Hmm... so this article by Debra Meyerson answers some of the questions that I've been having about the other articles I've read. It takes a pretty radically different approach to change than the other articles and does I think the most genuine job so far of addressing change from the bottom up. I also thought it was interesting that Meyerson stopped to describe two general approaches to change: one that would pretty well describe the first three articles in this collection and the other which would describe this article's approach. The other articles never acknowledged that there were two ways to approach change. I wonder if the fact that this article does address that overview reflects something about the relative power and privilege that those two perspectives hold?
Whatever the case, I could relate a lot more to this article, which described the strategies of people who tried to change their organizations from the bottom in a more gentle and non-disruptive way. Meyerson notes four ways that her research found that people did this: disruptive self-expression, verbal jujitsu, variable-term opportunism, and strategic alliance building. Meyerson makes the point that it is not only important to lead this kind of change, but also for other types of leaders to recognize and partner with individuals who are able to lead this kind of change.
I think I have already explained my own struggles in this area--and perhaps alluded to the fact that part of the reason I struggle is that I always feel different. I have spent years of my life trying to figure out why I'm so different and why fitting in seems to be so much harder for me than other people. I suppose taken from the kind of change perspective Meyerson describes, this tendency could be considered a gift...
*sigh*
I don't know. It seems like it is so much easier to admire and examine this phenomenon from the outside than it is to live it. For one thing, it's hard to feel like the change you are creating is really worth anything. How important, really, is it to wear lace socks is you are a female surgeon? Optimistically, one might point to it as a positive influence, or pessimistically, as merely a personal idiosyncrasy. Again, for the observer, the difference doesn't matter that much--it's easy to take the optimistic view on things, but from the inside, when you are living that reality, it can be very easy to just feel that the struggle to hold to one's identity is futile. It can be so hard... and the changes really difficult to see. And the rhetoric, which seems to imply that this is something we all admire, often does not reflect the reality which is that being different is lonely, isolating, and doesn't always end in positive change.
Anyway, I think God has been challenging me in this area recently. For the longest time, I kind of gave up. I was never any good at fitting in, so I just kept my head down. It seemed like any time I tried to take initiative, I was flooded with negative feedback. Maybe I'm just really sensitive, but it felt like all I ever did was make mistakes in my efforts to make changes. Recently, though, I have felt moved to make mistakes, to stand up for what I really think and let the chips fall where they may. I failed one of my comps doing that, and I'm not sure if I changed anything, but I kind of decided that if I was too afraid to fail, I would never try. But standing up and being different is really scary!
I wish Meyerson had addressed that issue more. Maybe it really wasn't within the purview of her article and perhaps someone else addresses it, but when I look at the process she describes, I just see fear on all sides, and the people who make or support change in this way are the very few people who are not locked down by fear.
Fear for people who are different and try to create change comes in a few different forms. One fear is the fear of rejection. Rejection can take many forms. It could be something really concrete like losing a job or failing an exam. It can take more subtle forms like not having anyone to sit with in the cafeteria or not being on the "right track" for promotion. There are so many ways a person can be shut out for being different.
One can also just be afraid of failure. Perhaps the change I want to see isn't the change that's really needed. I often think, "My way is not the only way. They'll figure something else out and it will be just about as good." How can I really know that my idea is that good or that change is really needed? Such perceptions can be so subjective. Or maybe, in an effort to make change, one pushes too hard. Meyerson indicates what a tightrope this is to walk: how people try too hard just end up building resentment. That resentment can be so hard to measure, though. There is a point at which one pushes hard enough to change and there is some backlash but ultimately the change is positive and then there is a point at which the backlash is all that happens and no positive change comes, and the line between the two is very fuzzy. So there can be a fear of not knowing which battles are really worth fighting. To make all that sacrifice and have nothing to show for it is heartbreaking, and I know that I, for one, tend to blame myself for that failure. I often struggle with the thoughts, "Was that really worth it? Why are you making such a fuss? No one else cares! Maybe you're the problem, Ahneka, not them..."
On the side of those who help or enable change, there can be fear of the unknown. Here is this strange person who wants things to run differently, but who is to say how far they will take it? I was really impressed by Meyerson's account of the conservative Republican manager who helped the more progressive female employee make changes. Political differences, especially, make people close down because, at least in America, we are so prone to see the other as the worst case scenario. Any woman who is trying to improve the situation for women in the workforce is presumed to hate men (by many conservatives). Any hetro male who expresses doubts about the morality of homosexuality is presumed to be a hate-filled homophobic (by many liberals). In order to be someone who can help others promote change, this kind of fear has to be overcome, especially for people working across party lines, which is, in my opinion, the place where change needs to take place the most. People who help others create change also have to face the risk of rejection, but to a lesser extent.
