I recently attended the annual convention for the Ohio Partnership for Excellence, the organization that assesses the Baldrige criteria for the state of Ohio. It was a fantastic convention with many Baldrige award winners in attendance from around the country and from the manufacturing, health care, and public sectors. One of the best presentations was by Harry Hertz, Director of the Baldrige National Quality Program. During his key note address, he made reference to an IBM study that was just released in 2009 of 1,130 CEOs from around the globe. This insightful survey produced what the study calls "the enterprise of the future," and the findings put change leadership at the forefront of enterprise strategy. [A copy of this report can be found on the "Links and Files" page of the changefreak.com web site] You might say some of the most successful CEOs in North America, Europe, and Asia are change freaks at heart (or at least recognize their need to become so)!
IBM leaders conducted 95% of the interviews face to face, which included almost equal numbers from Japan/Asia, Europe, and North/South America. The study also sought to distinguish differences between financial performers and underperformers. They analyzed the data carefully to identify key differences between these top tier performers and their lower performing counterparts. The executive summary of the report is as follows:
Organizations are bombarded by change, and many are struggling to keep up. Eight out of ten CEO s see significant change ahead, and yet the gap between expected change and the ability to manage it has almost tripled since our last Global CEO Study in 2006.
CEO s view more demanding customers not as a threat, but as an opportunity to differentiate. CEO s are spending more to attract and retain increasingly prosperous, informed and socially aware customers.
Nearly all CEO s are adapting their business models — two-thirds are implementing extensive innovations. More than 40 percent are changing their enterprise models to be more collaborative. “ The rate of change has increased dramatically. Customers are demanding radical change in product innovation.
CEO s are moving aggressively toward global business designs, deeply changing capabilities and partnering more extensively. CEO s have moved beyond the cliché of globalization, and organizations of all sizes are reconfiguring to take advantage of global integration opportunities.
Financial outperformers are making bolder plays. These companies anticipate more change, and manage it better. They are also more global in their business designs, partner more extensively and choose more disruptive forms of business model innovation.
Based on these observations, the study goes on to introduce the "Enterprise of the Future." This successful enterprise is:
1. Hungry for Change
2. Innovative Beyond Customer Imagination
3. Globally Integrated
4. Disruptive by Nature
5. Genuine, Not Just Generous
It's not hard to identify the importance of effective change leadership in each of these elements. Effective change management and innovation forms the core of the successful enterprise of the future! In upcoming changefreak blog posts I will deal with each of these characteristics, and elaborate on the role of the change agent in each.
Showing posts with label affecting positive change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label affecting positive change. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Affecting Positive Chage
Somewhere between Michael Jackson stories this weekend the news media reported on the resignation of Sarah Palin as the Alaska governor. In the clip below Palin talks repeatedly about "affecting positive change," a statement that has resulted in many debates over the airwaves about how an agent of change should go about influencing positive change. While my intent is typically to avoid the morass of politics on this blog, this is just to interesting to ignore. Palin supporter or not, her press conference and follow up interviews have definitely put being a change freak at the top of the news once again.
Watch a clip of the Palin News Conference
Palin begins her comments here repeatedly discussing "affecting positive change" and asserts that she will be able to do this better outside of government. In a later interview with CNN she said she doesn't "need a title to affect change." What do you think? Is a title or position needed to affect change? Certainly one can be a change agent without a title or leadership position. I'm reminded of a tough day I experienced years ago with attending officer training for the US Air Force. I thought I was doing well surviving the vigors of the training when I was called into a one on one meeting with my commanding officer. He bluntly asked what my problem was and stated that I wasn't showing the kind of leadership he expected from me. A bit surprised I responded by telling him that I was waiting until I had the opportunity to be in a formal leadership role at the training to show my leadership ability. Wrong answer. He gave me some advice I will never forget. He said a leader leads regardless of his position or title. A true leader (and change agent?) seeks opportunities to lead where they are, today. I took his admonition to heart and began to look for opportunities to fill a gap or volunteer when others hesitated to step forward.
