My book, Leading Successful Change, lays out the core process:

• Concentrate on behavior

• Begin with the end in mind

• Construct stories from the future

• Align work systems.

Standard methods such as stakeholder identification and alignment, addressing the human processes of change, and leadership modeling all still matter and I can help there too, but doing those alone have proven insufficient, time and again. My model makes the difference. I can help you, as I have helped other leaders, to lead successful change.

Organizational change includes M&A, strategy, and culture.  Research has long showed that the majority of mergers/large acquisitions do not meet their performance targets and, most often, that’s because they cannot effectively manage the people or cultural aspect.  Restated, the acquirer cannot secure the desired behaviors.  The failure rate for cultural change initiatives runs even higher. My model and approach focuses on securing the desired, changed behaviors, the sought-after end result of acquisition and of cultural change.  As for strategy implementation, however grand the strategy, its implementation comes down to behavioral change and therefore to my approach to change.

The change model that I have developed has proven adaptable and robust as evidenced in my writing on topics such as innovation, artificial intelligence, Covid-19, and diversity/equity/inclusion.  My writing, as evidenced in the sample below, regularly employs both systems theory generally and the Work Systems Model particularly. 

Selected Articles

The Problem with Heroes

For any leader, the ongoing presence of heroes is both a cause for celebration and a reason for deep concern, because it indicates a failure of the wider system.

Triage in a Pandemic: Can AI Help Ration Access to Care?

Listen to this Wharton Business Daily podcase on Sirius XM about how artificial intelligence can help with the rationing of healthcare.

Organizational Change or Non-Change: Lessons from Telemedicine

Read this post on Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics’ Health Policy $ense blog—concrete actions for healthcare providers and broader lessons in organizational change (and non-change) for all change leaders.

Executive Courses

Leading Organizational Change is an executive leadership program led by world-renowned experts who have been at the forefront of major organizational change for decades. You will learn that real change management requires more than just changing behavior — it is dependent upon the critical process of changing the work environment to foster this behavior.

Podcast

Episode. As most research shows, the vast majority of change efforts fail. So, as a leader, how do you focus on implementing change within your organization? In this episode of The Leadership Beat, Michael Seitchik, Director of Research and Assessment at Bates, sits down with Dr. Greg Shea.