The answer to all this fear, at least for Christians, is to believe in God's protection. Maybe I will write more about that in another blog entry.
Social Justice
One thing I really appreciated about Meyerson's article is that she did not just limit the ideas of change from the bottom to conventionally acknowledged social inequities. I can easily imagine another writer only looking at people of color who were making change, or women, or non-cisgendered, but she expands her inquiry to people making decisions about how much time they spend with their family. I think that it is important not to get too locked into categories when talking about the kind of change the world needs because there is always new kinds of difference being marginalized.
Tolerating difference is something a lot of people struggle with. Although I recognize that as true, it is a little hard for me to understand. Why do people get so uptight when others don't fit in? I enjoy living in China because I'm different no matter where I go, so living in China is actually relatively easy--and I love meeting people who are different. I'm expected to be different in China but in the U.S., people don't know how to label me. My difference is not immediately evident by looking at my identity on paper (white, female, cisgendered, Christian). One thing about being forced to face my difference everywhere is that I have a very strong value for this ability to tolerate difference.
True tolerance of that sort is a broader, more subtly complex perspective than I have yet encountered in most rhetoric on social justice. Maybe it has something to do with accepting one's own oddity. People who live between cultures understand it the best. I don't know if I can really describe the distinctives of that perspective because I know it primarily by experience. Like a secret handshake, I meet people from across cultural and linguistic boundaries and, within a few minutes of conversation, feel akin. Perhaps at some point in this blog, I will try describe it better than that.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Monday, February 20, 2017
HBR: Leading Change when Business is Good
In this article, Hemp and Stewart report an interview with CEO Sam Palmisano regarding a process of values clarification at IBM. Basically, IBM created a series of online forums to explore and update their values. IBM's history played an integral part in this process. IBM was founded in 1914 and at the time, the founder Tom Watson, Sr., established three Basic Beliefs: respect for the individual, the best customer service, and the pursuit of excellence. Although Palmisano believed these values had served the company well for many years, by the 1980's, they had become distorted. "Respect for the individual" had come to mean entitlement and "the pursuit of excellence" had become arrogance. By 1990, IBM was facing collapse. A new CEO, Gerstner, came in and turned the company around financially, but although Gerstner had managed to save IBM from collapse, Palmisano believed that IBM still needed a new vision to become the leader that it had once been in the industry.
Palmisano adopted a very bottom-up way of redefining these values because he believed that IBM was too large and too diverse to be dictated to. He also mentioned the quality of the employee, stating:
"You could employ all kinds of traditional, top-down management processes. But they wouldn’t work at IBM—or, I would argue, at an increasing number of twenty-first-century companies. You just can’t impose command-and-control mechanisms on a large, highly professional workforce. I’m not only talking about our scientists, engineers, and consultants. More than 200,000 of our employees have college degrees. The CEO can’t say to them, 'Get in line and follow me.' Or 'I’ve decided what your values are.' They’re too smart for that. And as you know, smarter people tend to be, well, a little more challenging; you might even say cynical."
IBM ended up following a process of open forums in which many employees shared their complaints, concerns, and ideas. The first forum was simply to get ideas regarding what employees thought the values of the company were. This forum generated over a million pages of information which upper management and consultants analyzed and used to formulate new values for the company: Dedication to every client’s success, Innovation that matters—for our company and for the world, Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships.
Then another forum was created to ask employees about these new values. Generally, the response regarding the values was very positive, but a lot of doubt and cynicism was expressed regarding IBM's ability to live up to these values. Many of these issues were examined by upper management, and changes were implemented to remediate them. For example, front line managers were given a $5,000 discretionary fund to use as they saw fit to better meet the customers needs and carry out the values of the company. At the end of the interview, Palmisano discusses briefly the balance between "soft valued and hard financial metrics."
I thought this article was pretty interesting. It had a lot more of the "bottom up" approach than the two previous articles, although it still focused primarily on the CEO. I think an interesting theme that struck me was the authors and Palmisano's attitude towards negativity. In the introduction to the interview, Hemp and Stewart mention that the initial 72 hour forum was quite negative at first and some upper level executives even wanted to cancel it, but then it became more positive after the first 24 hours. Palmisano has his own commentary on the negativity of the forums. He said:
"You had to put your ego aside—not easy for a CEO to do—and realize that this was the best thing that could have happened. You could say, 'Oh my God, I’ve unleashed this incredible negative energy.' Or you could say, 'Oh my God, I now have this incredible mandate to drive even more change in the company.'"
