What’s Derailing Your Company’s Transformation?

How to reveal the obstacles that are lurking beneath the surface.

October 18, 2023

Pete Starman/Getty Images

Tweet

Post

Share

Annotate

Save

Print

Often the real barriers to organizational change are lurking beneath the surface. Three steps can uncover them: act like an anthropologist, use sophisticated tools to analyze the breadcrumbs, and use drawings to tease out subtle dimensions of an organization’s culture.

Misaligned incentives. Insufficient investment in training. Conflicting priorities. A few rotten apples on the executive team. All of these are typical responses to the question: What’s blocking your change efforts? And, in our view, such answers are insufficiently shallow. Finding the root cause of barriers to change requires leaders to probe into their organization’s subconscious to surface, diagnose, and ultimately address hidden, often subtle, barriers. Here’s how we did that for one of our clients and what we learned.

New!

HBR Learning

Change Management Course

Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Change Management. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.

Change may be the only constant in today’s organizations. Here’s how to lead through it.

Start Course

Learn More & See All Courses

New!

HBR Learning

Change Management Course

Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Change Management. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.

Change may be the only constant in today’s organizations. Here’s how to lead through it.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Harvard Business – https://hbr.org/2023/10/whats-derailing-your-companys-transformation