When leading organisational change, how full is our cup? Do we think we truly, always know what we are doing?
Six blind men bumped into an elephant drinking from the river.
One of the blind men touched the elephant’s trunk and told the others, “This is something soft, thick and long like a snake”. The second man touched the elephant’s tusk and said, “No way, it’s hard, long, smooth and sharp like a spear.” The third man touched the elephant’s feet and said, “You are both wrong. The object is hard, wide and rough like the trunk of a tree”. The fourth man touched the elephant’s ears and said, “Actually, all three of you are wrong. The object is thin and flat, like a fan.” The fifth man touched the tail and said, “It’s not all that. The object is actually thin and delicate like a rope.” The sixth man touched the elephant’s body and said, “You must all be out of your minds. It’s some kind of a wall, hard and wide”.
Now they were even more confused. They could not make sense of what they had come across. What could be like a wall, a fan, rope, a spear, a tree trunk and a snake? So they decided to ask a passerby, “Excuse me, brother, could you please tell us what this object is right in front of us?” “It’s an elephant”, said the passerby.
Everything made sense now.
I recently had a great chat with an organisational change colleague. She had gained considerable change management experience in the financial sector. Recently she transitioned to working in government organisations. The transition was an about-face and needed a different mindset.
Much of her change leadership work was with leaders. Ensuring they had adequate coaching in what they would convey to their subordinates. Getting the right amount of vital face time with these leaders. Expecting them to lead from the front as visible sponsors for the change. In short, leading change in banks was about top-down and compliance.
From her account, there was an assumption that employees would follow in many financial services organisations. Leaders cascaded directives about the change. Change managers would measure employee behaviours afterwards. Behavioural measurement looked at how often and how well employees complied with directions. Her example is a tad simplistic, yet it sticks with me. This top-down “change game” is a far cry from where I developed a different game.
In public sector organisations, including educational institutions, the “change game” is about collaboration. This “bottom-up” approach means leading change is not concentrated at leadership levels. Business cases to raise funds for projects involve leaders. There is a project sponsor, yet they may not be as visible as a sponsor in financial services. A sponsor in the public sector may have a different positional power due to a broader stakeholder base in this sector. Unions, employee groups and organisational divisions have a louder voice and expect consultation.
Organisational maturity is another aspect influencing the “change game”. Project Management Office (PMO) maturity is likely high in the financial sector. Could the same be said of public sector organisations? Only sometimes. This maturity reflects in some leading-edge Change Management thinking in the last few years. Change analytics, or using data to inform evidence-based decision-making, is one leading-edge topic. Change analytics will likely have a practical impact in sectors with considerable PMO maturity.
I have yet to piece together valuable data in the public sector organisations I have worked. Where I could get a hold of data, I needed to give it a good clean and scrub before I could do much with it. Yet in the private sector, data is abundant, fresh and clean — yes, I’m being tongue in cheek, but in comparison.
This insight about different “change games” needed to succeed in a given sector tells me something. That despite my experience in organisational change, I have much to learn. Could my worldview be challenged further? Could I know even less about organisational change than I do? There may be four biases in my way.
Overconfidence
We often misjudge ourselves when reflecting on our expertise. We fall prey to cognitive biases that lead us astray. We may ask one hundred Change Managers how good at their jobs they are. What percentage would report an above-average ability? Say hello to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, where we overestimate our abilities. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is ironic. People who are ill-informed about a particular topic tend to think they know more than they do, leading them to make irrational decisions. Those who don’t have enough knowledge or experience in an area can’t even recognise it. Their overconfidence in their ideas clashes with stark reality.
Speaking to survivors only
Did I fixate too much on my colleague’s views on the financial sector? Do I now assume that the “top-down” change game is the only game to play in the financial services sector?
Our fixation on “our truth” may, in part, be due to the Survivorship Bias. Did I focus too much on those who made it? Have I spoken to a “failed” change manager who worked in this sector? Would they say the same about the “top-down” change game being effective? Self-reflection is uncomfortable. We may have a razor-sharp analysis of others’ blind spots. But our own? I’m like one of the blind men examining an elephant. I grasp one type of playing “the change game” — grass-roots collaboration.
There are other “change games” that I play. For instance, drafting decent communications, training employees and building change readiness. Or the careful art of stakeholder engagement and winning leadership buy-in. Change managers across all sectors play these games, often much better than I do. Even this admission is uncomfortable. Yet to grow, I need to embrace this idea of being below average. This way I don’t stagnate and continue to strive to be a better change professional.
“Relativity is a beautiful, irrefutable truth. We must acknowledge that wearing a black belt in jiu-jitsu does not make you a black belt in life. In the home, there are black belts who are white-belt fathers, and there are white belts who are black-belt fathers.
This holds for all areas of life. A black belt does not mean you are successful in life.
It does mean that you have mastered this art to an enormous degree and that the skills you have acquired can be transmuted to many other activities. It does not mean, however, that you have done this.” ― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Learning to Live through Jiu Jitsu
Seeking comfort in my brand of BS
One of the reasons behind the discomfort of self-reflection is confirmation bias. We seek information confirming our beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence. Confirmation bias stunts our personal growth by shielding us from fact-based realities. Think of the six blind men; were there realities they felt uncomfortable facing? Could some stick to dogged beliefs based on their experience, despite the surprising truth?
The madness of groups and conventional thinking
The power of the group impacts our perspective too. The madness of groups leads us to place consensus over creativity. Safety beats ostracism any day — our brains are hard-wired to move to safety. Ostracism is painful; we go to great lengths to avoid it.
Yet staying within the complacency and mediocrity of groups restricts your growth. You may not “have permission” to explore new ideas. Nor would you be “given permission” to challenge assumptions about how you lead change. As a change manager, a degree of autonomy in crafting your strategy and change interventions is bliss.
Change management, like so many undertakings, is evolving. We need to understand more about predicting human behaviour. At first glance, an individual’s behaviour is shaped by three broad concepts. Their biology, psychological landscape and social environment all play a role.
Multiply the complexities for employees. Their team, leadership and sector play another role in shaping their behaviour. Previous organisational changes shape their attitude to your change too. So shaping the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of thousands of employees’ behaviours? With this complexity in mind, be like the blind man who accepted folly in their humble attempt at making sense of the world. We gain experience in our sector or specialty. Yet we always have so much more to learn about our work.
I hope you find this idea humbling yet liberating!
Want to learn more about change management psychology and how to apply this knowledge to your work? Our book — The Change Manager’s Companion — is available now. You can also check out our online course on Change Management.
Our second book is on the way :)