How coaching can power up a large change initiative
Overview
For some time, business literature, management consultancies and shared industry best practices have advised on how to set up and run large business transformation initiatives. Still, the number of organizations that achieve and sustain their intended objectives is unsatisfactory. Often, it is the mindset and inner capacity of the leaders at the helm of the initiative, those very leaders who are asked to inspire and spread the vision to the entire organization, that pose impediments to true long term success. We look at the challenges those leaders face and how introducing a structured executive coaching process in alignment to the larger program – leveraging emotional intelligence work and based on adult development theories- can support them in the most crucial moments and grow their internal resources and capabilities.
Looking for the missing component
Alan, the VP of Sales for a global industrial corporation, had been on his role for 18 months. The promotion came in just in time to be assigned an additional responsibility: Executive Sponsor for the launch of the new integrated inventory processes across all company locations worldwide. A high potential, in his new capacity he was asked to report directly to the Board, three steps up from his formal reporting structure. The Program had been a fascinating experience for Alan, allowing him to intimately know business challenges he would otherwise not have had the chance to face. He had been able to interact and collaborate as a peer with many Senior Executives in charge of the Business Units with P&L accountability.
Now at the turn of the first year of Program life, the first area in scope for the new re-engineered platform had been launched. There had been a few bumps on the road, particularly to keep the execution of the testing phase close to scope and timeline agreed at the start of the initiative. The Head of the Program Office had been invaluable in raising the right concerns and proposing the most collaborative paths for solution. However, mitigating the concerns of the large Executive Stakeholder Team had been a fulltime effort for Alan. His travel schedule demanded multiple weekly flights spanning several time zones to meet face-to-face with the Stakeholders and virtual meetings at 4:00am in the morning with those he couldn’t reach individually. The reality of the remaining three years of the Program shone right up in front of him. How much more could he do to engage these Leaders in preparation of the new responsibilities for the new inventory platform? The first launch encompassed only 10% of the entire business scope. And the reorganization required to align reporting lines, incentives, team sizes and structures hadn’t even been fully defined. How long could he keep up this pace? He had pursued his new role with determination, reinforcing delicate alliances and forging strong new long-term relationships. Collaboration across the Executive Team was essential for the Company. Was this the right step for him?
How familiar is this? It should be if you are launching a large business transformation initiative that will radically shift the way business operates. Are you heading up a major program aimed at re-engineering your go-to market processes? Are you about to acquire a competitor and by doing so, fuel the path to dominance in your industry? Whatever the banner or the specific business context of your change effort, you will have experienced, in one form or another, many of the same challenges and concerns. In any large business change program, Executive Leaders know that many of the following steps are necessary:
- Engagement of a major consultancy as your Partner for the initiative;
- Set up of a Program Management Office (PMO) to steer the work and a Change Management Office (CMO) to ensure the program is well accepted by your organization;
- Development of a detailed project plan with tasks, effort and resources allocated to each;
- Identification of key metrics and reporting mechanisms to keep the initiative on track;
- Engagement with Senior Stakeholders across the organization;
- Development of a timeline for the initiative with workstreams, tasks, dependencies, milestones, critical path items;
- Assignment to the Internal Communication Team of communicating the vision for the ‘new world’ clearly and often..
All these –and more- are the factors for a successful completion of the initiative, without any doubt. But let’s take a deeper look. The Do’s and Don’ts for implementations of large change efforts are now very well known. The VUCA [1] conditions of our world don’t leave any doubt about the sense of urgency and the speed for change. Consultancies of any size and type have been sharing best practices working across industries and multitudes of organizations. Program Management has now become the science for how to set up and run a change initiative, affecting all the key levers of the organization (processes, roles, skills, communication, executive sponsorship).
Yet, in spite the great progress made, we have all seen many of these initiatives struggle over time, lose momentum, limp towards a disappointing sunset. Each has its own reasons and specific conditions. When we look instead at those that show glowing sustainable results, we see one characteristic common to all: emotionally mature leadership. By slightly paraphrasing Goleman, Boyatziz, McKee[2]: Only emotionally mature leaders can promote and sustain transformational change.
Here’s my working conclusion, based on multi-year experience with large programs and their leadership models: even the best run initiatives lack the appropriate and dedicated support for the individuals who are essential to lead them enthusiastically. Having “all the ducks in the row” (aka a strong Program Management structure to execute the hard-wired elements in a large initiative) is a non-negotiable for any business transformation. But it’s not sufficient to expect sustainable results over time. What is needed are the structured tools to provide support for the leadership at the helm of the transformation and to engage those leaders hands, minds, hearts – in a sustainable, deep learning process. This is a transformational process on its own. I advocate introducing Executive Coaching integrated with a large change initiative (Fig.1). Let’s see what that means and how it could effectively happen.
