superleaders or superteam? - capgemini...superleaders or superteam? predictions of any kind may be...

Superleaders or superteam?How managers can really change their world.2015 Change Management Study

Content

Content 2

Foreword 3

Executive Summary 5

Aims, Procedure and Respondents 7

I What comes, what goes and what stays 11

II Diversity of roles in change management 21

III Change leaders: motivators, examples or the good spirit of the team? 33

IV A successful change leader’s environment 43

Fictitious discussion: 51

V How can we make change leaders more effective? 55

VI How can organisations become more change-friendly? 59

VII Prospects: how is change management changing? 63

Bibliography 66

3

Foreword

Dear Readers,

Management is a fascinating field. Almost every day, manag-ers see how their actions are critically examined not only by the company, but also by their environment by staff, politi-cians and the world of science and research, and by society as a whole. Managers are facing the wide-reaching implica-tions of digital transformation: digital is redefining the relation-ship between superiors and employees and between cus-tomers and organisations. Mobile technology is creating an unprecedentedly complex variety of living and working pat-terns. Yet at the same time, organisations continue to demon-strate considerable obstinacy when it comes to change. Man-agers therefore operate in a situation of constant tension, where international networks, regional risk factors, unstable markets and worrying demographic developments all play their part.

In such an environment, the question of what defines good leadership in change processes and what it can and cannot achieve sounds amazingly old-fashioned. Yet this question must be asked whenever the conditions in which leaders operate change. And yes they have. Established rules are losing their importance and effect. Gone are the times when authority and position were one and the same. Management powers are no longer irrevocable and do not come automatically with manage-rial promotion: they must be earned every day.

For many years now, we have been working to describe markers of the mutated DNA of corporate management. We have observed rapid and far-reaching technological changes such as ever more rapid globalisation and the growing impor-tance of knowledge as a key production factor. Other mega-trends such as new work, female shift, medical wellness, sil-ver society and increasing urbanisation are creating new dynamics that can make leadership more or less difficult and more or less effective.

We, too, work closely on the idea of and criteria for good leadership: in practice on the ground at our customers’ busi-nesses and within our own organisation, and through scien-tific research from an outside perspective. If we are accurately to measure current upheavals in the sensitive field of interper-sonal interaction, we need precisely calibrated seismometers. More importantly, we need a strong awareness, honed by experience, that senses impending seismic shifts even before the needle starts to jump. We want and need to know the direction in which management and leadership are moving, above all in change processes.

SUPERLEADERS OR SUPERTEAM?

Predictions of any kind may be increasingly difficult, but that in itself does not mean we should no longer look to the future. It just makes it more complicated. A climber setting out to conquer the peaks needs to know where to start, the route and the weather.

Leadership means taking people with you along an unknown and uncertain path and inspiring them to reach new heights. Empathy, confidence building and authenticity in particular are increasingly important in this process. The long list of qualities essential to managers reflects the challenging con-text in which they now operate: integrity, openness, fairness, ethical conduct, assurance, discipline, pleasure in leading and supporting staff, enthusiasm and the ability to inspire enthusi-asm, a thirst for knowledge, networked thinking, the ability to learn, and last but not least a willingness to share knowledge in a sharing economy. A virtual and volatile business environ-ment requires managers to push themselves to their personal limits. Good leaders find that process fascinating.

Change processes place high demands on management. This in turn raises a number of questions for corporate and ma-nagement development, some of which we have explored in our latest study: § What defines a change leader? What are his qualities and how does he behave? How does he become effective?

§ How can we identify change leaders within a company or recruit them from outside?

§ How can we identify employees with high potential, and how can we bring them into key positions?

§ How can we create a corporate culture and the structures and processes that attract and retain change leaders?

We hope you enjoy reading, and that the following pages offer an interesting insight into your own role in change.

Kind regards,

Dr. Ursula Bohn Claudia Crummenerl

Frankfurt/Munich, January 2015

4 2015 Change Management Study

5

§ As digitalisation progresses, organisations must increasingly be equipped for continuous change. At the centre of all transformation projects are the responsible change makers and the company’s managers. The former initiate and drive forward change, but it can only be successfully imple-mented with the support of the managers and the approval of the staff.

§ The effectiveness of a change maker depends on certain approaches; behaviour evident in the implementation of a change project. Behaviour is affected by psychological, organisational and economic drivers. These include the way change projects are managed, their general focus and the availability of change methods and resources. Last but not least, the expectations on the players in the change management process, the role of managers and their degree of personal autonomy in project implementation are also decisive factors.

§ We identified three types of change makers, each of which differed significantly from the other in personality, leadership style and behaviour: highly effective change makers, whom we have called ‘change leaders’, moderately effective ‘change managers’, and ‘change controllers’ who tend to take a more top-down approach. In successful change projects, all three roles are defined and represented.

§ Change leaders have extensive change management experience and tend to manage relatively small teams. They are to be found in all industries and in all sizes of organisa-tion, but above all in medium-sized businesses. A relatively large proportion of change leaders are women when we compare their numbers to the total number of women in management overall. Change leaders are given systematic training to improve their change management skills. Training centres on team development and workshops for reflecting on their role. Change controllers, on the other hand, do not receive support in the development of change competen-cies; they are merely informed on a top-down basis.

§ Reflecting on your role makes you successful. A manager who critically examines himself and his management role will come to understand his effect on others and recognise what additional support he needs. A planned transformation is most likely to succeed if the expectations of the top management correspond to the change leader’s own understanding of his role.

§ Changes that are planned and implemented on a top-down basis are less likely to succeed than transformations in which the entire organisation has been involved. Change leaders naturally adopt a bottom-up approach.

§ Will a change be more effective with sufficient resources? Not automatically. Change makers must be able to operate effectively within the scope they are given, and even the most talented change leader needs the right environment. Aspects of that environment include an open corporate culture of feedback and mutual trust, and the organisation’s institutionalised capacity for change. Ideally, small change ‘incubators’ should be set up – niches of creativity that are given the time to test and prove their worth.

§ The conclusions for change programme design: small teams deliver quality; the effectiveness of change leaders does not depend on the change situation and can be secured in all programmes; the length of the project does not necessarily affect quality – even short-term programmes can be effectively realised by change leaders and implemented in the organisation. The more individualised the methods, the more effective the change leader. Change management ‘by numbers’ is not a useful approach.

Executive Summary

7

Change without continuity will end in chaos. Experienced change profes-sionals strongly believe that change by its very nature must be accompanied by an element of constancy. Whether it is leading from the analogue to the digital world or more generally simply to stronger performance, a flight is sure to encounter turbulence. So it is good to hear the calm, reassuring voice of the First Officer, who has 14,000 flying hours and knows the manual back-wards. No, Houston, we do not have a problem. Everything is under control.

