Change & Development initiatives fail: no wonder with such poor leadership!

In a recent article on HBR (Oct. 2016) Beer, Finnstrõm and Schrader underline the appalling amount of money that is spent each year by organizations around the World for training and education programs: 360 Bn USD (in 2015 alone)! Although this is good news, in a way, for a trainer and consultant like me, on the other hand it is a tragic occurrence that so much money is… just thrown in the bin, because data show that the majority of change and improvement programs in companies fail miserably (up to 70{f62d5d00145dc1761a46bb3b9876f4fb2b6782fa0e48784c716da9a8908fe5e5} of them: Boonstra, 2004; Beer et al., 1990; Pettigrew, 1988). 75{f62d5d00145dc1761a46bb3b9876f4fb2b6782fa0e48784c716da9a8908fe5e5} of managers describe themselves as dissatisfied with the L&D function of their organizations (Corporate Leadership Council, 2011). Let’s just pair these data with the finding from Gallup (2015) that just above 30{f62d5d00145dc1761a46bb3b9876f4fb2b6782fa0e48784c716da9a8908fe5e5} of employees feels engaged at work and you get a fair picture of the state of leadership in the business organizations world. Why do I blame the leadership?
Well, most likely it boils down to my approach to Leadership which is very much inspired by two prominent figures that I take as reference: Mohandas K. Gandhi, the indian Mahatma, and Adriano Olivetti, the Italian entrepreneur whose Personal Computers used by NASA took Man on the Moon. Both leaders accomplished objectives that were just daydreams for others (Moon landing apart, of course), but both had a secret: they pursued their objectives (political or business) with the main priority of the human development of their people. Both of them wanted strongly that the people who followed themselves became in turn leaders: first in their own personal life, then in their professional or civil activity. Both of them would be ready to sacrifice their personal objectives in order to favor the realization of that of their people’s development. This is why they succeeded, and also why we miss them so much.
People are not machines: we humans like to feel that what we do has a purpose. We also like to feel part of a group that is performing a relevant task, pursuing meaningful objectives. I dare say that we need it for our psychological balance and for keeping up our motivation. At least this is what anthropology has taught us. I am sick of hearing self-styled leaders complaining that their employees “just don’t want to work, are lazy, they are interested in nothing…”. What would then be the job of a leader? To look around the Universe in search of a different human species, made of people of his/her liking? Let me tell you a short story: there is a school in my town, a vocational school, which is widely renown for its turbulent environment, even violent at times. The vast majority of its students are recent immigrants and very often fights erupt between different ethnicities. Certainly not a place where Italian literature teaching is expected to be the most appreciated. Well, there was once a retired professor, Mr Torlaschi, who took on the role of Italian teacher for fresh immigrants as a volunteer. Once a colleague passed in front of the door of prof. Torlaschi’s class and heard no noise. He was puzzled, recalling that it should be lesson time. Thus he opened the door and to his amazement found prof. Torlaschi quietly teaching in a soft voice amidst the absolute silence of the students. Wow! That was leadership!
A leader’s job is to inspire his/her people, and fully engaging them, by proposing meaningful objectives and making his/her mission clear and shared. If the leader does not make any person in the team feel relevant, part of his/her mission has failed. Not letting down even the single collaborator should be for a leader a main concern, and the focus of his people management. But what is the secret of the great leaders that I have mentioned above? They believed in the potential for good of the human being. They loved their collaborators and felt to be at their service, at the service of their human development.
Hence the following advice to make your change initiatives from The CASE© Method:

1. Have a clear objective for change, one which makes clear sense and can be understood and shared by your people. It’s your “why” that moves things around you.
2. Make sure that your people understand it, along with the values driving you and share them with you. There can be differences in detail, but values must be shared in a team
3. Make sure that the development of the potential of your people and its full and free expression are among the goals pursued within your mission
4. Consider the context in which your people shall implement the change. If it doesn’t fit – and it happens in the majority of cases – it must be changed too. Including the leadership styles
5. Love your people like you would with a son/daughter: be happy when they grow into leaders and even if some among them becomes “more” than you. This is the antidote to paternalism
6. Encourage your people to learn through experimentation, fostering a constructive culture of the error: the only ones who never make mistakes are those who never dare try something new
7. Be always ready to learn yourself from your people. Everyone can be a teacher and everybody who is intelligent is always a learner
8. When you want to see change, be ready to be the first to make it. Gandhi famously said “Be the change that you want to see in the World”
   If you put in place the 8 pieces of advice above, there are high probabilities that your change programs will work and stick. If you don’t, I am afraid that you might fall into the lot pointed out by one of my favorite quotes on leadership, from Benjamin Hooks: If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk