In my previous posts on John Kotter’s Eight Steps for Leading Change, I covered the roles of senior leadership and the guiding coalition in preparing the organization for a major change effort. From creating a sense of urgency to communicating the change vision, senior leadership and the guiding coalition have mobilized the organization and prepared the various stakeholders to accept change. With Step 5 of John’s Leading Change Model, senior leadership and the guiding coalition enter the world of implementation. They enter difficult territory as the Devil is Always in the Details. Or, said another way, we can often agree that change is necessary–it is just how we are exactly supposed to make change happen that causes us so much difficulty! In Step 5, senior leadership and the guiding coalition empower broad based action. They turn their attention to removing obstacles that do not support the change vision.
Why is it Necessary?
Empowering broad based action is necessary. Many change efforts fail due to insufficient attention to this step and the result is the stalling of a change effort at the beginning stages of its implementation. Empowering broad based action is critical to the success of any change effort because the ties in an organization to maintaining the status quo are very strong. Think about it! Over time, organizational procedures, systems, and structures were established to support the status quo. Further, reward systems, performance measurements, employee performance, and organizational skill development have all supported the status quo. Given these dynamics, senior leadership’s communication efforts alone are insufficient to make significant change lasting in the organization. Further, not even the establishment of a talented guiding coalition to coordinate the change effort is sufficient to make significant change lasting in the organization. Organizational adjustments to remove barriers will be necessary to make a change effort happen.
Omitting Step 5 of the Leading Change process is similar to starting a cross country trip in the old family car without any assessment, repair, or maintenance of the vehicle. While the car is still reliable, it still needs to be checked out, repaired in some areas, and augmented with some new parts to make–what will be in some parts of the country–a long and difficult journey (such as desert areas and a few mountain ranges to name a few). Without this effort, the picture is one of an unhappy family in a broken car in a deserted stretch of the highway.
How Should Senior Leadership and the Guiding Coalition Empower Broad Based Action?
Senior leadership and the guiding coalition need an accurate understanding of the organizational barriers that hinder the change implementation. This is one area where the wisdom of senior leadership in selecting a guiding coalition whose members come from different levels of the organization with position power, credibility, expertise, and leadership responsibilities pays off in a huge way. The members of the guiding coalition are invaluable for understanding what is needed to implement change effectively as they truly know how the organization operates. With the work of the guiding coalition and with continuing communication with other organizational stakeholders, barriers that hinder the change effort can be identified and eliminated. With this effort, organizational processes, structures, procedures, and reward systems will need to be aligned with the new change vision as necessary.
Empowering broad based action also involves investment in employee and managerial training and development. This is a necessary expense, not a “nice to have” expense. Employees and managers can actively or passively resist change but resistance to change is not inevitable. We, humans, do not resist change that we believe is in our best interests such as more pay, better benefits, etc. Providing training not only positions the organization’s human capital to better support the change vision but it also provides assistance that is in the best interest of the employees and managers. With this effort, it is critical that senior leadership and the guiding coalition identify the new behavior, attitudes, and skills that managers and employees need. With this information, they can adjust the organizational training and development efforts and the recognition and reward programs to align with the behavior, attitudes, and skills that are needed for the change effort.
Despite all of these efforts, however, there will be some people that resist change–often at the managerial level. Left unaddressed, these resistant managers become significant obstacles to implementing an organizational change effort. The dynamic of managerial resistance to change is one reason for the continuing involvement of senior leadership in sponsoring the change effort throughout each step. It puts everyone on notice that senior leadership is committed to making the needed change and will not become easily distracted from this important work. All resistance to change is not illogical, however, and there can be valid reasons why managers may resist a change effort. (In fact, from the perspective of the person resisting, their behavior is entirely logical to them.) When senior leadership and the guiding coalition work with these managers to integrate their valid concerns within the change effort, they eliminate much of this managerial resistance. In those rare instances where a manager continues to resist, senior leadership must directly address this behavior as appropriate. (See my post, Organizational Change – 8 Reasons Why People Resist Change, for more information on how to counter resistance to change.)
The wisdom of John Kotter’s model is it recognizes that significant organizational change does not occur easily. The first four steps of his model while challenging are still easier than Step 5, empowering broad based action. It is easy to tell everyone to get on board the ship as it travels to a new direction; it is harder to keep everyone engaged and everything working compatibly however on the journey to get there. Forces will conspire–intentionally and unintentionally–to derail the change effort. By empowering broad based action, senior leaders and the guiding coalition can avoid having their change effort suffer the same fate of the Titanic!
About the Author
Robert Tanner is the founder of the Management is a Journey Blog and Principal Consultant at Business Consulting Solutions LLC. He is a certified change management consultant, management mentor, trainer, and an Adjunct Professor of Management. Robert has a passion for helping managers and leaders fulfill their potential. Connect with Robert on Google+ and Twitter. To join the mailing list, subscribe here.
Revisiting Colin Powell’s 13 Rules of Leadership 
Leading Change (Step 2) – Create the Guiding Coalition 
Organizational Change: 8 Reasons Why People Resist Change 
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