Change Agent or Poison Pill?

The best changes don't come through force

Dear Leader,

When I was at your office the other day meeting with one of your VPs, you and I had the chance to exchange a greeting. I asked how things were going to which you replied "Well, it looks like I will need to let someone go." Your head dropped. This is the hire you made specifically to disrupt and spark a spirit of innovation regarding the administrative drag on the company. But, even with his high energy, change has stalled, stress is rising and now we have complaints of toxicity.

I have been in this situation personally and now in retrospect, I understand it better. I was the change agent hire. I could be overbearing, questioning things, curiously digging into process and questioning why people were doing the things they were doing. I suggested changes and experiments, but the team put in the least effort possible. I viewed their half-hearted effort as "lazy". They saw me as the guy whose job it was to eliminate theirs. The goal was innovative disruption, but the result was a battle of wills and self preservation.

You are living this reality, gritting your teeth each time the P&L comes out, you question why your change agent is having no effect. You ramp up pressure on him. He pushes harder. The team counters with resistance and complaints of toxicity. This misdirected energy revealing symptoms of misalignment rather than the progress you need.

That misalignment should trigger some questions for you. Have you openly explained the slide of profit into overhead and how that harms the vision of the company? Is the team aware of your goals regarding the change agent? And, have you addressed openly and plainly, their natural fears of losing their jobs?

It's time to call a meeting and start involving the team at a higher level. Be brutally honest. Explain the problem, show the charts and the constant slip of margin and the outsized growth of the administrative costs. Don't hide from what everyone already knows; namely that payroll is the majority of that cost. Help them understand that elimination of positions is not a foregone result of this process and that this is their chance to help develop something better.

Explain briefly what you have tried to do so far and the results the effort. Don't hide from your mistakes. The vulnerability and humility will bring the team closer. Then, bring them in to the solution process, ask what they would do. Given the chance, you will find that staff can be quite innovative.

Too often, we decide to make changes and then try to get buy-in. But we really haven't considered the team. Bringing them along during the development leverages their combined experience and eliminates the need for getting them on board. They own the plan; they've co-created it with you. And now you have a mandate for leading and holding everyone accountable.

Park Wiker

P.S. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." — African Proverb