Build a change platform, not a change program

It’s not you, it’s your company. Management Innovation eXchange founders Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini believe that continuous improvement requires the creation of change platforms, rather than change programs ordained and implemented from the top.
October 2014 | byGary Hamel and Michele Zanini

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/build_a_change_platform_not_a_change_program?cid=other-eml-ttn-mip-mck-oth-1412

Very powerful. The next post will define their recommendations. 

Transformational-change initiatives have a dismal track record. In 1996, Harvard Business School professor John Kotter claimed that nearly 70 percent of large-scale change programs didn't meet their goals, and virtually every survey since has shown similar results. .....The problem lies in beliefs about who is responsible for launching change and how change is implemented. 

The reality is that today’s organizations were simply never designed to change proactively and deeply—they were built for discipline and efficiency, enforced through hierarchy and routinization. As a result, there’s a mismatch between the pace of change in the external environment and the fastest possible pace of change at most organizations.... 

....What’s needed is a real-time, socially constructed approach to change, so that the leader’s job isn’t to design a change program but to build a change platform—one that allows anyone to initiate change, recruit confederates, suggest solutions, and launch experiments.(THIS IS THE UNDERPINNING LOGIC OF THE MDG PROCESS. THE LEADERSHIP DRIVEN EFFORT OF INSTITUTING PROCESSES LIKE MDG ALLOWS ALL IN THE ORGANIZATION "TO INITIATE CHANGE......" THE LEADERSHIP COMPONENT OF MDG SETS THE STAGE FOR CREATING THE GROWTH PLATFORM).... 

Three intertwined assumptions limit the efficacy of the traditional model of change: 

Change starts at the top. This mind-set implies that executives have the sole right to initiate deep change and are best placed to judge when it is necessary. Truth is, executives are often the last to know. They are insulated from reality by layers of managers who are often reluctant to sound an alarm. By the time an issue is big enough and unavoidable enough to attract the scarce attention of the CEO, the organization is already playing defense (I BELIEVE THE TOP HAS TO SET THE STAGE FOR THE GROWTH PLATFORM)....
Change is rolled out. When change is imposed from above, with both ends and means prescribed, it’s rarely embraced. Traditional change programs fail to harness the discretionary creativity and energy of employees and often generate cynicism and resistance. Senior executives talk about the need to get buy-in, but genuine buy-in is the product of involvement, not slick packaging and communication....
Change is engineered. The phrase “change management” implies that deep change can be managed, like a large-scale construction project or an IT overhaul. But if change is truly transformational—if it breaks new ground—it can’t be predetermined.