were evaluated according to the same performance criteria—including the expectation of long hours—as full-time workers. Though many of the part-timers were talented contributors, they consistently failed to meet the time criterion and so left the company. To correct the problem, the senior women first gained the ear of several executive men who, they knew, regretted missing time with their own families. The men agreed that this was a problem and that the company could not continue to bleed valuable talent. They signed on to help address the issue and, in a matter of months, the evaluation system was adjusted to make success possible for all workers, regardless of their hours.

Tempered radicals don’t allow preconceived notions about “the opposition” to get in their way. Indeed, they understand that those who represent the majority perspective are vitally important to gaining support for their cause. Paul Wielgus quietly started a revolution at his company by effectively persuading the opposition to join him. In 1991, Allied Domecq, the global spirits company whose brands include Courvoisier and Beefeater, hired Paul as a marketing director in its brewing and wholesaling division. Originally founded in 1961 as the result of a merger of three British brewing and pub-owning companies, the company had inherited a bureaucratic culture. Tony Hales, the CEO, recognized the need for dramatic change inside the organization and appreciated Paul’s talent and fresh perspective. He therefore allowed Paul to quit his marketing job, report directly to the CEO, and found a nine-person learning and training department that ran programs to help participants shake off stodgy thinking and boost their creativity. Yet despite the department’s blessing from on high and a two-year record of success, some managers thought of it as fluff. In fact, when David, a senior executive from the internal audit department, was asked to review cases of unnecessary expense, he called Paul on the carpet.

Paul’s strategy was to treat David not as a threat but as an equal, even a friend. Instead of being defensive during the meeting, Paul used the opportunity to sell his program. He explained that the trainers worked first with individuals to help unearth their personal values, then worked with them in teams to develop new sets of group values that they all believed in. Next, the trainers aligned these personal and departmental values with those of the company as a whole. “You wouldn’t believe the changes, David,” he said, enthusiastically. “People come out of these workshops feeling so much more excited about their work. They find more meaning and purpose in it, and as a consequence are happier and much more productive. They call in sick less often, they come to work earlier in the morning, and the ideas they produce are much stronger.” Once David understood the value of Paul’s program, the two began to talk about holding the training program in the internal audit department itself.

Paul’s refusal to be frightened by the system, his belief in the importance of his work, his search for creative and collaborative solutions, his lack of defensiveness with an adversary, and his ability to connect with the auditor paved the way for further change at Allied Domecq. Eventually, the working relationship the two men had formed allowed the internal audit department to transform its image as a policing unit into something more positive. The new Audit Services department came to be known as a partner, rather than an enforcer, in the organization as a whole. And as head of the newly renamed department, David became a strong supporter of Paul’s work.

Tempered radicals understand that people who represent the majority perspective can be important allies in more subtle ways as well. In navigating the course between their desire to undo the status quo and the organizational requirements to uphold it, tempered radicals benefit from the advice of insiders who know just how hard to push. When a feminist who wants to change the way her company treats women befriends a conservative Republican man, she knows he can warn her of political minefields. When a Latino manager wants his company to put a Spanish-language version of a manual up on the company’s intranet, he knows that the white, monolingual executive who runs operations may turn out to be an excellent advocate.

Of course, tempered radicals know that not everyone is an ally, but they also know it’s pointless to see those who represent the status quo as enemies. The senior women found fault with an inequitable evaluation system, not with their male colleagues. Paul won David’s help by giving him the benefit of the doubt from the very beginning of their relationship. Indeed, tempered radicals constantly consider all possible courses of action: “Under what conditions, for what issues, and in what circumstances does it make sense to join forces with others?”; “How can I best use this alliance to support my efforts?”

_____________________

Clearly, there is no one right way to effect change. What works for one individual under one set of circumstances may not work for others under different conditions. The examples above illustrate how tempered radicals use a spectrum of quiet approaches to change their organizations. Some actions are small, private, and muted; some are larger and more public. Their influence spreads as they recruit others and spawn conversations. Top managers can learn a lot from these people about the mechanics of evolutionary change.

