CHAPTER 7

Leader as Change Agent

Richard Dool and Stephanie Dresher

Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

George Bernard Shaw

Introduction

We define the leader as a change agent, as the catalyst for change. A leader is one who inspires and convinces constituents that change is necessary, gets others to buy-in, reassures, follows the change through to completion, leading the execution to meet the expected outcomes.

If one accepts that continuous change is at least, in part, a macro-environmentally induced condition, and will be for some time, this state of constant change, the associated stressors, and the persistent change initiatives launched in response, may increase employee stress and have a deleterious impact on employee productivity and job satisfaction. Additionally, well-intentioned, but poorly positioned and executed change management prescriptive programs, implemented in response to changes in the environment, may also contribute to an increase in employee stress. This may lead to a condition hypothesized as “enervative change” (Dool, 2007).

Leaders in the twenty-first century must perform effectively in a variety of roles to meet the unique demands created by this macro-environment. Given the systemic impatience in many of the organization’s stakeholders, the pace of the environment, and the advances in technology, it could be argued that the ability to lead change effectively is one of the key roles of leaders. Effectively leading change translates into a range of best practices from creating the change vision, communicating the change, leading a “guiding coalition” (Kotter, 1996), mitigating risk, and controlling the by-products of change (e.g., employee stress). Leaders must be able to embed resiliency into the organizational culture and to reposition change as a natural organizational process. Being an effective change agent as a leader has become a critical leadership competency for twenty-first century leaders.

Change Realities

What Are the Drivers of Change

It has been argued that leaders today face an environment filled with an unprecedented level of active “stressors” (e.g., technological advancement, increased globalization, nomadic workforce, economic shifts, increased competition, increase in overall pace, increased diversity, social media, war for talent, and systemic impatience) (Tucker, 2019; World Economic Forum, n.d.; Anthony, 2018; Lambertson, 2018). It is being routinely argued that the rate of change is increasing (Alton, 2018; Mann, 2017; Elle, 2017). Many of the challenges organizational leaders face today are the same as in past decades but the pace and complexity of changes are of a magnitude never before experienced (Bruce, 2018; Pendleton, n.d.). It appears that many of the stressors occur simultaneously or at least have significant overlap.

The presence of the macro-environmental stressors suggests that most organizations will have to adjust (change) to meet these conditions in such a manner that will either be continuous or so frequent as to seem continuous (Mingardon et al., 2018). The demands of the organization’s stakeholders and market forces create pressure on management to act.

Palmer and Dunford (2002) identified a set of environmental pressures for change as well as organizational pressures. The environmental pressures include fashion pressures (imitating competitors), mandated pressures (legal or regulatory), geopolitical pressures (realignments), hyper-competition pressures, and reputation or credibility pressures (crises). The organizational pressures include growth, integration, identity, new CEO, and power or political pressures. Ouye (2011) identified five trends as drivers: the continuing distribution of organizations, the availability of enabling technologies and social collaboration tools, the coming shortage of knowledge workers, the demand for more work flexibility, and pressure for more sustainable organizations and workstyles.

What Does Change Really Look Like

Organizations are undergoing a distinctive and rapid pace of change (Paredes, 2019; Burns, 2009) with an estimated 46 percent of organizations undergoing three or more complex change programs at one time (indicating a need for leaders to accept change as normality (Baumgartner, 2019).

Palmer et al. (2009) posit the main types of changes tend to be driven by three common organizational, or structural changes that include downsizing or rightsizing, technology or systems changes or realignments (mergers, acquisitions, or divestitures). A fourth could be added with leadership changes (CEO). Palmer et al. (2009) further argue that organizations generally face what they labeled as “first-order” (incremental change) or “second-order” (discontinuous change) (p. 86).

First-order changes can be either anticipatory or reactive. They are generally small-scale changes and often a result of individual initiatives or from the development of local practices or routines. These are often changes resulting from tuning, improving, enhancing, or developing. They are adjustments that are intended to support organizational continuity and order. Second-order change is transformational or radical. These types of changes alter the organization and include discontinuous practices such as delayering, outsourcing, disaggregation, down scoping, and changes in internal boundaries (Palmer et al., 2009).

Palmer et al. (2009) go on to note these second-order changes can be characterized as “tectonic” change (large enough to overcome inertia), “punctuated equilibrium” (short bursts of fundamental change), and “robust transformation” (enactment of new capabilities).

