Leading changes and leadership theory and practice needs to change. Professor John Kotter (1995) claimed in Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail to have identified eight leadership errors which resulted in transformation failures. He followed this up in 1996 with his best-selling book Leading Change, prescribing an eight step model for leading transformations encouraging change leaders to create a sense of urgency, build powerful guiding coalitions and develop visions.
Kotter openly acknowledged that he neither drew examples nor major ideas from any published source, except his own writing. In the 2012 edition of his book, which included a new preface, Kotter claimed that his book was now more relevant than when it was first published.
As leaders knowingly or unknowingly still use Kotter’s steps and academics still cite this book, my paper critically assesses Kotter’s claim about the relevance of Leading Change. Three conclusions were drawn:
leading Change remains an enduring landmark leadership study,
but Leading Change is stuck in the past and
paradoxically today discourages change.
Leading changes: Why transformation explanations fail
Published in SAGE journal Leadership 12(4): 449-469. Published first online 9th Feb 2015. Issue published 1st Sept 2016. Downloaded 23,084 times (as at December 2022).
If you have online access to the journal please use this LINK
If you do not have online access to the journal please use this LINK to access an accepted draft version of the paper.
Leading Changes: Why transformation explanations fail
My final post of the year is on a festive note, imagining evidence-based Christmas. I have a gentle (respectful) dig at colleagues who see evidence-based management (EBM) as the future for managing and leading organizational change. We need evidence, but we need to remember that managing and leading change always involves moving into the unknown, myths really are part of the change process.
Our understanding this festive season could be evidence-based
We could look to footfall in shops, comparisons of online versus shop sales, the number of flights from airports, the disturbing domestic violence figures. There is plenty of evidence to inform our understanding of Christmas and I am sure many EBM enthusiasts will look at the evidence, in attempting to make the unknown known. But what might they be missing? The study of myths goes back to the earliest philosophers and early civilizations. Interest in myths predates current management fads and buzzwords and I believe myths will still have meaning after the current management fads and buzzwords have gone out of fashion.
Our understanding this festive season could be open to surprise and revelation
We could engage with children and the magic they experience. We could celebrate the unknown as well as celebrating all we know. We could cherish an unexpected reaction to a meaningful gift or a loving act. We have accumulated so much evidence and knowledge in recent years, but I am not sure we have a deeper understanding of each other or even ourselves. I am grateful for the evidence-based medicine which helps keep my progressive arthritis at bay and myself mobile. I am just not convinced that we should apply such methodologies to management and societies in an unthinking and acritical manner. Today, even daring to question EBM feels akin to blasphemy.
It was just like Christmas
I am not a Christian but each Christmas I walk about a mile across the Sussex Downs to a small ancient church. I follow paths which go back hundreds of years to a village which time seems to have forgotten. They have a listing of Rectors on the wall going back to the 13th Century. I am humbled as I sit on a pew thousands of others have sat on over hundreds of years. The local community come together and sing carols once a year. Each year children perform a spontaneous nativity pantomime. As an introvert, I empathize with the anxiety these youngsters experience as they are challenged to embrace the unknown. That morning they did not know they would be Mary or a sheep or a shepherd, but they warm to their roles and through a collective leap of faith something magical invariably happens. Elements work, and elements do not work, but the children appear to warm to performing and myself and the congregation certainly enjoy this annual spectacle.
It is odd but just for a few moments in that small village church everything seems to make sense. I am the only one who likes to view this as the annual change project pantomime. I look for communications, resistance, teamwork, identity issues etc. I know there is a chance that this pantomime (change project) might not happen, the audience knows this uncertainty. The nativity is choreographed by an enthusiastic compere. It is her belief in herself and the children that facilitates the nativity. She takes the children from the known into the unknown, for me she leads change.
Movement from a known state to an unknown state
Organizational change involves movement from a known state (today) to an unknown state (tomorrow). Today even with EBM we cannot predict future organizational change outcomes with certainty. Organizational change is potentially informed by natural science insights, as well as, social science insights. However, the rhetoric of EBM troubles me in attempting to frame organizational change in exclusively natural science terms, the implication is that we can predict the future with certainty. I am not alone in my concerns, for example, Morrell and Learmonth (2015) offered criticisms of EBM. They questioned claims that all evidence was evaluated in that they found this approach to be narrow and selective. The approach devalued narrative and story forms of knowledge and it was managerialist being for management, rather than about management.
Humble leaders may be more useful than evidence-based leaders
We need evidence and facts to inform organizational change, but we also need those advising to change leaders and managers to display humility in honestly and openly acknowledging the unknown aspect of organizational change. At the level of leaders and managers, we need a greater appreciation that ‘organizations’ are collections of people. These people may share the hopes and desires of their leaders, but they may have hopes and desires of their own. These people may act rationally, but on occasions, they may act irrationally (I certainly do and the children in the nativity sometimes do). They may experience an organizational change in very different ways, potentially thriving on change or struggling with organizational change. If you find yourself in the latter camp, it does not mean that you are a bad person. It does mean that you might not behave in the way a natural science formula suggests you will behave or your leader wants you to behave.