Tempered radicals bear no banners; they sound no trumpets. Their ends are sweeping, but their means are mundane. They are firm in their commitments, yet flexible in the ways they fulfill them. Their actions may be small but can spread like a virus. They yearn for rapid change but trust in patience. They often work individually yet pull people together. Instead of stridently pressing their agendas, they start conversations. Rather than battling powerful foes, they seek powerful friends. And in the face of setbacks, they keep going. To do all this, tempered radicals understand revolutionary change for what it is—a phenomenon that can occur suddenly but more often than not requires time, commitment, and the patience to endure.

Originally published in October 2001. Reprint 792

Step 3

Get the Vision Right

In successful large-scale change, a well-functioning guiding team answers the questions required to produce a clear sense of direction. What change is needed? What is our vision of the new organization? What should not be altered? What is the best way to make the vision a reality? What change strategies are unacceptably dangerous? Good answers to these questions position an organization to leap into a better future.

Far too often, guiding teams either set no clear direction or embrace visions that are not sensible. The consequences can be catastrophic for organizations and painful for employees—just ask anyone who has suffered through a useless fad forced on them from above.

Visions and Strategies versus Plans and Budgets

One reason that smart people create no or poor direction for change is because they have been taught that “charting the future” means planning and budgeting. Truth is, when pursuing large-scale change, the best planning exercise is never sufficient. Something very different is essential.

Painting Pictures of the Future

From Charles Berry

In 1994, we knew we were on the brink of having to redefine what we wanted to be as a business. Major structural changes were starting to happen within our industry due to deregulation—opening up our marketplace to competitors and ending our protection from being acquired by other firms. Deregulation and liberalization of the UK market meant, firstly, overseas competition was coming in and, secondly, there was a chance for us to start expanding overseas through acquisition.

Everyone had their own opinion of what we needed to do, and they didn’t all agree. Some people felt we should become a diversified conglomerate, maybe like a Hanson, the largest UK conglomerate. Others felt we should be an engineering company, where we would effectively become contractors, building and maintaining water, gas, and electricity networks. Still others believed we needed to move further into telecommunications and Internet services.

Our CEO at the time had tried to wrestle with this. He had sent a memo to the heads of our major divisions asking them for their views and asking them to suggest our options for the future. It was a very orthodox planning process. The division heads responded. All their ideas and suggestions were pulled together by somebody in our head office and they, of course, ran all the numbers for each of the suggestions. What landed back on the desk of the division heads was a very dry report with a ton of financial information—yards and yards of spreadsheet analysis on debt/equity ratios, share price, performance indices—the sort of stuff that sends most people to sleep very quickly! A year later people were still discussing the report, generally starting the conversation with “What was figure 3.4 all about?” This would be followed by an exciting discussion of figure 3.4. No real agreement could be reached. People just didn’t have a good sense of what the options were and what they would mean for us.

An “orthodox planning exercise,” as you find it in most organizations, is designed for incremental change. Typically, everyone involved knows their business in some detail. It doesn’t take much to imagine options that are a little different one way or the other. Planning and budgeting forces you to think through the details. It allows you to say “Given what we know, a 5.3 percent revenue growth target is sensible. To achieve that goal, asking Fred to head the X project over the next quarter is a good idea. The Y project will logically be required, and its short-term costs in the coming fiscal year are affordable in light of competing demands for cash.”

With large-scale change, extrapolating from the current, known context is not easy. People typically do not comprehend all the relevant options, or at least not very clearly. What does it mean to “change all the business processes?” What does it mean to become a “global” corporation? What does it mean to create “a more innovative culture”? You can’t plan for what you don’t understand. You often have difficulty even having a good discussion of the issues. “We need to have a culture that promotes risk taking.” “Well, yes, I suppose, but risk taking means some errors, and our customers defect to competitors when we make mistakes.” “I didn’t mean risky risk.” “Risky risk?!”

Often we retreat into the seeming objectivity of numbers. But with nonincremental change, financial analysis has to begin with specific alternatives and then has to be based on assumptions that are often hard to make or, again, hard to talk about.