We have investigated change manage-ment from a wide range of perspec-tives in five comprehensive and in-depth analyses from 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2012 and in numerous change programmes. What sparked the decision to change? What were the underlying models for the change initi-ated or completed? What are the fea-tures of organisations that could justifi-ably be described as capable of change? Did the level of resources correspond to the scale of the task? What measures were taken, which have proved successful and which not, and why? What in-house resources were employed in critical situations? Was the project objective achieved? And finally, the ultimate question: what contributes to the success of change projects?

THE AIM: PUTTING A FACE TO THE CHANGE MAKER

Previous studies involving hundreds of completed questionnaires, comments and in-depth discussions with change experts had brought to light a number of observable success variables (see Chapter I, p. 11). We had also received many enquiries relating to manage-ment in times of change. Some change projects were lacking in pace; others did not achieve the desired results. We had already concluded in our previous study (Capgemini Consulting, 2012) that digitalisation, the main driver of change, places high demands on man-agement. Yet there were also many indications that some managers are tired out by the sheer number of change projects, while others simply could not cope.

That is why we opted to change per-spectives for this study. Working on an explorative rather than a descriptive basis, we wanted to find out how lea-ding change makers dealt with the me-gatrends of a digitally transformed soci-ety, and how change was planned, managed and implemented. To avoid merely speculative responses (‘I can imagine how a change project works and how I would behave in such a situ-ation’), we only surveyed men and wo-men with specific practical experience of change projects. As always, we asked about their projects there must be some continuity. However, this time the focus was on the person of the change maker. Starting with a working hypothesis, our aim was to describe successful change makers as precisely as possible; to give them a ‘face’. What is their task and what is their role? How and by whom are they supported? What were the obstacles and where did they come from? In short:

What helps a change maker to succeed? What makes him effective?

KEY DATA: WHO DID WE SURVEY?

Numerous managers and change man-agement experts took part in this as in previous studies. We broadened the group of respondents internationally to reflect business globalisation. The questionnaire was available on our web-site in German and in English between June and September 2014; it was also actively promoted during this period on social media and was sent by Cap-gemini Consulting’s global branches to potential respondents. We also held interviews with change experts and academics specialised in leadership.

Although the study is explorative in nature and we took a conscious deci-sion not to focus primarily on statistical significance, we received 179 question-naires of which 40 percent had been completed in full. This 40 percent was used in our evaluation. We also held seven qualitative interviews. We none-theless believe that the findings are sufficiently reliable to allow substantial and reasoned assumptions on the ef-fectiveness of change makers. All those surveyed have worked on one or more change projects in a managerial capacity: they know what they are talk-ing about. The law of large numbers dictates that their statements can only be taken as an indication of trends. In practical terms, they are nevertheless of great value as they clearly demon-strate what can make change makers successful and what leads to failure.

Aims, Procedure and Respondents

* Where the masculine form is used here, it should be taken to include the feminine unless the context requires otherwise. The masculine form has been adopted for the sake of simplicity only.

8

These are points of enormous interest to anyone in change management.

STRUCTURE OF THE COMPANIES ANALYSED

The companies analysed reflect the full international business spectrum. Near-ly three quarters (73.5 %) of returns came from Germany, Austria and Swit-zerland. A good quarter of responses (26.5 %) were received from other countries, most from Belgium, the USA and the UK, but also from India, South Africa and Australia (Fig. 01).

Nearly two thirds of respondents (61.3 %) are from large corporations with a turnover of over 10 billion euros. 37.7 percent of respondents work in corpo-rate groups employing over 30,000 staff. Medium-sized businesses em-ploying 1000 to 15,000 are equally strongly represented (37.7 %); 17.4 per-cent of respondents, nearly a fifth, work in smaller businesses with fewer than 1000 employees (Fig. 01).

The distribution of results across the sectors reflects the willingness to change in the automotive sector (14.3 %)

and the chemical and energy/utilities industries (each 10 %). Other sectors account for a good quarter of responses (25.7 %), clearly demonstrating the inter-national nature of the study (Fig. 01).

STRUCTURE OF RESPONDENTS AND INTERVIEWEES

The focus of this study was on the po-sition of the leader in a specific change project. We therefore asked respon-dents to define their role in the most recently completed change project. 22.5 percent of respondents described

© Capgemini Consulting 2015

Fig. 01: In what country are you mainly based?

n = 71; figures in percent

67.2

6.3

4.7

4.7

1.6

1.6

1.6 Australia

Germany

12.5 Belgium

India

South Africa

Switzerland

UK

USA

To which industry does your company belong?

25.7

14.3

10.0

10.0

8.6

5.7

5.7

4.3

4.3

2.9

2.9

1.4

1.4

1.4

1.4

Consumer goods

Media

Metal industry/machineconstruction

Banks

Retail

Insurance

Electronics/high tech/IT/software

Chemical/pharmaceutical/life sciences

Energy/utilities

Automotive

Other: consultancy

Transport/logistics

Public

Telecommunication

Machinery & plant engineering

How many employees does your company have?

8.7

7.2

14.5

23.2

17.4 < 1.000

1001 - 5000

5.001 - 15.000

15.001 - 30.000

30.001 - 50.000

> 50.000

What is the turnover of your company?

61.3 29.0

1.6

16.1

9.7

4.8

6.5 < 100

101 - 250

501 - 1.000

1.001 - 5.000

5.001 - 10.000

> 10.000

2015 Change Management Study

9

themselves as decision-makers and architects of transformation. Internal change management experts and managers with an active role in change each accounted for 19.7 percent of respondents. Every sixth respondent (15.5 %) was part of the project team, and every tenth (9.9 %) an outside change management expert (Fig. 02).

We also asked respondents who had held the role of responsible change maker in the most recent transforma-tion (Fig. 03). As expected, many re-spondents to this study had held that position themselves. Where they had not, change had been the responsibility of the top management, i.e. a board member or the managing director. Smaller percentages named directors/division heads, project managers/proj-ect leads, change managers and de-partmental heads.

Over half of respondents (53 %) had been in a managerial role for at least five years, and nearly a third of respon-dents for over ten years (Fig. 04). Two percent were responsible for 21 to 50 staff, a very wide span of control, and 18 percent had a fairly narrow span of control. The large proportion of those with only a small number of staff under their direct control (43 %) is striking.

Fig. 02: What was your main role in the last change project?

© Capgemini Consulting 2015n = 71; figures in percent

22.5

19.7

19.7

15.5

11.3

9.9

1.4

0 5 10 15 20 25

Decision maker, architect of the transformation

Internal change management expert

Part of the project team driving the change

Executive w/o explicitchange management role

Other

External change management expert

Executive with active change management role(e.g. as change agent)

Fig. 03: During your latest change project, who was in the role of the change leader?


10.0

13.3

10.0

6.7

33.3

26.7

15.0

12.5

10.0

5.0

27.5

30.0

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Myself

Board member/managing director

Department head

Change manager

Director/division head

Project manager/project lead

MaleFemale


How many employees do you manage directly?

