At the heart of Dr Blair’s blog is the statement “The greatest determinant of the future success of an organization is the CEO and leadership team’s ability to address change by formulating and articulating a clear vision
and carefully-crafted strategic reactions.”
Dr Blair’s article made me think. It’s an interesting, well formed piece, but I was also left feeling that it is looking at only a part of what organisations really need in terms of creating, embracing and delivering change. In my view, addressing “change by formulating and articulating a clear vision and carefully-crafted strategic reactions is only half the issue”.
Vision and crafting strategic reactions, without a supporting environment for successful execution of change (at all levels - strategic, tactical, operational) will always be doomed to struggle as it does not address the need of effective and repeatable execution. Gone are the days when companies have the bandwidth or finance to hire teams of coaches and facilitators whose expertise and experience also walks out the door as the consulting assignment completes.
From my experience what the market place is really demanding is a scalable, inclusive environment that leverages the dimensions which Dr Blair and others articulate well (structure and positioning of change, anticipating resistance and reaction, talking about change reactions, inspiring trust and teamwork, etc.) into engagement of the whole organization in strategic change.
Every day I speak with many business leaders who are frustrated by the poor performance of transformation work, by just how hard it is, and who badly need systematic approaches to adoption and diffusion. It is a hugely exciting to be right at the forefront of offering a solution that delivers a step change in:
• business leaders’ ability to practically engage staff and manage transformation effectively to business impact (in contrast to the 30% average success rates)
• the ability to embed change via transformation processes that work and are fit for purpose (the well researched and acknowledged weakest link!)
• the leverage of knowledge and skills about what’s new within the organisation across a global team.
We will keep you posted regarding how well we are able to transform the bottom of the league table 30% success rates that are currently the norm.