When significant change needs to happen in an organisation, a big question to address is how to involve the middle management.  Transformation models will be on a spectrum ranging from a central push to a divisional pull.  A centralised effort would have the advantage of defining a common transformation scope, putting together a comprehensive solution, building an integrated plan, formulating a consistent communication and progressing at pace, at least initially.  Yet, because of its reliance on external support to make things happen, such an approach would bypass line management at the risk of either threatening the sustainability of the changes or weakening the position of line managers in the long run. Moreover, the divisional tolerance for central initiatives has to be gauged as it could derail any well-meaning effort. 


Turning the approach on its head, a collaborative model would bring commitment from all corners of the organisation, and leave the second and third layers of management in charge of the narrative for the change and the realisation of its benefits.  However, such an approach presents the drawback of different speeds and courses across the organisation, multiple solution definitions, unmatched levels of ambition, and the risk of slow incremental progress.  It can also be daunting for managers to take charge of their remit’s transformation as a side activity to their day job. 


Where should you start?  Much will hinge on the corporate culture in your organisation and the related ability of your middle management to lead change.  As often, it is sensible to consider combining the two extremes and only keep their respective upsides.  The diagnostic of a problem and the definition of its solution could be shared across the organisation, while the deployment would remain local. 
The ability to generate a cross-divisional solution will always be preferable to local specific fixes.  That common approach requires a significant contribution from all parts of the organisation to reflect the needs for change and create commitment to the solution.  In the end, the recommendation should define expectations of outcome, and tools to achieve them, shaped in a framework that can be applied to all parts of the business.  The local ownership of an implementation would then defy most operational challenges, at a rhythm reflecting the divisional ability to commit to change. In all instances, facilitation should be the only central contribution. 


Finally, some change enablers should be pooled centrally to maintain the transformation pace, like a PMO to act as a broker of current and relevant information between the transformation teams and the governance structures in place, common core activities requested for the overall success of the  transformation, or a challenge of the divisional ambitions when required. 

So, when you consider launching an ambitious transformation of your organisation, it might be worth asking yourself the following questions to ensure that you mobilise properly your middle management:

1. How would you orchestrate the transformation?  Who would be accountable for its success?
   
2. What is the ability of your middle managers to lead change?  What kind of support would they need to be successful?
3. What role should the management team play to enable a local implementation to be successful?
   

Many voices can be heard telling how to successfully crank transformations.  Their contradictory insights can be confusing.   Top-down approach or bottom-up initiatives, undisputable business case or charismatic leadership, competing initiatives or razor-sharp focus; all have got their merits and examples abound to illustrate how any of these approaches has brought success in transforming a business.  Yet, something else is at play; something that is easier to notice when absent, that turns intentions into reality and plans into implementations.  Commitment.   

When circumstances force an organisation to change, it can be tricky to acknowledge what the right thing is for the greater good.  Vested interests can seem threatened, former internal tensions can resurface, or people might not feel the pain and ignore signals as mere noise.  As decisions are taken to move forward, people will have to commit and deliver.  The quality of their commitment will depend on their ability to make the choice to commit.  Sure, people can fulfil a task because of an implied threat if they do not, but coercing people does not lift their performance.  It just ensures compliance.  The challenge in leading a transformation turns then into ensuring that people across the organisation have an opportunity to choose to commit before they are allocated to a task.

That opportunity will naturally be offered to members of the management team.  Reaching consent could be more challenging than ensuring commitment, even if support for the transformation is revisited periodically in light of progress.  After all, a management team is geared to reach decisions and stick to them.  As the need for commitment move down the chain of command, ways to manufacture choices become more challenging.  The communication about change will already have defined what needs addressing and where the organisation is expected to go.  It is still possible to define space for people to choose how they would go about it.  Offering such freedom can sound counterproductive, but this would only be true for a short while, as visible progress achieved by committed peers should force doubters to reconsider their involvement.  This is not advocating for a corporate democracy, where every staff’s view on a change can help or hinder its progress.  Rather, the aim is to seek full commitment by establishing a culture of straightforwardness and trustworthiness.

