21,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
WINNER OF BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 (The Business Book Awards)
"Essential reading for CEOs and leaders of change." - Martin Davis, CEO, Kames Capital
88% of change initiatives fail. The Change Catalyst provides you with the insight, tools and know-how you need to make sure your next change, strategy or M&A is the one in eight that succeeds.
Whether you're trying to change a process, a culture, a behaviour or an entire business, success demands complete clarity of what you are trying to achieve and why, followed by a clear plan to align your people to deliver. All change is about people, and one of the most important ingredients for successful change is the identification and appointment of a Change Catalyst. This is the person who can guide your organisation – its people and its processes – to the ultimate delivery of the outcomes your business needs.
The book takes you deep inside the culture and process of change to show you how to set yourself up for success in both the short and long term; identify your goal, clarify your vision, stay focused on the outcome and develop and deliver a do-able plan. It will also explain how to genuinely engage stakeholders at all levels in every stage of the process. Real-world case studies show you what a successful change initiative looks like on the ground, and the Change Toolbox offers a collection of proven tools and models to streamline planning and implementation. Clear, intelligent guidance cuts through the buzzwords to get down to business quickly, and a pragmatic, holistic approach helps you tackle strategy, culture, execution and more.
People don't like change; it rattles their cages and makes them uncomfortable – and emotion trumps logic every time. This book shows you how to pinpoint the emotional triggers, coax logic out of hiding and get everyone on board as you drive real, lasting change.
- Learn why typical change initiatives are far more likely to fail than succeed.
- Identify your Change Catalyst to strengthen both process and outcome.
- Overcome cultural challenges and turn understanding into transformation.
- Develop and implement a solid strategy for successful change.
Whether you want change at the team level or on a government scale, no initiative is immune from the perils of inertia, misguided focus, distracted leadership or muddled planning. Change is inevitable. Successful change isn't.
The Change Catalyst will tilt the odds on your favour and enable your next change initiative to be among the 12% that succeeds.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 455
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Ähnliche
Contents
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Introduction
Part Zero: Change is Inevitable
Part One: Why 88% of Change Initiatives Fail
Chapter 1: People Don't Like Change
#1 Reason Why People Resist Change: Fear of Failure
#2 Reason Why People Resist Change: Fear of the Unknown
#3 Reason Why People Resist Change: Fear of Blame
#4 Reason Why People Resist Change: The Comfort of Victimhood
The ‘Victim’ Triangle
Escaping the Vicious Triangle
#5 Reason Why People Resist Change: The Long-Term Gains Don't Seem to be Worth the Short-Term Pain
#6 Reason Why People Resist Change: We Need Help but It is Nowhere to be Found, So We Give Up at the First Hurdle
Chapter 2: Lack of Clarity Regarding What We are Trying to Achieve and Why
Q1: ‘What are We Trying to Achieve?’
Clarity of Business Outcomes
Realistic Outcomes
Measurable Outcomes
Q2: ‘What Does Success Look Like?’
Q3: ‘Why Do We Need to Change?’
Why is the Status Quo Not an Option?
Q4: ‘What is in It for Me?’
Chapter 3: The Implications are not Fully Understood
Chapter 4: An Obsession with Process over Outcomes
Chapter 5: Inertia
Chapter 6: The Project is Set Up to Fail
Chapter 7: Poor Communications and Disingenuous Stakeholder Engagement
Change Projects that Fail, Fail to Communicate Effectively
Change Projects that Fail, Also Fail to Engage Genuinely with Their Stakeholders
Chapter 8: We Forget that Emotions Trump Logic Every Time
One Industry that Has Been Built Around the Fact that Our Emotions Rule Our Decisions is the World of Advertising
The Economist Plays with Our Emotions!
Scientific Evidence that Emotions Rule Our Decisions
Emotional Commitment is Four Times Stronger than Rational Commitment
What Does Motivate People?
Chapter 9: A Change-averse Culture
Chapter 10: The Leadership Doesn't Stay the Course
Part Two: The Necessary Ingredients for Successful Change
Chapter 11: A Change Catalyst to Drive Delivery
The Difference between a Change Catalyst and a Programme Manager
Should My Change Catalyst be Internal Or External?
The Best of Both Worlds
The Life of a Change Catalyst
What is EQ?
EQ is Far More Important than IQ When It Comes to Business
Chapter 12: Clarity About What we are Trying to Achieve and Why
Chapter 13: Detailed Understanding of the Implications of the Change
Chapter 14: A Laser-like Focus on the Outcomes
Chapter 15: A Change Process that Includes a ‘Pause for Reflection’
Chapter 16: Clear Governance and Thorough Planning
Clear Governance
A ‘Change Catalyst’ is Outcomes-Focused and Thrives in the Grey Areas
Thorough Planning
Chapter 17: Genuine Engagement with People at all Levels of the Organisation
Effective Communications
What is the Purpose of the Communication?
