the sorcerer’s apprentice

So you’ve found your voice as a change agent: you’ve got your audience, you’ve persuaded senior management, and now the organization is ready to go. My question: are you ready for your first big surprise?

I ask that question because an organization’s irrational resistance to change can quickly turn into an equally irrational embrace, a big surprise that doesn’t bode well.

For example, let’s say your company needs a $2 million transformation to reach a new achievable level. Once persuaded, your CEO could easily decide to go “all in” (with the company’s entire wish list) and aim for an unattainable plateau costing $6 million. The CEO could announce this bold initiative to staff, customers, and even investors. And you could be the one holding the bag.

Are you happy now?

The challenge for you is that the skills you used to gain support (vision and articulate persuasion) are not the skills you need once you have them (expectations management and executive control). The latter are skills of a higher order and are not likely to be part of his repertoire.

As absurd as this scenario sounds, it happens all the time. When executive egos and corporate identity get involved, very powerful forces are unleashed. I have personal experience with this scenario, and the only way to describe it is “out of control”.

With these risks in mind, I’m going to offer you a rule of thumb to follow before you start persuading:

When instigating change, never trust a representative!

What does this mean? Well, in the scenario I’ve presented, if you’re trying to influence the CEO for a major change, I suggest you don’t trust his supervisor. Yes, you will need the support of your supervisor. And your supervisor can give you initial access to the CEO. But you don’t want your supervisor(s) to control your access to the CEO.

If you can’t develop a good direct business relationship with the CEO around the change you’re thinking of proposing, I suggest you keep your proposal hidden. Even if you feel like you have trusted allies, their help won’t be enough when the elephant wakes up and they have other fish to fry. If you are the visionary, you must have the relationship, because only you have the passion and position to collaborate with the CEO to tailor the vision in a way that manages their expectations and helps them save face.

The success of change depends as much on managing the momentum of power brokers as it does on disrupting their inertia. Whether you actively aspire to be a change agent, or simply find yourself in that role (as I did), you’ll find that developing a close relationship with power makes the difference between success and failure.