So, when the time comes to revisit the way changes are implemented, it might be worth asking yourself the following questions:

1. What track record do we have in successfully implementing change in our organisation?
   
2. How do we approach staff impacted by a transformation?  Do we look for collaboration or for compliance?
   
3. Does our culture value being straightforward and trustworthy?
   

The struggle to see an implementation through is a daunting task.  Attempts to change how people work and interact call for much more than a refresh of their operating procedures, or even the definition of a new rationale for their connectedness to the rest of the organisation.  Pretty much all implementation projects look like a failure midway through, as what they have achieved is too incremental and not transformational enough.

This implementation black hole is fuelled by a shortage of transformation capabilities in many organisations.  It is hard to strike a right balance between the executive sponsorship and the transactional content that will make a transformation look credible in the eyes of the majority of players.  Legislating from the top has little mileage lower in the ranks if it is not anchored in meaningful activities for all people involved, expressed in ways that resonate with their view of their world.  It is not enough to tell an organisation what it needs to change.  Staff have to be told exactly how their daily activities will be impacted.  Too much high profile support without in-depth coherence of activities and interfaces will raise cynicism like a wildfire.  Alternatively, too many specifics about particular functions will disqualify the change in the eyes of other parts of the organisation and limit the power of its executive sponsorship.

A lot of success can be achieved by testing new ways of working, under the auspices of good sponsorship.  Call it sandpits, trials or pilots, as long as they bring a protected environment of restricted scale, where methods can be adjusted fast, and where hiccups is accepted as long as it quickly leads to significant step changes in output.  The sponsor must acknowledge that obstacles and difficulties are the reward, as much as the final outcome.  After a few iterations, the organisation will find itself with completely different ways of doing things.  As they are proof of concept, these pilots rely on low-cost solutions and manual management; looking at scalability will come later.  Staff involved in these trials can then act as trainers for an enterprise-wide roll-out, something that can happen very quickly, with lower risks for the going concern than with a big bang approach.

Such an approach can only work if the pilots demonstrably address the problem they were set up to solve.  The issue had to be serious enough, and the step change in performance indisputable.  As pilots are asking for staff to transform their ways of working on top of keeping delivering their contribution, they clearly bring an additional workload.  Only very motivated and very apt staff should therefore be considered for such an approach, and their contribution should be acknowledged in front of the entire organisation when time comes to celebrate success.

So, when the time comes to address issues in your ways of working, it might be worth asking yourself the following questions:

1. What track record do we have in successfully implementing change in our organisation?
2. How comfortable are we with failure as a way to learn and develop better working solutions?
3. Have we got movers and shakers spread across the organisation to support a piloting approach?

When a business needs to change its ways of working, what often delays the decision to do so is the inability of the executive to drive that transformation.  Reaching the top of the pyramid, how flat it might be, requires sound functional excellence.  The trouble is that becoming an accomplished administrator and being a change leader are at opposite ends of the managerial spectrum.  When a well-oiled organisation is confronted with step-changes in its activities, genuine leadership qualities to motivate and win hearts and minds are a real gap.

Enters external help stage left.  There is an array of external solutions to pick from, which focus on the different elements of the transformation, from its case for action, to its plan of execution and finally to its implementation.  The first two steps are relatively easy to get from external support, their timeframe depending on the level of ambiguity with which the executive is ready to acknowledge the need to change and give the implementation a green light. 

All it takes then is a safe pair of hands to drive the implementation and get the change nested.  This is where consulting support is likely to fail, as the transformation is left to client’s staff with little experience of operating at an enterprise level.  Interims have an edge as they can use their past transformation experience throughout the implementation.  Working as a chief-of-staff with the executive, a freelance can nurse the transformation with the management team from beginning to end, acting as a beacon for the change, coaching the executive to keep the right mindset, and bringing meaningful content to all interventions across the organisation.  By adding a change professional to the management team for the duration of the transformation, the skillset is moved slightly towards the change end of the spectrum.  When the transformation has truly happened, the chief-of-staff can take a bow and leave the business behind in better shape, with a management team energised for having gone through the change together.

So, when you begin to have the sense that your business reaches a crossroad, it might be worth asking yourself the following questions:

1. How much time has the organisation on its hands before its current ways of working start impairing its success?
2. Has the executive team the cohesion and the bandwidth to drive the transformation that looms?
3. Is it possible to free a member of staff capable of framing and implementing this initiative?