Communicate Frequently and Regularly
Remember that Communication is a Net-Sum Gain
Listen
Genuine Stakeholder Engagement
Methods of Engagement
Chapter 18: Identification of the Emotional Triggers
Chapter 19: A Strong, Committed, Aligned and Unwavering Leadership Team
Chapter 20: A Change-ready Culture
Part Three: Culture Change
Chapter 21: Cultural Intelligence
The Four Components of Cultural Intelligence
The Sources of Cultural Intelligence – Head, Body and Heart
Observing the Default Settings of Other Cultures
Observing Your Own Default Settings
Chapter 22: Instigating Change in a Foreign Culture
Australia to England
Translating for the Americans
Nonverbal Communication in Asia
Majilis-Style Decision-Making in the Middle East
Learnings from Working in Foreign Lands
Chapter 23: Understanding Your Organisation's Culture
Insight Via Culture Surveys
Insight from Employee Focus Groups and Interviews
Insight from Outside
Chapter 24: Teaching People to Walk in the Rain
A Company's Culture is How Its People Behave, Individually and in Teams
Part Four: Getting Down to Business
Chapter 25: Vision, Mission and Other Buzzwords
To Vision Or Not to Vision?
Mission
Other Mission Variants
Purpose
Capabilities (a.k.a. ‘What Do We Have to Excel at?’)
Behaviours
Summary
Chapter 26: Values Schmalues
The ‘Right’ Values
‘Real’ Values
Three Types of Values
Chapter 27: What Does a Good Strategy Look Like?
Utopia
Stretch Targets
Verbal Nonsense
To-Do Lists
Wish Lists
Spreadsheets and Hockey Sticks
‘What are the Components of a Good Strategy?’
Chapter 28: It's the Delivery, Stupid! (Execution is Everything)
Commit
Engage Your People in Strategy Development
Communicate Properly
Develop a Robust Strategy Execution Plan
Tier 1 is for the Leadership Team to Deliver
Tier 2 is Owned by the Department Leadership Teams
Chapter 29: Where Are Your Walls? (Organisation Design)
Chapter 30: Overcoming Complacency (The Innovator's Dilemma)
How to Overcome Complacency
Chapter 31: What Does a Good Leader Look Like?
Chapter 32: Building Extraordinary Leadership Teams
The Main Ingredients to Building Extraordinary Leadership Teams
Chapter 33: Your People
The Nine-Box Grid
Descriptions and Implications of Each Box
New Employees/New to Role
Don't be Afraid of Scoring People ‘Low’ in Terms of Either Potential Or Performance
And Lastly, Embrace the Grid
The Performance Choice Grid
Chapter 34: Case Studies
Chapter 35: The Change Toolbox
Part Five: And Finally, Tell ‘em What You Told ‘em
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Part 1
Chapter 1
Pages
i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
xiii
xiv
xv
xvi
xvii
xviii
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
‘The Change Catalyst is essential reading for CEOs and leaders of change. A how-to guide for accomplishing one of the most critical assignments in business – the successful instigation of sustainable change. Campbell not only explains what we should be doing, but more importantly, why and how.'
—Martin Davis, CEO Kames Capital
‘It’s a rare business book where you feel like the author is sitting with you having a conversation and guiding you. Campbell gives us the ability to identify the distractions that kill most change initiatives and bring to the surface those things that truly matter. He will restore your faith that positive and lasting change is possible.'
—Sean Russo, MD Noah's Rule; Ex Rothschild Board Member & MD Rothschild Treasury
‘From the start to the end I was captivated by Campbell’s easy-to-read, natural writing style. The book contains innumerable moments of insight and his nuggets of reality are spot on. He reminds us of what we need to stay focused on to really make change happen.'
—Carlos Sabugueiro, CEO ME & Africa, Copart; Ex CEO Zurich Hong Kong & Middle East
‘The Change Catalyst is the most accessible, entertaining and insightful book on the subject I have read in many a year. Campbell possesses the rare ability to simplify complex subjects, and with his own inimitable style and humour, he gives the reader the confidence and insight they will need to achieve what most fail to deliver – successful and sustainable change.'
—David Pitman, Global Finance Partner, Boston Consulting Group
‘If you want your next change or strategy to be the 1 in 8 that succeeds; buy this book.’
—Alastair Conway, CEO James Hay Partnership
The Change Catalyst
Secrets to Successful and Sustainable Business Change
Campbell Macpherson
This edition first published 2017 © 2017 Campbell Macpherson
Registered officeJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com.
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data to come
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-119-38626-1 (pbk)ISBN 978-1-119-38627-8 (ebk)ISBN 978-1-119-38621-6 (ebk)
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Simon Booth/Shutterstock
‘I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a “transformer” in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage and faith to be a transforming leader.’
Stephen Covey (1932–2012)
American educator, businessman, keynote speaker and author of one of the most successful business books of all time; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Acknowledgements
‘Why don’t I write a book?' I thought. How hard could it be? I suppose this is how all new ventures begin – with the triumph of optimism over experience. But I must admit, it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Even the times spent staring at a blank screen while the cursor flashed contemptuously at me, silently deriding the presumptuousness of the entire enterprise. Luckily, the times when the words gushed forth, overwhelming my pedestrian typing skills to be honest, were far more frequent and uplifting. The whole process forced me into a very healthy period of contemplation; to re-assess all of the tools and approaches I have used over the years to help organisations change; to better understand why change fails and how people and companies can be helped to achieve successful and sustainable change.