To help us grapple with this problem of how to redefine our business, we began by picking six or seven basic options, six or seven broad visions of the future. One was to carry on as we were—business as usual—supplying electricity to our Scottish customers along with some limited telecommunication and Internet services. A second was to be an electricity provider for the whole UK marketplace, not just Scotland. So we would forget the limited growth opportunities we had identified in the other two areas of business we were currently in. We’d refocus and just do one thing really well. A third was to batten down the hatches completely, retrench, and only provide electricity within Scotland with a view to being acquired by another organization. These three were probably considered, by many of us at the time, as the safer options that we could take. The others were much more expansive: to be an international electricity company; a multi-utility, offering electricity, gas, and water within the UK; a conglomerate; or an engineering company. As we started to discuss these options, another one emerged—to be in Internet services and telecommunications.

When we came to look at this again, we decided to develop some very simple dimensions by which to describe the options:

• Sales turnover—what might be our revenue in ten years’ time

• Employees—how many employees we would have

• Customers—how many customers we would have

• Businesses—what core products or services we would offer

• Competitors—who our major competitors would be

• Beliefs—what we would have to believe about ourselves to be successful

• Action steps—what the key actions necessary to achieve this option would be

We put together two or three pages on each possible future. We had financial numbers in there, but for the most part we kept the detailed financial analysis separate. As we went through the options, we tried to paint six pictures of the future and then bring them alive. That was the idea—painting pictures of the future.

We scheduled a series of meetings for the eight-person executive team. Before the first meeting, we sent team members the summary pages so they would have a chance to read the material. When we met, I recapped the main points very quickly, using an overhead projector. So for option 1, international electricity provider, our sales turnover in ten years would be . . . , and on through each of the very simple dimensions we wanted to use. Then we would debate each option. We would ask ourselves, “What would we look like?” “What would be our number one product or service?” “Where might we be located?” “What kind of people would we have?” “What would our ads look like?” “What demands would customers make on us?” “What would we do to respond to those demands?” “What might the plants and offices look like?” “What would we have to do especially well?” “How do we feel about this?”

By trying to visualize the future, it gave us a feeling that went far beyond numbers and abstract opinions. It helped us understand the magnitude of the changes we would have to undertake if we embraced any given option.

Our formal discussions were in four-hour meetings. We narrowed down the options rather quickly. Conglomerate was out, and setting ourselves up to be acquired was out. Where we had identified “multi-utility in the UK” as one option, we began to explore “multi-utility in the world” as another. The pictures we had started were, in some cases, quite extreme, so I think it was natural that people played around with them and created new alternatives. After each meeting my team would put together a summary of the options that were left and what we had concluded about them. The summary was on one page. We sent it to each of the directors. You could almost hear the sigh of relief that they weren’t being sent another Excel file or an e-mail with sixteen new attachments. From that point on, we deliberately captured all the feedback after the sessions and summarized it on one page only.

Some common ground began to emerge. “So, we are starting to like the look of an international multi-utility. What would we have to believe about ourselves to know that we would be successful? How would we compete in each of these geographies?” And the process started again. This time, we tested our conclusions each step of the way. We began to focus on the actions that we would take to achieve that vision and whether the financials made sense. We also sent the one-page summaries to our external financial brokers, who gave us some feedback on how they thought the market would respond if we went down each of those roads. We discussed their comments. We started to get more illustrative about the shape of the company, how we would grow, where we would get our financing from. Our finance director said, “We will need to triple the size of our company within five years if we are going to provide our shareholders with a better return than if we had just sold out.” Somebody else said, “We could triple in size if we bought an electricity and water company in the UK and then we made one other similar purchase internationally.” And then somebody else said, “The pennies just dropped for me! I can now see how we would do this.”

Having the financials underneath was necessary. But the pictures were most important in helping us reach a consensus on the vision. They were pictures of possible futures.

In cases of successful large-scale change, you find four elements that help direct action: budgets, plans, strategies, and visions. All four are different yet tightly interrelated, and each requires a different development process.

A budget is the financial piece of the plan. A plan specifies step by step how to implement a strategy. A strategy shows how to achieve a vision. A vision shows an end state where all the plans and strategies will eventually take you. A vision can usually fit on a page and be described in an elevator ride. A strategy might take ten pages and require a discussion over a meal. Plans could fit into a notebook and require examination in a series of meetings. Budgets could require a large notebook and demand even more meetings.

