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Why do most organizational transformations fail and what can we learn from them?

Ron Carucci is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders, and industries. He has a thirty year track record helping some of the world’s most influential executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization and leadership. From start-ups to Fortune 10 companies, turn-arounds to new markets and strategies, overhauling leadership and culture to re-designing for growth, he has worked in more than 25 countries on 4 continents.

Ron is a best-selling author of 8 books and in addition to being a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and Forbes he has been featured in Fortune, CEO Magazine, BusinessInsider, MSNBC, Inc, Business Week, Smart Business, and more. Ron led a ten year longitudinal study on executive transition to find out why more than 50% of leaders fail within their first 18 months of appointment, and uncovered the four differentiating capabilities that set successful leaders apart. Those findings are highlighted in his ground breaking Amazon #1 book Rising To Power, co-authored with Eric Hansen.

In today’s conversation with Ron, we explore the reasons why most organizational transformations fail, the problem with formulaic change management, and how incoming CEOs and leaders seeking change must approach the process in order to gain buy-in and create lasting success. Ron explains the 3 domains of transformation (within, between and among) and delves into the blind spots that many leaders face when attempting to step into the shoes of their predecessor without the right information and perspective.

A must-hear for every leader, whether you are launching your own company or taking over the helm of a multi-national corporation, Ron’s insight will give you the tools you need to grow as a leader and enroll others in your vision.

Key Takeaways

Most in-coming leaders either define the problem too narrowly or define the opportunity too easily, and they do not know how systems work.
Explaining change isn’t the same is affecting change.
Transformation happens in waves.
Systems by nature will regress back to what’s familiar.
The most dangerous thing you can ask of an organization is hope. Nobody is in more pain than they are, and nobody recognizes the need for change more than they do. But when you ask them to hope and then dash their hopes by not following through, you never get it back.
People fear change that excludes them.
Every change starts with an ending, and when things end people grieve. You have to first help them through the ending in order for them to appreciate the new beginning.
Don’t waste time writing mission statements. Get clear on your identity and build your strategy around that. And until you can clearly describe what you’re saying no to, you have no strategy.
People can live with your imperfections as a leader; they can’t live with you ignoring them.
Do not leave your understanding of how people experience you to chance – get calibrated.

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209: Ron Carucci: Powering Your Transformation Journey