I would first like to thank all of the people within the many organisations that I have worked with, for and occasionally against over the last quarter of a century. The leaders, managers, employees, consultants, mentors and coaches that have helped hone my understanding of the business of change. Without them, there would be no book.
I completely underestimated the effort required in proof-reading and editing. So my deep gratitude goes out to my darling wife, Jane, a great friend, Katherine Mathers, and my incredible daughter, Emily, for their tireless and thorough efforts in reading and re-reading the earliest drafts, spotting a myriad of grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and gaps in content. Thanks also to my sublime son, Charlie, who may not actually have contributed even remotely to the exercise but nevertheless excelled in his role as chief cheerleader.
However, the proof-reader of the year award must go to Carlos Sabugueiro, a wonderful friend and highly impressive CEO who, as luck would have it, was holed up with the flu in a hotel on a business trip to the US and therefore managed to read the entire manuscript over his three-day period of internment. His detailed notes were invaluable.
Thank you to the subjects of my three key case studies – Michael Gould of Anaplan, Tim Wallace of iPipeline and Michael Sheargold of The Real Estate Results Network – each of whom has not only built highly successful businesses, but has also been a catalyst for change for an entire industry. Each of them has my utmost admiration and respect as leaders, as people and for what they have achieved. Thank you for your generous time and support.
Thanks also to soon-to-be-retiring agent, Arthur Goodhart, who convinced me to start with a chapter on the inevitability of change and balance the first two key chapters. Thanks also to the fabulous Fiona Petheram who helped me review the Wiley contract.
And of course, a special thanks to the highly professional, organised and thorough team at Wiley. To Pete Gaughan of the Content Enablement team in San Francisco; Tessa Allen, Senior Production Editor in Chichester; copy-editor, Helen Heyes; Publishing Assistant, Chloe Satchell-Cobbett; and most of all, Senior Commissioning Editor, Annie Knight. Annie, thank you for your belief in the project from the outset and the enthusiasm and determination with which you championed the book and steered it so successfully through commissioning and publication. Wiley was the publisher I had always hoped would publish the book. Thank you for turning this dream into a reality.
Thanks also to James Poole, MD of the Gordon Poole Speakers' Bureau, who recommended the book proposal to Wiley in the first place. I am proud to be part of James's stable of speakers and authors.
Finally, a very special thank you to my gorgeous wife and life-long partner, Jane. You are, and always will be, the best thing that has ever happened to me. Life with a self-acclaimed Change Catalyst is rarely smooth or predictable, but it is also never dull! Janey, you are the island of sanity in my sea of change.
Thank you.
Campbell
About the Author
Campbell Macpherson has been enabling organisations to instigate successful and sustainable change for more than 25 years across the UK, Europe, US, Australia, Asia and the Middle East – as an adviser, consultant, executive, Board member and in-house change leader.
Campbell believes passionately in the power of clarity and aligning people to deliver, as your people are the only ones who can deliver your strategy. What drives him is a burning desire to make a positive difference to the way that organisations work, and the impact they have on their customers, employees and shareholders.
The organisations he has worked with to date include one of the world's largest Sovereign Wealth Funds, International Financial Data Systems, Aviva, Friends Life, James Hay, Cofunds, iPipeline, Centaur Media, GoCompare, International Personal Finance, BP, Zurich, Capital Radio, Telewest, Misys, BBC, Lazard, British Airways, National Mutual and the Singapore Convention Centre.
He was a Senior Adviser to one of the largest Sovereign Funds in the Middle East.
He was Strategy Director of Zurich Global Life Emerging Markets, covering Asia, the Middle East, LatAm and Central and Eastern Europe.
He was the award-winning HR Director of Sesame, the UK's largest IFA Network, having been drafted in by its parent company, Misys, to forge one company out of the five they had acquired.
He was a founder executive and Marketing Director of Virgin Wines.
He was eBusiness Director of the AMP Group covering Pearl, Virgin Direct, Henderson, Cogent and NPI. He founded a multimedia business in the 1990s and was a Senior Manager in the Change Management division of Andersen Consulting. He also flew jets (poorly) in the RAAF.
He is a strategic change adviser for many dozens of organisations via his consultancy Change & Strategy International Ltd (www.changeandstrategy.com). He has a Physics degree from Melbourne University.
Campbell lives in Oxfordshire, UK, and is married with two adult children. He divides his time between the UK, Australia and wherever his clients need him to be.
www.campbellmacpherson.co.uk
Introduction
88% of change initiatives fail.
According to a 2016 Bain & Company survey of 250 large companies,1 only 12% of change projects achieve or exceed their projected outcomes. A further 38% produce less than half of their expected results. The final 50% ‘settle for a significant dilution of results’. In other words, seven out of eight change initiatives fail.