A guiding team never creates all four elements by itself. Others help. As in “Painting Pictures,” sometimes those others are critical not just in providing information used in the process, but also in helping create the right process.

Budgeting is a math exercise, number crunching. Planning is a logical, linear process. Strategizing requires a great deal of information about customers and competitors, along with conceptual skills. Visioning uses a very different part of the brain than budgeting. As the name implies, it involves trying to see possible futures. It inevitably has both a creative and emotional component (e.g., “How do we feel about the options?”). When you use “orthodox planning” to create a vision, frustration and failure are inevitable.

Painting Pictures of the Future

SEEING

Someone on the planning staff finds a new approach to planning. With sufficient urgency in the group, a frustrated senior management is willing to try it. The planner works with this guiding team to identify some alternatives (e.g., international energy company), then fleshes each out on a few pages of paper along a limited number of key dimensions. He uses that material to create a discussion that helps others “see” alternative futures.

FEELING

Frustration (“We aren’t getting anywhere”), anger (“I can see the direction we need to go; why can’t we just do it?”), anxiety (“Will we remake the company into something where my skills won’t be relevant?”), and pessimism (“We’re going to be acquired whether we like it or not”) go down. A sense of relief grows (“Oh, I see what he’s talking about. I can see some good alternatives now”). Optimism grows (“It could be a very interesting company”).

CHANGING

They start to have much more productive conversations. They start to make decisions about an intelligent vision of the future.

With incremental change, visions and strategies are often so obvious that you don’t even think about them. All the work goes into exercises that create plans and budgets. With large-scale change, visions and strategies are the hard part because they require venturing into unknown territory. And if they’re not set correctly, you’re dead.

Without a good budget, you can run out of money. Without a sensible plan, you can run out of time. Without a good strategy, you can find yourself painted into a corner. Without a good vision, you can choose a bad direction and never realize that you’ve done so. You will have difficulty coordinating large numbers of people without using endless directives. You’ll never get the energy needed to accomplish something very difficult. Strategic plans motivate few people, but a compelling vision can appeal to the heart and motivate anyone.

The efficient coordinating function of vision is directly related to the issue of speed. In a slow-moving world, a team can walk slowly with blindfolds, guided by standards, without tripping over each other. The team moves in unison, with their feet going left-right-left at a well known cadence. If the lead person runs into a wall, she says “Stop” (probably after “Ouch”). Then she considers the situation and makes a new plan. The plan is communicated—“We all turn 90 degrees to the left, take two steps, then stop. I (the boss) will use my right hand to see if the barrier is still on my right. Then we. . . .” Now imagine a world in which the winners have to run and dodge walls, and do so quickly. Without vision, and without everyone having the same vision, running into obstacles and tripping over one another is inevitable.

The problem of setting direction well, or poorly, during a large-scale change is closely related to history. Accounting has been taught to managers in modern organizations for many decades. Planning became more of a systematic tool in the middle of the twentieth century. Strategy was not a word used in business school curricula until the late 1970s. Vision is still not a serious subject in most of managerial training. Is it surprising what we tend to do well and what we tend to do poorly?

Efficiency versus Service

No vision issue today is bigger than the question of efficiency versus some combination of innovation and customer service.

With the pressures on enterprises everywhere, costs have become a huge problem. Many transformations have at their heart a belt-tightening vision. If you’re bleeding to death, a short-term cost turnaround has to be the focus. But in many situations, enterprises are not bleeding to death, yet the vision is squarely centered on achieving much lower expenses. When this view of the future is sensible—it sometimes is not—it can still work poorly as a vision because most people have great difficulty becoming excited about slashing expenses. Fear, anger, and cynicism grow. Change is slowed, resisted.

There is a way around this problem, and it’s not ignoring costs. It’s crafting service-oriented visions that are impossible to achieve without actions that significantly reduce unnecessary expenses.

Cost versus Service

From Ron Bingham

A vision focused on cutting costs, streamlining the organization, or efficiency just wouldn’t fly. For the most part, our people saw themselves as being here for the entire community, for the public, for what they saw as the greater common good. That’s the way they talked. “We’re not here to make a profit but to provide essential services to the public.” For the most part, they really believed this, often deeply. And they were certainly not here to make a lot of money for themselves. That is not the nature of state government, and we all knew that.