For how many years have you had management responsibility?

Fig. 04: Management responsibility

43

31

18

2 6

6 to10

> 50

1 to 5

21 to 50

11 to 20

23

26

9

12

5 to 10 years

No management responsibility

< 1 year

1 to 5 years

> 10 years

30

11

“Everything that can be digitalised will be digitalised.Everything that can be connected will be.And that changes everything!”

Tim Cole Internet publicist

Many companies have completed one or more change processes over recent years through their own desire to de-velop or under pressure from the com-petition. More than two thirds of Euro-pean businesses, however, are still in the midst of the process.

The main reasons behind change pro-cesses are growing international con-nections, major technological advanc-es, short innovation cycles, the individualisation of demand, big data and digitalisation. In this last area, sci-entists at our partner MIT note that ‘In all the classroom discussions that sur-faced around the big issues from big data — privacy, security, costs, infra-structure, data volume, data quality, and data governance — the reality that many organisations grapple with is change management: whether or not they can manage the human and pro-cess changes necessary to make the most of their analytics initiatives.’ (Boucher Ferguson, R., 2013). The digi-tal transformation is both a provocation for established procedures and a wel-come strategy for getting to grips with the challenges outlined above. Risks and opportunities go hand in hand.

This seeming contradiction is one that must be accepted. Companies that refuse to engage with the digital trans-formation are refusing tomorrow’s busi-ness reality. The data technology in-volved is complex and revolutionary and the development irreversible. Any company wishing to remain successful must proactively plan its move to two, three or four point zero culture.

THE CHALLENGES REMAIN

The pressure is not easing. In a two-speed world in which developed econ-omies still account for the lion’s share of production and consumption, but where future growth will come largely from newly industrialised countries, change remains the most important driver of growth (McKenna et al., 2013). Internal change aimed at reducing costs and increasing output, and ex-ternal growth through mergers and acquisitions.

A new development is now emerging in this area. In a study by Ernst & Young (2014), 40 percent of the global players surveyed stated their fixed intention of engaging in a takeover in the coming twelve months. Even more, two thirds of companies, were investigating the available options. This means a dou-bling in the proportion of companies actively on the lookout for takeover candidates within the space of six months.

Not simply market pressures, but also announcements or, depending on where you stand, threats like this are causing CEOs and directors to work hard on their companies’ performance. For years, responses to our surveys have cited the same drivers behind change projects: reorganisation and restructuring are by far the most com-mon at 35.2 percent (Fig. 05). But what does that mean in practice? ‘Everyone talks about change, but it is wholly unclear exactly how it is meant be-cause it is never explicitly defined’, complained one respondent we inter-viewed, ‘and the KPIs focus solely on business success in the form of

I What comes, what goes and what stays

12

turnover, not on how successful the change has been.’ No-one implements a reorganisation process without a more or less hidden agenda on the same age-old issues: costs must be reduced, returns increased, throughput and turnaround improved but customer satisfaction on no account affected.

There will, therefore, be a continuing pressure on managers to control change in a way that allows the new to take effect without damaging what is to be retained. Changes in organisations are a complex task. Testimony to this is the high rate of failure in mergers & acquisitions (KPMG 1999: 83 % failure rate for mergers. Hay 2007: 45 percent of managers were against a merger and 30 percent actively opposed it. Deloitte 2012: only 61 % of M&A in the SME segment achieve their objectives) and for internal change projects (Mer-curi Urval 2012: only 70 % successful achievement of goals for change pro-cesses and a 40 % productivity loss during the process).

Every reorganisation; every growth initiative involving changes; every right-sizing programme, is a voyage into the unknown, regardless of the vision or planning. Whether or not that voyage is successful depends on many different interdependent factors and the external environment. For that reason alone, assessing ex ante the chances of suc-cess for a change project is anything but a trivial matter. Ex post (if they are analysed at all), the genuine drivers of the change are often dismissed in a brief ‘It was hard work.’

Those words will probably be true. Which is why, after our last Change Management Study for 2012, we asked two questions. The first: what exactly does that ‘hard work’ involve? The second: who does it?

35

16

11

11

10

7

4

3

1

1

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Changed personnel conceptse.g. due to demographic change

Other

Internationalisation

Mergers & acquisitions/demergers

CIP, other improvement initiatives

Changed corporate strategy

Cost reduction programmes, rightsizing

Digitalisation of business processes,IT innovations

Growth initiatives of the company

Reorganisation/restructuring

Fig. 05: Please think back to the latest completed change project of your company in which you were involved: what was the main driver for this project?


2003 - 2015 comparison

69 71 49 57 52 35

54 42 38 47 38 16

33 41 33 37 37 11

31 37 32 35 37 11

30 30 32 25 36 10

2003 2005 2008 2010 2012

1

2

3

4

5

Mergers & acquisitions/demergers

Restructuring/reorganisation

External changes (e.g. new legislation)

Cost reduction programmes/rightsizing

Changed market strategy/customer approach


Digitisation of business processes/IT innovations

Growth initiatives

2015

2003 - 2012, more than one answer possible; 2015, individual answers, n = 71; figures in percent


Detailed 2015 overview


13

The possible answers: the change ini-tiator, the chief strategic officer, the sponsor of the project, the project team involved, the managers involved or affected depending on the perspec-tive, and, in the background, the em-ployees who often perceive the new as a great and unwelcome upheaval. No matter how often the management assures its workforce that the change will give the company a solid founda-tion, fear only very gradually dispels as the first tangible results are achieved. Change leaders must constantly pres-ent, explain and defend the goal, and tirelessly advocate progress.

Our 2012 study clearly demonstrated that managers are still at the centre of successful transformation projects. They bear the brunt of the work, and the demands on them are high (Fig. 07). One change maker will not man-age on his own. We therefore asked what the management ‘parts’ should be in a ‘change play’, and how they should be ‘cast’. With dynamic drivers, with careful working relationship spe-cialists or with strict controllers? And what do the cast need to live the part? Our previous study (Fig. 08) had of-fered some initial answers. Now, we wanted to get to the heart of the matter.

Our latest study focuses on those who prepare for change: the change mak-ers sent out with (hopefully) a clear mission and aim.