A similar proportion of mergers and acquisitions fail. A comparable proportion of corporate strategies fail. A similar number of large IT projects fail.
While there may be some debate about the percentages, Bain isn't the only consultancy to arrive at a similar conclusion. A 2008 McKinseys survey estimated that two-thirds of change projects fail. John Kotter, in his seminal book, Leading Change (1996), estimated the number to be around 70%.
Several studies by several consultancies over several decades have all deduced that change is so difficult to achieve, and so fraught with obstacles, that organisations usually end up abandoning change programmes altogether or settling for significantly watered-down outcomes; wasting vast sums of money doing the former and foregoing opportunities for increased revenue, profit and shareholder value doing the latter.
Only one in eight change initiatives deliver the results they set out to achieve. Why?
There are many reasons and they are all intertwined. But from my many decades of experience assisting organisations large and small to instigate change, I have come to the conclusion that the reasons why change projects, programmes or initiatives fail can be grouped into ten key categories. This top ten is detailed in Part One of the book.
The key reason that infuses every other is the fact we humans don't like change. When it comes to change, especially in the workplace, we have an innate desire to cling on to the status quo. We find change extraordinarily difficult, even when it is good change. We fear that the new world may not be any better than today. We fear that accepting change will be tantamount to being blamed for the way we currently work. We fear that we may try and fail.
Therefore, we need help; we need someone to help take the fear away. To be encouraged to change, we need both the ‘carrot’ of a better tomorrow and the ‘stick’ of negative consequences if we stay with the status quo. Sometimes we require a ‘burning platform’2 to force us to take the leap into a new world; other times the motivation needs to be far more subtle, but it must be just as compelling.
However, rational motivation alone is not sufficient; we humans need to be motivated emotionally if we are to embrace any sort of change. Our pride, our ego, our sense of self-worth, our heart, our gut; these are the areas that need to be motivated if we are to proceed successfully down a new path. When it comes to engaging people in change, logic alone is simply not enough … and rarely do change programmes expend anywhere near enough time or energy providing a positive emotional reason to embrace the new world or addressing the emotional barriers to change.
You need look no further than the disastrous campaign to Remain in the EU by the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, and Chancellor, George Osborne, during last year's UK referendum. These two highly intelligent men and their teams of advisers completely ignored the fact that it is our emotions that drive our decision-making. They tried to convince people to vote ‘Remain’ through a mixture of logic, statistics and fear. They also completely lacked empathy, failing to understand that, for a large proportion of Britons, the ‘platform’ was already ablaze – too many voters felt they had nothing to lose by voting to leave the EU. These voters had been left behind by globalisation and the free movement of people across the EU and had spent eight long years reaching into their own pockets to pay for the failure of the global banking system in 2008. They needed a positive emotional reason to vote for the status quo – and none was forthcoming. Another school-boy error from the Remain camp was complacency (a common cancer that scuppers many change initiatives, as we discuss later in the book). Cameron and Co. didn't seriously consider that the UK voters would actually vote to leave – either because they honestly didn't understand what life was like for a large proportion of their constituents or they simply assumed that ‘fear of the unknown’ would win the day. Either way, their complacency was palpable.
In direct contrast, the ‘Leave’ camp, spearheaded by the opportunistic Boris Johnson, appealed directly to the emotions of many millions of voters with a brilliant slogan (‘Vote Leave, Take Control’), a catchy ‘Brexit’ name and, most important of all, the promise of a better tomorrow outside the EU. It worked. The UK voted to leave the European Union by 52% to 48%.3 A key reason for the win is that the Leave campaign spoke directly to voters' emotions. They acknowledged that people were already unhappy with the status quo and fearful for their future livelihoods and the future of their communities if things kept heading in the current direction. The Leave campaign also spoke directly to a significant proportion of the population's latent fear of foreigners but, more powerfully, it spoke to people's pride in their country. Boris Johnson and Co. gave the electorate the belief that Britain could stand on its own; they appealed to the nationalistic emotion that, to borrow Donald Trump's superficial but nevertheless catchy slogan, Britain could be ‘Great’ again.
Donald Trump made none of Cameron's mistakes. He may have made plenty of others during his divisive and yet ultimately successful election campaign, but unlike Cameron he did not suffer from complacency, he was long on emotion and he knew that a significant proportion of the population was crying out for change – any change. Trump voters could be divided into three camps: ‘The Tribals’ who always vote Republican and didn't have to waste one moment thinking about it. Every political party has them. ‘The ABHs’ (Anyone But Hillary) who loathe and distrust anything Clinton. This is a surprisingly populous group. The third group was ‘The Victims’; the victims of globalisation. Like their British counterparts, these Americans have been left behind by globalisation and felt that they literally had nothing to lose. They had been continually ignored for decades by political elites of all persuasions and were ready to vote for almost anyone that they hoped could help them – as long as their surname wasn't Clinton or Bush. Hence an outsider, anti-politician has become the 45th President of the United States.