As someone with restorative as one of my top strengths, I really appreciated this comment from Palmisano. I have often struggled with this instinct in other people to avoid problems because I am so instinctively trying to seek them out, and it is an especially bitter experience when one gets labeled as a naysayer and then after one's warnings, something crashes and burns. I am slowly learning to recognize those environments where I can offer my analysis and those in which it is not welcome or productive. The irony is that even though people generally would consider Palmisano's attitude productive, it is not used by most people in practice. I think perhaps that tolerance to negativity is an important quality for CEOs, but it has to be tempered, because even if one really believes that problems can be solved, the people who work around one may not be able to handle the negativity that's involved in addressing those problems. That balance would be interesting to explore further. As I've already said, I'm very much in the middle of figuring out where it is.
I also thought Palmisano's attitude about his workforce was interesting--that he defined "professionals" who could not be dictated to as those with a college degree. I wonder if that is really the distinctive characteristic? When I was younger, I really didn't want to finish my degree. I thought college was a waste of time and money and that I could learn just as well on my own, but it turned out that I did not cope well in the "non-professional" workforce where CEOs consider "command and control mechanisms" good management practice. I wonder if that is because I was an exceptional case or because no one really likes to be treated that way? Whatever the case, I will agree with him that I got a lot more respect after I earned my degree--and not because I learned important work related skills in college either (I was a communication major who became an English language instructor). Is this a transformation that college really creates or is it just the mystique--a matter of people being what they are expected to be? This seems to me to be a somewhat unexamined aspect of higher education. If we are going to reenvision higher education, as many are trying to do, it does seem like the kind of phenomenon we should have a firm grasp on because it is perhaps our most important commodity--the cache that a college degree gives an employee, that right to be listened to.
Social Justice and Equity
I think it is interesting that these CEOs are generally white and male. I also think it is interesting that change, at least in this anthology, is examined primarily from the CEO level. I suppose that might just be a reflection of the type of people who read the Harvard Business Review, but then on the other hand, surely the people who read the Harvard Business Review can learn about their peers (other CEOs) through talking to them? Surely the rank and file is more mysterious? Anyway, probably not everyone who reads HBR is a CEO... so why don't they publish more articles regarding change from other perspectives? If I only learned about change from these articles, I would, I think, be justified in assuming that change was strictly the purview of CEOs... and white male ones at that.
I have recently been learning a little about the early years of the computing industry, back when Apple and Microsoft were first taking off. In the movies/documentaries I watched, IBM was always the giant, evil corporation--the stupid corporation to be taken advantage of (Bill Gates) or the souless men in suits to be despised (Steve Jobs). It is interesting that it was the small time corporate warfare of these up and coming entrepreneurs that jostled IBM (which took a wrong turn when it unbundled its products and tried to specialize in pieces). It's a reminder that privilege, being at the top, blinds people, kills innovation, and makes leaders stupid. It would be interesting if that were a greater point of study in this change literature.
Palmisano adopted a very bottom-up way of redefining these values because he believed that IBM was too large and too diverse to be dictated to. He also mentioned the quality of the employee, stating:
"You could employ all kinds of traditional, top-down management processes. But they wouldn’t work at IBM—or, I would argue, at an increasing number of twenty-first-century companies. You just can’t impose command-and-control mechanisms on a large, highly professional workforce. I’m not only talking about our scientists, engineers, and consultants. More than 200,000 of our employees have college degrees. The CEO can’t say to them, 'Get in line and follow me.' Or 'I’ve decided what your values are.' They’re too smart for that. And as you know, smarter people tend to be, well, a little more challenging; you might even say cynical."
IBM ended up following a process of open forums in which many employees shared their complaints, concerns, and ideas. The first forum was simply to get ideas regarding what employees thought the values of the company were. This forum generated over a million pages of information which upper management and consultants analyzed and used to formulate new values for the company: Dedication to every client’s success, Innovation that matters—for our company and for the world, Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships.
Then another forum was created to ask employees about these new values. Generally, the response regarding the values was very positive, but a lot of doubt and cynicism was expressed regarding IBM's ability to live up to these values. Many of these issues were examined by upper management, and changes were implemented to remediate them. For example, front line managers were given a $5,000 discretionary fund to use as they saw fit to better meet the customers needs and carry out the values of the company. At the end of the interview, Palmisano discusses briefly the balance between "soft valued and hard financial metrics."
I thought this article was pretty interesting. It had a lot more of the "bottom up" approach than the two previous articles, although it still focused primarily on the CEO. I think an interesting theme that struck me was the authors and Palmisano's attitude towards negativity. In the introduction to the interview, Hemp and Stewart mention that the initial 72 hour forum was quite negative at first and some upper level executives even wanted to cancel it, but then it became more positive after the first 24 hours. Palmisano has his own commentary on the negativity of the forums. He said:
"You had to put your ego aside—not easy for a CEO to do—and realize that this was the best thing that could have happened. You could say, 'Oh my God, I’ve unleashed this incredible negative energy.' Or you could say, 'Oh my God, I now have this incredible mandate to drive even more change in the company.'"