I've since seen this same principle play out in my business experience as well. Many organizations are tyrannized by the "thems" and the "somebodies." Processes fail and because of the crazy decisions "they" have made, and the organization waits endlessly for "somebody" to do something! It's impossible to quantify the damage that "they" have done to business and the failure of the "somebodies" to do something about it!
Okay, seriously, isn't senior leadership support the key to real, transformational change? Well, certainly affecting change can be much more difficult if you don't have the support of your leadership. And transformational change can be helped along immensely through the active and public support of the organization's senior leadership. Not having senior leadership support can make being a change freak a bit dangerous as well. Business consultant and change freak Tom Peters has been quoted as saying "If you haven't been fired by age 30, you're not pushing your boundaries." I would suspect the firings he refers to has more to do with pushing the boundaries of your leaders than just yourself!
All this aside, you don't have to be a leader with the title and formal authority to affect positive change in your organization. You must have a personal commodity that is far rarer than titles and positions: you have to be willing. Willing to step forward when it would be more comfortable to hide in the crowd. Willing to take a risk by pushing the boundaries. Willing to take the unconventional path when others are cautioning you to slow down or conform. Willing to look in the mirror when others are searching for "them" and "somebody." Willing to be a change freak!
I suppose time will tell if Sarah Palin made a good decision in resigning the governorship of Alaska to "affect positive change." I suspect the most positive change she hopes to affect is to get her family off the firing line of the national media. But while a good point guard may pass the ball when she attracts a crowd, she certainly doesn't leave the game at halftime. Time will tell if this decision was unconventional brilliance or the swan song of a "Maverick." I'm not waiting to see. There's too much positive change to affect right where I am today...
Watch a clip of the Palin News Conference
Palin begins her comments here repeatedly discussing "affecting positive change" and asserts that she will be able to do this better outside of government. In a later interview with CNN she said she doesn't "need a title to affect change." What do you think? Is a title or position needed to affect change? Certainly one can be a change agent without a title or leadership position. I'm reminded of a tough day I experienced years ago with attending officer training for the US Air Force. I thought I was doing well surviving the vigors of the training when I was called into a one on one meeting with my commanding officer. He bluntly asked what my problem was and stated that I wasn't showing the kind of leadership he expected from me. A bit surprised I responded by telling him that I was waiting until I had the opportunity to be in a formal leadership role at the training to show my leadership ability. Wrong answer. He gave me some advice I will never forget. He said a leader leads regardless of his position or title. A true leader (and change agent?) seeks opportunities to lead where they are, today. I took his admonition to heart and began to look for opportunities to fill a gap or volunteer when others hesitated to step forward.
I've since seen this same principle play out in my business experience as well. Many organizations are tyrannized by the "thems" and the "somebodies." Processes fail and because of the crazy decisions "they" have made, and the organization waits endlessly for "somebody" to do something! It's impossible to quantify the damage that "they" have done to business and the failure of the "somebodies" to do something about it!
Okay, seriously, isn't senior leadership support the key to real, transformational change? Well, certainly affecting change can be much more difficult if you don't have the support of your leadership. And transformational change can be helped along immensely through the active and public support of the organization's senior leadership. Not having senior leadership support can make being a change freak a bit dangerous as well. Business consultant and change freak Tom Peters has been quoted as saying "If you haven't been fired by age 30, you're not pushing your boundaries." I would suspect the firings he refers to has more to do with pushing the boundaries of your leaders than just yourself!
All this aside, you don't have to be a leader with the title and formal authority to affect positive change in your organization. You must have a personal commodity that is far rarer than titles and positions: you have to be willing. Willing to step forward when it would be more comfortable to hide in the crowd. Willing to take a risk by pushing the boundaries. Willing to take the unconventional path when others are cautioning you to slow down or conform. Willing to look in the mirror when others are searching for "them" and "somebody." Willing to be a change freak!
I suppose time will tell if Sarah Palin made a good decision in resigning the governorship of Alaska to "affect positive change." I suspect the most positive change she hopes to affect is to get her family off the firing line of the national media. But while a good point guard may pass the ball when she attracts a crowd, she certainly doesn't leave the game at halftime. Time will tell if this decision was unconventional brilliance or the swan song of a "Maverick." I'm not waiting to see. There's too much positive change to affect right where I am today...
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