The intensity of this desire for change – any change – was so strong that the fact that Trump was not one of the political establishment outweighed all of his negatives. The fact he was a billionaire that manufactured his products in cheap-labour countries overseas rather than American factories didn't matter. The fact his Atlantic City gambling business filed for bankruptcy twice, with $1.8bn in debt4 the first time and $500m the second time around was of no consequence. His refusal to publish his tax return was dismissed as irrelevant. The fact he showed himself to be a vengeful bully was seen as him being tough. His misogyny was ignored. His pledge to build a wall across the Mexican border and to stop Muslims coming into the country wasn't seen as racist and islamophobic; it was seen as protecting American lives and American jobs. Denying the science of climate change was not seen as pro-ignorance and profoundly dangerous for future generations of humans and countless other species of life on this planet; it was seen as anti-elitist and pro-industry.
The desire for change was that strong. And only Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders recognised it.
But back to the world of business … a 2004 study of some 50 000 employees by the US-based Corporate Executive Council showed that, when it comes to engaging employees, emotional commitment is four times more powerful than rational commitment. Four times. To convince people to change we have to appeal to their emotions.
In business, as in life, there is a ‘right’ reason and a ‘real’ reason for just about everything. This is especially pertinent when it comes to change. The ‘right’ reason for the change will be the one that is widely communicated. But lurking in the shadows will almost always be a ‘real’ reason that is not made public. When it comes to finding your people's emotional triggers, you will need to unearth the ‘real’ reasons behind their resistance and the ‘real’ things that will genuinely motivate them. This book has been designed to help you do precisely that.
The book starts with Part Zero: a discussion of the inevitability of change – highlighting some of the incredible changes we have already managed to cope with and previewing just a little of the tsunami of change that will soon be crashing down upon us.
The rest of the book is then divided into four parts.
Part One explores why 88% of change initiatives fail. If we are to have any chance of improving these odds, we must fully understand why seven out of eight change initiatives do not deliver. Another reason for starting with what could be considered to be a negative viewpoint is that we learn far more from our failures than we do from our successes.
Part Two switches into proactive mode and answers the key question on every Change Leader's lips: ‘How can I ensure that my change initiative is the one in eight that succeeds?’
The short answer to this question is: appoint a Change Catalyst – someone who is obsessed with the delivery of the outcomes the company requires, in a manner that is in tune with your corporate culture.
A Change Catalyst is different from a Project Manager. In fact, the roles are complementary. A Change Catalyst's strength lies in his/her focus on outcomes. A Project Manager's strength lies in his/her focus on process. You need both. The Change Catalyst is the yin to the Project Manager's yang. A Change Catalyst is a business person – senior enough to command the respect, confidence and total support of the leadership. A good Change Catalyst is completely aligned with the interests of the shareholders.
My advice is: find this person, trust this person and, most importantly of all, give them all the ‘air cover’ they need to deliver.
Your Change Catalyst will be your secret weapon to deliver any change initiative, big or small. He or she will be the special ingredient to enable your organisation not only to set a powerful strategy but also to execute it; to transform that key area of your business that is vital to your future success; to help your people embrace change, own it and deliver it.
The life of a Change Catalyst can be a rollercoaster of a ride, with ups preceding downs and wins preceding losses at a frightening pace. But it is certainly never dull. It requires passion, enthusiasm, self-motivation and an optimistic, ‘can do’ attitude. Emotional intelligence and empathy are mandatory, as the Change Catalyst will need to help people embrace new ways of doing things and this cannot be done without a good understanding of how and why they currently work – and what genuinely motivates them. But the most important trait in any Change Catalyst is a burning desire to make a difference; to improve the way the organisation works; to give the organisation and the people within it a better future.
Your Change Catalyst will ensure that the other nine ingredients for successful change are also present – complete clarity regarding what we are trying to achieve and why; a detailed understanding of the implications of the change; a laser-like focus on the outcomes; a change process that includes a ‘pause for reflection’; clear governance and thorough planning; genuine engagement and communications; finding the emotional triggers; a strong, committed, aligned and unwavering leadership team; and the development of a change-ready culture. Part Two dedicates a chapter to each one.
Part Three of the book discusses the thorny issue of culture change, which I liken to ‘teaching people to walk in the rain’.
In this section, we also explore the relatively new concept of ‘Cultural Intelligence’, the challenges of instigating change in a different culture, and the importance of starting any cultural transformation by understanding the way your organisation currently works – and why and how the culture has evolved.
Part Four is where we get down to the business of planning and implementing sustainable change.
Every successful change starts with strategy, which is why the first three chapters of Part Four are dedicated to setting a Vision, Mission and/or Purpose, understanding values and exploring what a good strategy looks like. We also discuss strategy execution, as even the most expensive and innovative strategy is a complete waste of time unless it can be executed. And the execution of your strategy will depend upon your greatest asset – your people. So we also explore how to design an organisation capable of delivering (and how Organisation Design is so much more than structure), how to overcome corporate complacency, what good leadership looks like, building extraordinary leadership teams and managing and developing your people. Change is personal.