As someone with restorative as one of my top strengths, I really appreciated this comment from Palmisano. I have often struggled with this instinct in other people to avoid problems because I am so instinctively trying to seek them out, and it is an especially bitter experience when one gets labeled as a naysayer and then after one's warnings, something crashes and burns. I am slowly learning to recognize those environments where I can offer my analysis and those in which it is not welcome or productive. The irony is that even though people generally would consider Palmisano's attitude productive, it is not used by most people in practice. I think perhaps that tolerance to negativity is an important quality for CEOs, but it has to be tempered, because even if one really believes that problems can be solved, the people who work around one may not be able to handle the negativity that's involved in addressing those problems. That balance would be interesting to explore further. As I've already said, I'm very much in the middle of figuring out where it is.
I also thought Palmisano's attitude about his workforce was interesting--that he defined "professionals" who could not be dictated to as those with a college degree. I wonder if that is really the distinctive characteristic? When I was younger, I really didn't want to finish my degree. I thought college was a waste of time and money and that I could learn just as well on my own, but it turned out that I did not cope well in the "non-professional" workforce where CEOs consider "command and control mechanisms" good management practice. I wonder if that is because I was an exceptional case or because no one really likes to be treated that way? Whatever the case, I will agree with him that I got a lot more respect after I earned my degree--and not because I learned important work related skills in college either (I was a communication major who became an English language instructor). Is this a transformation that college really creates or is it just the mystique--a matter of people being what they are expected to be? This seems to me to be a somewhat unexamined aspect of higher education. If we are going to reenvision higher education, as many are trying to do, it does seem like the kind of phenomenon we should have a firm grasp on because it is perhaps our most important commodity--the cache that a college degree gives an employee, that right to be listened to.
Social Justice and Equity
I think it is interesting that these CEOs are generally white and male. I also think it is interesting that change, at least in this anthology, is examined primarily from the CEO level. I suppose that might just be a reflection of the type of people who read the Harvard Business Review, but then on the other hand, surely the people who read the Harvard Business Review can learn about their peers (other CEOs) through talking to them? Surely the rank and file is more mysterious? Anyway, probably not everyone who reads HBR is a CEO... so why don't they publish more articles regarding change from other perspectives? If I only learned about change from these articles, I would, I think, be justified in assuming that change was strictly the purview of CEOs... and white male ones at that.
I have recently been learning a little about the early years of the computing industry, back when Apple and Microsoft were first taking off. In the movies/documentaries I watched, IBM was always the giant, evil corporation--the stupid corporation to be taken advantage of (Bill Gates) or the souless men in suits to be despised (Steve Jobs). It is interesting that it was the small time corporate warfare of these up and coming entrepreneurs that jostled IBM (which took a wrong turn when it unbundled its products and tried to specialize in pieces). It's a reminder that privilege, being at the top, blinds people, kills innovation, and makes leaders stupid. It would be interesting if that were a greater point of study in this change literature.
Monday, February 13, 2017
HBR: Change through persuasion
In their article, "Change through persuasion," Garvin and Roberto set out steps that must be taken for change, in a manner that is rather similar to Kotter's article, except that they give only four steps instead of Kotter's eight. Basically their four steps are (1) prepare your organizations cultural "soil," (2) present your plan, (3) manage your employee's emotions during the execution of the plan, and (4) reinforce desired behavior once change starts happening. Generally, these steps follow the same pattern as Kotter's article. Garvin and Roberto mention the need to build urgency, and the importance of clearly communicating a vision, as well as the need to celebrate victories and maintain impetus past the initial phase. Perhaps something that is different about Garvin and Roberto's idea is that it emphasizes slightly more, the need to take care of people's emotions, help them grieve over losses that change brings, and mention, through their example, the need to create bottom up change.
The example that Garvin and Roberto use to illustrate their ideas is a case study that they conducted on Paul Levy's successful turnaround of Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center. This hospital was losing almost 60 million dollars a year, when Levy stepped in to change the situation, and within three years, the hospital was generating more than 35 million dollars. This article was published some ten years after Kotter's and given its scope, did not add as much to the conversation as might be hoped.
For one thing, the title uses the word "persuasion," but the authors do not dig very deeply into this concept. What exactly does it mean to persuade people? What battles must be fought? Who are the crucial people who must be persuaded? In ancient Greek rhetoric, the concept of persuasion was clearly delineated as winning one's audience over in three areas: ethically, logically, and emotionally. Even though Garvin and Roberto reference ways in which these objects are achieved, they don't focus on them or even set up a competing framework to analyze their example. The result is simplified version of Kotter's idea as it applied to one, successful case, which leaves me with further questions.
What is unique about the context and Levy as a leader that might have affected the way change took place? Why is it, that following these steps (which are basically a simplified version of Kotter's idea) was more successful here than other places? What is the unique role that persuasion takes in the process (as opposed to other factors)?