Walkme (2020) identified five types of organizational changes: organization-wide, transformational, personnel, unplanned, and remedial. Organization-wide change is a large-scale transformation that affects the whole company. Transformational change specifically targets a company’s organizational strategy. Personnel change happens when a company experiences hyper-growth or layoffs. Unplanned change is typically defined as necessary action following unexpected events. Leaders implement remedial changes when they identify a need to address deficiencies or poor company performance.

Much of the literature related to organizational change focuses on large-scale changes and neglects the micro-changes that also create stress for employees. Sikora et al. (2004) note that employees today face numerous daily stressors related to change as well as major upheavals (e.g., mergers).

Too often leaders become impatient with results, while under pressure from stakeholders and launch serial change initiatives. This can lead to a condition of Change Fatigue^TM. (Dool, 2007).

Why Do So Many Change Initiatives “Fail”?

Research indicates that change initiatives fail at a high rate (70 percent) (Asher, 2018; Gleeson, 2017; Anand and Barsoux, 2017). Change initiative failures occur for various reasons including poor strategy decisions or lack of vision, inappropriate choices, poor monitoring and control, lack of resources, leadership impatience or underestimation, neglected stakeholders, the lack of a unifying framework for action, a shift in conditions, the lack of holistic integration, poor execution or poor design, and communications (Dickson, 2019). Blanchard (2010) found that 29 percent of change initiatives are launched without any formal structure whatsoever. Failed change initiatives may contribute to employee stress by undermining the employee’s capacity to absorb and respond to more change.

Another potential cause of change failures is the variable of resistance. In addition, Hatman (2009) as cited in Rosenberg and Mosca (2010, p. 140) note that individual or personal factors for resisting change came in two dimensions: active and passive. Resistance to change is often cited by leaders as the reason for change failures (Erwin and Garmon, 2009). Leaders believe workers resist change and as a result do all sorts of things to counter that resistance. But instead of breaking through resistance, leaders may create it. People resist being controlled.

Because people do not resist change, they resist being changed. Resistance to change is hard to assess, measure, and monitor. Rigid change leadership and management initiatives, with chain-of-command type governance, are often undermined by key stakeholders who resist planned change with skilled use of power, influence, and resources.

In summary, leaders must understand their impact on change success. Leadership mistakes or impatience often leads to change failure. In their rush to change their organizations leaders end up immersing themselves in an alphabet soup of initiatives. Serial changes due to leadership impatience undermine the ability of the organization to sustain change.

Effective Change Agents

The Dual Role of the Leader as Change Agent

Effective leaders of change must serve equally as agents of change and protectors of continuity.

Samuel Wilson

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

Alfred North Whitehead

During times of change, leaders have a dual role. Change does not come naturally to many organizations or individuals. As we learned from Lewin (1947) and Schein and Schein (2016), organizational culture is a powerful force for inertia in an organization. Leaders have to perform two distinct roles in times of change. They must be a source of discomfort or urgency to shock the system to break down inertia and the natural tendency of the organizational culture to fight change. At the same time, they must also be a source of psychological comfort “that we can do this.” They need to be a source of “pragmatic positivism.” They need to be confident, consistent, and positive that the change initiative will work while also layering in doses of pragmatism, realism, and adaptability.

The Three Key Actions of Leaders as Change Agents

The new leader is one who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change.

Warren G. Bennis

In times of change, leaders have three distinct, but connected responsibilities. They must:

• Create a compelling change vision

• Communicate the change vision in such a manner as to create broad and deep buy-in across and down the organization

• Lead the execution of the change vision to reach the expected outcomes and to embed the associated changes into the organizational DNA.

Essential Traits of Effective Change Agents

There are many views on what is needed to effectively lead change. This section is our compilation of some of the key attributes based on the experiences of the leaders we interviewed and our research. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but more of a set of foundational (core) attributes that each leader can leverage to enhance or extend their change agency competency.

Research and experience offers a set of personal traits that effective change leaders seem to embody.

