"Twelve O''clock High": The Change Management Paradox

The Non-Participator

“Cut out this guidance stuff and just tell me what to do!”  That’s a quote from my son when he was nearing the end of his university education.  Like most young people he was unclear and anxious about his future.  As a good parent I was guiding him.  It wasn’t working; he wanted an answer.  That’s the paradox of parenting – it’s not your life, but you still have a responsibility.  Leading organizational change has a similar paradox.

Participation, involvement, engagement, buy-in, equality; these are all words that underlie organization transformation as we know it in the west.  These words are orthodoxy.  We believe in a democratized change management process.  We make daily decisions and take actions without questioning this belief.

I too am a believer.  I believe that participation increases the chances of success.  Maybe?

Maybe there’s a sequence here, and maybe the sequence goes back to the tireless discussion between management vs. leadership.  Maybe the foundation of transformation is hierarchical control, not egalitarian empowerment?

Let me explain.

Check out your NetFlix or i-Tunes and find the 1949 film Twelve O’clock High starring Gregory Peck.  It's a story about Peck taking over a B-17 squadron during the daytime bombing of Germany in WWII.  Peck is confronted with an undisciplined squadron with a low hit rate and high death rate.  He tries to lead the group but can’t.  He decides to enforce discipline to the extent that the men hate him so much that they all request transfers. 

Of course all turns out well.  The men get the message and Peck relinquishes leadership to the group – and it “saves the day.”  Hollywood drama?  Sure, but it makes a great point.  It reveals the transformation paradox: 

“you can’t lead if you're not in control!”

I relearned this lesson when I recently spent more than two years working in Korea.  The CEO of a $20 billion public company asked our team to build an Innovation capability within the organization to transform it from a market follower to a market leader.  A major issue holding the company back was the Korean culture of deference to hierarchy.  Everyone looked to the boss for ideas.  The deeper you got into the organization the deeper was the belief that “ideas are not my job.”

All of the innovation processes and tools used by our consulting team are based in the principle of participation.  You know the drill: everyone is equal; there are no bad ideas.  

The first six months of the project went well.  There was a lot of knowledge transfer.  Koreans love to learn.  Their Confucius based education system instills a belief in finite knowledge that can be learned and passed along.

Progress stalled as we got into the second six months.  This is where we brought teams together to use their newly acquired innovation skills.  This is where we developed insights from research; crashed insights to find ideas that had never been seen before; and assembled ideas into business opportunities.

Our teams fumbled.  We hit all of the walls: hierarchy within the teams slowed genuine idea generation; the reliance on rote learning inhibited pattern recognition; and even when we got good ideas the dynamic of deference slowed the exploration and synthesis of the ideas. 

Once the teams had reasonable change initiatives we coached them to develop plans to request funding for experiments to de-risk the ideas.  The plans were  to be based in vision, creativity, and energy.  We wanted the teams to sell ideas to their executives, not incremental business improvements.  They found this difficult.  The executive presentations were usually glorified spreadsheets – comfort zones for presenters and receivers of the information.

As we moved past the first year of work we realized that we had to change our approach.  Our biggest shift was to drop the principle of egalitarianism and take up the mantle of authority.  The Korean culture forced the paradox of transformation.

Now that I’ve left Korea I’ve discussed my experience with westerners who have practiced in other cultures like Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, and other countries in the east.  The message is consistent.  Our participative approach to change isn’t an immediate fit in countries with strong traditions of hierarchy and authority.  Empowerment has to be disciplined.  This sounds counter-intuitive, but that’s why it’s a paradox.

Is the west free of the transformation paradox?  I’m not convinced.  According to a recent survey reported in the Economist only 3% of organizations are “self-managed” through a set of core values.  In the remaining 97% there is a predominance of top-down, command and control management that stifles innovation, engagement, and performance.

Are we in the west living a delusion?  Is the principle of participation limiting transformation rather than driving it?  Is the transformation paradox one of the reasons that 70% of change initiatives fail?

These questions are worthy of debate if we are to get better at transforming organizations.  Maybe we’ll find answers to make adjustments, such as:

1.  Using Authority:  People have been trained to look upward.  This is a powerful lever to start the process.  Employees need to have permission to participate.
2. Codifying Creativity:  We can’t simply sit around and “ideate” changes.  We need to be specific on: how to generate ideas, recognize patterns, and synthesize information.
3. Limiting Participation:  Can we really expect to kick start the process by getting “participation from everyone, everywhere?”  In the beginning only involve people who have the talent and passion to participate.
4. Being Out Front:  The transformation leader has to lead from in front, not behind.  Don’t delegate in the beginning.  Be on stage.  Be visible.  Make the decisions.  Knowledge will transfer in due time.

It’s Twelve O'Clock High in the transformation business.