Then we explore some pertinent case studies of three real-life Change Catalysts, an example of successful change and an example of spectacular failure, quite literally on a global scale. We round the section off with The Change Toolbox, which contains the main tools, models and methodologies that I have found most useful over the years. I hope you will, too.
We end our exploration with a concise summary of the entire book.
Many dozens of anecdotes and examples from organisations around the world are sprinkled liberally throughout the following pages; stories of outrageous success, of soul-searching failure and innumerable shades of grey in between. Some of the company names have been anonymised for reasons of confidentiality, but every single case study and anecdote contained in these pages, however difficult to believe a few of them may be, is wonderfully genuine.
Change is inevitable. Successful change isn't.
With the approaches outlined in this book and the appointment of a Change Catalyst, you will be able to help your people embrace the future and ensure that your next strategy, M&A or change initiative will be among the one in eight that enjoys outrageous success.
Campbell Macpherson
Notes
1
. ‘The What, Who and How of Delivering Results,’ published February 2016.
2
. A phrase coined by change consultant and author, Daryl Connor, in 1998 as he watched a news report about people jumping from a burning oil rig in the North Sea.
3
. It is interesting to note that 28% of registered voters failed to vote in the UK referendum. 17.4m voted to leave, 16.1m voted to Remain and 12.9m registered voters failed to vote. The UK is now in the process of exiting the EU because of the wishes of just 38% of registered voters.
4
. ‘The Truth About the Rise and Fall of Donald Trump’s Atlantic City Empire,' Dan McQuade, 16 August, 2015.
http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/08/16/donald-trump-atlantic-city-empire/
Part ZeroChange is Inevitable
Change is inevitable; change is constant.
Benjamin Disraeli1
Disraeli's statement is correct, but incomplete. Yes, change is inevitable. It is a fact of life that individuals, organisations and nations alike have no choice but to deal with. Those who are able to acknowledge this fact and cope with change will survive. Those who are able to seek out change and actively embrace it will thrive. And yes, change is constant in the sense that it is always present. But to complete Disraeli's statement we need to add one further critical observation – the pace of change is accelerating.
The myriad of changes our societies have undergone in the last 100 years is quite staggering. The breadth of changes that we have embraced over the last 50 years is even more impressive. The amount of change we have all adapted to in the last 20 years is quite incredible. The changes we will all have to face in the next 20 years may just blow our minds.
As individuals and as leaders, we will need to be ready.
Live Long … and Prosper?
Due to advances in clean water, nutrition, antibiotics and disease eradication during the last century, average worldwide life expectancy has sky-rocketed. Up until the 20th century, worldwide average human life expectancy had been remarkably consistent throughout the millennia of our species' existence. As recently as 1900, humans lived, on average, a mere 31 years, according to the World Health Organisation. Today, the worldwide average life expectancy is 71.4 – and this ranges from 83 in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Italy and Switzerland to 49–50 in Sierra Leone, Lesotho, the Central African Republic, Swaziland and the Ivory Coast. Average life expectancy is now above 80 in the vast majority of Western countries (the US trails its peers slightly at 78.9).2 The proportion of Americans who reach the age of 65 has tripled since 1900, from 30% to 90%.3 Five per cent of British males now live to 96 (98 for females).4
But it pays to be rich. In 2016, The New Yorker reported that the richest 1% of American men live 15 years longer, on average, than the poorest 1% – and that the gap appears to be growing. The Brookings Institute reported that the life expectancy gap between rich and poor for people born in 1920 was just five years. For people born just 20 years later in 1940, the gap had grown to 12 years.5 For those born in 1960 and later … ? The gap is surely only widening further; after all, it is well known that poor people have poorer diets, and future advances in medical science will almost inevitably favour the wealthy.
Our expanding life expectancies are already playing havoc with pension companies, many of which are now severely under-funded and desperately searching for higher and higher investment returns – not easy to come by in the low-interest-rate, low-growth world in which we currently find ourselves. I know of one pension company that has been increasing investment in life insurance companies as a hedge of sorts – with the dubious assumption that life insurers will be more profitable as people live longer.
Famine used to be the biggest killer of humans for many thousands of years. Throughout the vast majority of human existence, droughts, floods and crop diseases have been death sentences for entire communities. Without the ability to move food from one community to another when famine struck, people simply starved to death – in their millions. Today, the only time we hear of significant numbers of people dying of starvation is if they have been caught in an isolated, local war zone and aid was unable to get to them in time. We may not have eradicated malnutrition; we may not have eradicated poverty; but, generally speaking, humans don't die from famine any more. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Three times as many humans die from over-eating than from malnutrition.6
It is the same with disease. The 14th century's bubonic plague killed a quarter of the population of Europe. Four out of every ten English people succumbed to this horrible disease. A visit to the churchyards of countless English towns makes this terrifying statistic all too real. Entire extended families were extinguished. Villages were laid waste. But it wasn't until Europeans started to travel that the carnage really began, as they innocently exported their European bacteria and viruses to the rest of the world – with disastrous consequences. Smallpox, carried to South and Central America by the Spanish Armadas in the 16th century, decimated communities and nations. The English exported the likes of influenza, tuberculosis, syphilis, typhoid and smallpox to the Pacific, eventually killing the vast majority of the Hawaiian population and having a similar devastating effect on other island nations. Only 100 years ago, Spanish Flu infected a third of the world's population, killing between 50 and 100 million people.
