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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: THE FORMIDABLE XI RAJIV DUBEY Rajiv Dubey has done the Advanced Management Programme at Cedep- INSEAD, France, and the Harvard Business School-TMTC Tata Strategic Leadership Course, in addition to management programs at the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, UK, the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, and CII- Aspen Institute, USA. Recently completed a Human Resource Executive Program at Stanford University, USA. Rajeev joined the Tata Administrative Services (TAS), the central managerial cadre of the Tata Group, in 1975, and after a career spanning 29 years in the Tata Group, of which 7 years were as Managing Director, first of Tata Metaliks and then of Rallis India, he joined Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. in 2004. Dubey is on the Boards of several Group companies, including the Chairman of Mahindra Insurance Brokers Limited. Organizational Change: The Formidable XI With so much written on organizational change, the only meaningful thing I can attempt is to pen the learnings from my own experience in the corporate world in the past thirty two years. I will keep it simple and stupid, largely because that is all I am capable of, and partly because of my fond hope that of the few people that actually read this article, some may resonate with and remember a thought or two. • I/we have a dream: Clearly this has always been the source, and sustaining power, of any organizational change. The clearer this dream and the more forcefully it is shared, the larger the number of apostles it creates who then spread the WORD so that it enters the DNA of every person in the organization, the greater is its power. And for it to be a potent force it must touch a deep inner chord in people, activate some higher-order purpose that makes ordinary people own the dream and do truly extra ordinary things. This dream needs to be talked about again and again from every possible platform, and many people must do the talking. The power of the WORD and INTENTION is awesome, and its full potential must be unleashed. • From dream to action: If the dream is not converted into S.M.A.R.Tly defined WHAT, WHO, HOW and by WHEN, organizational change will remain a dream. This drill-down of the dream into deliverables for every individual in the organization, done with all the rigor and discipline of project management, is an exercise whose importance as a necessary and critical success factor cannot be overemphasized. I am particularly impressed by the power of the Japanese Policy Deployment methodology and its variants. • The Virtuous and Potent PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) Cycle: Needless to say, these deliverables need to be regularly and systematically reviewed, lessons learnt from experience and continuous improvements made. This needs to be done with the same rigour as the conversion of the vision to specific deliverables, or else implementation/execution will remain as elusive as a will-o-thewisp in the mist and dark. The above conditions are about strategy, process, system and metrics and address the perennial three questions • Who/where are we? • Where do we go from here? • How/do we go there? These are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for successful organizational change. I must 78 November 2007 NHRD Journal
therefore shift gear and venture into softer (but actually much harder!) dimensions and critical aspects of behavior/attitude that will convert the necessary into sufficient conditions for change. • Trust: If you think of it, business and commerce-in fact human civilization-is based on trust : our belief that people will do what they say (and hopefully say what they mean). If this belief gets diluted or compromised, no initiative can deliver its potential. Hence it is critical that leaders are trusted and in turn trust those that "follow" them. Trust ultimately depends on leaders being authentic : thought, speech and action are aligned so that people believe that leaders will do what they say, that different masks will not be worn for different occasions, that they will Walk the Talk. Mahatma Gandhi was perhaps the most outstanding in this regard, and hence widely regarded as one of the greatest leaders in modern times. • Inspire, Especially When There is Failure: Every movement goes through its ups and downs, and it is precisely when the going is tough that we need to stand by each other, when leaders need to focus on strengths to overcome weaknesses, to remind their followers "You can do it, I am with you". In such situations one would do well to remember Napoleon's statement "Morale is to all other factors as four is to one". Too often have I seen blame-games and witchhunts bring organizational change to a grinding halt, in fact push it back, when the going is not good. Tolerating, in fact celebrating, failure (again within limits) is in fact an important ingredient in the samundra manthan of change which unleashes innovation in organizations, for failure often (perhaps always) paves the way for success. But it requires the brave, strong and the self-confident to be able to see it in this light. How many of us can do so? And what price are we willing to pay for it? • Listen : Most of us are Masters at telling others what to do, but how many use the power of listening to connect with and understand reality, to grasp opportunities, to see the sources of problems and their solutions too. The voice of the customer, the employee, the supplier, the competitor, the winds of change…. In my experience, the leaders who listened empathetically-not those who pretended to listen-were truly able to create transformational change. The others were great at writing articles and giving lectures to spell-bound audiences!! Of course, the art and power of listening must percolate throughout the organization if its full power is to be harnessed. • May a thousand leaders bloom (with apologies to Chairman Mao!): • Any major change requires leadership initiatives (within certain boundaries of course) through the length and breadth of the organization. But it is equally true that in most organizations these boundaries are much more tightly defined than they ought to be if the required energy and momentum of the change process is to be achieved. Clearly the command and control approach needs to be revisited, for the pace and complexity of change can no longer be managed by supermen CEO s who know more about everything than anyone else. Fortunately, many organizations have realized this and I have seen more and more change initiatives being driven by large numbers of empowered leaders and teams of both blue and white-collar employees -and they inevitably surpass expectations. Giving up power ends up creating much more power! This is going to be the Golden Age of the Leader as Mentor, of November 2007 NHRD Journal 79
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NHRD Journal Organizational Change
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S.no Title of the Article Author Pa
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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE INDIRA J PARI
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give subtle shape to the organizati
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to be tempered by a sense of humor,
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Although the result did not spell o
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the Project Sponsor to engage the C
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• Consultative - The target popul
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Now they are confronted with change
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A living system can never be direct
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ut in absence of formal process of
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Higgs, M. and Rowland, D. (2005),
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• Organization Structure Rigid hi
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Page 33 and 34: HOW HR CAN IGNITE 'HOT SPOTS' YOGI
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Page 37 and 38: BRINGING CHANGE TO THE CHANGE AGENT
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Page 43 and 44: DEFINING CHANGE AGENTS SANDEEP K. K
Page 45 and 46: human resource process like leaders
Page 47 and 48: References Chris Argyris, Initiatin
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Page 51 and 52: esponse to changes in the external
Page 53 and 54: THE ENDURING SKILLS OF CHANGE LEADE
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Page 63 and 64: very capable people; but the organi
Page 65 and 66: DRIVING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE LEENA
Page 67 and 68: change, preparing the leadership an
Page 69 and 70: However the good news is that the a
Page 71 and 72: Organizational Culture and Sub-Cult
Page 73 and 74: References Ashkanasy, N. M., Broadf
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Page 81 and 82: COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS, JUSTIC
Page 83 and 84: interactional justice focused on th
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Page 87 and 88: the merger, in whichever form has a
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Page 95 and 96: ONE REASON FOR FAILURE OF CHANGE IN
Page 97 and 98: IPO: A POWERFUL INTERVENTION IN ORG
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Page 105 and 106: Newsletters used to be published an
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Page 111 and 112: Conclusion There is a broad agreeme
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Page 115 and 116: and regional development programs.
Page 117 and 118: ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE-MARUTI SUZUKI
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concepts in an organizational conte
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APPEAL TO CONTRIBUTORS The National
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