The Aha!s of Change: What I've Learned Over 50 Years In Organizational Change

Someone recently asked me the key things I have learned over nearly 50 years of working and studying organizational change. At my age, I am surprised that I remember. And in fact I bet I have forgotten many important things and elevated others that don't deserve to be. Furthermore, in thinking about the answers to the question I have come across some contradictions that confuse me.

I am starting this series because I would love to hear what you have learned and how it fits or competes with these. So I hope you jump in and question, argue, and tell me where I am full of it. Lets start today with one of them. Change teams.

A lot of folks think the change team is a key to success. It probably is but the literature and my experience suggests there are teams and then there are teams. What I have learned is that if everyone is in charge, no one is in charge. Andre Delbecq (one of my heroes) studied innovation in Silicon Valley. He found that teams of the really successful companies do it this way:

First, a team leader is chosen and this person is influential and respected. But interestingly, that team leader is personally responsible to make this project be successful and he or she is given the personal autonomy and resources to make it happen.

Second, the team leader is given the authority to pick the team members with the restriction that they, like the leader, must be passionate about the project. The team’s job is to help the team leader accomplish the goals. In several ways this is very different from typical views of teams where the team is the key instead of the leader and where the team has a central role in decision-making.

Third, the team is not held responsible for the success of the effort. So the organization is on the line (by giving resources and authority) and so is the leader. I think it makes for a very different dynamic.

Now for the contradiction. I also really believe it is important to engage the skeptics, but that is not mentioned a lot in what I have read about Silicon Valley. How can only the passionate advocates be on a team? Where do you get the reality testing? To some extent these issues are addressed in other ways that I will talk about later. So rip me apart. I love the pain.