Leading Continuity in times of
change
(or: James Bond at the Crossroads: 007
and the luscious underbelly of change
management)
Jonathan Gosling
www.leadership-studies.com
Questions leaders ask…
Machine Logic
Narrative logic
Generate and interpret
numbers
What’s going on?
Generate and interpret
stories
How much control do I
have?
What’s coming
next?
What are the tensions
and dilemmas?
What can I change?
(Where are the levers?)
What should I do?
What will provide enough
continuity?
Can I predict the
outcome?
(Did I predict the
outcome correctly?)
Will it work?
(Did it work?)
Does the continuity make
sense?
(not just does the change
make sense?)
Change is in the system
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
revolutionizing the instruments of production, and
with them the relations of production, and with them
all the relations of society …… Constant
revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted
disturbance of all social relations, everlasting
uncertainty and agitation, distinguish the bourgeois
epoch from all earlier ones …
Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1844 1972:476
Leading successful change
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
A sense of urgency
Guiding coalition
Clear vision
Communicate the vision
Remove obstacles
Short-term wins
Continuous change
Institutionalise new
approaches
Kotter, J. “Why Transformation Efforts Fail” HBR 1995
Freytag’s Pyramid
How theatre is created
1. The script
2. The Director forms a misty vision of the
3.
production, and works with the designer
Actors work in the designed space, with the script,
to develop characters
Macbeth
Act 1, Scene 1
Thunder and lightning.
Enter three Witches
How theatre is created
1. The script
2. The Director forms a misty vision of the
3.
4.
5.
production, and works with the designer
Actors work in the designed space, with the script,
to develop characters
Rehearsed to strict timetables and budget
Repeatable performances
But most organisations are more
complex than the project-like qualities
of a theatre production
• Complicated situations, uncertain what is
going on, where we should go, what will
get us there, what choices we have, what
the unintended consequences of our
actions might be.
A soap opera is a continuing fictional dramatic
television programme, presented in multiple
serial instalments each week, through a narrative
composed of interlocking storylines that focus
on the relationships within a specific community
of characters.
Mumford, L.S., 18, 1995
An organisation is a continuing dramatic
programme, presented in multiple serial
instalments each week, through a narrative
composed of interlocking storylines that focus
on the relationships within a specific community
of characters.
Adapted from: Mumford, L.S., 18, 1995
Soap Opera forms and norms found also in
Organisations
Never ending
Multi-plot
Unfolding text
Cliff-hangers and teases
Central core of characters - about 20
Character flaws in one sphere the basis of success in
another.
• Mergers
•
•
•
•
•
•
Production of soap opera … production of organisations?
…shared knowledge of the past…
Themes, setting,
production
audience
characters
•Central vision of plot
v.local improvisation
•Instalments, acts, beats
•Competition and
loyalty
•Trust between
insight
audience and producers
•Assembly line
Production
• Markers are of
repetition and return
as much as interruption
and change
Storyline A B C
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
• Harmony and trouble
• Cliff hangers, teases
• No final closure
• Speculation, choices
•Regular encounter
•Escapist fantasy
•Identification and
involvement
• Belonging
• Conflict of family
and emotional needs
•Keeping up with what’s
going on
• Loyalty
• Watching and guessing
• Appreciation of the
circularity of narrative
society
• Conversation topic
• Gossip, empathy
• Resistive pleasure
• Challenge boundaries
of propriety
• The construction of
real time
• Permeable boundaries
between reality and
representation
• Unfolding text
• Open-ended, no rush
to climax, never-ending
Projecting us via expectation & desire into the future. To be continued...
What leaders cope with
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Regularity and repetition
Identification & involvement with characters
Fantasy & Imagination
Partiality, discrimination and caring.
Pleasure of resistance
Extended focus either side of climaxes
Multiple plot-lines each with own events
Blurred boundaries
Corrie: 27th Jan 1971, Val Barlow in
her final scene, mending the plug of a
hairdryer before she was electrocuted..
15 million people watched her funeral
on 3rd Feb.
Corrie: Deidre Rachid sent down, in 1998. Several
newspapers (and Tony Blair) campaigned for the Home
Secretary to intervene. She was released after three
weeks.
Leading Change and Continuity
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
A sense of urgency
Guiding coalition
Clear vision
Communicate the vision
Remove obstacles
Short-term wins
Continuous change
Institutionalise new
approaches
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Regularity
Identification & involvement
Fantasy & Imagination
Partiality
Pleasure of resistance
Extend focus
Proliferate plot-lines
Blurred boundaries
Leading the soap opera
Characters
Themes
Plot
Catalytic Leadership
A temporary architecture
which enables
new realities to emerge