Essential personal traits
Courageous	Change can be hard and leaders need to have courage of conviction to see it through. They need a backbone and a willingness to go first and navigate the naysayers who inevitably surface. Embarking on change means choosing at times uncertainty and discomfort. As a change agent, you’re also creating those conditions for others, which might not be popular. It takes courage to break out of the norm and to speak out to people who may not want to hear the truth.
Optimistic	Change creates stress and natural inertia will seek to fight it. Leaders need to be present change in a positive light, “we can do this” but also be grounded with doses of realism and pragmatism.
Patient	Change usually takes longer than expected and one of the main reasons for change “failures” is leadership impatience. Leaders need to be patient to see the change through and to fully embed it. They need to avoid the “serial change” syndrome by shifting too quickly.
Resilient	Virtually no change initiative will go as planned, there is always some drift as conditions change or some highs and lows as the change is manifested. Leaders need to stay the course and not overreact to the inevitable highs and lows. Effective change agents don’t take the lows or resistance personally. Instead, they bounce back and don’t quit when they hear “no.” Resilience enables the persistence required to drive change.
Deliberate	Change leaders need to be strategic, intentional, and deliberate. Change is a leader-led process. To influence change, you must deliberately choose the words and actions that break the patterns so change can happen. Change leaders need to take on a persona of being calm, confident, and in control.
Empathetic	Change agents must be able to put themselves in other people’s shoes to understand their experience. You must predict how people will feel about change even if you don’t feel that way. Empathy stops you from judging people for resisting change, so you can recognize that their response to change is normal and valid. Effective change agents help employees understand what’s in it for them and use that to drive buy-in.
Grit	Angela Duckworth argues that an individual’s grit is a better predictor of long-term success, more than talent or IQ. Grit is a combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals. She notes “I do mean hard work and not quitting things when they’re hard, but I also mean passion.” Change leaders need to have some grit to overcome the obstacles that likely will emerge. Agarwal (2019) defined it as a growth mindset, the resilience that makes a leader determined to bounce back from failures and setbacks.
Flexible	We call this “focused flexibility,” meaning that leaders need to stick to the change vision and plan, but also be flexible enough to adapt as conditions warrant. They have to be committed to their change vison, but too much in love with it. They have to actively monitor the change initiative and be willing to shift when it warrants—shifting both too early or too late can have unintended consequences.

Leading Change—People and Process

The Center for Creative Leadership (n.d.) offered these practices as a frame for leading process change:

Strategic change doesn’t happen on its own. Effective leaders guide the process from start to finish. Here are the three key competencies that are part of leading the process:

• Initiate. Effective change leaders begin by making the case for the change they seek. This can include evaluating the business context, understanding the purpose of the change, developing a clear vision and desired outcome, and identifying a common goal. Unsuccessful leaders say they didn’t focus on these tasks enough to reach a common understanding of the goal.

• Strategize. Successful leaders developed a strategy and a clear action plan, including priorities, timelines, tasks, structures, behaviors, and resources. They identified what would change, but also what would stay the same. Leaders who weren’t successful said they failed to listen enough to questions and concerns, and failed to define success from the beginning.

• Execute. Translating strategy into execution is one of the most important things leaders can do. In our study, successful change leaders focused on getting key people into key positions (or removing them, in some cases). They also broke big projects down into small wins to get early victories and build momentum. And they developed metrics and monitoring systems to measure progress. Unsuccessful change leaders sometimes began micromanaging, got mired in implementation details, and failed to consider the bigger picture.

They also offer these three skills for leading the people side of change. Researchers found that three skills provide the necessary connection between the process part of change and the people part of change. These three C’s unite effective change leadership:

1. Communicate. Unsuccessful leaders tended to focus on the “what” behind the change. Successful leaders communicated the “what” and the “why.” Leaders who explained the purpose of the change and connected it to the organization’s values or explained the benefits created stronger buy-in and urgency for the change.

2. Collaborate. Bringing people together to plan and execute change is critical. Successful leaders worked across boundaries, encouraged employees to break out of their silos, and refused to tolerate unhealthy competition. They also included employees in decision making early on, strengthening their commitment to change. Unsuccessful change leaders failed to engage employees early and often in the change process.

3. Commit. Successful leaders made sure their own beliefs and behaviors supported change, too. Change is difficult, but leaders who negotiated it successfully were resilient and persistent, and willing to step outside their comfort zone. They also devoted more of their own time to the change effort and focused on the big picture. Unsuccessful leaders failed to adapt to challenges, expressed negativity, and were impatient with a lack of results.

Adding to the CCL suggestions, we offer these practices deployed by effective change leaders.

