Some of the most powerful forces occurring in change are the political dynamics created by the introduction of a new direction. People naturally want things to go their own way, to be viewed as "winners" in the change, and therefore act to benefit their own interests. However, political maneuvering is rarely focused on what is good for the larger organization. Long before a major change is announced, personally motivated political behavior escalates. Individuals and factions exert influence over others for their own agendas. Uncertainty, risk, and opportunity for power suddenly increase, especially when decision making and authority may not be clear. In some cases, both covert and explicit power dynamics mushroom, leading to chaos, competition, and even malicious behavior. All of this reflects an unconscious mindset.

Political behavior is far more obvious than its perpetrators would like to believe. Most people assume their efforts to influence others are invisible, with most political maneuvering occurring behind closed doors. Yet in reality, people see it clearly, discuss it actively, and can even predict it. As long as people collude with the unconscious norm of never discussing negative political realities overtly with the players involved, they allow its consequences to run rampant, which does not support the organization or the transformation to be led in a conscious way.

Depending on the organization's culture and the breadth of the transformation, politics can have a damaging effect on your success. It is our bias that political dynamics be addressed and dealt with openly, consciously. Unless they are worked out through open dialogue, they can derail even the best of changes. As uncomfortable as it may be to unravel political behavior, leaders need to deal with their own power struggles and the negative impact they have on the transformation, the project community, and across the organization. Therefore, staying on top of the political terrain is critical to shaping a sound and conscious change strategy.

It is essential to create a positive climate within the change leadership team for addressing difficult political realities. The relationship, team, and personal development work initiated in Activity I.D is invaluable in supporting the constructive resolution of potentially damaging politics and for preventing further political disruptions. In particular, building commitment and alignment to the larger business outcomes of the transformation and creating a solid case for change and shared vision help immensely. Much of this work can also be initiated and supported through the Leadership Breakthrough process because it creates a safe space for historical issues to be named and healed, and for consciously preventing future political dynamics from occurring.

This task ensures that you create specific ground rules for how to deal with negative political behavior when it arises, which it will. At this early stage of the change process, it is helpful to scan existing political dynamics to identify the patterns currently at play, assess their impact on the transformation, and then devise positive strategies for how to deal with them.

Another powerful influence strategy is to create a "critical mass of support" for the change by identifying top executives, special experts, opinion leaders, important customers, and grass-roots representatives throughout the organization and mobilizing their advocacy for the new direction. Project community members can serve as the basis for your critical mass network. They can be tasked with influencing others, including resisters and "fence-sitters," to back the effort and spread the word. Eventually, when enough people support the transformation, the point of critical mass will actually be attained, and the change will take on a life of its own. When this occurs, leaders can guide the process toward their desired outcomes and let go of any notion of forcing it through political manipulation.

It is safe to assume that all change leaders want their transformations to be successful. However, to increase the probability of success, they must establish practices, circumstances, and resources that will enable it to flourish. This task identifies the factors and conditions that change leaders believe are required for their particular transformations to succeed. We call these factors conditions for success.

Conditions for success are requirements essential to the achievement of your desired outcomes from a content, people, and process standpoint. Examples include adequate resources, sufficient time to do a quality job, or communications and engagement that both inform and enroll stakeholders. Conditions for success may also refer to particular states of being that enable the transformation to occur more smoothly, such as the leaders taking a conscious approach, the executives staying fully aligned, and people realizing that their needs are actually being considered as the transformation is planned and implemented. Conditions for success can also support the personal transformation work required by the change, such as creating a safe environment for truth-telling, supporting personal breakthrough, and encouraging cross-boundary conflict resolution, communication, and collaboration.

Imagine your conditions for success as gas pedals for accelerating your change. They set the stage for an expedient journey and a positive outcome from the beginning. Once agreed to, they influence leadership, management, and employee behavior to support the entire transformational process. An added advantage is to use them periodically as a template to measure how the transformation is going and whether the change leaders are walking their talk. This review can trigger immediate course corrections when the conditions are not being lived up to. Conditions for success are also great inputs to Task I.F.8, Determine Measurements of Change.

To generate your conditions, each change leader should reflect on their own experience and the situation they face, and identify their unique list. Then collectively, they must determine the specific conditions they will create as a team and commit to support. They must agree on how to establish each condition in the organization, identify who will oversee and monitor them (likely the change process leader), and determine how the conditions will be used to have the greatest impact on the transformational experience. It is important that your conditions be supported by leadership. Generating a list and only giving it "lip service" will damage the change leaders' credibility and hinder your success.

The following sidebar provides a sample list of conditions for success. Notice that the statements are written in the present tense. This is intentional, to model the conscious transformational principle, "Lead as if the future is now." We have found that doing this with conditions for success, as well as with vision statements, helps people experience the future they want to create as an existing reality, thereby accelerating its actual creation.

