In an on-line article from March, 2010, McKinsey interviews Chip Heath - one of the authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. The following are some of my reactions to Heath's statements in the article.
1. First of all, organizational CHANGE IS ALWAYS HARD, NEVER EASY. I do not understand why people (especially academics from Stanford) have a preconception that change is sometimes easy.
2. Heath uses an analogy of a person riding an elephant to distinguish between rational and emotional sides of an individual when it comes to change. (The elephant represents the emotional side.) I think this is giving far too much weight to the emotional side.
3. Heath seems to convey that an executive promoting/supporting a change project and communicating to employees provides the listeners with only intellectual understanding and fails to provide emotional motivation. I think Heath is undervaluing or dismissing the influence the communicating executive holds with her audience. Hearing the change message from a leader may very well emotionally influence the listener if they have any sort of relationship with or respect for the deliverer. People can certainly be motivated by leadership communications, especially if delivered in person in a two-way forum where listeners can ask questions. In the commitment curve model, executive communications can create buy-in in addition to understanding.
4. Heath sees benchmarking as telling organizations to be more like other organizations. Au contraire, benchmarking for best practices is identifying, adapting, and adopting one specific practice from another organization that you believe will improve one aspect of performance in your organization. It is not a wholesale effort to adopt all aspects of another organization. Benchmarking is more of a pinpoint study.
5. Heath says "The idea of the burning platform is that people only change when they're scared." Wrong again. The message behind the burning platform is one of URGENCY, NOT FEAR. There is some urgent driver that is forcing us to make a decision and act. We know urgency can motivate people to act. Contrary to the image it produces in most heads, the burning platform does not equal fear. It is just a bad metaphor.
6. "As a top leader, you should make people realize that there will be difficulties, but that those difficulties aren't going to prevent ultimate success." No duh. Not only should top leaders know this, THEY SHOULD COMMUNICATE IT TO EMPLOYEES EARLY AND FREQUENTLY through a variety of channels.
7. Heath's final piece of advice is to use good news and positive messages (such as previous successes which he refers to as "bright spots") to create an emotional case for change. NO DUH. Academics get paid to sit around and think up brilliant ideas like this one which have been practiced for decades by working stiffs like me? Hmm, I must be in the wrong business.
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