Leading change—Best practices
Communicate, communicate, communicate	Some leaders in times of change revert to a “need to know” or “information is power” style of communication. Just the opposite is needed. Leaders need to overcommunicate, using every available medium or tool in a creative yet repetitive and overlapping manner. Engage, engage, engage. Leaders often make the mistake of imagining that if they convey a strong message of change at the start of an initiative, people will understand what to do. Nothing could be further from the truth. Powerful and sustained change requires constant communication, not only throughout the rollout but after the major elements of the plan are in place.They also need to create active and engaged bidirectional communication channels that encourage input, dialog, and feedback.
Relentless champion and evangelist	Change is a leader-led process, it can’t be done from afar. Leaders need to be the “face” of the change and out-front. They need to be relentless change champions and evangelizing the “why” of the change and the expected outcomes at every opportunity. Become a change storyteller. To keep people committed for the long haul, they need to know what’s happening and what’s meaningful about that. They also need to be able to help create and tell the story. Don’t make the mistake of assuming progress updates need to all come from the executive level. Make the rational and emotional case together. Leaders will often make the case for major change on the sole basis of strategic business objectives. Such objectives are fine as far as they go, but they rarely reach people emotionally in a way that ensures genuine commitment to the cause. Human beings respond to calls to action that engage their hearts as well as their minds, making them feel as if they’re part of something consequential.
Consistent and persistent—living the change	Change does not happen naturally in many organizations. For change to fully embed and the expected benefits gained, leaders need to be consistent and persistent. They need to be shining exemplars of the change, living it daily. They need to be consistent in attitude, words, behaviors, and actions. Any inconsistency will sow confusion and inertia. Critical to the success of any change initiative is ensuring that people’s daily behaviors reflect the imperative of change. Effective change agents start by defining the critical few behaviors that will be essential to the success of the initiative. Senior leaders must visibly model these new behaviors themselves, right from the start, because employees will believe real change is occurring only when they see it happening at the top of the company.
Culture Fit	Lou Gerstner, who as chief executive of IBM led one of the most successful business transformations in history, said the most important lesson he learned from the experience was that “culture is everything.” Skilled change managers, conscious of organizational change management best practices, always make the most of their company’s existing culture. Instead of trying to change the culture itself, they draw emotional energy from it. They tap into the way people already think, behave, work, and feel to provide a boost to the change initiative. To use this emotional energy, leaders must look for the elements of the culture that are aligned to the change, bring them to the foreground, and attract the attention of the people who will be affected by the change.
Early and meaningful participation	Kotter (1996) noted the need for a “Guiding Coalition.” Effective change agents recruit key, influential employees across and down the organization and involve them early in the change initiative. They give them opportunities for meaningful participation in order to drive buy-in, ownership, and ensure a highly likelihood for successful implementation. Change has the best chance of cascading through an organization when everyone with authority and influence is involved. In addition to those who hold formal positions of power—the company’s recognized leaders—this group includes people whose power is more informal and is related to their expertise, to the breadth of their network, or to personal qualities that engender trust. Change leaders often fail to take into account the extent to which midlevel and frontline people can make or break a change initiative. The path of rolling out change is immeasurably smoother if these people are tapped early for input on issues that will affect their jobs.
Assess and adapt	Many organizations involved in change efforts fail to effectively measure their success before moving on. Leaders are so eager to claim victory that they don’t take the time to find out what’s working and what’s not, and to adjust their next steps accordingly. This failure to follow through results in inconsistency and deprives the organization of the needed information about how to support the process of change throughout its life cycle. Effective change agents create a set of appropriate and relevant metrics (aka KPIs, Milestones, CSFs) and track them systematically. They use them for a variety of purposes—to track progress, to serve as an early warning system, to create momentum, to offer proof for naysayers and to celebrate small wins on the path to the full change. If something drifts, they assess and potentially adapt as needed.
Drive collaboration	Paul Pellman, CEO of Kazoo shared, “The management of it shouldn’t be siloed in leadership. The biggest mistake I often see in change management is that company leaders often fail to involve managers in the process to embrace, promote, and facilitate the changes that need to happen.” It is critical to bring managers into the process early and often. When managers aren’t completely aligned or involved with the organizational change, employees hear mixed messages and feel ambivalent toward the initiative. This also applies to appropriate other internal and external stakeholders. Change agents who resist early engagement at multiple levels of the hierarchy often do so because they believe that the process will be more efficient if fewer people are involved in planning. But although it may take longer in the beginning, ensuring broad involvement saves untold headaches later on. Not only does more information surface, but people are more invested when they’ve had a hand in developing a plan. One common aphorism in change management is “you have to go slow to go fast.”
Embed change into the a organizational DNA	It will usually take longer than many leaders seem to understand to fully embed the change initiative into the organizational DNA. Change agents have to ensure the changes are fully embedded into the practices, processes, and systems of the firm. Leverage formal solutions. Persuading people to change their behavior won’t suffice for transformation unless formal elements—such as structure, reward systems, ways of operating, training, and development—are redesigned to support them. Many companies fall short in this area. Leverage informal solutions. Even when the formal elements needed for change are present, the established culture can undermine them if people revert to long-held but unconscious ways of behaving. This is why formal and informal solutions must work together. By asking people at every level to be responsible for quality—and by celebrating and rewarding improvements—change leaders are able to create an ethic of ownership in the change.