But the ravaging of human societies by disease appears to be a thing of the past, thanks to immunisation, antibiotics and the fact that the world is far better organised. Around the turn of the 20th century, 200 children out of every 1000 died before they were five. Today that figure, in the West at least, is less than three.7 We have had outbreaks of new and dangerous diseases – AIDS, Bird Flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola – but each one has been contained. Smallpox has been eradicated. Malaria may be next.
As a species, we now live long enough to die from heart disease and cancer.
But that too may be about to change.
Solving Death
A relatively simple way to increase human life expectancy even further would be to wean the West off its addiction to sugar. More people die today from diabetes and sugar-fuelled cancers than those who are killed by war, crime, terrorism or suicide.8 As Yuval Noah Harari phrased it in his excellent book Homo Deus (2016), ‘sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder’. Will the sugar-dependent food and drink manufacturers come to be regarded as pariahs in the same way as the tobacco industry has? Will the likes of McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kelloggs and Nestlé face bans on advertising their products to children? Will they find themselves in court facing charges of knowingly fuelling obesity, diabetes and cancer? It may sound far-fetched, but the parallels between the arguments put forward by today's processed food industry and those espoused by yesterday's tobacco industry are frighteningly similar.9
But while removing excess sugar from our diets (and decreasing our consumption of meat10) will almost certainly increase life expectancy further, such increases will only be incremental.
For a quantum leap in human lifespans we will need to turn to the mysterious world of biotechnology and genetic medicine. Revolutionary advances in these fields look set to push the limits of human life expectancy well beyond its current level. Several pundits are now proclaiming that the human race may indeed be standing on the cusp of near-immortality.
The ability to grow your own organs in a lab is no longer the realm of science fiction. Artificial hearts and lungs have been a reality for some time. In the future, will artificial organs be used as temporary stop-gaps while the labs grow them for you using your own stem cells? Genetic medicine and immunotherapy will provide solutions for your own body's immune system to fight cancer without the need for the horrible intrusion of chemotherapy. This has already begun. ‘Checkpoint inhibitor' drugs are being developed to free immune cells to fight cancer, and immune cells are being genetically modified to kill cancer cells. Stem cell research is being used to improve the efficacy of the latter treatment and may even enable us to change the way our cells operate; revitalising old cells and dramatically slowing down the ageing process – perhaps one day even stopping it altogether.
Has the first person who could live to 200 already been born?
But will many of these treatments be affordable to the average human? Imagine the disruption to social order if only the wealthy could afford to lengthen their lives in such a manner: a handful of Haves living for centuries surrounded by a multitude of Have-Nots living for decades.
But assuming the new treatments were affordable for everyone, imagine the number of different careers one could enjoy in such a long lifespan! Imagine the impact on demographics, insurance, pensions and youth unemployment if we didn't ‘retire' until we were 200 or older. Imagine the mayhem as eight generations sit down to Christmas dinner.
Imagine the over-population of the planet that would inevitably ensue.
Science fiction or science fact? In 2013, Google launched a company called Calico,11 of which Time magazine asked, ‘Can Google solve death?'12 Calico's stated mission is: ‘To harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan. We will use that knowledge to devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives.'
Could death become a technical problem that needs solving rather than a biological certainty?
Gaia Strikes Back
Climate change will inevitably become one of the world's biggest challenges, exacerbated by the election of a small, but increasing, number of Western politicians who are climate science sceptics or deniers. And yet the science is clear. As the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Synthesis Report (2014) points out:
‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea levels have risen.' Observed surface temperature has increased by about 0.65 °C± 0.1 °C since 1950.
‘Greenhouse gases' such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane have been proven to have warming effects on the atmosphere and the ocean, hence the name.
Man-made greenhouse gas emissions are now higher than ever – annual emissions are around ten times what they were in 1900. In fact, they are at levels that ‘are unprecedented in at least the last 800 000 years. Their effects are
extremely likely
to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.'
‘Continued emission gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.'
‘Surface temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century under all assessed emission scenarios (up to 5 degrees by 2100 depending upon the scenario). It is very likely that heat waves will occur more often and last longer, and that extreme precipitation events will become more intense and frequent in many regions. The ocean will continue to warm and acidify, and global mean sea level to rise (between 0.3m and 1m by 2100 depending upon the scenario).’
Precisely how global warming will play out we don't know. Will it be as dramatic as a new Ice Age or will it ‘only' result in rising sea levels, more frequent La Niña/El Niño super-cycles, more severe hurricanes and cyclones, more droughts and increased flooding?