The standard-bearer, the leading change manager or the (internal or external) project manager appointed by the management has always played a key part in the process of change. This was our starting assumption. Often heard, expounded and read, this hy-pothesis is in fact almost impossible to prove rationally and objectively in the light of the multiple factors involved in

Fig. 06: Please think back to the latest change project of your company in which you were involved:


16.9

21.1 54.9

7.0 > 3 years

2 to 3 years

1 to 2 years

< 1 year

Fig. 07: Much is expected of managers in change processes

= Position in 2010 = Not asked in 2010= Position in 2012

…acts as a role model

…actively communicates the change

…is aware that his attitude to change has a great influence on the success of the project and on the attitude of staff

…takes clear decisions

…convinces staff that the change is for the good

…initiates and shapes the change

…drives forward and manages change progress

…creates an environment that fosterscontinuous learning and change

…communicates across the hierarchy(intermediary between ‘top’ and ‘bottom’)

…ensures that the project staff have the best possibleenvironment to achieve the goals

…resolves conflicts

…creates staff loyalty to the companythrough trust-building measures

2927

The manager…

2529

2531

4539

5754

5657

7875

6482

79 83

26-/-

44-/-

70-/-

© Capgemini Consulting 2015Figures in percent

Source: Change Studie 2012

14

complex projects such as change pro-cesses. We wanted critically to explore its basis in reality. How much do the leaders contribute to the achievement of the change objectives? What exactly is behind their achievements? What exactly do they do so that the ‘hard work’ ultimately pays off, and how do they do what they do? Our impression was that much had changed in the soft areas of change management over recent years. If that is correct, what can change makers themselves and what can the organisation do further to increase the likelihood of success for the men and women leading the way?

IS THERE A CHANGE MANAGEMENT “BLIND SPOT”?

‘A technical understanding of how change succeeds; of what structures, methods and tools can be used, is only one aspect. The real Herculean task for the coming years will, without a doubt, be to support and to empower managers in their role in the change

process.’ When we argued this in our 2012 study (p. 59), we stopped and asked ourselves whether there could be a blind spot in the otherwise com-prehensively researched field of change management. Had our previ-ous search for factors increasing ef-ficiency failed to consider that every structure is built of people, every meth-od is applied by people, and every tool is only as effective as the experienced professionals who teach users to oper-ate and to love (!) operating it?

No, we had not missed this aspect, as a look at the earlier studies shows. Our very first study examined the players in change processes, albeit only an on empirical basis (cf. Capgemini Consult-ing, Change Management 2003, p. 43ff.). ‘Players’ was the term used for the competent project team, the line managers and internal and external change management experts. Most, ran the brief conclusion, had not reached their current position thanks to their change skills, but rather because

they were qualified for the specialist or political aspects of their roles. In the studies that followed, it became clear that the leadership style of the change leaders ranged from one extreme to the other ‘tough’ to ‘staff-centred’; the staff focus weakened slightly over time in favour of success at all costs. ‘Take ten top managers picked at random. Five or six will have a participatory, integrative approach, and four or five will deserve the term ‘tough’ (cf. Cap-gemini Consulting, Change Manage-ment Studie 2008, p. 20).

In practice, there are therefore still the apparently old-fashioned, controlling change makers who exercise their full authority top-down. There are also, however, sensitive leaders of a modern stamp who involve those affected in their planning and decisions. Similarly, there are examples from practice both of successfully completed change proj-ects and of projects that peter out half-way through or do not, once complet-ed, even come close to achieving their

Fig. 08: The greatest gaps between ideal and reality all relate to points that are regularly addressed in classic change management

0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,2 1,4 1,6A discrepancy between demands on managers and the reality in practice…

© Capgemini Consulting 2015Source: Change Studie 2012; figures represent the gap in percent points

0.78

0.86

0.91

0.96

0.97

1.03

1.21

1.35

1.36

1.37

1.37

1.39

…resolves conflicts

…initiates and shapes the change

…ensures that the project staff have the bestpossible environment to achieve the goals

…communicates across the hierarchy

…drives forward and manages change

…creates staff loyalty through trust-building measures

…is aware that his attitude to change has a great influenceon the success of the project and on the attitude of staff

…convinces staff that the change is for the good

…takes clear decisions

…acts as a role model

…actively communicates the change

…creates an environment that fosters continuouslearning and change


15

stated objectives. We focused on the search for context and interrelation, if possible for a positive correlation. What type of change maker has the best chance of a thoroughly successful project?

IT’S THE PEOPLE, STUPID

We started by taking a step back, pick-ing out the change management suc-cess factors identified in earlier studies and classifying them in two different groups. The first group covered the structural, organisational and process variables that are, in the respondents’ view, essential to the success of change: organisation and process de-sign, careful monitoring of the mea-sures taken and of progress achieved, choosing the right time to introduce change, ensuring sufficient and suit-able resources, and choosing and cor-rectly using the right tools. Respon-dents to earlier studies had unanimously classified all of these factors as being ‘of decisive importance to project success’.

But is that enough? Apparently not, as such a large proportion of change proj-ects still fail despite advanced project management methods and ever more intricate tools. All the above variables would appear merely to provide the right conditions for ultimate congratula-tions from CEO or supervisory board. Our hypothesis was confirmed by a second group of success criteria cited by our study respondents, criteria that are related to the personality of the change leader. They define his under-standing of his role, his manner, his leadership style, his team concept and his communication and conflict man-agement approach, and thus ultimately also his influence on the project team and on those affected by the change. That influence appears to be much greater than had previously been supposed.

Admittedly, it was not a great surprise to discover that the human factor is up at the top of the ratings for success

factors named by change managers themselves: § Securing the mobilisation and commitment of management, employees and stakeholders (ranked 1st in 2010 study and 2nd in 2012 study)

§ A clear vision and definition of aims and change strategy, based on an analysis and understanding of the situation and environment (ranked 2nd in 2010 study and 1st in 2012 study)

§ Promoting leadership (ranked 3rd in 2010 study and 3rd in 2012 study)

§ Developing the culture (ranked 6th in 2012 study)

§ Qualification and development tailored to the target group (ranked 7th in 2012 study)

16

THE DAYS OF AUTOCRACY ARE OVER

A classic blood, sweat and tears speech will only temporarily, if at all, reconcile people to a painful necessity. It has always taken convincing, persua-sive leaders with a gift for words to ge-nerate and maintain enthusiasm, eager-ness and commitment in the long term. Leaders who know how to paint the goal in bright and attractive colours, and to ease the difficult path that leads to there with this inspiring vision.Employees, above all those of the younger generation, want to be in-volved: they want to contribute their thoughts and ideas; to have a say in processes, decisions and actions (see Chapter VI). Without their genuine, in-ner consent, no restructuring project will work. Those new to change man-agement know this from theory, and

experienced change makers from pre-vious projects in practice. No radical upheaval without previous discussions (talk), decisions involving and accepted by everyone (decision) and an agreed action plan with timelines and mile-stones (act). This three-point basis for all management decisions, defined as the ‘Talk Decision Act’ model by the Swedish organisational sociologist Nils Brunsson in the 1980s, underlies all change management processes. It can also make those processes laborious, as it demands considerable time and extensive communication. Yet each and every element is absolutely es-sential. Decision and Act without Talk is the change management version of a teaching with no pupil interaction superficially effective but without any lasting impression (Fig. 09).

