This is why transformation leadership requires guts and the courage to slow down and listen to the truth

Dear Managing Director,
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Transformation and adaptation has become a natural part of the leadership-role, in a world that is flying by like an out-of-control high-speed train.
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We are facing one transformation after the other, because the world and technology is blowing past us, and no company or employee want to be left behind at the station.
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But that we have many transformations cannot become a condition that you accept without trying to handle it, so you don’t end up in one forced organizational traffic accident after the other.  
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We NEED YOU to slow down the pace of the organization. We NEED YOU to make sure that the right competencies and decisions are in place around the transformations.
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In this blog post, I propose a number of good tips for you as a managing director in a company. In fact, I will go so far as to call them heartfelt wishes. For our organizations can’t take much more of this.

I have worked with transformations in the last 16 years. And I have seen EVERYTHING. And unfortunately, seen too much bad transformation leadership on all levels of the organization.

Stressed out employees. Dwindling motivation. A lack of success with whatever is set in motion, so the entire operation ends up being counter-productive.
In this blog post, I will address you and attempt to make my advice as concrete as possible.

1 | Take responsibility for the transformation

You are the one in the hot seat

Someone has to have the final responsibility for the transformation. All too often, you have no idea who is making the final decision. All too often, healthy transformations drown in an unsightly ego dance and political flip-flopping from the side of the leadership.

I am sorry to say it, but the more ego that’s present in an organization, the more the employees will struggle – and with each other as well.
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It creates confusion when you don’t know who is plotting the course. Or if the leadership is unaligned and is pulling and communicating in different directions.

In the complex, and often political, contemporary organizations, you cannot drive change with too much consensus leadership. And conversely, you cannot drive it with too big a need to show who is the biggest boss.  
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Driving great change, demands that a lot of people are driving it. Then you can’t have one boss who wants one thing, and another who wants something else. That just confuses the hell of out the organization. It is okay to disagree. It just creates a lot of noise, if the decisions are taken too close to the employees, and if there isn’t a somewhat singular direction from upper management, whom, after all, are the ones that a lot of the employees look to for overall direction.
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As a leader, you often think that you are doing people a favor by being completely transparent in your decision-making. In agile, transparent organizations today, everyone has to know everything, right?

But creating an agile organization and culture is one thing. Leading a large transformation is another, and right there it is okay to have to some limitations in how much is shared with the employees. The employees have nothing to gain from knowing internal disagreements, considerations regarding organizational change etc.

There you have to communicate in a united and agreed fashion, and no matter what, you have to make sure that there is one person who makes the final decision, if you cannot agree as a group.

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2 | Be curious

As chief of the tribe, you live in an information vacuum  

Another important piece of advice, is that you have to be curious. That means, asking your employees for honesty, and setting up a firm structure, so you get that continuous dialogue during a busy workday.

Find the ones who dare to give you the true story. Psssst! It is not always the ones closest to you in the organizational hierarchy.

In all organizations, there are types who are able to hear everything, because they enjoy the confidence of their co-workers, because they listen and remember, and because they are able to keep whatever they hear to themselves. And additionally, they are driven by wanting the best for the organization, and are not primarily concerned with rising to the top of the food chain.
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To navigate your role, you have to know: What are my co-workers really saying? What myths are traveling through the organization? What are my co-workers really saying about the one(s) who are in charge of the transformation? That is, about you.
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You have to be able to hear the unadulterated truth, even when it is not so fun or does not align with your perception of your intentions. And then you have to react to whatever you hear. Because you have be courageous, which leads us to the next point.

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3 | Be courageous and make the hard decisions

Build your courage and view mistakes as learning opportunities

You have to dare to make the hard decisions, even when it comes to your leadership group. Often, transformation are undertaken that involve letting people go. But the leadership group remains. Or a leader is ”put out to pasture” somewhere in the organization and seems to be messing around with some Excel spreadsheets, because you don’t want to fire them.

At some point, it becomes one of those things that the employees start to talk about, and then you risk that it starts undermining their respect for you as a leader.
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You have to dare risking a mistake. You cannot expect to get it right from the beginning, or to plan your way out of everything; there are way too many unknowns for that. Of course, there is much you can do to ensure that the transformation gets off to a good start. But you also have to jump into things, and navigate as you learn more. And everything is just learning, even when things fail.
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You also have to show courage in your communication. Courage to communicate the things that sound bad, or that risk exposing you. It is alright to admit that you are wrong. Or that there is something you do not know.

