Innovation Insight: How to Manage Strategic Change

It is important to approach and manage Strategic Change cautiously. Human Resource Management and Organisational behaviour Professor, Malcolm Higgs, shared his latest research at the KnowledgeBrief's Innovation Research Group.

Here are a few of the shared key insights from his presentation and the cross-industry discussions that followed on helping to manage Strategic Change:

• Organisational change is ubiquitous: The pace of change is only getting faster. However, with around only a 30% success rate, the greatest leadership challenge is how to make change initiatives work.
• Constant change brings disruption and uncertainty: Change involves “complicated” (rich in detail) as well as “complex” (rich in structure) processes. Some managers struggle to solve the latter because it requires coping with dilemmas in the system rather than arriving at definitive solutions.
• Behaviours for leading change are different to good leadership and managerial competencies: The “shaping-form” of leadership (somebody who stands up and says “just do it”) – is ineffective. Leadership behaviours that centre on the position, role and power of leaders and their abilities can impair chances of success. A degree of compliance might be achieved, but not the systemic shifts required.

These are five broad leadership competencies identified that allow strategic change initiatives to succeed:

1. Creating the case for change: effectively engaging others in recognising the business case for change;
2. Creating structural change: ensuring change is based on depth of understanding and supported with consistent tools and processes;
3. Engaging others in the whole change process – and building commitment;
4. Implementing and sustaining changes: developing effective plans and ensuring good monitoring and review processes are developed;
5. Facilitating and developing capabilities: ensuring people are challenged to find their own answers and that they are supported to do this well.

Next, this group will be discussing Fast Changing Futures. For more information and to join, please contact us.