Executive coaching & Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Executive Coaching has reached a well-established position inside many organizations. Executive Coaches now partner with High Potentials, newly appointed Executives, Executives transitioning to new positions and so much more. Working together, clients and their coaches formulate strategies to help the client reach significant goals. It’s a client-focused, action-oriented process that promotes the client’s ability to make meaning of how she interacts with the surrounding world. Coaches support their client to reach awareness of their organizational impacts, align actions with values, shift their mindset to expand the range of what is possible and effective. All this, engaging in a process of deep learning and reflection. Emotional intelligence[3] is always in the forefront of a client-coach conversation. And how couldn’t it be? The father of the popularized version of emotional intelligence, Dr. Daniel Goleman, in his 1995 seminal book on the topic, described E.I. as a person's ability to manage his feelings so that those feelings are expressed appropriately and effectively. For Goleman, emotional intelligence is the “largest single predictor of success in the workplace”. I would add, the higher level the job, the more important EI becomes. And here is the good news: while IQ is stable (we are born with a certain level and that does not change) EI can be learned over time. What does this mean? When leadership development efforts are directed at a range of specific skills, even those usually defined as “soft”, the work is on what Adult Development Theory[4] calls “horizontal growth”: communication skills, facilitation skills, project management skills, conflict resolution and so on. They all expand the range of what an individual is comfortable doing, and this is a good thing! Working on EI is a different step though: a leader matures “vertically”, moving from a stage to a higher one, acquiring more EI-competencies (Fig.2). We move into the domain of self-awareness, self-determination, self-questioning, self-actualization. Not by chance, the emphasis here is on the “self” component: the work is at individual level, in the context of expanding the leader’s capacity[5]. This work is attempted during a coaching process, with the coach positioning himself as the instrument at the leader’s disposal trigger the transformation.
Integration of Executive Coaching: from Change to Transformation
The initial periods of a large change intervention for those who are at their helm, are almost invariably hectic, confused, demanding. But results start coming in, milestones are hit, presentations are successful, simply put: “things” happen. Concerns exist, some noises from the leadership team emerge but the working team is compact, a strong sense of identity has been created. It starts feeling like “us” versus “them”. Still, all is good.
After a while, those concerns take more the form of objections: signs of support during leadership off-sites are increasingly evasive, conflicts with other organizational priorities become more evident. They harden up as boundaries for the executive group: the organizational dynamics expose trade-offs, the gaps between the new and the old way of measuring results and running the business become evident. If you look deeper into the reality of the implementation phase of a change initiative, you can see who is a believer and who is not. Reality takes center stage.
Different narratives now emerge in a leader’s mind: Am I good at this? What might I lose? Who can I trust? Am I at risk? Is this worth doing? Is this really advantageous for me in the long run? Fears and anxieties at leadership level are seldom (if ever) recognized as such. Rather, they are set aside so that the leader can move on. A significant change process opens the door to complex issues that do not have simple answers: this is where emotional maturity allows leaders to drive the change agenda in a sustainable way, to achieve results that stay. This is the space where an Executive Coach can partner with leaders to grow their capacity - which can take the shape of finding their own path towards resolving their own fear and anxiety, addressing the hidden conflicts of high-stake situations, developing conscious strategies for surfacing untold cultural assumptions, telling the “change story” from multiple perspectives over time, and much more. Based on my experience in multi-year business change initiatives and my work as Executive Coach, I believe that the integration of coaching in the cadence of the change program should start not necessarily at the outset of the program but more effectively when the initiative has picked up pace. After the more intense initial phase of “synching-up”/chemistry building between leader and coach, followed by a deep understanding of the context and dynamics, the coaching conversations can take a regular, periodic “check-in” format. A more frequent cadence can pick up once the program is in the final phases, where many trade-offs/issues need to be ironed out and next steps for the leadership teams identified.
What kind of skills and ‘presence’ should an Executive Coach have in this type of engagement? Highlighting a few does not diminish at all the need to have a very well rounded Coach that can easily shift from one mode to the next, laser-focused on the client’s agenda and no others.
The initial phases of a coaching engagement are the most critical: the ‘entry & contracting’, always a must for all coaches, here requires a display of intense business acumen, listening ability and contributing skills: the competencies that allow the coach to synch with the business Executive and establish presence. Specifically, the outline of the process, desired outcome and critical moments throughout the coaching engagement should take the form of a ‘program within the program’, to allow the Executive to visualize and keep the connection with the ultimate goals of the intervention in close check (Fig.3). Again, the ability to speak the meta-language of the business executive takes center stage.
Process, competencies and trust, once established, create a space that is overall missing in large change interventions. This space where organizational and individual change co-exist and leverage each other is where true transformational change can occur and last. An emotionally mature leader can approach holistically the work on the change initiative, coupling that with interventions on the organization’s culture, the organization’s health and a shared vision across the business.
And so, what about Alan?..
Are you wondering what happened to Alan, the VP of Sales in charge of the business transformation initiative for the global industrial corporation? He continued with the high-pace assignment for one more year. The Program was heralded as the best managed in company’s history, clicking all key metrics of budget, scope, schedule and timing. His exposure to the Board and corporate sponsors grew – as his concerns about what was waiting around the corner: was the business ready for the shift in responsibilities? Was there appetite for the organizational changes he thought necessary?
At home, his three young kids, one just a toddler, were growing up without seeing much of him. Alan resigned at the mid-point of the transformation, transitioning the leadership responsibilities to a new hire. He’s now consulting, mentoring start-ups and working hard to complete his PhD on Organizational Behavior from Insead.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguity
[2] “Primal Leadership” Harvard Business School Press, 2002
[3] As per Daniel Goleman, 5 are the components of EI: Emotional self-awareness — knowing what one is feeling at any given time and understanding the impact those moods have on others; Self-regulation — controlling or redirecting one’s emotions; anticipating consequences before acting on impulse; Motivation — utilizing emotional factors to achieve goals, enjoy the learning process and persevere in the face of obstacles; Empathy — sensing the emotions of others; Social skills — managing relationships, inspiring others and inducing desired responses from them
[4] Adult Development Theory, Robert Kegan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CU2CCdV9sU
[5] Leadership capacity is defined not by the amount of knowledge and skills possessed (the “what”) but by the ability to think in more complex, systemic, strategic, and interdependent ways (the “how”).