But here’s the rub: The governor saw a lot of waste that had built up over the years. He felt strongly that the public could not, should not, be funding inefficiencies. For him, the bottom line was saving money so the government could increase funding in key areas like education. For my piece of the action, he assumed the vision would have to be one of saving money. When I began, I was of a similar mind.

So we have two trains on the same track coming at each other. Efficiency is the issue; efficiency is not our mission. After a lot of thought and discussion, I finally figured out that we could and should have a vision of customer service. The idea was not to abandon the efficiencies issue, but to think about it differently, focus it differently. The staff thinks in terms of providing essential services. Most would really like to provide better service. They aren’t fools. They can see that the public is not running around saying “Wow, is the state government great. I mean, move over Federal Express and Wal-Mart, these guys have got it.” Since increased funding was a total impossibility, you couldn’t achieve better service with more money. So what is the only option? Removing impediments to better service. And removing impediments in the bureaucracy inevitably leads to taking out wasted money. It follows logically.

So we chose the services vision. When we communicated that, and did so as clearly as possible, people could almost see themselves helping others the way they wanted to help others. They could almost see a citizen of this state thanking them for their good work. I think most employees honestly became inspired with the opportunity to truly improve the way they could serve the public. Stand aside, cynics—it really happened. The response was incredible. We suddenly had people throughout the organization examining what they did and thinking about how they could offer better service. I remember we had a meeting in front of the governor and his senior team where employees were presenting their visions of how their departments would operate in the future. The social services presentation was especially inspirational. This woman stands up and says, “Our vision is a future where we will deal with you as a whole person, as a whole family. We’ll take care of your food stamps, your training. We’ll help you so you can have a healthy vital family. You will feel cared for and treated with respect.” The passion with which she spoke was unbelievable. She was committed and believed in that vision. She was going to make sure these people were helped. And of course to do that meant ripping apart the organization. Tearing down all the duplicative practices that had people filling out the same forms ten times whenever they interacted with social services. All that would have to go, and so would some jobs along with it. But that didn’t matter as much as community service, as much as helping people who can’t help themselves.

A group from the revenue department presented a future state where people could call in with a question about a tax return and not have to wait on the phone for an hour. Even better, people could get the information they required fast with no follow-up. This from the revenue service! Can you imagine? To do this meant the purchase of new technology—which, of course, can be expensive and would have to be offset by job changes, either transfers out of the organization or into other departments. But the new system, if done right, could be much more efficient, and, over time, save a lot of money.

All this created some disruptions. Because people were committed to improving service, most were willing to put up with that. Of course, not everyone felt this way, but enough did.

The result was, a few years into this, that we saved more money than the governor ever dreamed possible. It blew him away. It blew me away. And, we got more of what was also needed—better service. The right vision made all the difference in the world.

In many places today you have the same problem. Costs are bloated but the workforce cannot relate to an “efficiency” vision. In some cases, the complications are greater than in this story. The workforce may be convinced that more money is available. The management may be unwilling to invest in information technology. The bosses may think customer service is just fine. But in many cases, the vision and supporting strategies are simply wrong. The vision is too narrow—it doesn’t see the whole enterprise or consider all the relevant relationships. Instead it feels like a mean budget. So anger and fear grow. A vision that creates anger and fear among a significant number of people will never work.

The solution in “Cost versus Service” can be used in many places. The cynics are wrong: Most of us get a great feeling from helping other people. So you make the vision service-oriented, something with which people can identify. You put blasting the bad system at the core of the strategy. When people embrace these ends and means, costs disappear as a consequence and you get better service. This idea can work in manufacturing businesses, high-tech firms, financial services—nearly anywhere.

Bold Strategies for Bold Visions

In an accelerating world, change visions are becoming bolder by necessity. More and more executives now believe that their visions must include being an industry leader, being a firm that is first into new markets, or being the low-cost competitor. Bold visions require bold strategies, and here is where the process breaks down. Fine, let’s be the best, or the first, or the lowest-cost producer. But how? People without a great deal of bold strategy development experience often flounder. They can’t figure out what to do because it’s different from anything they have done before. They sometimes back away from the obvious because it’s threatening. Or they convince themselves that small modifications in their current ways of operating will achieve the vision—eventually. Or, because they can think of no strategic possibility, they conclude that the vision is ridiculous, even though it is not.