However, talking alone will not change anything. Change must indeed be planned and coordinated from the top. Nevertheless, it will only be success-fully achieved if participation is allowed, as the responses to one question in our study demonstrate: we asked how change was managed in the respon-dent’s company, and found that suc-cessful projects were far less likely to be managed using the traditional top-down approach (Fig. 10).

What complicates matters further is that a change maker has three roles simultaneously. As the initiator or per-son commissioned with the change, he must be able to inspire. As the deci-sion-maker, he must also take the re-sponsibility for any unpleasant impact. Finally, as the implementer, he must always see the bigger picture, even


+ + + + = Abilities Incentives Information Chaos Goals

+ + + + = Abilities Information Frustration Goals

+ + + + = Information Anxiety Goals

+ + + + = Abilities Information Slow Change Goals

+ + + + = Abilities Confusion Goals

+ + + + + = Abilities Incentives Information Successful ChangeGoals

Action plans + + + + = Abilities Incentives Information Actionism

Action plans

Action plans

Action plans

Action plans

Action plans

Resources

Resources

Resources

Resources

Resources

Resources

Incentives

Incentives

Incentives

Fig. 09: Barriers to change management

Source: Based on Ambrose (1978)


17

when the current stage of proceedings is sapping his energy. Nor must he shrink from potential negative implica-tions for himself no matter how proac-tively he is promoting the change in his capacity as manager, he is ultimately also affected by it.

That is not to say that the change mak-er can take staff’s underlying or evident concerns lightly. Involvement helps to overcome opposition, provided that the opportunity offered is genuine and more than simply a brief chance to join discussions. Staff who see their contri-bution being taken seriously, and who have the chance to help shape the project, will lose their fear of the new. When moving to a new building, some people’s most important concern is the location of their new desk and how far from the kitchen they sit. Others’ ac-ceptance depends on a fair distribution of the available office space. ‘In con-nected systems, the only projects that are successful in the long term are those that resonate emotionally’, be-lieves the leadership professor Peter Kruse. We would concur, and conclude that effective change makers are those who strike the right balance between human emotions, rational good sense and balanced policy (Fig. 11).

REACHING OUT: LISTEN. TALK. CONVINCE.

The key characteristics of the ideal change maker include self-reflection, communication skills, willingness to cooperate and engage in cooperative conflict resolution, a gift for motivating and the ability to organise and facilitate team processes. Such a combination is the state of the art as defined in the literature by everyone from Henry Mint-zberg, Peter Drucker, John Kotter, Costas Markides, Rupert Lay and Re-inhard Sprenger to Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Nitin Nohria and Peter Kruse.


Top down

2

3

4

Bottom up

Top down

2

3

4

Bottom up

Top down

2

3

4

Bottom up

Change leaders Change managers Change controllers

19

28

88

31

22

13


26

52

15 0

4

4

0

0 0

Fig. 10: How was the change managed in your company?


Change leaders

Change managers

Change controllers

Change leaders

Change managers

Change controllers

Change leaders

Change managers

Change controllers

Emotion Rationale Politics


32

26

36

26

41


32

32

39 35

Fig. 11: How would you rate the importance of the emotional, political and rational dimensions of change in your last change project?

18

Peter Kruse even goes so far as to say that recognising and reflecting on situ-ations and circumstances will in future be more important than defining goals and planning (cf. Kruse, P., 2014a). He believes that the intuitive recognition of patterns helps to reduce complexity and is a major management task, above all in the process of change. Managers could in return, Kruse be-lieves, relinquish their role as pioneers to the team; the network; the intel-ligence of the crowd.

The above soft skills of the change maker, expressed in a range of state-ments that respondents were asked to rate, were ranked the highest by those who had previously been involved in a successful change project. Our effec-tiveness scale (Fig. 12 and 13) clearly illustrates the striking number of re-sponses in the top third. We used the results to define three clusters of change makers: highly effective change makers, whom we have called ‘change leaders’, moderately effective ‘change managers’ and a third group who stated that they had not or not fully achieved their goal. The last group of only eight respondents is compara-tively small. Whilst it differs significantly from the other two groups and is there-fore worth a category of its own, we are not claiming that our findings could be generalised, but merely that they indicate a certain trend. We have called those in the third group ‘change con-trollers’ in recognition of the important contribution that they also make. ‘Vi-sion without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.’ (Joel A. Barker)

We examine these three statistically discrete groups in more detail later.

What makes a change maker effective? § He is an independent figure

who welcomes the change. An architect who understands goals, structures, processes and people.

§ Early involvement in the trans-formation process, ideally from the moment a decision is taken.

§ Clear understanding of (his own) role and tasks. Col-leagues with complementary skills take on supporting, com-plementary roles.

§ Supportive environment/organisation with flexible struc-tures and processes and an active culture of feedback and mutual confidence.

§ Significant freedom that allows him to modify even fixed areas such as structures and pro-cesses to facilitate the change.


19


Fig. 12: Groups on the scale of effectiveness

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600

Questionnaire number

Scal

e of

effe

ctive

ness

Clusters: Change leaders, n = 36 Change managers, n = 27 Change controllers, n = 8


3.38

2.00

1.88

1.83

1.86

4.33

4.33

4.31

4.31

4.36

3.08

3.04

3.15

3.19

3.62

The change leader motivated the employees to actively contribute to

change initiatives.

The change leader was able to accept that he did not possess all

available knowledge.

The change leader was always aware that his attitudes and

emotions have an influence on others.

The change leader was a person who quickly adapted to changes.

The change leader fostered an open feedback culture.

The change leader preferred a hierarchical (top-down) approach

to a bottom-up approach in managing the change.


The change leader was able to accept that he did not possess all available

knowledge.

The change leader believed that the best ideas develop when

colleagues work and think as a team.

The change leader always lived up to his decisions.



The change leader acted always according to his previously taken

decisions

The change leader knew how to win people for himself and his ideas.





Figures are averages; scale of 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree


Fig. 13: Characteristics of the change leader cluster on the basis of behaviour and attitude

21

II Diversity of roles in change manage-ment

Capgemini Consulting has been provid-ing transformation consultancy services for nearly half a century. Over that time, we have been in contact with thou-sands of change makers, change mak-ers who have worked for us on count-less mergers and de-mergers, change makers who have acted as consultants and partners in transformation projects, change makers who have come to us for advice, and change makers who have been our sparring partners in dis-cussions or who have responded to our surveys. We have met the dynamic and the calm, worked with structuralists and process advocates, listened to reason from the technicians and been inspired by leaders of men. Just as they hope-fully benefitted from our expertise, we have also learned a great deal from them.

For example, we have learned just how different those responsible for business changes can be. Were it possible to combine all those people in one, we would have the ‘ideal’ change maker: a skilled communicator, focused on tar-gets, able to deal with conflicts, as-sured, motivated and motivational, as-sertive (and good at project management). Wow, I hear you say: that would be superman or superwom-an. A ‘superleader’.

