UNAIDS:Leadership Programme for Women

Leadership and Innovation: A Framework for Managing Change

Professor John LuizSussex University, UK

University of Cape Town, South AfricaJ.M.Luiz@sussex.ac.ukTwitter: @johnmluiz

Outline

• Organizational Tipping Points: A journey of disruption and who gets left behind?

• How does it manifest in our context?

• Change management and leadership

• How are organizations changing and how do we remain vitalized? Keeping innovation alive.

• Implications for effectiveness for UNAIDS and us as individuals

Tipping Points:Winners and Losers

Countries →Organizations →Individuals

• 1560 – mercantilism (accumulate resources)

• 1810 – industrial revolution (production)

• 1920 – mass production homogenous goods

• 1988 – nerds rule (human capital)

• 2019 – creative capital

• Beyond? Implications?

• S curves accelerating

Implications for countries, organizations, individuals,

leadership?

• Individuals: Those who can do things no one

else can will prosper but those without special

skills will face long hours and low pay.

• Countries: Middle income traps unless we

adapt to new world and new sources of value?

• Organizations?

- This disruption affects our organizational structure, purpose, operations

- It also affects our value proposition (as individuals and employees) to organizations

- How does it manifest in our organizations? … glad you asked

Think of a time in which you tried to effect change in your organization:

• what was the situation• how did you implement the change effort• what factors did you leverage to facilitate the change

• what did you take away from that experience

Transformation in Somaliland: Edna Adan

Maternity Hospital

Case Study

(before discussing case and showing case questions: do first 2 slides of case presentation ie think of a time in which you tried to effect change in your organization – next 2 slides)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZZGqvE3FhA

(13 mins – show after they have discussed in groups but before you discuss)

•The case examines a change effort on a grand scale within the context of the developing country and its healthcare system.

•It addresses change management, leadership, and patriarchal organizations

Questions for discussion in groups

1. How did Edna become involved in founding a hospital and why did she do it?

2. What kind of leader is Edna?

3. What were her biggest concerns and obstacles?

4. How important were the various collaborations with physicians, schools, nonprofits, and organizations for the hospital?

5. Was there anything Edna could have done differently to affect change?

6. What lessons do you learn from this case about leadership and large-scale change management?

Achieve Miss

Urgency

Coalition

Vision

Communication

Enabling others

Wins

Don’t let up

Make it stick

Flexible, Global & Dynamic Systems:

Implications for UN agencies and us as

individuals

Most formidable challenges that confront

organizations in this new century:

1. Dramatically accelerating the pace of strategic

renewal in organizations large and small.

2. Making innovation everyone’s job, every day.

3. Creating a highly engaging work environment that

inspires employees to give the very best of

themselves.

Creating an organization where everyone gives their bestA survey of 86,000 employees working for large and medium-sized organizations

in 16 countries. Respondents were asked how strongly they agreed with thefollowing statements:

I really care about the future of my organization.

I am proud to tell others I work for my organization.

My job provides me with a sense of personal accomplishments.

I would recommend my organization to a friend as a good place to work.

My organization inspires me to do my best.

I understand how my unit/department contributes to the success of theorganization.

I understand how my role in my organization is related to my organization’soverall goals, objectives, and direction.

I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond what is normally expected tohelp my organization succeed.

I am personally motivated to help my organization be successful.

The vast majority of employees across all levels in an organization areless than fully engaged in their work”. According to the study, a mere14% of employees around the world are highly engaged in their work,while 24% are disengaged. Everyone else is somewhere in the tepidmiddle. Implications?

“Leadership is not defined by the

exercise of power, but by the

capacity to increase the sense of

power among those who are led.

The most essential work of the

leader is to create more leaders.”

(Simon Sinek video “Renowned leadership” 0-14min)

Designing the best organization to work for

– what would it look like?

• You can be yourself

• You’re told what’s really going on

• Your strengths are magnified

• The organization stands for something meaningful (more than shareholder value)

• Your daily work is rewarding

• Stupid rules don’t exist

HBR: May 2013:101

WHY DO GREAT ORGANIZATIONS FAIL?

Unparalleled track

record of

success

No gap between

expectations and

performance

Contentment

with current

performance

Accumulation

of abundant

resources

Optimized

organization

system

Success

Confirms

strategy

Momentum

is mistaken

for leadership

Deeply

etched

recipes

A view that

resources

will win out

Failure to

“reinvent”

leadership

Vulnerability

to new

rules

Resources

substitute

for creativity

Inability to invent

the future!

Inability to escape

the past!

QUESTIONS FOR YOU ABOUT THE FUTURE

• Does senior management have a clear and collective point ofview about how the future will be or could be different?

• Do senior managers see themselves as revolutionaries or arethey content with the status quo?

• Is the organization exercising an influence over sector evolutionthat is disproportionately large, given the organization’sresources?

• Is there a significant amount of stretch in the organization'saspiration – Has senior management operationalized thataspiration into a clear set of challenges?

• Is it clear to everyone in the organization how their individualcontribution links into the organization’s overall aspiration?

• Are the conditions under which the organization’s existingengine might run out of steam clear to all managers?

• Are senior executives confident that they will leave a legacy tofuture managers and employees that exceed the legacy theythemselves inherited? (Steve Jobs quote)

• Are you loving (not always liking) your work?