The Plane Will Not Move!

From Debbie Collard

A C-17 is a huge aircraft. Its tail rises four stories. Watching it being built is an incredible thing.

Aircraft are typically assembled in a series of locations within one manufacturing facility, locations we call “positions.” You start work in one place, then when a set of tasks are completed, you move the plane to a second, and then another until you’re done. In the case of the C-17, the main fuselage might be assembled in position A, the tail attached over in position B, the wings attached in position C, the cockpit electronics installed in position D, and so on. For this, you have to have a hangar that’s large enough for two or three 747-sized aircraft to be in production, along with the equipment. This is a huge amount of square footage. Fifteen hundred of our employees would be in this giant hangar. They would be dealing with many, many thousands of parts. It’s an incredible production process that requires complex scheduling and coordination.

The speed with which an airplane moves through the different positions is driven by the schedule. If work is not complete at one position when the schedule says it should move, or if needed parts don’t arrive in time, the plane moves anyway and the unfinished work is done at the end. As you can imagine, taking apart a plane at the end of the line, adding parts, and then reassembling leads to quality problems and delays. But this was the way the whole industry did things. No one questioned it. I suppose it was like third-grade children going to school from 8:00 to 3:00 and sitting in rooms with teachers. Of course you do it that way.

As soon as Koz arrived, he made it clear that the priorities for the C-17 program were to excel in terms of quality, schedule, and cost, in that order. He really raised the bar, setting a clear vision of the significantly improved performance we needed. I bet he talked to everyone about this and got much head-nodding. “Sure, boss.” And I bet most people wanted that vision and did try a little harder. But many accepted the existing basic production system as the only way to do things, and with that they accepted certain problems as inevitable. The mind-set was, “Yeah, it would be nice if we were never out of needed parts but that’s impossible in this industry.” So while people made small adjustments, the overall production strategy did not come close to achieving Koz’s raised-bar vision.

Then one day  he stood up in a management meeting and made an announcement. “We are not going to move an airplane until it is complete in position. Quality is number one, so that’s what we are going to focus on. Until the plane is done and done right, no movement. Period.”

Everyone thought he was off his rocker. You didn’t do things this way. I think some of his direct reports, in particular, thought he was crazy. They were convinced that we would never be able to deliver on time if we did it this way. Never. Wouldn’t happen, anybody knows that. Something would always bring everything to a halt. You’d have employees twiddling their thumbs at great expense to the company. You might as well expect cars to be made by secretaries on the fifty-ninth floor of the Sears building in Chicago.

We had all heard the quality speech before, but here was a guy telling us that nothing goes anywhere unless it’s properly done. Koz showed complete conviction that this radical idea was right. And if his words didn’t win us over, all day long we had to look at a plane that was not moving until it was complete in a position. All day long, there it was, not moving. Nope. Sitting there.

After Koz made his proclamation, things began to change faster. The fact that out-of-position work would not be tolerated meant that suddenly having parts arrive on time was critical. Our procurement guys got motivated like I’d never seen before. They started coming up with all kinds of new change strategies for their operation. And—incredible since this couldn’t be done—they started succeeding in getting our suppliers to operate in new ways. So we began getting the right parts at the right time! Overall, people just didn’t want to be the reason that a plane was held in position for longer than it was supposed to. They didn’t want to be embarrassed, they didn’t want to hurt the company, they didn’t want to hurt their careers, and they didn’t want to let Koz down. So they started breaking through walls. As evidence began to accumulate that this nutty idea might actually be working, more people got with the program. More started finding ways to punch through walls. When they couldn’t do it by themselves, they would come to Koz with specific ideas, sometimes very clever ideas, for what was needed and for how problems could be solved. Koz would then work with them to remove the obstacles. So if it helped for Koz to talk to the president of a parts company, he’d do it.