I also felt the authors did not do enough to explain the "bottom up" approach that Levy took. They simply mentioned that as part of his plan, he solicited suggestions from the employees and implemented some of them in his plan. The president at my institution did something similar, but then she seemed to disregard almost all of the ideas we gave her in favor of ideas that we really didn't understand the rationale for. Her change initiative stalled, so it appears that getting suggestions is not really sufficient, that the manner in which those suggestions are adopted and implemented is important also, but the authors don't really delve into these complexities, implying that it is enough to ask for suggestions and implement a few of them, when it fact, it may be very important to be strategic about which suggestions one decides to implement or that the rationale for which suggestions are implemented should be articulated.
I also wondered about the rationale used in conducting layoffs. How did Levy fire people without creating more distrust with those who remained? Gavin and Roberto mention an email acknowledging people's pain, but I know for myself that if I perceive any kind of favoritism, lack of trust, or inequity in the decision of who is asked to leave, an email would not make me trust the leadership. It's easy to use pretty words.
In fact, Gavin and Roberto's description of Levy's change initiative sounds similar to change efforts that I have witnessed that were not so successful, which leads me to believe that there was more to the story than the authors articulate.
One part I did think was insightful was that Levy made some pretty strong conditions to his employment before he ever took the job. Also, he openly confronted people who used passive-aggressive power plays and encouraged open disagreement. In both of these cases, Levy needed to operate from a place of strength and not worry about offending people. I think a lot of leaders slip up in this way because they want the job (without sufficiently considering what is required to make it successful) and/or are afraid of failing in their job if they offend the wrong people. I don't know if most leaders have the same kind of security and power that Levy had, however. How often do we find ourselves in that place where we can set our own terms of employment and still get hired, where offending the wrong person won't cost us our jobs or the success of our change initiative? Maybe one should not attempt change until one finds oneself in that position?
Social Justice Piece:
Like Kotter, Gavin and Roberto don't really address the role social justice takes in leading change. In fact, although they mention "bottom up" change, they don't really describe it in a way that seems very grass-roots to me. Many of the same questions I had regarding the Kotter article still persist. Does change have to be led by the person at the top (like Levy)? What role does race and gender have in Paul Levy's success (white male)? So often, change scholars seem to look at the bottom line as the measure of success ($35 million in revenue). Although I believe earnings and financial solvency are worthy goals to strive for, I also know what it means to be part of the group without power, to watch silently as someone up front confidently asserts his own understanding of an organization or of himself as a generous and open person, and in so doing, reveals his vast ignorance of what people at the bottom are thinking. In his drive down the middle, what visions did Levy potentially lose along the way? The authors never really ask. It's enough that the hospital started making money. There's a saying, "You have to break some eggs to make an omelette." Which eggs get broken? Is their breaking truly justified? I'm still waiting for the article that addresses these questions.
The example that Garvin and Roberto use to illustrate their ideas is a case study that they conducted on Paul Levy's successful turnaround of Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center. This hospital was losing almost 60 million dollars a year, when Levy stepped in to change the situation, and within three years, the hospital was generating more than 35 million dollars. This article was published some ten years after Kotter's and given its scope, did not add as much to the conversation as might be hoped.
For one thing, the title uses the word "persuasion," but the authors do not dig very deeply into this concept. What exactly does it mean to persuade people? What battles must be fought? Who are the crucial people who must be persuaded? In ancient Greek rhetoric, the concept of persuasion was clearly delineated as winning one's audience over in three areas: ethically, logically, and emotionally. Even though Garvin and Roberto reference ways in which these objects are achieved, they don't focus on them or even set up a competing framework to analyze their example. The result is simplified version of Kotter's idea as it applied to one, successful case, which leaves me with further questions.
What is unique about the context and Levy as a leader that might have affected the way change took place? Why is it, that following these steps (which are basically a simplified version of Kotter's idea) was more successful here than other places? What is the unique role that persuasion takes in the process (as opposed to other factors)?
I also felt the authors did not do enough to explain the "bottom up" approach that Levy took. They simply mentioned that as part of his plan, he solicited suggestions from the employees and implemented some of them in his plan. The president at my institution did something similar, but then she seemed to disregard almost all of the ideas we gave her in favor of ideas that we really didn't understand the rationale for. Her change initiative stalled, so it appears that getting suggestions is not really sufficient, that the manner in which those suggestions are adopted and implemented is important also, but the authors don't really delve into these complexities, implying that it is enough to ask for suggestions and implement a few of them, when it fact, it may be very important to be strategic about which suggestions one decides to implement or that the rationale for which suggestions are implemented should be articulated.
