Leading Change from the Middle: A Practical Guide to Building Extraordinary Capabilities

2. The Journeys Begin for Kurt and Stephen

ix Several years ago my business school dean asked me to lead the renovation of an educational organization—frankly, something that academics like me are not trained or developed to do. The organization in question, Brookings Executive Education (BEE), is actually a subunit of a larger organization, the Brookings Institution . I thought the challenge was particularly complex. For starters, I was (and still am) a professor and employee at the Olin Business School (Olin) of Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). My family and work were based in St. Louis while the organization was located in Washington, D.C., with employees who did not work directly for me. A substantial challenge was that any proposed change had to satisfy the constraints and bureaucracies of three institutions—Brookings, Olin, and WUSTL. The renovation involved terminating many long-established but, by then, out-of-date capabilities, improving existing capabilities, and creating many new ones to help increase the value delivered to the participants of BEE courses and help the enterprise grow. Products and marketing, accounts payable and accounts receivable, curriculum and delivery, and an organizational culture—all needed renovation or creation. Some employee turnover was expected as Preface ix 2522-0-book Nickerson_nickerson 3/11/14 3:11 PM Page ix x PREFACE well as personal transformation in order to achieve more desirable behaviors and build new competencies. I needed guidance to help me with my leadership challenge. So, like any business academic worth his or her salt, I read or scanned many books and research articles on the management of organizational change. I searched on the Internet. I asked experts. Even though I had been researching and writing on organizational change for years and was familiar with the academic and practitioner literatures, I now saw a practical gap in my knowledge and understanding of what such change might entail. With the new challenge of having to actually and formally lead a complex organization , my perspective on the literature’s recommendations changed. I had many questions about renovating and building these new capabilities. How could I navigate the complex institutional landscape and ensure the success of such an endeavor? Where or with whom should I start? Should I engage in some activities before others ? What pitfalls should I watch out for? How could I communicate successfully? How could I avoid battles with people at Brookings, Olin, and WUSTL while simultaneously asking them to change the way they did business and behaved? Ultimately, I wanted to know how I could be successful in my day job as an academic , while leading the renovation of a distant organization. At this point, I was persuaded that I needed an approach to lead change directed at the middle of an organization. Yet I found the literature’s guidance in this regard disappointing. It provided no framework with vital insights into how to lead change from the middle. I began wondering about how leading change from the middle differs from leading change from the top or at the bottom of an organization. It didn’t take me long to recognize that important and unique differences do exist and need to be accounted for when leading change. 2522-0-book Nickerson_nickerson 3/11/14 3:11 PM Page x As I indicated earlier, the change I was to oversee was not going to take place at an independent organization. Rather, it was one located at the intersection of three organizations over which I had no authority: Brookings, Olin, and WUSTL. To operate effectively, BEE would have to rely on and interact with the information systems , marketing and communications, accounting and finance, and other groups of these three institutions. Moreover, all three would have to adjust to, accommodate, and agree to any change in BEE routines, capabilities, or personnel. I needed people from all of the organizations to “buy” into any new strategy for changing, curtailing , or creating capabilities; but, frankly, I had very little currency with which to make the requisite purchases, now focused on leading change from the middle. With this approach, you can’t rely on authority alone to effect change because you don’t have authority over all (if any) of the relevant people and organizational units. You can’t expect empowerment and engagement alone to work either, because only a few of the people who need to be empowered work directly for you. You have to manage and seek collaboration up, down...