The many faces of change

By Mike DeGrosky

Anyone hoping to lead must understand the relationship between leadership and change. Your organization has little need for leadership if it is going to continue doing the same thing it does now, exactly as it does now. That organization would still need good management — the science of executing properly — but leadership would represent less of a priority. However, we live and work in a dynamic, turbulent world, and I know of few organizations that are not undergoing fundamental changes that demand effective leadership. These days, fire organizations confront everything from cost containment to climate change, and budget cuts to baby-boomer retirements.

Leadership's primary purpose is to make change happen. Change is the action of turning into or becoming something different from before. Leadership is a process in which people influence one another to bring about changes in their mutual interest. An organization makes change by taking a different position, course or direction. When we talk about leadership and change, we are talking about real change. In leadership, we are not interested in natural or accidental change, but change that is planned, intentional and desired. Organizations negotiate change successfully when leaders challenge the status quo, provide a vision of what the organization ought to be in the future, initiate movement toward the vision and work to sustain the change.

When I help fire organizations navigate change, I make, and encourage my clients to make, the following basic assumptions about change:

• Change is a process, not an event.

• Change is everywhere.

• Change can and does begin anywhere in the organization.

• Problems are everywhere when you are involved in change. It is messy, hard work.

• Learning and adapting is key. Have a change plan, but learn and adapt as you go.

When it comes to organizational change, people play two basic roles. The first is change agent: the person proposing and initiating the change and seeking to influence others. The other is change recipient: the people whom the change agent attempts to influence and the people who will carry change forward. Much of what we read in the popular press and the academic literature makes sharp distinction between the two. However, in reality, people often play both roles within their organization, at different times and in different situations. Remember, in the future, people likely will move in and out of these roles even more, as leadership becomes more dispersed and collaborative.

Many authors, both academic and popular, have written on leadership and change. Much of that writing creates the impression that organizational change occurs in an orderly and methodical fashion. However, people who have experienced deep, transformational change would more likely describe their experience as being inherently messy, unpredictable and confusing. Most organizational changes involve many wrong turns and missed opportunities. In a real-life example, when elected mayor of Oakland, California, in 1998, Governor-elect Jerry Brown said, “Real change isn't so easy. It's a word that rolls off one's lips, but any time you have real change there's some pain — there's tension; there's adjustment; there's some wrenching going on.”

To my knowledge, no single best way exists to bring about organizational change. All change initiatives require some pain and discomfort. Part of what makes organizational change difficult is that two driving forces compete with one another to shape every organization. Organizations succeed, in part, because good managers achieve order, consistency and stability. On the other hand, organizations stagnate and die without change, movement and innovation. Organizations need both, and the right balance for an organization depends on both the situation and what the organization needs to survive and prosper. To be effective, organizations must not only consistently meet their current commitments to their constituents, they also must identify the changing needs of those constituents, as well as the changing operating environment, and adapt to them accordingly. Often, these two driving forces compete for resources and the agenda. That tension can cause significant conflict within an organization.

The success of any change depends very much on the amount of commitment, compliance or resistance the change agent encounters throughout the organization. Consequently, barriers to change prove important. We just know that individuals and groups of people resist change for a wide variety of reasons. I encourage my clients and students to keep in mind eight mistakes that John Kotter, author of several excellent books on leading change, says organizations make in their change efforts:

1. Not creating a great enough sense of urgency (or allowing too much complacency)

2. Failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition

3. Lacking a vision (or underestimating the power of vision)

4. Under-communicating the vision

5. Permitting obstacles to block the new vision

6. Failing to create short-term wins

7. Declaring victory too soon

8. Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the organization's culture

Some things that successful leaders do to reduce resistance to change include:

• Clarify the reason for change. Explain why people need to change, create a sense of urgency and use facts to show why the environment demands change.

• Put together a group with enough power to lead the change.

• Identify clear channels of communication. Let people know where they can go to ask questions, get information and vent their frustrations.

• Be honest with people. Identify both the positives and negatives of the intended change.

• Make people aware of the intended timeline for implementing the change and give them an idea of when the effort will conclude.

• Focus on moving toward something (a desired future for the organization) rather than departing from the past.

• Encourage participation, at least in the implementation of the change. While people may not have much control over whether change needs to occur, they should be heavily involved in how it will occur.

Mike DeGrosky is chief executive officer of the Guidance Group, a consulting organization specializing in the human and organizational aspects of the fire service, and an adjunct instructor in leadership studies for Fort Hays State University. Follow him on Twitter @guidegroup or via LinkedIn.