The Adaptive Leader

Shifting Change from a Noun to a Verb

As noted earlier, many firms are launching persistent (serial or overlapping) change initiatives in response to stressors in the environment. Clearly, one way to reduce the negative effects of continuous change is to reduce the number of change initiatives launched by the organization. If recent history is a guide, this seems unlikely. The systemic impatience between organizational leaders and their stakeholders as well as the volatility in the environment indicates that depending on a reduction in change initiatives is not a reasonable position. It would certainly help and should be encouraged but another approach needs to be pursued.

An alternative to reducing the number of change initiatives is to reframe the notion of “change” and to create a change leadership framework that encourages a more adaptive and flexible organization.

One of the challenges to the interpretation of the theoretical change models is that it is often assumed a “one-size-fits-all” approach. This is unrealistic. Change may have many common characteristics, but in practice, change is a situational and a specific experience for employees and the organization.

The research into the “adaptive enterprise” may offer a template for a new change management. A key to becoming an adaptive enterprise is to reframe the notion of change. Instead of treating change as an unusual organizational response, change is reframed as a natural part of the organization’s fabric. Change is repositioned as an organizational asset allowing the firm to seamlessly adapt to changing conditions. Sikora et al. (2004) argue that change should be repositioned as an active verb instead of a noun.

The adaptive enterprise is one that not only successfully weathers change in the environment, but one that leads the charge through the change and comes out on top (Lyteson, 2016).

In this environment, one must adapt and survive, as firms must react to changes in the marketplace in real or near real time. The threats in the environment have reached unprecedented proportions. Examples that have emerged include hyper-competition, cyber criminals, malicious insiders, technology failures, social media trolling, and data theft (Smith, 2018; Irwin, 2017).

The adaptive enterprise would be better suited to reduce the negative impact of the frequent daily stressors. The point of the reframing of change is to create an environment where change becomes part of the organizational DNA and often takes place unintentionally as employees go about doing their jobs. This view of change also reshapes the impact of stress because change becomes more “natural.”

An “adaptive” approach to change that improves the organization’s flexibility, and agility as well as reducing the stress related to change, may offer a solution to the negative aspects of Change Fatigue^TM (Dool, 2007).

Leaders today need to have to have a high “adaptability quotient” (AQ). Adaptability quotient, is a subjective set of qualities loosely defined as the ability to pivot and flourish in an environment of fast and frequent change (Murray, 2019). “IQ is the minimum you need to get a job, but AQ is how you will be successful over time,” Fratto notes:

AQ is not just the capacity to absorb new information, but the ability to work out what is relevant, to unlearn obsolete knowledge, overcome challenges, and to make a conscious effort to change. AQ involves flexibility, curiosity, courage, resilience and problem-solving skills too. (Murray, 2019)

Amy Edmondson, a professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School, says it is the breakneck speed of workplace change that will make AQ more valuable than IQ. Learning to learn is mission critical. The ability to learn, change, grow, experiment will become far more important than subject expertise (Murray, 2019).

Of course, the adaptive leaders and enterprise are not immune from a macro-change event (e.g., merger or economic shock). These would have to be addressed directly. The adaptive organization’s frame of reference is geared toward ecosystem integration and its execution focus moves past reacting to change or managing change to seamlessly adapting to change.

A New Change Framework—“C⁶”

As noted earlier, many firms are launching persistent (serial or overlapping) change initiatives in response to stressors in the environment. Clearly, one way to reduce the negative effects of enervative change (Dool, 2007) is to reduce the number of change initiatives launched by the organization. If recent history is a guide, this seems unlikely. The systemic impatience between organizational leaders and their stakeholders as well as the volatility in the environment indicates depending on a reduction in change initiatives is not a reasonable position. It would certainly help and should be encouraged, but another approach will also need to be pursued.

One of the challenges to the interpretation of the theoretical change models is that it is often assumed by practitioners that a “one-size-fits-all” approach. This is unrealistic. Change may have many common characteristics, but in practice, change is a situational and a specific experience for employees. Change management programs seem to be most effective when they are firm specific. Therefore, the new offering suggested here is a “framework,” not a specific model. It is meant as a means to “frame” organizational strategies, processes, and tactics, in order to improve the organization’s flexibility, agility, and to reduce the stress related to change.

It is proposed that this new change management framework, the “C⁶” framework, developed largely from the lessons learned from adaptive organizations, be deployed as a means to moderate the stress related to organizational change.