I also wondered about the rationale used in conducting layoffs. How did Levy fire people without creating more distrust with those who remained? Gavin and Roberto mention an email acknowledging people's pain, but I know for myself that if I perceive any kind of favoritism, lack of trust, or inequity in the decision of who is asked to leave, an email would not make me trust the leadership. It's easy to use pretty words.
In fact, Gavin and Roberto's description of Levy's change initiative sounds similar to change efforts that I have witnessed that were not so successful, which leads me to believe that there was more to the story than the authors articulate.
One part I did think was insightful was that Levy made some pretty strong conditions to his employment before he ever took the job. Also, he openly confronted people who used passive-aggressive power plays and encouraged open disagreement. In both of these cases, Levy needed to operate from a place of strength and not worry about offending people. I think a lot of leaders slip up in this way because they want the job (without sufficiently considering what is required to make it successful) and/or are afraid of failing in their job if they offend the wrong people. I don't know if most leaders have the same kind of security and power that Levy had, however. How often do we find ourselves in that place where we can set our own terms of employment and still get hired, where offending the wrong person won't cost us our jobs or the success of our change initiative? Maybe one should not attempt change until one finds oneself in that position?
Social Justice Piece:
Like Kotter, Gavin and Roberto don't really address the role social justice takes in leading change. In fact, although they mention "bottom up" change, they don't really describe it in a way that seems very grass-roots to me. Many of the same questions I had regarding the Kotter article still persist. Does change have to be led by the person at the top (like Levy)? What role does race and gender have in Paul Levy's success (white male)? So often, change scholars seem to look at the bottom line as the measure of success ($35 million in revenue). Although I believe earnings and financial solvency are worthy goals to strive for, I also know what it means to be part of the group without power, to watch silently as someone up front confidently asserts his own understanding of an organization or of himself as a generous and open person, and in so doing, reveals his vast ignorance of what people at the bottom are thinking. In his drive down the middle, what visions did Levy potentially lose along the way? The authors never really ask. It's enough that the hospital started making money. There's a saying, "You have to break some eggs to make an omelette." Which eggs get broken? Is their breaking truly justified? I'm still waiting for the article that addresses these questions.
Monday, February 6, 2017
HBR's 10 Must Reads: John Kotter on Leading Change
So for my first reading project, I decided to dig into the Harvard Business Review's 10 Must Reads. I just thought that this book would give me a good overview of the sorts of topics that change leaders are talking about. The first article in this book is a condensed version of John Kotter's book, Leading Change. I think it actually predates the book, but it has a similar construction in that Kotter sets out 8 steps to transforming organization. Actually, he describes them in terms of errors to avoid. These errors are:
- Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency
- Not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition
- Lacking a vision
- Undercommunicating the vision by a factor of 10
- Not removing obstacle to the new vision
- Not systematically planning for, and creating, short-term wins
- Declaring victory too soon
- Not anchoring changes in the corporations culture
As I read through this list, a few observations came to mind. First, I thought of change efforts that I have observed. I also noticed that the whole article is written from the perspective of someone at the top who has a lot of power, which led to a question: is it the general consensus among people who write about change that change generally does come from the top? Where does that leave those of us who don't see ourselves as bosses? So change efforts that I thought about as I read this article included a management change at a conference center where I worked in my early twenties, the process and Baylor that you described, and the most recent ousting of our president at Fort Hays State University. Two of these I observed from a rather low-power position in the whole process.
Let me say first that I am extremely cynical of change efforts that come from the top down and perhaps some of that is shaped by my experience working at this conference center. I was hired in guest services just about the time the new management was put in place. Because there were a couple of tiers of management between me and the top management, all of their vision was communicated through general meetings, my immediate supervisor was not on board, and I generally felt like the upper management was out of touch. What I noticed--or what seemed to be the case as months passed--was that they didn't really care about the employees working at the conference center at all. They fired the general manager who was over my supervisor. Then they fired my supervisor and replace her with a member of their management team. He then proceeded to interview all of us, and when I expressed (as I am apt to do) my reservations, he found a way to lay me off (that is, he transferred me to a different department and switched me from full time to part time--fully expecting me to quit). I didn't quit. My cousin ended up getting hired into the department that I was transferred from, and he told me that it was never a good working environment, even after they were given yet another supervisor. Anyway, that experience leads me to believe that change top-down processes do not value people nearly as much as Kotter implies that they do. That may work differently in higher education, I suppose. Conference centers get more of their value from their facilities than they do from their staff.