Editorial Note
Santa Claus Selfie
Given the contentious and sentimental nature of this post, the Woodland Decay Editor required the post to be rigorously peer-reviewed. The peer reviewer asked for his anonymity to be protected, but was willing to pose for a photograph with me and recommended publication without revision, it must be Christmas!
Visiting Richmond to see the Kew Christmas lights I decided to take in a concert. Ralph McTell famous for the Streets of London playing central London had to be a good omen. On Thursday 7th December I viewed the Kew Christmas lights. It was a magical almost shamanic experience as we celebrated the seasons wandering around the gardens accompanied by lights and sounds, I have included a few images to offer a flavour of the evening. There was a poetic resonance with the celebration of changing seasons on Thursday and the marking of the passage of time on Friday.
I have never seen Ralph McTell live and have none of his records (as we used to say in days gone by). However, through the joys of the internet I was able to watch some concert footage and was so impressed with the timbre of his voice, which appeared to have improved with the passage of time. In what I sampled on the internet I enjoyed his balladeering and his social commentary. So on Friday the 8th December I found myself going on a small adventure to the Southbank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. I am a fan of the Royal Festival Hall, but I had never met the smaller sister. Brutalist concrete yet a warmth that is hard to convey and wonderful acoustics, yet wasted on my weary ears. Leather seats which were ideal for a concert, this might have been a folk evening, but it was a middle class folk evening.
Always fascinated by the audience an artist attracts, as a fifty something I felt quite youthful. Many couples evident whom I sensed had such rich biographies, it felt like an evening of remembering or more accurately reconnecting with our earlier selves. I noticed parents with middle age children, doing a concert together and enjoying each others company. Ralph McTell (RM) shared that his son was managing the tour and his granddaughters were running the merchandise stall. This was an evening of family an evening of friendships, an evening of connections. RM would dedicate songs to people in the audience without the aid of notes, I pondered this and guessed that there must be an ear piece at work.
Kew Gardens – Trees Illuminated 2018
The concert appeared to be a virtual sell-out, but two seats were free either side of me. I hadn’t been stood up and my people do not buy extra seats because of my proximity issues, so weird symbolism at work here. No support act had been billed, so it was a surprise to be watching Smith and Brewer. Initially slightly resentful, I quickly warmed to their close harmony singing, fascinated by the dynamics of two guys with guitars sharing the same microphone. Remember, I am more rock than folk orientated, but the first track conjured up Simon and Garfunkel for me. They channelled their emotions around a wet vehicle breakdown in Rhyl. My younger self, holidaying in North Wales was back with them in the existentialist despair of North Wales in the rain. But this would misconvey what they were about, they were a warm up act in the true sense of the phrase. They packed a lot into 30 minutes, most importantly they energised the audience who warmed to them and their observational commentary.
When they finished their set, there was then an odd pause in the concert for 20 minutes for refreshments and shopping. I experienced another mild resentment, you can see why I always have to sit on my own. And then I spotted a guy a few rows down clutching his signed Smith and Brewer CD, he looked proud and happy. I remembered how music used to be more like this before the arrival of multinational owned sharing platforms.
Kew Gardens – Illuminated 2018
As RM came on to the stage there was a wave of warm applause, I was probably in the minority hearing him live for the first time, there was a lot of love and a lot of memories in the Queen Elizabeth Hall this evening. I am going to struggle to remember all the tracks, but the guy directly in front of me had a notebook and a pencil. He would write down each track, so as to remember and relive the evening. Again in a digital age so nice to see somebody going back to old technology, so much more real. He was with his daughter, they appeared to be sharing the joy. Brexit and other troubles outside the venue had been put on hold for a few hours. RM commented on war, conflict, poverty at times, but in a non adversarial way, seeking out the peace and companionship which filled the venue.
So without paper and pencil I cannot list all tracks, but here are a few; The Ferryman, Naomi, The Pretty Brighton Belle and From Clare to Here. Wonderful lyrics with wonderful guitar playing, this really was a master class. My favourite track was the Maginot Waltz, a track about two soldiers going on a charabanc trip to Brighton just before they went off to war. RM humbly explained how he had performed it at Ypres on the 11th November 2018. The importance of connection rippled through the evening, connections with place and people and I have tried here to highlight some of those connections. He talked about his uncle, his upbringing and riding on the Brighton Belle on the boiler plate. He talked about us being part of fifty year cycle traced back to Bob Dylan in the 1960s. He acknowledged that the first time he had played this venue was 1972 when his life was very different, I would have been 10 and he mentioned his son was now in his fifties, so many connections. Isn’t it odd that we are told we live in the most ‘connected’ world of all time, yet I wonder if we haven’t lost many human connections.