The C⁶ framework is developed around six sets of leadership competencies: communications, collaboration, confidence, cohesion, climate, and conversion.

The C⁶ framework is not intended to dictate a specific approach to change management.

It is being offered as a means for leaders to create firm-specific change management approaches enabled with practices related to the 6 “Cs.” The specific purpose of the framework is to help reduce employee stress and ultimately infuse adaptability into the organizational DNA. Employees learn to be more resilient and reframe change cognitively into a “natural” organizational process.

Communication

The first element, communications, is of primary importance in reframing change. Leaders have learned that the effective flow of timely information serves to fuel adaptability. If employees understand the context, relationships, strategy, and tactical needs, they are better prepared to adapt to changes in the environment on a real or near real time basis. It has been found that 50 percent of failures are related in some form to ineffective communication (PMI, 2013).

Collaboration

The next element, collaboration, is also very important to the concept of “adapt and survive.” Collaboration is the act of people working together to reach a common goal. Collaboration is the way that all the people in an enterprise function together. Better collaboration means better operations. With improved collaboration, organizations can increase the scale and capacity of their processes and develop new ways of doing business (Cisco, 2012).

The need for collaboration with suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders is essential for the organization to seize opportunities or to thwart threats. Involving employees early in the process improves engagement and broadens the scope of relevant exchanges between management and employees. Leaders have learned that involving employees in tactical discussions can improve unit performance and adaptability without undermining the chain of command.

Confidence

The next element, confidence, serves to build employee resiliency. Leaders must adopt an attitude of confidence in order to help manage employee stress during times of change. Wanberg and Banas (2000) found that optimism and perceived control were associated with openness to change. Change-related confidence is an important buffer against workplace stressors (Wanberg and Banas, 2000). An employee with a high level of self-efficacy is confident of “dealing with unexpected events, stays calm in the midst of difficulties and is able to handle whatever comes his or her way” (Tiong, 2005, p. 30). Confidence also comes with experience. Lau et al. (2002) note that people with more change experiences and more freedom to change will have a more positive outlook on about change. The more informed and prepared employees are, the more resilient and adaptable they become.

Cohesion

The next element, cohesion, is all about organizational identification. A high level of organizational cohesion improves morale and communication, builds resiliency and improves adaptability. Members of the organization take pride in membership and form strong bonds with their peers. Puuva and Tolvanen (2006) note that organization identity, when realized by organization members, has an effect on how strongly individuals within the organization identify themselves with the organization. Therefore, a strong identification results in the level of trust and in that way creates stronger commitment to the organization and its goals. Resilience refers to the ability to cope with ongoing disruptive change, bounce back easily from setbacks, overcome adversities, change to a new way of working and living when an old way is no longer possible, and do all this without acting in a dysfunctional or harmful manner.

Climate

The next element, climate, refers to the overall organizational environment created by managers. A positive, forward-facing, adaptive climate is more likely to reduce the debilitating aspects of stress related to change. Walsh et al. (2012) note “Climate” is people’s perceptions and feelings about their work environment. Many leaders confuse climate with culture, thinking the climate cannot be controlled because it is too big and engrained in the organization. An environment of open-communications fostering the meaningful exchange of timely and appropriate information will improve decision making and adaptability. An environment that appreciates initiative, prefers to learn versus blame, and promotes organizational membership will likely increase the resiliency of its members.

Conversion

The final element, conversion refers to the ability of leaders to embed and sustain change, to convert the necessary adaptations into the natural DNA of the organization. Given the failure rates of change initiatives, as noted earlier, it is critical that leaders increase the probability that change initiatives will reach the expected outcomes, especially given the impact on precious resources. As Palmer et al. (2009) note, for change to “stick” it must be “become the new normality.”

To be sustained, we must move from seeing change as a noun as noted earlier or an event, it must be seen as normal and not “change” with the baggage that traditional comes with the term (e.g., emotional, political, and negative connotations). There are a series of actions the effective change leader can take to embed or convert change into sustainable processes. These include: redesigning internal systems (e.g., reward, promotion, and recognition), redesigning roles, and linking decisions and behaviors to change objectives. Leaders should not expect change to be embedded by a conversion experience that focuses on attitude and beliefs, to be fully converted, they must change the employee’s day-to-day experiences.

It is important to conversion that the change initiative be seen as working. There is always some doubt initially, especially given the high failure rates. Using appropriate metrics to track progress can serve several important functions. It can create positive momentum, it can offer “proof” to the naysayers or doubters that the initiative may indeed work, it can serve as an early warning system that something is off track and allow for proactive intervention, and finally, it can fuel interim opportunities for recognition and celebration that will add to the momentum.