Bluepeace
Will the pollution of our oceans continue? At least 8 million, and perhaps as much as 12 million, tons of plastic enter the ocean every year, according to a report published in Science magazine. This staggering figure may even be an underestimate as the calculations were limited to plastic coming from communities located within 31 miles of a coastline. This is likely to be a significant omission, as Europe's Danube River alone releases approximately 1700 tons of plastic into the sea every year.13 In a one-day clean-up of beaches around the world in 2014, International Coastal Cleanup volunteers collected more than 5500 metric tons of rubbish, including more than two million cigarette butts and hundreds of thousands of food wrappers, drink bottles, bottle caps, drinking straws and plastic bags.
Large patches of the Great Barrier Reef are dying due to warmer ocean temperatures and increased acidification of the ocean from coastal run-off.
The End of the Oil Age
‘The Stone Age came to an end not because we had a lack of stones, and the Oil Age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil.’14 The Oil Age will end when oil is no longer an expensive commodity; once long-term supply significantly exceeds long-term demand. It appears that this day may be arriving much sooner than we thought.
A little more than 100 years ago, no one knew what to do with this strange, flammable, treacle-like substance that lay buried beneath the ground. The conversion of the automobile engine to gasoline solved that problem and the world has been oil-mad ever since. Winston Churchill's conversion of the Royal Navy's fleet from coal to oil and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI resulted in a redrawing of the Middle East to protect Britain's newly found reliance on the ‘black gold'. The imposition of a puppet dictator in Iran and the deal that Rockefeller's Standard Oil did with the Saudis completed the recipe for much of the turmoil in that region ever since.
Right up until the middle of 2014, the oil producers' cartel, OPEC, was firmly in control. Their influence seemed to have diminished once US shale oil reached such a peak that America realised it may not have to rely on the Middle East for oil any more. Oil was $115 a barrel in June of 2014. By January of 2016 it had dropped to $25 a barrel, and it has fluctuated between $30 and $55 ever since. Oil-producing countries are now desperately trying to transform their economies, which will, in turn, alter the economic and political landscape of the Middle East, central Asia and Latin America. The Saudi government has slashed wages, imposed taxes and has desperately formulated an ambitious plan to try to wean its economy off oil. Will it work? Either way, the consequences will be dramatic.
The USA has already started to distance itself from the region. If they don't need the oil, why do they need the hassle? As Russia and Iran move in to fill the political vacuum … perhaps a low oil price will be even more destabilising to the Middle East than a high oil price.
Water Will be the New Wealth
So, while oil may become plentiful and cheap, water is likely to become scarce and, until we work out how to manufacture it efficiently and at scale through the fusion of hydrogen and oxygen, the most highly valuable commodity of all. Future wars are unlikely to be waged covertly over oil; they are likely to be waged overtly over water.
The Auto Industry Changes Gears
It was only a hundred or so years ago that the horse-drawn carriage was in the early stages of being replaced by the automobile. By the end of the 20th century, the pollution from cars had begun to rival the 19th century pollution from coal. In the first 17 years of the 21st century, electric trains, electric buses, dramatic decreases in car emissions and increases in fuel efficiency, plus the arrival of hybrid and electric cars, have started to make a significant difference. In what seems like no time, driverless cars have moved from the pages of geeky science fiction magazines and onto our roads. It may take less than a decade for our city streets to be bumper-to-bumper with electric cars and no drivers.
The distinction between the auto industry and the tech industry is blurring rapidly.
Pocket Super-Computers
Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, famously said in 1943 that ‘I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.’ Today, billions of us carry around more computing power in our phones than Tom Watson could ever dream of. The processor in your iPhone is more than 30 000 times faster than the computers that NASA used to put men on the moon in 1969. It is far more powerful than IBM's ‘Deep Blue' super-computer that beat world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.
It was not even 25 years ago that the Internet tiptoed out of the US military and was introduced to the world. In the mid-1990s, a few geeks then decided to put information online. The rest of us had no idea why. The Internet today is the backbone of just about everything. Very few companies would survive without it. Many of the world's largest companies only exist because of it. In 2015, the performance of just four companies was equivalent to the entire gains of the S&P 500 – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. These upstarts have disrupted entire industries: Netflix (along with Amazon Prime and Apple TV) has destroyed Blockbuster and an entire video industry; Amazon has changed the entire landscape of retailing across the Western world as all but the best prime-location shopping malls and department stores now struggle to be commercially viable; Facebook and Google have changed the world of advertising forever. Google is changing the entire world.
The Democratisation of Entertainment
A hundred years ago, we recited poetry around a piano. Fifty years ago, we watched tiny, grainy black-and-white television and considered it to be a miracle. Today, our ultra-high-definition televisions cover entire walls with surround sound that assaults our eardrums. We can pause live action and, even if we live to be 300, we will not have enough time to watch even a fraction of the content that is available to view. Today, anyone can be a broadcaster thanks to YouTube. The latest generation hardly watches television any more.
Fifty years ago, if we wanted to film family events, we did so using expensive film cameras and displayed them on grainy reel-to-reel projectors. Today, we either use the HD video camera on our phone or the even better one strapped to our heads/bikes/surfboard/drone.