I was curious to know how he would deal with what he referred to as his only ‘hit’. Well he dealt with it with humour and humility in keeping with the rest of the evening. He encouraged audience participation as he sung the Streets of London and many of the audience joined in. He explained how this way, each time he played the song it was interpreted differently for him.
A Kew Gardens Illumination 2018
The audience sounded wonderful to me, almost choral as they simultaneously forgot and remembered themselves. I felt RM had given a lot of himself during the evening and an encore was not required by this audience member. But there was an appetite for more and he delivered a wonderful encore joining up with Smith and Brewer, connections abound. As I walked out into the cold December evening there was an accidental mingling of the young clubbing generation and the older folk generation, just for a moment everything was connected and everything made sense.
Commanding change is a very different practice from leading change. Senior people refer to ‘leadership’ when what they are really talking about is ‘command.’ In a crisis, we urgently require the answers of ‘command’. During an organizational change, we require the questions of ‘leadership’.
Introduction
As discussed in the previous post claiming that a building is on fire may do more harm than good. I am weary of people asserting that what we need is change leadership, strong change leaders, where are the leaders, etc, etc, etc…
Both organizational change and leadership are vague/slippery concepts which even respected scholars would concede we do not fully understand. What we really need is a better differentiation of change leadership, from commanding change and managing change.
Throughout universities, hospitals and organizations, in general, I hear senior people referring to ‘leadership’ yet what they are really talking about is ‘command.’ All organizations at different times draw upon command, leadership, and management. Differentiating these concepts and their appropriateness to specific problems is currently missing from practitioner debates yet integral to organizational change processes.
If I couch the same idea slightly differently, Stacey (2012) eloquently argued that what masquerades as the leadership of change is closer to institutionalized bullying. We need to be clear what leadership isn’t (see Figure 1, first column) and equally clear what leadership might be (see Figure 1, second column).
The compliance produced by institutionalized bullying is inimical to change. Change will then only come when deviants utter ‘shrill cries of protest from the margin’ which those at the centre will probably classify as hysterical. (Stacey, 2012: 89)
Leaders inspire people by inviting them into a dialogue where they suspend assumptions and so learn and change. Well-intentioned rational people, engaged in dialogue under inspiring leaders with vision, will willingly change. (Stacey, 2012: 80)
As it is…
As it might be…
Figure 1 – Bullying is very different from leading change
How can we differentiate the problems organizations encounter and relate them to management, leadership, and command?
In seeking to understand leadership Grint (2005) revisited Rittel and Webber’s (1973) famous typology of tame, wicked and critical problems. The tame problems were resolvable, their limited uncertainty suited management and management processes. Whereas wicked problems were complex and intractable without unilinear solutions. These wicked problems were more suited to leadership requiring leaders to ask the right questions, rather than impose the right answers. These answers were not necessarily self-evident as they required a collaborative process of dialogue to make progress. Finally, critical problems were the very real crises which organizations encountered. In these situations, with very little uncertainty and very little time, command was required. Command provides answers to enable taking decisive action in a crisis.
In further understanding leadership, Grint (2005) revisited Etzioni’s (1964) famous typology of power; calculative compliance, normative compliance, and coercive compliance. Calculative compliance was closest to management in organizing processes. Normative compliance with an emphasis on soft power and reference to shared values was closest to leadership in asking questions. Coercive compliance was all about hard and physical power, typified in the military and emergency services. Coercive compliance was closest to the command of providing answers.
This reasoning suggests that in response to different organizational change problems there may be a requirement for management, leadership and command and the exercise of different forms of power. This is helpful in disrupting the current leading change fetish as the universal panacea for all organizational change problems.
What is the difference between commanding change and leading change?
The change challenges organizations and societies face require very different conceptualizations of change leadership, from leading change as commanding change which we currently appear to experience.
Figure 2 questions today’s dominant model of leading change which I believe has damaged health and education institutions in the UK and perhaps beyond. I believe in the social benefits of our National Health Service and the transformative potential of schools, colleges, and universities.
However, I increasingly fear that commanding change masquerading as leading change misunderstands that these organizations are collections of people. The art of leading change is to meaningfully engage with such people through questioning and dialogue generating collaborative ownership/resolution of change problems.
Commanding Change As it is …
Leading Change As it might be…
Urgency/Crisis
Time/Engagement Always Required for Optimum Outcomes
Top Down
Strong Assertions
Questioning
Dialogue
Hard/Physical Power
Soft Power/Shared Values
Perceived as Problematic Resistance
Perceived as Part of a Change Process
Answers/Directives/Edicts
Collaborative Ownership/ Resolution of Change Problems
Figure 2 – The difference between commanding change and leading change
I am afraid if we continue to misunderstand the hard/physical power of command which is urgently required in times of crisis as leading change nothing will change and nobody will change despite all the noise and senior management edicts.
The ‘irony of leadership’ is that collaboration diminishes the potential contribution of the leader (Grint, 2005). The next time somebody asserts what we need is strong leadership ask them do they mean leadership or command?
Further Reading
Etzioni, A. (1964). Moderm organization. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