This task is based on two assumptions we make about leading change: (1) Transformation has more vitality and meaning when it is inspired by a compelling future state—a vision—that mobilizes action throughout the organization, and (2) the vision for the change is most powerful when co-created by a large number of stakeholders rather than handed down by executives. When people participate in the formation of a shared vision—something they choose—they are far more likely to achieve it. This is especially true if you are changing the organization's culture. Because culture change requires mindset change, when people engage in reshaping how they want to work in and lead the organization, they accelerate the shift in their mindsets exponentially. Now, we must also say that we have seen examples where a vision, created only by the top leaders or executive team, produced sufficient energy and motivation to catalyze an organization-wide transformation. These particular leaders were well-respected and charismatic in their own right. While either strategy can work, we prefer a collective visioning strategy because we believe it has a higher probability of building shared commitment, responsibility for success, and breakthrough results.

This task reflects our assumptions. It is one of the most important for addressing all quadrants, all levels, and the process in the Conscious Change Leader Accountability Model. The change leaders may have already explored their own requirements for a new business or cultural future in Task I.B.8. They can use that input in the process they design for creating a shared vision for the overall organization, its culture, and/or the transformation itself. They may choose to develop the vision themselves and then devise a compelling rollout strategy, or they can create a more engaging approach. If you are changing the organization's culture, strive to make the design of your visioning process an obvious reflection of the culture you want to create. You will then carry out the visioning strategy in Phase II in sync with the leaders communicating to the organization the case for change and change strategy.

Designing an engaging visioning process is an important exercise for leaders. It tests their commitment to employee involvement, their change leadership style, and their process design skills. There are many options for creating shared vision. The process chosen by the change leaders will be a function of their mindset, style, and comfort zone. Conscious change leadership teams typically decide to involve all or a significant part of their project community stakeholders in the visioning process. Options for high-engagement visioning processes include the following:

Some organizations use large group meeting approaches such as World Café (Brown and Isaacs, 2005) Future Search (Weisbord and Janoff, 1995), Real Time Strategic Change (Jacobs, 1994), Visioning Conferences (Axelrod, 1992), or Appreciative Inquiry Design Conferences (Watkins and Mohr, 2001). These innovative processes are well worth the effort because this type of engagement can save months, if not years, of implementation time after people are on board with the change. They are powerful strategies for generating a critical mass of commitment to the outcome of the transformation because they engage people's internal realities and motivation. Ideally, the visioning process leaves people chomping at the bit for making the transformation they envision a reality.

Transformational change is emergent, dynamic, and complex. Therefore, staying on top of information that informs you both about your potential future state and what is happening in the process is absolutely critical. There are two essential requirements concerning information in change. The first is the generation of new information needed to shape the creation of your desired outcomes and the best process to achieve it. The second is the effective management of existing project information throughout the full lifecycle of the effort. This task addresses these two needs and ensures that change leaders are clear about their requirements and methods for doing both.

Transformational change is fraught with the unknown. Even the best of plans will never unfold the way they look on screen. You are constantly seeking to discover what your future state needs to be, and how and when to take action to move in the right direction. Leaders depend on good plans built from their best thinking, and then must have the openness and discipline to consciously engage in the process of learning and course correcting as they go. Learning and course correcting go hand-in-hand with information generation. Leaders must stay alert, take action based on their best thinking or intuition, and then rapidly realign their expectations, outcomes, or plans based on what they discover. This is the core of conscious transformational leadership, and mastering its change process competency.

The notion of course correction is one of the most valuable, powerful, and underused ideas in organizations today. Fortunately, many organizations have already initiated continuous improvement and learning practices in their cultures. We encourage you to build off of this momentum and apply the learning and course correction strategy to the leadership of change, especially transformation. Figure 4.1 shows the Course Correction Model.

Different from evaluation, measurement, and audit, which are based on the assumption that a preconceived right answer or standard exists, the process of course correction consists of the following:

The notion of course correction requires education, not only of leaders but of employees as well. Employees, like leaders, typically want security and predictability. Traditionally, employees want their leaders to have the right answers and show them the way. However, if leaders have not made course correction explicit in how the transformation needs to be led, and then make frequent course corrections, employees will likely feel that their leaders are lost, adrift in a rudderless boat. That dynamic can be very disconcerting—a good excuse for employees to criticize leadership and resist the change.

Change leaders must communicate clearly—right from the start—that information generation and course correction are critical aspects of their change strategy and process. They must be prepared to overtly model course correction, in their organizational decisions, interactions, and behavior. Then, as they course correct, they can openly communicate that the alteration is the result of their course correction strategy working well, rather than a failure of their initial plans. Leaders must consciously demonstrate the importance of getting smarter by the day, as quickly as possible.