We developed a comprehensive skills profile on the basis of a survey just under ten years ago (cf. Capgemini Consulting, Change Management Studie 2006, p. 19ff., Fig. 14). In the study that followed, very little had changed (cf. Capgemini Consulting, Change Management Studie 2008, p.

23, Fig. 15). The sum of all features described as desirable – superhuman skills, enormous courage and true no-bility – present an idealised picture of the ideal change maker. A highly effec-tive and efficient leader whose inspiring leadership creates a burning enthusi-asm and commitment amongst all those involved.

What in fact threatened to burn, or rather fizzle out, in the midst and after-math of the 2007/08 financial crisis was managers’ willingness to imitate the exploits of fictional superheroes in real life. One crisis followed the next. Shareholders demanded ever greater and ever more rapid returns with in-creasingly elastic safety nets. Many managers, including change makers, who were used to dealing with

Fig. 14: Restructuring and reorganisation processes are currently the most common driver of change management

20% 40% 60% 80%0%

Reorganisation/restructuring


Cost reduction programmes/“rightsizing”

Mergers & acquisitions

External changes

IT innovations

Changed market strategy

Internationalisation

Changed personnel concepts

Technical innovations

Changed customer segmentation

69

54

33

31

30

20

20

13

12

The commonest reasons for change management*

7

7

Source: Change Studie 2008; *multiple responses (3 items) possible; figures in percent © Capgemini Consulting 2015

22

demanding internal clients, began to show signs of fatigue. What were they now supposed to do? Who were they now supposed to be? They had hardly dealt with one trouble spot before the next flared up. They were supposed to be role models: to mobilise and show the way. In a word, to be superleaders.

MANAGERS ARE NOT SUPERHEROES

Back in 2010, we had focused on the complex issue of leadership (cf. Cap-gemini Consulting, Change Manage-ment Studie 2010, p. 54ff.) and come to the conclusion that ‘the individual ability of a manager to achieve ambi-tious but realistic goals in an organisa-tion within a set time and with minimum difficulty, without breaching laws or rules or overreaching individual limits and without limiting the sustainable development of the organisation or its members or environment’ was limited (ibid., p. 61). A comforting finding. Man-agers are not superheroes; they are real people.

We wanted to move forward from this minor milestone. The latest study has therefore consciously abandoned the search for the ideal change maker. Instead, we asked whether social meg-atrends such as the digitalisation of the world of work are also leading to changes in management. What – new? – demands are now facing managers, who are in almost perpetual motion from one change to the next? What leadership style is best suited to this reality? What should today’s managers avoid at all costs? What must they be sure to do? How do they and how does their environment see their role in the change process?

‘Yes, digital transformation is a key trend and will affect leadership’, was the emphatic view of one respondent,


Communication skills

Ability to motivate (himself and others)

Focus on targets

Ability to deal with conflicts

Trustworthiness

Assertiveness

Authenticity/confidence

Knowledge of project management

Empathy

No fear of hierarchies

Decision-making skills

Team player

Organisational skills

Facilitation skills

Ability to learn/flexibility

Tolerance of ambiguity

Ability to work under pressure

Coaching skills

Resistance to stress

Knowledge of the sector/market

Ability to delegate

Extroverted

2007

2005

Source: Change Studie 2008; figures in percent

7364

6144

5749

2945

2927

2638

2536

2529

2223

2025

2015

2015

1711

1316

1215

1110

1028

79

68

34

02

* Up to five responses possible

12Not asked in 2005


Fig. 15: Communication skills are the most important of all requirements for the ‘ideal’ change manager

What is the competency profile of the ‘ideal’ change manager?*

23

vindicating our choice of focus for the 2012 study (cf. Capgemini Consulting, Change Management Studie 2012). ‘The free choice of workplace (office or home office) and the increasing flex-ibility in working hours made possible by digital developments require greater trust, and management by results rath-er than physical presence.’ The re-spondent believed that ‘a stronger commitment to transparency and openness’ was needed. Another re-spondent saw digitalisation’s main message for him as a manager as ‘What is really useful and important to my staff?’ The key aspect, wrote a third respondent, was the ability ‘to feel good about the situation and to com-municate that feeling’.

Demonstrating assurance, dealing openly with ambiguities, being satisfied initially with a rough picture of the change, constantly working on their own contribution, and keeping every-one on board – Respondents have described management skills in change in many different ways. Yet their definitions are seldom absolute, but tend rather to reach cautiously and thoughtfully towards a supposed ideal. Peter Kruse (2014b) situates the new fields of action for managers along the axes of non-linearity and network. We wanted to compare this with manag-ers’ actual experience. We wanted to know what the leaders of change think about management, how they ap-proach the issue and how they see their own role.

.

Get involved! § We are looking to broaden our

database and invite you to participate in the follow-up study. Select responses, give your rating, tell us what you think! As a member of the community, you will receive a detailed update of the study once a year. We are also happy to discuss the results with you personally.

The questionnaire on which this study is based is available online at

www.de.capgemini-consulting.com/change-2015


Managers with practical experience of change. Often manage relatively small teams. Operate in large businesses and smaller companies. Reflect on their own role, are open to change and take a participatory approach. Foster a feedback culture.

Often managers in large corporations with project experience, and considerable (methodological) expertise in change management. This group includes external consultants. Tend to focus more on the hierarchy in change management implementation.

Usually inexperienced line or team managers who are assigned the role simply because they happen to be available. Little experience of change projects. Strong focus on the hierarchy (top-down).


Change typologies

24

EFFECTIVE CHANGE MAKERS MANAGE DIFFERENTLY

Call it smart or call it sly, but naturally we asked how successful the most recent change project had been and whether the competent change maker had acted in accordance with the ideal proposed above. After all, we were starting with a working hypothesis that the survey was to test. We turned the responses into data, the data fed into correlations and the correlations re-sulted in three separate clusters of ef-fectiveness that can be defined and described (see Chapter I). On the basis of these clusters, we then developed a typology of change managers.

The 2015 Change Management Study shows with unprecedented and unex-pected clarity that effective change makers – those whose projects have been successfully completed; we call

them CHANGE LEADERS – manage differently from CHANGE MANAGERS and CHANGE CONTROLLERS. To differing degrees, the latter categories belong to those groups of respondents in whose organisations change pro-cesses have not run as smoothly as intended.

Of course, the study does not clearly indicate whether change leader man-age better than change managers and change controllers; it merely indicates that they manage differently.

Nor does the study prove that all change leaders reach the change tar-get in time, in budget, in function and in quality. It does, however, clearly show that a significantly higher propor-tion of change leaders than of the other two groups reach the change target. That is at least grounds seriously to

consider whether their leadership ap-proach is worth copying at the latest, when the next change is due, or even better perhaps, now.

