Thread by @ProductChapter

I have a theory:

A large % of big corporate change programs fail simply because leaders are unwilling or afraid to be vulnerable.

It’s a sorry but all too familiar tale 🧵👇

#leadership #transformation

In big change initiatives, no one knows the answer up front. How could you? It’s called change for a reason.

Despite this, leaders often want to act like they have the answers.

It’s often an ego thing, almost certainly borne out of insecurity.

Insecurity that their charges might not believe in them, their peers might not respect them, their own bosses won’t value them.

In their mind, their reputation depends on it.

In order to fight and suppress the feeling of vulnerability, they seek detailed planning and answers up front.

This leads to wild assumptions and high integrity commitments being made by the teams on the ground at the point of knowing least. 🚩

An anti pattern in ‘Big Corp’ is that The Plan becomes a blood pact, never to be broken.

This drives negative behaviours all over the shop.

Teams spend less time thinking about the problem to solve and more time thinking about how to fit the plan to the arbitrary date they committed to previously.

The mood on the ground becomes one of fear and anxiety.

Inevitably, the plan ‘slips’ as more information is known.

In an attempt to reduce their own vulnerability, teams water down the truth when relaying this back to their leaders.

Almost always, the message they relay doesn’t show the full extent of the damage for fear of being yelled at.

And so a slightly less unattainable but equally arbitrary date becomes the new plan of record and is communicated up the chain.

Rinse and repeat this process until the plan slowly begins to reflect reality.

What should’ve be the ‘real’ plan (because it’s more realistic) won’t wash now.

🗣“Dates have been committed to the Exec. We’ve already had to move out a number of times so the new date isn’t palatable. We must do whatever it takes to bring it closer to the original plan.”

🤦‍♂️

At this point, the natural ‘Big Corp’ reaction is to throw money at the problem. “We need more bodies!” In come the artillery (and consultancies).

Spoiler alert 🚨

More people does not equal more speed! Often quite the opposite.

Because no one has properly considered the problem to solve or considered how this cast of thousands will work effectively together (they’ve been too busy worrying about the plan) the now numerous teams on the ground begin falling over each other, clutching at straws.

With leadership consumed by the plan, no one’s driving the work.

Teams on the ground continue to ruminate and navel-gaze.

Analysis paralysis sets in. No one wants to make the first move for fear of being wrong.

When things eventually get moving shortcuts are taken, quality suffers and chances of delivering on the original intended outcomes deplete rapidly.

Teams finally stumble over the line. The change is a bastardisation of its original self.

The battle is over. The plan has won.

This is a pretty bleak and admittedly hyperbolic story but it’s all too common in big organisations.

What would solve this?

Leadership embracing vulnerability; from themselves and their teams.

Vulnerability to not need to know the answers up front.

Vulnerability to not make high integrity commitments at the point of knowing least.

Vulnerability for teams to try and fail in order to succeed.

Vulnerability to speak candidly without fear of persecution.

Leaders, do yourself and everyone a favour:

Be vulnerable!

In doing so you will create an environment where effective, lasting change can happen. Much more so than a plan that was right first time round ever could.

Back to the start of the 🧵

https://twitter.com/ProductChapter/status/1484888058449346576