Information generation and course correction are also critical engagement strategies. The more people that you enroll in generating new information for course correction, the better. High engagement generates more complete information and simultaneously builds commitment and ownership for the change strategy it informs.

Designing and using a widespread course correction system can also have a potent effect on shifting fear-based cultural norms in the organization (e.g., "Kill the messenger who brings bad news!") to ones that are based on learning and innovation (e.g., "Go ahead. Make me smarter!"). If an organization is eager to embrace learning, it has to be willing to shatter the myths that "The leader has all of the answers" and "Having a plan is a guarantee for success." Valuing rapid course correction keeps people attentive and engaged in pushing the envelope of innovation and breakthrough. Exhibit 4.1 offers a checklist of elements for building your course correction system.

In these early stages of change, the rumor mill in your organization is likely in full gear. People who are aware that a change is imminent may be flip-flopping between excitement and anger, fear and hope. Performance may be affected, and your e-mail system is probably flooded with time-consuming commentary about what is going to happen and who is going to get "the boot." Perhaps some of the top leaders are at their wits' end about how to stop the growing wave of concern, and a few are likely ready to erupt emotionally themselves. How do you deal with all of this when you haven't actually changed anything yet?

People will have a full array of natural reactions to both what is being changed and your change process. Because an organization cannot transform without affecting people, a critical condition for success for your change strategy is that it proactively minimize the negative impacts of the change on people and maximize people's commitment. It must also position the leaders to respond effectively to people's reactions throughout the change. Our discussion of the human dynamics of change in Beyond Change Management delves into much of what leaders need to be aware of to do this effectively. This content and guidance is essential reading in preparation for doing this work well. This task develops strategy, mechanisms, and resources to consciously minimize and handle people's reactions in your change, including turning their resistance into commitment.

Resistance is inevitable. It is a person's behavioral expression of either not feeling aligned with the new direction the organization is taking or thinking it is not what is best for him or her personally. Rather than be reactive to your people's resistance when it shows up, actively seek to understand what is causing it and what value that information might bring to the change. Our advice is simply to set up a safe environment in which to explore people's resistance and then listen, listen, listen. People need to have their concerns heard and legitimized. True listening is the most powerful and direct way to defuse resistance. People's issues might even surface a different perspective for more effectively making the change.

Your change communications and engagement strategies are prime opportunities to listen to people and give them the chance to feel heard and valued for their point of view. Again, you do not need to do what they request, but through genuine consideration of their ideas, people will be more likely to go along with the change. This will increase the possibility for turning their resistance into support and alignment.

It is important to note that this task is designed for the change leaders to clarify how to support the workforce through their emotional reactions. Keep in mind that the leaders themselves also need this support. Although traditionally it may not be considered acceptable for leaders to be overt about their emotional reactions or needs, in a conscious approach, the leaders' humanness is as important as anyone's. If your leaders are upset, hurt, or out of balance, they will undoubtedly miss important signals about what the transformation requires. Be sure to address how to provide emotional support for the leaders when doing executive and change leadership team development and executive coaching.

How People React to Change

In recent years, many leaders have come to recognize that people naturally react to change and that leaders must deal differently with the people affected by change. There are a number of valuable models used to educate leaders about how people react to change and how to respond to people's reactions. William Bridges' Transition Model (2003) is particularly useful, as is John Adams' Stages of Personal Adjustment to Transition Model (2002). The Adams model is shown in Figure 4.2.

The core message of Adams' model is straightforward: People have a series of natural reactions to change. They will lose focus, deny, and react strongly, all being seen as forms of resistance. They will enter the "pit" (anger, withdrawal, confusion, victimization, blame) before letting go of their old reality, and then proceed to find ways to deal effectively with their new reality, committing to make it a success. Leaders throughout the organization must support and facilitate people through the entire cycle, even people's descent into the pit. Trying to avoid or rush the pit phase actually lengthens its duration because people need to acknowledge being in acute reaction before they can let it go and move on.

Almost everything leaders do in change triggers diverse reactions in people. In today's economic climate, rash actions that hurt people abound. Abusive examples include telling people that they no longer have jobs by putting the infamous "pink slip" in with their final paychecks, or bosses calling people in to their offices and telling them they have the remainder of the day to exit the building and leave their key and files behind. These are inhumane strategies and have a negative effect on the people who get to stay as they do to those asked to leave.

Figure 4.2. Stages of Personal Adjustment to Transition Model: © John D. Adams, 1976, 1990

Perhaps the leaders who have used insensitive approaches deny the personal trauma they cause because they do not understand how people respond to change, or perhaps it is because they do not want to take responsibility for the pain or anger their decisions have created in their workers. In either case, it is far more powerful to understand how people naturally react to change, to address people's concerns overtly and compassionately, and to plan the change process to minimize known negative impacts on people. A conscious approach also calls for leaders to acknowledge the truth of their own feelings about the pain their actions may cause others. This task is an opportunity for leaders to model a conscious shift in cultural expectations and leadership.