Holding the planes in place eliminated all sorts of bad habits. No longer could we say, “Of course some percentage of parts won’t arrive on time. That’s just life.” No, that’s not life. That’s life as we knew it.

To make a long story short, we transformed the place, and, as a result, quality has gone up and all of our aircraft have not only been on time, they’ve been early!

To this day people still tell this story, from the shop floor to the executive offices. “He said the plane would not move. Period.”

If Koz hadn’t had enough respect and credibility among his direct reports, if they did not feel some sense of urgency or if they thought the new vision was nonsense, this approach would have failed. The foundation would not have been there, and people would have devised many clever ways to undermine the boss. But with the early steps in the change process having been done minimally well, and with his actions probably raising the sense of urgency, a bold strategy helped make the bold vision a reality.

Imagine what might have happened in this sort of situation—and often does. Scenario 1: Koz might have never tried something so bold. He might have continued to talk and talk. His people would have continued to say “Sure, boss.” No bold strategies would have been developed. The vision would not have been achieved. Scenario 2: If Koz became louder and applied more pressure, the frustration, anger, and fear would have grown. He might have demanded that people send him new strategic plans. They could easily have gone into a group conspiracy. “Logical” plans would have been submitted full of old ideas. Eventually Koz would have backed off, either because he was convinced they were right or out of total frustration. Scenario 3: As the frustration and anger grew in the workforce, preventing the development of new strategies, Koz might have become more frustrated and angry, creating a nasty cycle that would, in some way, eventually blow up. Scenario 4: The pessimists and cynics might have quickly won the day, probably by convincing sufficient people that Koz was a good man but naive, or was a bad man seeking only to further his career. Sometimes we think one of these negative scenarios is inevitable. But that’s not true.

Notice how it actually worked in this case. The unmoving plane was a huge visual reminder that new action was needed and expected or there would be a disaster with who-knew-what consequences. Change enthusiasts on the staff probably uncorked champagne. “Now we’re going somewhere!” Others learned quickly that the same old routine would lead to disaster—for the plant and maybe for them. So, many people started trying to develop new strategies. As they saw others succeeding, their faith increased. As they personally succeeded, their faith increased more. Some people undoubtedly became deeply fearful or angry. But a combination of Koz’s unfailing, visual, daily optimism and some short-term wins pushed enough employees over to excitement and pride. Enthusiasm, excitement, and pride spurred even more useful action—and voilà, a “miracle” occurred.

The Strategic Need for Speed

Speed is one of the most important strategic issues in a leap into the future. How fast must we go? How much time is minimally needed in each stage of the process? How much time must you allow for each wave of change?

Sometimes we just don’t address these issues, leaving the pace of change to itself, unmanaged. Sometimes we are unrealistic about what can be done in a period of months, often because we underestimate all the change that is necessary. Many times, after a few difficulties in steps 1 and 2, we talk ourselves into avery slow schedule to be “realistic.” All these approaches to time can be dangerous.

More often than not, the question of speed is really very simple in today’s world: The answer is to move as fast as possible.

The Body in the Living Room

From Ron Marshall

We had inertia. We needed change, and the pressures on us were building.

We could have layered this thing into a very deliberate, no rushing, three- or four-year process: One element of change in the first year, another in year two. This would reduce the amount of flux in the organization. Allowing for a four-year process gives people more time to adjust. We’ve all seen people who adjust slowly to change. Because a four-year process means less of a rush, maybe there will be fewer mistakes, and mistakes can be costly. What if you created too many short-term problems and lost the support of critical supporters? You move a little slower and you have the time to give people a sense of involvement. You might be able to give them more of a sense of ownership. I could go on, but you get the picture—there are many pluses for rolling it out over four years.

There is a really good comment that a realtor made to me, years ago, when I bought my first house in New York. I leveraged like crazy to buy the house. It was a real stretch. After I closed, the realtor looked at me and said, “This is a fixer-upper, a real fixer-upper, a sixty-five-year-old house. Now, you’ve got to make sure that you make a list of all the things that you want to get fixed, and get it done in the first six months. Get it done in six months.” I said, “Are you out of your mind? A sixty-five-year-old house? I’m broke. By the time I pay the down payment, the taxes, your lawyer, my lawyer, I’ve got nothing left. Besides, I’m a disciplined guy. Over five years, I will be able to do what I want to do.” She said, “No you won’t, because after six months you get used to it. It seems to fit. You get used to stepping over the dead body in the living room.”