Anyway, we talked about the process at Baylor, and all that this article made me reflect on was that one can follow all the steps and even have a fairly successful change and still have collateral damage. Is change war? Is it possible that even when the outcomes are positive, one side or the other ends up getting sacrificed for the good of all? You said the change at Baylor stuck right? In the case of this conference center, they, in my opinion, re-invented the wheel, spruced a few things up here and there and after years of guerrilla warfare in human resources, came out with an almost completely new staff and a modestly more efficient system for running the center. The changes that seemed to make the most difference weren't the ones anyone had a problem with. People just didn't trust the new management, with good cause, as it turns out. The management could not find ways to use the staff that they had, so they just replaced most of them with "friends."
The university that I work for, Fort Hays State University (FHSU), got a new president about three years ago. She was following after a fairly successful president, an older white male who had really helped FHSU grow over about twenty years, following business principals. This new president was a woman and an immigrant from Cuba. When I first heard about her, I was really hopeful that she would be an advocate for our program here in China. She must know how it is to be forced to accommodate American centric ways of doing things (I thought). She did seem to have a great interest for the China program. She invited everyone to explain to her the situation here and elsewhere, and we gave her more feedback than she must have wanted. She started making changes, and for our part, the China faculty was excited and on board. However, her visits became less responsive. She would say things like, "I want solutions, not problems."
Her administration created a new position here in China but didn't pay much attention to our vision of what that position should be. Still, we started to learn more about this administrator, and after some time, he started to have some influence in our program (it takes a little while for anyone to really learn the ropes). Just about the time he was getting his feet under him, this new president started to work around him. She sent people to do business for her in China who had no official position. On the Kansas side of things, the environment became even more tense as she would lose her temper and say harsh things in meetings. Ultimately her downfall came in her inability to negotiate with the faculty at FHSU in Kansas. They shared their concerns with the Board of Regents in an open meeting, it was reported on in the local paper, the Board of Trustees asked for a 360 evaluation, and she resigned about a month later. After she resigned, the acting president, who also happens to be the FHSU CFO, eliminated the administration position in China and reinstated an administrator who has a long history with my program (she helped set up the partnership) but no recent involvement. He also eliminated a number of other positions that the new president created and pretty much all of the staff that she hired as been let go or resigned. The change movement stalled and the reins are now firmly in the hands of the traditionalists. We are still waiting to see who the new president will be, although we now have an interim president--a member of the Kansas Board of Regents.
So... where did this last president go wrong? I think maybe it was step two. It's hard to know all the details from the other side of the Pacific, but one great complaint that was leveled at Dr. Martin was cronyism. Apparently, she hired a lot of people outside the system and then tried to use them to create change, bypassing those who were there to work with her (like the administrator here in China)--interestingly much the same approach as the change leaders at the conference center. I really do think that FHSU needs change. I think that Dr. Martin could have made it work--at least in China, but she underestimated her need for buy-in on the other side and, really, she stopped trusting people.
Social Justice
I don't think that Kotter does a good enough job accounting for power differences in the change process though. What exactly is the role of valuing people in a change effort? Is it enough to identify valuable allies or potential blocks? What do change leaders miss because they are only willing to listen to those who share their vision or with whom they are forced to share power? What role does being part of an "in-group" have on how change comes about (both in creating coalitions and removing blocks)? Change seems to be a matter of closing ranks and building battalions. Is it possible to take a more open, inclusive approach or is that lack of trust just intrinsic to the process? Right now, those resistant people in higher education have to be accommodated, at least to some extent because of things like tenure and no-confidence votes, but will that always be true in higher education? In what environments is valuing people more or less important in regard to Kotter's steps? And in a more concrete sense, to what extent did Dr. Martin fail because she was an immigrant woman of color? Hopefully, I will gain insights to share in this area as I read more about this topic.
Friday, February 3, 2017
Introduction to Change
I think a blog should begin with an overview or a history of how the blog came to be and the philosophical bent of the author. Perhaps that is not really the point, but here it goes.
First of all, I have always had a conflicted relationship with change. I can remember from when I was very small, that I always had my own way of seeing things, but I was not very good at making other people see things my way, which created a deep frustration and and a certain kind of alienation between me and other people. I've never seen myself as a leader (because other people won't listen) or a follower (because other people's ideas aren't that good either). I keep trying to make myself understood, but not to much affect. I once had a very insightful person point that out to me: that I try harder than most to communicate.
Since I began working on my Ph.D. in the Higher Ed program at Azusa, I have acquired a paradigm of sorts to explain this phenomenon using my strengths. My top five strengths are strategic, restorative, futuristic, ideation, and intellection. I have realized that being strongly restorative has been a source of disruption in my life. Combined with my other strengths, it creates more angst than action, though. According to Myers Briggs, I am an INFJ, which means I am idealistic and relationship oriented. According to my upbringing, I am a conservative Christian woman. I love my upbringing and identify strongly with it, even though it clashes with the two personality types that I have shared. I do not want to cut ties with that background even though it is perhaps the slowest of almost any to change. Yet at heart, I am a revolutionary. It's been really hard to know what to do with that, so mostly I haven't done much.