Conscious approaches to reducing people's trauma include Appreciative Inquiry approaches (see Watkins and Mohr, 2001), dialogue, personalized communications, employee assistance programs, "letting go" rituals, celebrations, stress management programs, large group engagement strategies, training, outplacement, listening and support groups, and leadership modeling.

Review your recent and current change strategies to assess their potential for causing emotional upheaval. Redesign them with people's emotional needs in mind. Completing this task does not mean that people won't have bad reactions; they likely will, even in the best of circumstances. The intent, however, is to minimize unnecessary negative reactions and maximize strategies that will engage people in enlivening, constructive ways.

Your organization is about to face a unique set of circumstances in which it must continue to operate while undergoing its transformation. This stage is temporary and requires temporary supports to enable and accelerate the transformational process. Consequently, temporary structures, systems, policies, and technology must be designed to handle the interim needs of the change and to balance its demands with ongoing operations. This task completes your change infrastructure, although you will continue to adjust it over time.

Temporary supports are designed to promote efficiency, streamline decision making, and remove bureaucratic constraints that would otherwise inhibit action on the change. Having referred to these supports as temporary, it is important to note that many organizations recognize so much benefit from them that they incorporate them into their "normal" operations. This helps address the sluggishness when the established bureaucracy fails to act quickly enough as new priorities emerge. This trend reflects the move toward greater resiliency and designing organizations to respond to emergent needs, rather than have the rigidity of the organization squash them.

This task introduces various options for designing temporary structures, systems, policies, and technologies and develops those needed to support your transformation. Some of these strategies will be used immediately, some will be implemented later, and some will be adapted throughout the process. You will dismantle all of them or redefine them as "permanent" at the conclusion of Phase IX of the change process. We will describe this task in two sections: (1) temporary change structures and (2) temporary management systems, policies, and technologies.

When executives think about transforming their organizations, one of the most predictable concerns is how to measure progress and results. Logically, leaders want to know how well the change is proceeding and whether the outcome will produce the return they expect. The desire for accurate and regular measurement is one reason that classic project management methods are attractive for leading change. These approaches provide good quantifiable measurement and, with it, some semblance of comfort and control over the action.

This is appropriate when changes are predictable and controllable. However, as we have stated, transformational change is neither. Because transformation requires significant personal and cultural change, many aspects of it are not predictable, controllable, nor easily evaluated. This makes complete objective measurement of it challenging. In addition, because leaders have historically used measurement to control the organization and induce specific behavior and action, you may need to address people's historical intimidation by measurement so as not to impede the kind of breakthrough and innovation you want from your transformation.

We have already made the case that successful transformation requires the organization to respond to emerging, spontaneously occurring dynamics that could not be predicted earlier. Rigid adherence to measures can stifle these critical course corrections. Having explicit, preconceived outcomes is not bad; they just need to be balanced with ensuring that metrics are adjusted to required course corrections. This is a subtle but very powerful mindset shift for leaders. Measurement can assist, but it should not drive transformation or be used as a control strategy.

This task designs your measurement strategy. Consider both objective and subjective measures. The change leaders must discuss and determine the following:

Change leaders must do this for both the outcomes of the change and the change process itself so that measurement can support the ongoing course correction of both.

People will do what they are rewarded for. When making major change, especially transformational change, the organization's old reward system frequently motivates behavior that is contrary to your desired state. You will need to identify and address discrepancies.

This task develops, communicates, and initiates new (often temporary) rewards that purposely influence people's behavior to support your change. These rewards motivate people to make the transformation a reality—personally, behaviorally, and operationally. Then, as part of the new state that you will design in Phase IV, you can revise the full-scale reward system to support behavior required in the new state.

Please note that fully redesigning the organization's reward system at this point will cause upset and chaos, and should not be done! Employees are still assimilating the case for change and what impacts the change might have on them. Changing operating rewards too early can create tremendous resistance and confusion. Focus here on choosing rewards that motivate people to support the process of the transformation.

In Task I.A.5, you created your Phase I roadmap to bring you to this very point in your change. Now it is time to create your Phase II through V roadmap to carry you up to the creation of your Implementation Master Plan. Scan the tasks of Phases II through V. Select only those you require to achieve your deliverables.

Use your roadmap to guide your change leaders in their plans going forward. You can also use it to communicate to your key stakeholder groups your expected path. And use it to assess the time, resources, and capacity the change will require given your current understanding. Remember, you will likely need to adjust your roadmap as you proceed.