It is also critical to conversion that employees up and down the organization “own” the change. This means they must “buy-in” to the change vision and also feel some responsibility for the expected outcomes. This can be accomplished in several ways including early and meaningful participation in the development of the change vision. A meaningful level of responsibility and accountability for the change initiative’s success is also critical, giving the employees a “voice” in the actual implementation plan.

As noted earlier, the C⁶ framework is not intended to dictate a specific approach to change leadership. It is meant to use lessons from the adaptive enterprise to promote the creation of an organizational environment that will foster adaptability as a means to reduce the negative impact of serial or ill-defined changes. The specific purpose of the framework is to infuse adaptability into the organizational DNA. Leaders will need to adapt and tailor this framework to the situation they face and the organization’s culture, assets, and competencies.

Summary

The C⁶ framework is not intended to dictate a specific approach to change leadership. It is meant to use lessons from the adaptive enterprise to promote the creation of an organizational environment that will foster adaptability as a means to reduce the negative impact of serial or ill-defined changes. The “C⁶” change management framework has been offered as a means for leaders to create firm-specific change leadership approaches enabled with practices related to the 6 “Cs.” The specific purpose of the framework is to infuse adaptability into the organizational DNA. Leaders will need to adapt and tailor this framework to the situation they face and the organization’s culture, assets, and competencies.

Key Takeaways

• Change is a leader-led process, it demands consistent and persistent leadership intervention.

• Change is not likely to slow down in our working lifetimes.

• Leaders must be effective change agents, living and leading change by embedding it into the organizational DNA.

• Leaders need to reframe change from a noun to a verb, making it a natural part of daily organizational life.

• Leaders have to be the source of urgency as well as the source of psychological safety during change.

References

Agarwal, P. 2019. “Here Is Why Grit Is So Important for Entrepreneurs.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/pragyaagarwaleurope/2019/02/17/here-is-why-grit-is-so-important-for-entrepreneurs/#ecbc1c151ddd, (accessed March 14, 2020).

Alton, L. 2018. “Workplace Changes Are Accelerating.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryalton/2018/02/01/workplace-changes-are-accelerating-why-and-what-millennials-should-do-about-it/#439360d22def, (accessed March 21, 2020).

Anand, N., and J. Barsoux. 2017. “What Everyone Gets Wrong About Change Management.” https://hbr.org/2017/11/what-everyone-gets-wrong-about-change-management, (accessed March 7, 2020).

Anthony, S. 2018. “6 Drivers of Change.” https://hbr.org/2008/04/6-drivers-of-change, (accessed March 24, 2020).

Asher, P. 2018. “The Truth behind Why 70% of Organizational Change Projects Are Still Failing.” https://www.imaworldwide.com/blog/the-truth-behind-why-70-of-organizational-change-projects-are-still-failing, (accessed March 8, 2020).

Baumgartner, N. 2019. “Change Is the New Normal: How to Build a Resilient Workplace.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2019/03/22/change-is-the-new-normal-how-to-build-a-resilient-workplace/#ba3bd975fc20, (accessed March 19, 2020).

Bruce, J. 2018. “Change Is the New Normal.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/janbruce/2018/09/05/change-is-the-new-normal-how-will-you-handle-it/#180fa26e3959, (accessed March 17, 2020).

Center for Creative Leadership. n.d. “How to be a Successful Change Leader.” https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/successful-change-leader/, (accessed March 17, 2020).

Cisco. 2012. “Creating a Collaborative Enterprise.” http://www.cisco.com, (accessed August 5, 2012).

Dickson, G. 2019. “10 Reasons the Change Management Process Fails (and How You Can Succeed).” https://www.workzone.com/blog/10-reasons-the-change-management-process-fails-and-how-you-can-succeed/, (accessed March 12, 2020).

Dool, R. 2007. Enervative Change. Berlin: VDM Verlag Dr. Muller.

Elle, L. 2017. “Keeping Up with the World’s Accelerating Rate of Change.” https://pdcboston.org/ezine/keeping-worlds-accelerating-rate-change/, (accessed March 15, 2020).

Gleeson, B. 2017. “1 Reason Why Most Change Management Efforts Fai.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2017/07/25/1-reason-why-most-change-management-efforts-fail/#1220f3c4546b, (accessed March 3, 2020).

Irwin, L. 2017. “6 Threats all Organizations Need to Plan for.” https://www.itgovernance.co.uk/blog/6-threats-all-organisations-need-to-plan-for, (accessed March 13, 2020).

Kotter, J. 1996. Leading Change. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.