Luckily, I see this ability more often and often in directing managers I work with. Because they know that they can show that they’re human.

Often, transformation are undertaken that involve letting people go. But the leadership group remains.

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4 | Understand your employees’ needs

You have to be able to be vulnerable one moment and then RoboCop the next

This brings me to a bit of a dilemma, which is very hard to balance in your position.

Because, the employees’ expectations to their upper management can, roughly, be divided into two types: Those that need to see your vulnerability and authenticity. And those that need you to be an invulnerable, impenetrable RoboCop.

I can’t give you the answers how to balance these, besides being an attentive leader and knowing the needs of your employees. Finding this balance is important, and it can be done.

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5 | Give time

Keep the race horses in the stables and bring out the mules instead

Transformations take time. So, you have to be patient and rein in the ones in the organization that are having a hard time in the chaotic present, where everything is not as it used to be. Transformations (almost) always take longer than the leadership group think it does.  
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Remember, that a lot of transformations start in the leadership group way before the employees get to hear about it. Oftentimes, I see the leadership group moving on to the next thing, before the transformation actually starts happening for the employees. So give it time!
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In the same vein, I would advise to see transformation as a constant. Because it is never really finished. The time when you would have to get up on the soap box, and tell about the next big thing, is over. The employees have become fatigued; they already know that before long, you'll be back again. You're undermining yourself by insisting that "this time, we'll be much more efficient/customer-focused/less stressed/and so on.”
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So, find the overall vision for where you want the organization to go. Address it. And then incorporate the subsequent initiatives under this umbrella. This way, the change feels more seamless for the employees, making it like manageable bites of that proverbial elephant that no one ever eats all at once.

And don't lose faith. Change often means taking one step forward and two steps back, then one and a half steps forward again—that's just how it goes.

Stay focused, seek feedback, try things out, learn, and adapt. As long as you know and can communicate where you're headed, you'll get there eventually, bit by bit.

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6 | Focus on the results

You should continuously monitor whether behaviors align with your goals.

One tool to keep track of whether you're heading in the right direction is benefit mapping. This process doesn't have to be overly complicated. A well-facilitated workshop and someone committed to regularly following up can go a long way in ensuring you're getting the desired outcomes from your change efforts. It also helps verify that organizational behaviors are moving in the necessary direction.
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Launching changes without a clear understanding of what you want to achieve is destined to fail. Things will become disorganized, communication will lose clarity, and it's all too easy to throw money at something that might not be the right solution or create the greatest—or appropriate—impact.

Launching changes without a clear understanding of what you want to achieve is destined to fail.

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7 | Organize structures and physical spaces that support the changes.

Remember to fully consider your organizational design—and don't hesitate to knock down a wall or 7 if necessary.

Don't underestimate the importance of adjusting your structures and physical environment to support the direction you want to take. Adapt the organization so it genuinely facilitates the change.
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I bring this up because I've witnessed many transformations where there's a desire for a more agile way of collaborating. Yet, I've seen organizations either not adjust properly or design themselves in ways that limit teams' ability to deliver quickly. For example, clinging to old business processes that create dependencies and hinder progress—the exact opposite of the intended goal.
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You need to dive deep into the consequences of your organizational design. And you also have to consider practical aspects like the physical workspace.
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An example from before Teams meetings became the norm: A large Danish company wanted employees to work more closely across borders. So they built two (yes, two) fancy video conferencing rooms at each global location. But with several hundred employees at each site, how do you think that worked out? ;-)

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8 | Take care of your employees!

Respect your organization's capacity—and allow for downtime.

Last but not least, it's YOUR responsibility to take care of your people. NO ONE can handle being in constant change all the time. No one can continuously cope with new organizational changes, new visions, new products, new colleagues.
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You need to ensure time for consolidation. Time to thoroughly think things through. Downtime where employees, after a hectic period, are allowed to prioritize family and leisure. If you don't do this and don't ACTIVELY show that you mean it, you'll foster change fatigue and cynicism within the organization. Stress. Demotivation. It costs money. It causes your best people to leave before the less competent ones. It's bad for the company's reputation—some call it brand value. And it's not healthy for you either. After all, you're also a person who needs to endure for the long run.
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So take care of yourself, take care of your organization, and take care of the people. You can do that and still deliver. In fact, you might even deliver better when you're not running one marathon after another. All studies confirm this, so just listen (as mentioned in tip number 2).
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Good luck with the transformations! 😊

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