We’ve noticed at VIM Executive Coaching, the propensity of business schools, business keynote speakers, business publications and “thought leaders” to embrace and then discard names for things and theories.
With the above thought in mind, we are certain that the term “change management” will soon give way to another term – and perhaps they already have come up with a doozy. However, there is a simple truth that remains and a question to be asked.
Managing change is fine as a concept
The simple truth we were referring to is if managing change can ever be realistically accomplished? Change, is purely that. We hope no one reading this gets a flat tire on the parkway today, but someone will; we are optimistic no one will trip on a sidewalk and wind up with a broken something-or-other this morning, but somewhere an orthopedic doc awaits; we wish no company will get hit with a lawsuit or major complaint this week, but it will happen.
Nothing can be done to prevent any of those actions one-hundred percent of the time. A new tire can still pick up a nail; an errant step by the most adept gymnast can cause a fall or the best legal team in the world does not have the vision to foresee a lawsuit that comes out of nowhere.
When the experts talk about change management they often talk in terms of mergers or acquisitions; proxy fights at a shareholder meeting or a new process that an organization must rapidly introduce into its operation. “We” get lulled into thinking about those events as a sea captain might pick-up a sounding from a distant iceberg.
However, change is often a more “intimate” experience. It may be a depressed worker who does something rash; the discovery of a sales team member engaged in bribery; the inappropriate usage of social media that leaks important data or a violation of a patient’s rights that brings down a nursing staff. In those instances, managing change might have been fine in theory, but it is in dealing with the “humanness” of the event that ultimately defines the executive leader.
How will you be defined?
As an executive leader (and this applies to all levels of organizational leadership), the executive who is authentic and real in the moment can, by a single act, define themselves. Yes, we all might believe that change management is in leading a 600-person design team to construct the plan and execution of a new jet transport that the firm has been awarded by a major airline, but it is also in the recognition of dealing with a single employee who needs assistance.
The mindful executive leader, despite all of the terms given to their response to change over time, must still be mindful, compassionate and authentic. This law of leadership has never changed, whether the first nursing supervisor who ever dealt with the first employee HIPAA violation in 1996 or the first time an employee was caught taking a bribe from a vendor in 1782 or (to be more positive) a disabled employee was recognized for outstanding work and promoted over an “able-bodied” employee.
The capacity to manage change in an organization is usually not seen in a major, cataclysmic event, but in the basic, human responses to problems. To that end, everyone is not only capable but should be mindfully empowered to manage change on a decidedly human level. Organizations are, after all, people, and people change.