The ability to exercise intellectual intelligence and think in terms of abstract concepts and models is extremely useful in change management. This can be thought of in terms of the conceptual "map" of change. The ability to employ emotional intelligence and empathise and see and feel things from the other guy's perspective is equally important as it employs direct knowledge of the experience or "territory" of change. A very necessary aspect of the transition that people make when they are promoted from an active operational role to a management role is a degree of detachment. Unfortunately too many executives become so detached from the day-to-day territory of everyday work at the frontline that they lose the ability to empathise.
William Bridges suggests that this detachment from the territory [so often defended as important to remain 'strategic'] actually causes these executives to lose touch with the realities of the territory to the extent that they just assume that people can and will acquiesce to the organisational changes that they seek to impose on them. However, Kotter, Bridges and other thought leaders have shown that this failure to address the territory is an important cause of failure in organisational change initiatives. Furthermore, they suggest that the greater the human impact of the proposed organisational change the greater the need for attention to the territorial frontline impact.
It is my experience that whilst many executives have the objectivity and emotional detachment to function strategically, they all too frequently lack the "counter-balancing" emotional intelligence to understand the human impact of their strategic decisions. It is also my experience that many organisational leaders come from financial or technical backgrounds and just do not have the required people skills, insight or experience to lead their people through the emotional and psychological impacts of their proposed organisational changes.
What they do not realise is that lack of attention to, and connection with, the territory impedes or jeopardises the realisation of the organisational benefits that they have envisaged in their strategic map. In my view, the concepts of "emotional intelligence" sets the bar very high in terms of what is expected of a change leader in addressing the territory of change.
A big theme of "emotional intelligence" and what Goleman calls "Primal Leadership" is that the leader's emotions are "contagious". Goleman speaks of the leader's emotions "infecting" the organisation - an interesting choice of words - he doesn't say "affecting". I was taken by surprise when I first read about research by Goleman [and colleagues] into the impact of the leader's emotional performance on organisational performance: 70% of the emotional climate and 20-30% of organisational performance - these are big numbers!
- What's your personal territory and experience of all this?
- How do you feel you measure up to these standards of behaviour?
- What emotional climate do you create?
- Do you see any connection between your emotional states and the performance of your organisation?
- Who in your team of direct reports would most benefit [performance -wise] by a change in the emotional dimension of your behaviour?
John Kotter also makes the point that a good way of addressing the territory of change is by telling visual stories with high emotional impact. He uses the illustration of Martin Luther King who did not address the crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial with the words: 'I have a great strategy' and then proceed to illustrate it with 5 good reasons why it was a great strategy. As we all know, he uttered those famous words: "I have a dream," and then he illustrated and explained to the people what his dream was - and he did this in a way that was full of high emotional impact.
- Have you got so far up the "greasy pole" that you are in danger of becoming out of touch with the impact of how you are on your people?
- Do you communicate with high emotional impact?
- Does your communication pass the "Martin Luther King Test"?
- How does this constant focus on the need for emotional connection and emotional impact on your people make you feel?
- Are you in touch with the territory of the change initiative you are mapping?
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