The State of Organizations 2023 - Flipbook - Page 55
Look for role models everywhere
Change starts at the top, with the CEO. Beacon
organizations identify and celebrate early the positive
deviants—individuals who are already modeling
the desired future behaviors. But it’s important to
engage a critical mass of people across all levels of
an organization to help define opportunities, design
solutions, and deliver outcomes. Increasingly, the
people with the most social capital aren’t necessarily
found at the top of the organizational chart. To inspire
more commitment to change initiatives, CEOs should
tap into the networks of key influencers across their
organizations.
One technology company, for instance, used
advanced analytics and network mapping to identify
the employees with the greatest number of contacts
and successfully engaged these employees in
discussions involving a large-scale transformation of
the its operating model. These individuals became
effective change champions. CEOs may also want
to reach out to leaders of corporate affinity groups
to ensure that any proposed change efforts are
inclusive and incorporate diverse perspectives.
Double down on institutional capability building
To succeed with transformations, organizations
must learn how to learn and double down on their
investments in capability building. This will mean
evaluating the skills required to succeed with a
particular strategy, process, or system change;
diagnosing the opportunity gaps; and devising and
deploying appropriate training programs (digital
and in person). The new skills required may be
technical (for example, business essentials and data
visualization) or cognitive or emotional (for example,
active listening and leading in a hybrid environment)
in nature. Either way, organizations can leverage
technology—such as digital nudges and training
platforms—to reinforce the lessons learned in training
programs and to institutionalize behavior changes.
their managers. This created ownership and a formal
mechanism for feedback, allowing the leaders and
the organization to deliver on their aspirations.
Make change personal
Changing employees’ behaviors and underlying
mindsets requires changing the context in which
employees operate. Ultimately it’s employees
themselves who must decide to change. To
encourage them, organizations must give leaders
and employees alike the space to explore a proposed
change and understand how it relates to their own
values and behaviors. An organization might segment
employees by how much they would be affected by
a proposed change—for instance, senior leaders,
middle managers, and frontline employees—and then
create tailored change experiences for each group.
An organization might also convene a workshop
for leaders in which they could reflect on current
behaviors. For instance, leaders could ask, “What did
we do—or not do—to create the current environment,
and what’s our role in changing it?” They could also
consider organizational goals against their own
personal objectives. Through this exercise, leaders
may shift to a learning mindset and view change as
an opportunity to test new initiatives and adopt new
microhabits.
Unleashing an organization’s full potential is
hard—even harder in today’s unsettled business
environment. But as our research and discussions
with leaders in beacon organizations demonstrate,
doing so is very possible with the commitment and
collaboration from CEOs and other leaders across an
organization, a desire to inspire, and leaders’ ability to
maintain their bearings in disorienting times.
Investment in capability building can pay off over
time by improving organizations’ ability to attract,
develop, and retain top talent. Building the capability
of an institution goes beyond individual skills; it
includes rewiring some key processes and systems
to build the new capabilities into a company. One
telecommunications organization explicitly included
desired behaviors in the 360° review feedback of
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