Lambertson, S. 2018. “Change Management: Understanding the Type and Drivers of Change.” https://cloud4good.com/announcements/change-management-understanding-the-type-and-drivers-of-change/, (accessed March 22, 2020).

Lewin, K. 1947. “Frontiers in Group Dynamics: I. Concept, Method and Reality in Social Sciences; Social Equilibria and Social Change.” Human Relations 1, pp. 5-41.

Lyteson, M. 2016. “7 Adaptive Enterprise Qualities.” https://www.cio.com/article/3049970/7-adaptive-enterprise-qualities.html, (accessed March 21, 2020).

Mann, A. 2017. “Why Rate of Change Should Be the Most Important Metric in Your Company.” https://www.cio.com/article/3219129/why-rate-of-change-should-be-the-most-important-metric-in-your-company.html, (accessed March 14, 2020).

Mingardon, S., M. Wolfgang, M. Lewis, A. Snyder, and G. Meyding. 2018. “Is Your Change Management Approach Keeping Pace with Digital?” https://www.bcg.com/en-us/capabilities/change-management/is-your-change-management-approach-keeping-pace-with-digital.aspx, (accessed March 20, 2020).

Murray, S. 2019. “Is ‘AQ’ More Important than Intelligence?” https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191106-is-aq-more-important-than-intelligence?_lrsc=5cd072a9-8c3e-47e7-b334-d3fdd78bb12f&/?extcmp=soclie, (accessed May 5, 2020).

Ouye, J. 2011. “Five Trends That Are Dramatically Changing Work and the Workplace.” Knoll Workplace Research. https://www.knoll.com/document/1352940439324/WP_FiveTrends.pdf, (accessed March 14, 2020).

Palmer, I., and R. Dunford. 2002. “Who Says Change Can Be Managed? Positions, Perspectives and Problematics.” Strategic Change 11, no. 5, pp. 243-51.

Palmer, I., R. Dunford, & G. Akin. 2009. Managing Organizational Change: A Multiple Perspectives Approach. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Paredes, D. 2019. “Rapid Pace of Change Is Now Top ‘Emerging’ Business Risk: Survey.” https://www.cio.com/article/3509788/rapid-pace-of-change-is-now-top-emerging-business-risk-survey.html, (accessed March 17, 2020).

Pendleton, H. n.d. “The Pace of Change, Part 1: Warp Speed Ahead.” https://www.strong-bridge-envision.com/the-pace-of-change-part-1-warp-speed-ahead/, (accessed March 21, 2020).

PMI. 2013. “The High Cost of Low Performance: The Essential Role of Communications.” https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/the-essential-role-of-communications.pdf, (accessed March 29, 2020).

Puuva, A. and U. Tolvanen. 2006. “Organizational Identity and Trust.” Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies 11, no. 2, pp. 29-33.

Schein, E., and P. Schein. 2016. Organizational Culture and Leadership. 5th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Sikora, P., E. Beaty, and J. Forward. 2004. “Updating Theory on Organizational Stress: The Asynchronous Multiple Overlapping Change (AMOC) Model of Workplace Stress.” Human Resource Development Review 3, no. 1, pp. 3-35.

Smith, S. 2018. “The Biggest Threats to Your Business.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/02/26/the-biggest-threats-to-your-business/#5d7de4a14b85, (accessed March 15, 2020).

Tiong, T. 2005. “Maximizing Human Resource Potential in the Midst of Organizational Change.” Singapore Management Review 27, no. 2, pp. 25-36.

Tucker, R. 2019. “Six Driving Forces of Change That Will Shape 2019 and Beyond.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbtucker/2019/01/25/six-driving-forces-of-change-that-will-shape-2019-and-beyond/#75c7d5de107a, (accessed March 29, 2020).

Walkme. 2020. “The Five Types of Organizational Change.” https://blog.walkme.com/5-types-of-organizational-change/#1-organization-wide-change, (accessed March 5, 2020).

Walsh, B. M., V. J. Magley, K. A. Davies-Schrils, M. D. Marmet, D.W. Reeves, and J.A. Gallus. 2012. “Assessing Work Group Norms for Civility: Development of the Civility Norms Questionnaire-Brief.” Journal of Business and Psychology 27, no. 4, pp. 407-20.

Wanberg, C., and J. Banas. 2000. “Predictors and Outcomes of Openness to Changes in a Reorganizing Workplace.” Journal of Applied Psychology 85, no. 1, pp. 132-42.

World Economic Forum. n.d. “Drivers of Change.” https://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/drivers-of-change/, (accessed March 29, 2020).