We should, however, sound a note of caution here: the findings from our analysis, and yes, feel free to call them recommendations, are not a manual for being the most successful change maker in every conceivable project. If we knew how to be a change super-hero, we would have no time to explore the theory and practice of change management in such depth as we have been doing for many years now.

We do, however, have some reasoned ideas, and now also reliable indications that our assumptions are correct. The study gives a clear statistical indication of a genuine link between leadership style and the success of a project, and


25

uncovers some surprising details. The field is so interesting that we will con-tinue to question, to research and to validate. We are staying on the case.

WHERE ARE THE CHANGE LEADERS?

We found change leaders in nearly all sectors of industry and in nearly all geographical locations. A relatively high proportion of change leaders, and in-deed of change managers, are to be found at consultancy firms and at banks and insurance companies. Six out of seven change leaders are part of the company’s management team. Only 14 percent are external specialists in change management; that 14 per-cent have been working for the relevant company for a long time, for example as interim managers, and have a strong network within the organisation. We found more change leaders at financial institutions and other financial interme-diaries than elsewhere which is hardly surprising, as Basel and solvency regu-lations alone require constant change. Many change leaders are also to be found in the automotive industry, the chemical/pharmaceutical/life science sector and in high-tech/IT (Fig. 16).

The first surprise comes in the graph showing the distribution of turnover. Contrary to what one would perhaps expect, change leaders are not re-served to large corporations. Indeed, they are more likely to be found in the medium to large end of the SME scale, often at the level of divisional or chief departmental head. Attention, all head-hunters: in businesses with a total turn-over of 0.5 to 5 billion euros and a workforce of between 5000 and 15,000, the chances of identifying highly effective change makers are extremely good (Fig. 17).

The second surprise is that change leaders tend to manage relatively small

6

55

19

3

13

3

9

61

0

9

22

0

0

88

0

0

13

0


> 10,000

5,001 - 10,000

1,001 - 5,000

501 - 1,000

101 - 250

< 100

> 10,000

5,001 - 10,000

1,001 - 5,000

501 - 1,000

101 - 250

< 100

> 10,000

5,001 - 10,000

1,001 - 5,000

501 - 1,000

101 - 250

< 100



Fig. 17: Turnover per cluster

13

13

13

25

25

11

31

11

11

11

7

7

22

26

15


Other: consultancy

Automotive

Chemical/pharmaceutical/

life sciences

Electronics/high tech/IT/

software

Insurance

Other: consultancy

Energy/utilities

Automotive


life sciences

Electronics/high tech/IT/

software

Automotive

Metal industry/machine

construction


life sciences

Retail

Machinery & plant

engineering



Fig. 16: Top 5 sectors per cluster

26

teams. We found more than half of all change leaders (56 %) in the category of managers with between 6 and 20 direct reports; two out of five highly effective change leaders (39 %) even manage change with a team of up to just five. Only 4 percent manage teams >50 (Fig. 18).

What should at most raise only mild surprise is the gender distribution. Nearly two out of three change leaders are male. As the proportion of women on DAX-listed company boards is un-der 4 percent, this once again puts the focus on the SME segment where fe-male change leaders without a doubt play a far more significant role. (Ulti-mately, this is hardly surprising as women tend to be overrepresented in

the fields of human resource and or-ganisational development.)

Finally, there is the position from which highly effective change makers lead change. Nearly every third, 31 %, de-scribes himself as a decision-maker and architect of change. In other words, the change leader is able to influence how transformation is struc-tured and managed right from the drawing board (Fig. 19).

THE FEATURES OF A CHANGE LEADER

To establish the personality and leader-ship style of change makers, we pre-sented respondents with a range of statements to be rated on a scale of 1 (‘Strongly disagree’) to 5 (‘Strongly

4

30

39

26

0

6

32

48

10

3

13

25

38

25

0


> 50

21 to 50

11 to 20

6 to 10

1 to 5

> 50

21 to 50

11 to 20

6 to 10

1 to 5

> 50

21 to 50

11 to 20

6 to 10

1 to 5



Fig. 18: Number of employees managed directly per cluster


27

agree’). This was the picture painted by the responses: a change leader is an active architect of change. He does not merely take instructions; he wants the change because he is convinced of its necessity. He is an independent think-er, the antithesis of a civil servant blind-ly following orders and protocol, and he is not seeking a position of power in the organisational hierarchy (36 per-cent of change leaders have more than ten staff under them). He wants to in-spire and change, not to have change thrust upon him – and does not neces-sarily want to rise up the ranks. This attitude gives him an inward and out-ward independence and makes him a tough nut for those accustomed to managing top-down.

In the light of these findings, we asked how much freedom companies give their change makers. The responses produced a clear picture: 72 percent of change leaders stated that they had had a great degree of freedom. This was also the response of every second change manager (50 %), but only of 13 percent of change controllers (Fig. 20).

Such autonomy makes the change leader a genuine asset. He is able to reflect on his own role, and does so effectively; he also carefully considers who else he needs on board. If he thinks he is not being given enough freedom for his work, he will either say ‘No thank you’ or simply take what he needs. Even if he is a technician, an engineer, a physicist or an accountant,

8

0

14

17

31

17

14

11

4

19

19

11

30

7

25

0

0

38

25

13

0

Other (project manager)


Internal change management

expert

Part of the project team driving the

change

Executive with active change management role (e.g. as change

agent)

Decision maker/ architect of the transformation

Executive w/o explicit change management

role




expert


change


agent)



role




expert


change


agent)



role


Fig. 19: Role in last change project per cluster


28

he knows that emotions have a huge effect on whether or not a change pro-cess succeeds.

How does he know? Change leaders, as our study clearly shows, have a wealth of experience. Thirty-seven per-cent have been in a management posi-tion for over ten years, and 23 percent for between five and ten years (Fig. 21).

Let us now look at the second cluster.

WHERE ARE THE CHANGE MANAGERS?

Change managers tend to be found more often among female managers (52 %) than among male managers (48 %), as our survey indicates (Fig. 22). They are often found in traditional sec-tors such as energy/supply and the automotive industry, and also in con-sultancy. Anyone looking for a change manager should start with large corpo-rations: every third change manager works at a company with over 50,000 on its payroll. The span of control is relatively evenly distributed: 38 percent of those we found to be change man-agers have fewer than five direct re-ports, 50 percent have up to 20 staff under them and 13 percent manage very large teams of 50 staff or more.

One interesting point is that nearly half of change managers (46 %) have only five years’ management experience or less.

