A Survival Guide for Change Leaders

I recently ran across a great Harvard Business Review article from Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky called "A Survival Guide for Leaders," and they give some terrific advice for steering an organization through major transitions and change. It includes:

1. Get off the dance floor and go to the balcony. Step back from the fray and ask, “What’s really going on here?” Become a participant-observer and make sure you keep tabs on your own actions as well.
2. Keep your friends close. Recruit a group of colleagues, mentors, and supporters to provide you with feedback, point out threats, and celebrate successes and opportunities.
3. Keep your enemies closer. Keep those who are most opposed to your strategy close to you so that you know their thinking. Have coffee once a week with the person most dedicated to seeing you fail. Once you understand their concerns, you can often either turn them around, or find real problems that mean that you need to change strategy.
4. Court the uncommitted. Often those who are neutral or in the middle are the ones who will decide the success or failure of your initiatives. This is particularly true with nonprofits who have fairly uninvolved Board members who nevertheless hold voting power.
5. Cook the conflict. Create a secure environment where conflict can bubble up, and then turn down the heat once you know what’s going on. You may need to slow things down, provide more structure, or address personal concerns, but you won’t know until you face the conflict head on.
6. Place the work where it belongs. Resist the reflex to problem-solve and instead place the burden on the team to do it together or real and sustainable change will not occur.
7. Manage your hungers. Don’t let the changing landscape amplify your own desires or short-circuit your own self-discipline.
8. Anchor yourself. Make sure that you have a safe place and time to de-stress and re-group.

Obtain the full 12-page article here. (fee required at HBR website)

Summary by Laura Deaton.