I still remember this conversation. To my great surprise, she was right. I was wrong. Anything that didn’t get fixed within six months didn’t get fixed five years later when I sold the house.

Something like this can happen to companies too. A slow approach to achieving a vision can require an incredible amount of discipline inside a big fixer-upper. What can happen is that the organization just rolls a bit and then gets satisfied and stops. So if you don’t act quickly, organizational inertia will overcome you. At the first sign of any success—after you’ve put out the fire in the oven and you’ve painted your fixer-upper—you’re tempted to say, “Well, we took care of that.” No more fixing up.

Another problem you can have with a strategy of slow change is related to the corrosive effect—that drip, drip, drip effect. There’s a fear, an uncertainty, a doubt that comes into any change process. “Richard left; am I next?” And if that happens over four years, you have continual instability, which does not help.

I think this is a very big issue. You may have the vision, but it’s crucial to think about how fast you want to move in achieving it. I guess there are times when slow is a good answer—when less pressure is on the organization, when the internal resistance might be overwhelming, when the enterprise is just too big, when you haven’t a clue at first what to do. But that was not us.

We chose to move fast. In retrospect, it was an important choice.

Obviously, you can move too fast and find yourself in deep trouble, perhaps increasing fear and anger to dangerous levels. This happens. But we should always remember that in a twenty-first-century world, the pace of external change is only going to increase. This will generally mean that the internal rate of change will have to increase too. If you wonder if that’s possible, consider this: “The Videotape of the Angry Customer” (step 1) was done in a few days, “Gloves on the Boardroom Table” (step 1) in a month, “Painting Pictures of the Future” (step 2) in a few months, the crucial meeting in “General Mollo and I Were Floating in the Water” (step 2) in one hour, the crucial part of “The Plane Will Not Move!” (step 3) in a few weeks, and the vision in “Cost vs. Service” (step 3) in a month. In all these cases, someone with faith and optimism refused to say, “No, we can’t move any faster because. . . .”

In “The Body,” the selection of a move-quick strategy was informed by a memorable, vivid story. That story may have been told by Ron to his people many times. The image would have become one more element influencing the strategies they developed. You might think that influence would be trivial. What can a story do?

An Exercise That Might Help

If a guiding team does not have a vision for their change effort, or does not have a vision they are satisfied with, try this.

Work with this group to draft an “article” for Fortune magazine about the results of their change effort, projecting five years into the future. In the article, talk about the following:

• How the organization is different

• What customers have to say about the company

• What employees are saying

• Performance on relevant indexes

In doing this, be concrete—include quotes from people, actual numbers, and a clear description of a new product or service or process.

In general, make it look like a real Fortune article.

You might have one meeting to capture the ideas, and then have someone write a rough draft of the piece. The draft would be sent out before a second meeting in which additions, edits, and so forth would be made. You would decide, depending on the particulars of your situation, how many sessions there should be and the length of the sessions.

A good rule of thumb from examining human history, the role of parables, and the influence of the Christian Bible: Never underestimate the power of a good story.

Step 3

Get the Vision Right

Create the right vision and strategies to guide action in all of the remaining stages of change.

What Works

• Trying to see—literally—possible futures

• Visions that are so clear that they can be articulated in one minute or written up on one page

• Visions that are moving—such as a commitment to serving people

• Strategies that are bold enough to make bold visions a reality

• Paying careful attention to the strategic question of how quickly to introduce change

What Does Not Work

• Assuming that linear or logical plans and budgets alone adequately guide behavior when you’re trying to leap into the future

• Overly analytic, financially based vision exercises

• Visions of slashing costs, which can be emotionally depressing and anxiety creating

• Giving people fifty-four logical reasons why they need to create strategies that are bolder than they have ever created before

Stories to Remember

• Painting Pictures of the Future

• Cost versus Service

• The Plane Will Not Move!

• The Body in the Living Room

Video: Welcome to Week 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=52&v=3F0z0g_UkU8