In a world where organizational life cycles areshrinking, innovation is the only way aorganization can renew its lease on success.The more rapidly a organization grows, thesooner it fulfils the promise of its originalorganization model, peaks, and enters declines.

These new realities call for new organizationaland managerial capabilities.

Requires rule-breaking innovation and thatyou learn how to inspire employees to give thevery best of themselves every day.

Many great plans get bogged down because they

are:

-Too big, too expensive, take too long,

organizational resistance etc.

So we do nothing!

Small wins are reachable goals, so much so that

we actually get started on them.

Once we are started we often find that the small

idea catalyzed another or had a cumulative affect

well beyond its size.

Leading to a tipping point.

Tipping Points:

That magic moment when an idea, trend or social

behavior crosses, tips and spreads like wildfire.

Malcolm Gladwell

NY Times bestseller in

year 2000

The Tipping Point: Social epidemics

Small changes can have big effects

• The law of the few -- individual actions can be amplified by social connections, energy, enthusiasm and personality

– Connectors – those who know lots of people…social glue

– Mavens – those who accumulate knowledge…data banks

– Salespeople – those with skills to persuade…persuaders

• The stickiness factor- simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information can make a big difference in its impact (infection)

• The power of context -- individual behavior is markedly affected by the environment

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrpdxTGsjbE

Lessons of the Tipping Point

1. What must underlie successful wildfires, in the end, is a bedrock of belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behaviour/beliefs in the face of the right impetus.

We are influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of those around us.

With the slightest push in just the right place, the world can be tipped.

Management Innovation in ActionManagement innovation challenge W.L. Gore’s distinctive

management practiceshttp://www.managementexchange.com/story/innovation-

democracy-wl-gores-original-management-model

How do you enrol everyone in yourorganization as an innovator?

Do away with hierarchy;continually reinforce the beliefthat innovation can come fromanyone; collocate employees withdiverse skills to facilitate thecreative process.

How do you make sure thatmanagement’s hollowed beliefsdon’t strangle innovation?

Don’t make “management”approval a prerequisite forinitiating new projects; minimizethe influence of hierarchy; use apeer-based process for allocating% of resources.

How do you create time and spacefor innovation when everyone’sworking flat out?

Carve out 10% of staff time forprojects that would otherwise be“off-budget” or “out of scope”,allow plenty of percolation timefor new ideas.

Management Innovation in Action

Management innovation challenge W.L. Gore’s distinctive management practices

How do you guard against thedangers of hubris and denial?

Open up the strategy process – make sure itisn’t dominated by the old guard; keep thehierarchy flat – don’t insulate top managementfrom the views of front-line employees who arein the best position to see the future coming;encourage dissent.Reverse mentorship – get someone young tomentor you with new ideas - out of your comfortzone.

How do you create a steady flow ofnew strategic options?

Make it easy for folks to experiment with newideas – give them time (the “10 or 20 percent”rule) and minimize the number of approvallevels; build a “just try it” culture – emphasize“test and learn” instead of “plan and execute”;create outsized rewards for individuals whocome up with game-changing ideas; don’ttruncate the organization definition.

Anna Frisch at Aesch AG:

Initiating Lateral Change

Case Study

Questions for discussion:1. What change is Anna initiating? What

exactly does she want to do and why?

2. Which situational factors are problematic ie

what are the barriers?

3. How would you categorize Anna’s

management of stakeholders and

understanding of the political context of the

change initiative?

4. How could she have rallied more support for

her case?

5. Should this initiative continue and what

should Anna do now? 27

What to expect from change

• Sense of loss, confusion.

• Mistrust and a “me” focus.

• Fear of letting go of that which led to

success in the past.

• People hold onto & value the past.

• High uncertainty, low stability, high

emotional stress

• Perceived high levels of inconsistency.

• High energy — but often undirected.

• Control becomes a major issue.

• Conflict increases — especially between

groups.

Change Process: Kotter’s 8 steps

• Establish the need for urgency

• Ensure there is a powerful change

group to guide the change

• Develop a vision

• Communicate the vision

• Empower the staff

• Ensure there are short-term wins

• Consolidate gains

• Embed the change in the culture 29

What Effective Change Leaders Do

• Embrace change when it’s needed

• Develop a vision for change

• Communicate effectively

• Shake things up by challenging status quo

and encouraging others to do the same

• Stay Actively Involved by walking the walk and

being visible about it.

• Direct, Review Implementation of change -

continued participation - never done attitude.

Be in position to notice and coach.

31

Understanding “New Power”

“ Old power works like a currency. It is held by few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven. It downloads, and it captures.

New power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it.”

Source: Jeremy Heimans & Henry Timms, HBR 2014

A picture captures 1000 words:

In a sense, the goal of management is to first amplify andthen aggregate human effort – to get more out ofindividuals than one might expect by providing them withthe appropriate tools, incentives, and working conditions,and to then compound those efforts in ways that allowhuman beings to achieve together what they can notachieve individually.

Organizations gain a performance advantage when theyinvent better ways of amplifying and aggregating effort –when they push out the frontier of individual andcollective achievement. This is the goal of managementinnovation.

(Tapscott video: Power of collaboration 12.20-16.21min)

Reflection• Decide on 2-3 max. management practices

that does the most to destroy employee

initiatives and how would you fix it? Little

wins.

• How would the people who report to you

answer the question relative to you and how

could you address it?

• How could you as a leader create some

space for innovation for your employees and

dept within the constraints of the

organization?

• Key takeaways from today 33