My desire for change is very intellectual. I am not the sort to go out and start riots or even restructure a company. I have too much self-doubt for that. It is too easy to see the ways that I might be wrong, and that self-doubt paralyzes me. However, it is also too important to stay true to myself for me to just live in an environment that goes against all of my instincts, so I've moved around a lot in my life. In my twenties, I lived in almost 15 different houses. I attended four separate undergraduate institutions. I had ten different jobs. If I could not change my environment, then I would reinvent myself.
Then I came to Sias, and for the first time in my life (miracle of miracles) I fit in. That is, Sias International University is such a dynamic place that no one really fits in, and therefore I have space to be different, and I just happen to have family here as a social anchor. In the shifting norms and expectations that give everyone else headaches, I live peacefully free to define myself and perhaps even influence my environment.
For the first five years that I was here, I didn't do much to influence my environment. It was enough to have my class to teach, where I could experiment with breaking down the boxes of how composition is currently taught and redesigning the course in the way that I personally thought would work best for my students. However, a few years ago, a teacher sent out an anonymous email to everyone on faculty criticizing an event that had happened in the communal dining room. The email struck a nerve because the issue was a point of contention for many people (several of whom did not sympathize with the position that the email took). Later, discussing that email with others, I lamented the tendency towards such strife in the faculty, and another teacher commented that it was easy to stand on the outside and be neither part of the problem nor part of the solution.
His comment stuck with me and I began to think about what I could contribute to this community in terms of stability and order--how I could help. This experience and my attending reflection marked a shift in my thinking from leadership as influence (of which I felt I had none) to leadership as service (in which a person who has something to offer should offer it). I have been grappling with the implications of that shift ever since. What do I have to offer? Where should it be offered? To what extent is God asking me to get involved? These are my personal questions that will shape this blog.
First of all, I have always had a conflicted relationship with change. I can remember from when I was very small, that I always had my own way of seeing things, but I was not very good at making other people see things my way, which created a deep frustration and and a certain kind of alienation between me and other people. I've never seen myself as a leader (because other people won't listen) or a follower (because other people's ideas aren't that good either). I keep trying to make myself understood, but not to much affect. I once had a very insightful person point that out to me: that I try harder than most to communicate.
Since I began working on my Ph.D. in the Higher Ed program at Azusa, I have acquired a paradigm of sorts to explain this phenomenon using my strengths. My top five strengths are strategic, restorative, futuristic, ideation, and intellection. I have realized that being strongly restorative has been a source of disruption in my life. Combined with my other strengths, it creates more angst than action, though. According to Myers Briggs, I am an INFJ, which means I am idealistic and relationship oriented. According to my upbringing, I am a conservative Christian woman. I love my upbringing and identify strongly with it, even though it clashes with the two personality types that I have shared. I do not want to cut ties with that background even though it is perhaps the slowest of almost any to change. Yet at heart, I am a revolutionary. It's been really hard to know what to do with that, so mostly I haven't done much.
My desire for change is very intellectual. I am not the sort to go out and start riots or even restructure a company. I have too much self-doubt for that. It is too easy to see the ways that I might be wrong, and that self-doubt paralyzes me. However, it is also too important to stay true to myself for me to just live in an environment that goes against all of my instincts, so I've moved around a lot in my life. In my twenties, I lived in almost 15 different houses. I attended four separate undergraduate institutions. I had ten different jobs. If I could not change my environment, then I would reinvent myself.
Then I came to Sias, and for the first time in my life (miracle of miracles) I fit in. That is, Sias International University is such a dynamic place that no one really fits in, and therefore I have space to be different, and I just happen to have family here as a social anchor. In the shifting norms and expectations that give everyone else headaches, I live peacefully free to define myself and perhaps even influence my environment.
For the first five years that I was here, I didn't do much to influence my environment. It was enough to have my class to teach, where I could experiment with breaking down the boxes of how composition is currently taught and redesigning the course in the way that I personally thought would work best for my students. However, a few years ago, a teacher sent out an anonymous email to everyone on faculty criticizing an event that had happened in the communal dining room. The email struck a nerve because the issue was a point of contention for many people (several of whom did not sympathize with the position that the email took). Later, discussing that email with others, I lamented the tendency towards such strife in the faculty, and another teacher commented that it was easy to stand on the outside and be neither part of the problem nor part of the solution.
His comment stuck with me and I began to think about what I could contribute to this community in terms of stability and order--how I could help. This experience and my attending reflection marked a shift in my thinking from leadership as influence (of which I felt I had none) to leadership as service (in which a person who has something to offer should offer it). I have been grappling with the implications of that shift ever since. What do I have to offer? Where should it be offered? To what extent is God asking me to get involved? These are my personal questions that will shape this blog.
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