Large, complex change – especially transformational change – impacts people and processes across boundaries (boundaries of role, function, process, and organization). Organizational transformation demands cross-boundary support among your top executives; this support is a non-negotiable requirement of success.
As CEO, it is your job to create alignment, commitment, and support in your top executive team to ensure they are individually and collectively doing all that is necessary to make your company transformation successful. This is key to your role as the sponsor of this level of change.
Unfortunately, political dynamics often impair change efforts. Not only do some executives refuse to work together, they may actively work against their peers’ agendas. When you are transforming the whole enterprise, or any major segment of it, you need all your executives leading as a unified team, not fighting each other overtly or covertly.
Most senior leaders see themselves as responsible for leading their own functions. They naturally think first about the success of their business unit, process, or function and orient to the success of the enterprise second. At a distant third, they may support their peers’ needs and success. The silo orientation can create and stir the political dynamics that inhibit an organizational transformation. How true is this for your team?
The silo orientation among those at the top often creates internal competition for power, resources, staff, project priority, compensation, promotions, and general attention. If this internal competition goes unchecked, it manifests into power struggles, alliance building, internal resistance, and withholding of support or information from other executives’ agendas.
For a transformational change to be successful, all leaders, and everyone else impacted, need to be on board and do what is best for the change to succeed. As much as leaders assume their political behavior is invisible, it is glaringly obvious! Trust us, your subordinates can see the dissension among your leaders; we hear this from them all the time. And you can hardly expect them to work together and support a change initiative if the top executives are not.
How do you address damaging company politics and ensure your top executives are on board with your change initiatives? How do you get them to focus on what is best for the overall enterprise, and do what that requires of them, instead of doing only what favors their own function?
The political terrain among the top echelons may be so fraught with conflict you may be hesitant to address it, no matter how costly the finger-pointing and backbiting is to the overall performance of the organization. Discussing the quality of your relationships with each other may seem impossible and threatening. You might even think it is better to leave things alone. However, in your gut, you know that such dysfunction will destroy any chance for success in your large change efforts. Leaving it alone is also a reflection of your leadership. As the overall sponsor of the effort, your job starts here!
To get the needed support for your enterprise-level initiatives from your executive team:
By interrupting the natural propensity of executives to think first about the success of their business unit, process, or function and creating alignment, commitment, and support in your top executive team you will reduce power and politics in your organization and increase the opportunity for success in your change initiatives.
Through 40 years of observing and supporting large-scale change and transformation in Fortune 500, government, global NGOs and public service organizations, we’ve identified these ten Best Practice strategies for leading transformation successfully.
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