practicing
Harlem
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Langston Hughes
The fourth phase in a quest for growth is practicing new behaviors and making real progress
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In 2009 Ursula Burns was named CEO of Xerox, becoming the first Black woman to head a Fortune 500 company. It was the culmination of an amazing life journey, from a Manhattan tenement to the C-suite of one of America’s most iconic companies. She led Xerox for seven years, stepping down in 2016 after a bruising battle with the activist investor Carl Icahn, which led to the company’s breakup.
During those seven years she led the company through a major pivot from manufacturing to services. Stories were the chief currency of her leadership. “One of the things I learned,” she told the 2021 California Conference for Women, “was that stories matter, communications matter. Putting things in context matters.” She had taken over at a time when investors were eager to see Xerox build both revenue and earnings. She knew that the work for 130,000 employees was cut out - get over the past, take more initiative, become more fearless and be more frank and impatient with one another to ratchet up performance. “Terminal niceness,” is how she described an aspect of Xerox’s culture, during her all-hands speech. “We are really, really, really nice.” Maybe the “Xerox family,” she says, should act a bit more like a real family. “When we’re in the family, you don’t have to be as nice as when you’re outside of the family,” she says. “I want us to stay civil and kind, but we have to be frank and the reason we can be frank is because we are all in the same family.”
“We know it. We know what we do,” she continues, describing meetings where some people present and others just listen. “And then the meeting ends, and we leave and go, ‘Man, that wasn’t true.’ I’m like, ‘Why didn’t you say that in the meeting?’ ”
Burns spent countless hours meeting with stakeholders from around the world and making it clear that massive change was the only way forward—and that there was a better Xerox ahead. “Telling people the reality of what’s going on and giving them hope by providing them with the vision…for what it’s going to look like when we get through this is fundamental,” she told attendees. “It’s foundational to having people follow you.
Now, one needn’t limit oneself to words (and the occasional number). In the 1980s, Jan Carlzon at Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) led multiple waves as part of a turnaround. He had assumed the CEO's responsibility at SAS in a time of financial and organizational difficulty. Central to his leadership was the way in which he developed, then communicated a clear and motivating strategic mission to become "the world's best businessman's airline." This clarity came with its own challenges - there is a power in a clear and well-communicated strategic mission (strategic intent), and also problems and limits. Specifically, common problems of motivating middle managers who often feel disenfranchised by front line empowerment. One way Carlzon communicated was by circulating a small illustrated pamphlet. featuring a sad cartoon plane to convey the company’s switch to a strategy anchored in delighting business travelers. As Carlzon detailed in his memoir, his fellow executives worried that SAS’s cerebral Scandinavian workforce would reject the comic format and dismiss the message. But the pamphlet was widely embraced and helped the firm chart a course through turbulence and change. Carlzon’s effort remains one of the most successful turnarounds in business history.
In the fourth phase, the benefits of focusing on the rational and emotional journey begin to come to fruition. Successful transformation involves major shifts in KPIs and performance management, funding, and resources. Such a shift to a new reality can be difficult for some people, as they lose power, status, and even their roles in the transformed organization. It can trigger a lack of belief in the transformation and reveal itself to become reality. While losing people is more often than not an inevitable part of a successful transformation, research and our own experience shows that making decisions about practical matters like KPIs sooner rather than later enables people to contain the in-between emotional state and transition from one state to another — from becoming defensive and reacting to the loss of the status quo to becoming proactive and being creative about the future. This phase is a critical inflection point in the emotional journey.
Developing New Behaviors: In the fourth phase, we refine the vision and equip individuals with skills for effective change. Learning new skills is crucial for understanding and implementing the vision, with managers supporting to overcome barriers.
Facilitating Learning and Support: Members eager for change may lack necessary knowledge, emphasizing the need for resources and support. Managers should encourage autonomy and proactivity, especially when new knowledge conflicts with existing roles.
Achieving Tangible Progress: Monitoring change progress and celebrating successes are essential for reinforcing the vision. Clear goals and short-term wins build momentum and confidence in the change's viability, driving overall progress.
“When organizations get into big trouble, fixing the culture is usually the prescription. But interviews with successful change makers suggest that culture isn’t something you “fix.” Rather, cultural change is what you get when you put new processes or structures in place to tackle tough business challenges.
Organizations are complex systems with many ripple effects—and reworking fundamental practices will inevitably lead to new values and behaviors. The remake of Ecolab into a diversified corporation three times its original size; the post-bankruptcy merger of Delta and Northwest; the turnaround of Ford; and Novartis’s shift to a diversified health care portfolio have something to teach us. While each firm’s CEO took a different approach for a different end, yet in every case, when the executives used tools such as decision rights, performance measurement, and reward systems to address their particular business challenges, organizational culture evolved as a result, reinforcing the new direction.”