THE FEATURES OF THE CHANGE MANAGER

Over this time, change managers have been able to learn a great deal about organisational development. They have both a strong knowledge of and practi-cal experience in change projects. They are aware of the weak points and of human weaknesses. They are the es-sential organisers of change. Change

37

23

3

23

23

27

15

12

19

27

13

13

0

63

13


> 10 Years

5 to 10 Years

1 to 5 Years

< 1 year


> 10 Years

5 to 10 Years

1 to 5 Years

< 1 year


> 10 Years

5 to 10 Years

1 to 5 years

< 1 year




Fig. 21: Years of management responsibility per cluster


Fig. 20: The change leader’s level of decision-making power and scope for action was high

38 50

100

72 8 19 100

Change controllers

Change managers 50 27

Change leaders

23

100 13

Strongly disagree/disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree/strongly agree

AveragesChange leaders: 3.92 Change managers: 3.50 Change controllers: 2.25


29

managers ensure that processes are correctly implemented, coordinate proj-ect progress and tend to cite specific structures (‘We should take this step by step’) and aspects of change manage-ment (‘I would suggest the following change measure…’). They do so in part because it is genuinely useful, and in part to highlight their knowledge of the methodology they want the company to realise their value.

Change managers respect hierarchies and system limits and clearly consider their own position all aspects that do not particularly interest a change lead-er. As they are not the top decision-makers, change managers believe they must constantly fight for legitimacy. They often seek to justify themselves, and look for the killer argument in ev-erything. This defensive attitude not infrequently obscures their view of cor-rect situational intervention, which can sometimes be paradoxical. A feel for the right intervention runs in the change leader’s blood. The change manager with his project experience does not rely on such a feeling, instead taking a systematic approach. Together, the change manager and changer leader can therefore form a dream team.

Change managers are good in reorgan-isation processes. However, precisely because they know so much about change, they remain idealists. Most of them would blindly subscribe to the no-tion that not only the business strategy but also the corporate culture requires serious critical scrutiny. They tend to side and sympathise with those affected when transformation falters and more is demanded of the workforce than initially foreseen. They think in change rather than in power categories and therefore do not understand (and can be person-ally offended) if the organisation does not want to take their suggestions on board. Some simply give up.




Fig. 22: Change clusters by gender

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

61

39 48

52 62

38




Fig. 23: Company location by cluster

Non-DACH

DACH

Non-DACH

DACH

Non-DACH

DACH

69

31 28

72 86

14

30

WHERE ARE THE CHANGE CONTROLLERS?

Change makers in the change control-ler category would never admit defeat, neither inwardly nor outwardly. Their motto is decision – planning – action. In their head or at their desk, they have a manual for transformation projects which they always methodically follow.

Our analyses found that 88 percent of change controllers come from large businesses. Sixty-two percent come from largely technical/engineering sec-tors, plant engineering and construc-tion, and the automotive industry. Eighty-six percent of those managers we have put in the change controller cluster are based in D/A/CH. This is a remarkably high proportion (Fig. 23), and could explain the high failure rate for transformations here compared to global results. It should also provide food for thought on whether manage-ment roles in change projects are stra-tegically assigned and distributed. Change controllers tend to be signifi-cantly younger than the other respon-dents their average age is just 42 (Fig. 24); two thirds are male; and unlike change leaders and change managers, they are responsible not just for reor-ganisation and restructuring projects, but also and above all for cost reduc-tion initiatives (Fig. 25). These last are much faster: 63 percent of those sur-veyed stated that cost reduction proj-ects were completed within one to two years.

Just as with change leaders, the span of control for change controllers is on average much smaller than that for change managers. Our study found that nearly every second change con-troller (48 %) was responsible for just one to five, and 32 percent for between six and ten members of staff (Fig. 18, p. 26). The span of control is therefore


Fig. 24: Average age per cluster

4649

42


0

0

13

25

63

11

25

11

14

22

11

7

15

41

11


Reorganisation/ restructuring

Growth initiatives of the

company

Digitalisation of business

processes/IT innovations

Cost reduction programmes/ "rightsizing"

CIP/other improvement

initiatives


Changed corporate

strategy


company

Digitalisation of business

processes/IT innovations




Internationali-sation

Changed corporate

strategy


company



Fig. 25: Driver of the last change project


31

not necessarily a useful indicator of probable success.

FEATURES OF THE CHANGE CONTROLLER

The typical change controller is sum-moned by his superior and committed even before he enters the room. Costs need to be reduced, says his manager, and he is the right person for the job. ‘Get on with it. I want to see results soon.’ He nods, although he has little previous knowledge of change man-agement and has only had practical experience on a couple of projects before. Now, he must act even with so little expertise, and will have to fight for every euro of the budget with only min-imal support from the organisation.

This situation is the surest way to kill a change project at birth.

Change controllers, as we decided to call them after much debate, have risen to their current position extremely rap-idly thanks to their expertise in their own specific field in many cases too rapidly to manage change projects. They derive their feeling of self-worth from their fixed point in the hierarchy, and legitimise themselves on that ba-sis. They hardly consider their enor-mously important role in the organisa-tion: they have a job to do. Nor do they spend much time on reflection in the change process itself. This is perhaps because they do not relate to the issue, or because they have never previously had the opportunity clearly to consider their role. Or perhaps because no-one around them dares to broach the sub-ject, never mind criticise them.

As change controllers are aware of the task entrusted to them but not of their influence and effect on others, they often pass on blame. ‘Top manage-ment doesn’t know what it wants.’ ‘The managers aren’t pulling their weight.’

Yet they themselves have only a limited willingness to change. To the change controller, change management pri-marily means talking about what needs to be done and when, and who is responsible.

This brief profile sounds extremely harsh. You will perhaps therefore be surprised to learn that change control-lers are not necessarily ineffective. On the contrary, they are often successful – but almost always only in projects that have been instigated top-down and which are focussed on short-term success, not on keeping the workforce on board. For all other projects, please read on.

33

III Change leaders: motivators, exam-ples or the good spirit of the team?

SENSITIVE STRENGTH BEFORE ELBOW-SHOVING

Change only works if those who are directly and indirectly affected grasp the purpose of the transformation; if they know and understand the targets, and agree with those targets. And if they expect the change to bring new benefits compared to the status quo benefits for themselves personally, for their team, for their company or for society. Only then can the necessary changes in focus in mindset and be-haviour be achieved.

That is the starting point that sets the stage for the ‘grand entrance’ of the change leader. Will he be able to fulfil his role? What tools and resources does he need? What attributes are useful, what are of no effect and what do more harm than good?

In his part as chief strategist, the change leader is either a permanent member of the cast or employed spe-cifically for the current production. Top managers have written the script, and are also directing. In short, the role of the change maker is clearly defined: he is to follow and meet the targets and expectations of a higher authority.

However, management beware: re-sponses from our study clearly show that great tact and sensitivity is re-quired in the allocation of roles. The change leader is under constant scru-tiny from all sides. It would therefore be short-sighted to appoint a candidate notable largely for his forcefulness. True, it is useful if a change maker is not afraid the fray. Nevertheless, the aim is to implement a change in strat-egy without the rest of the cast storm-ing off the stage, or subtly but all the more effectively subverting the stage directions. Steadily elbowing forwards is not to be recommended.

THE OLD HAND, NOT THE YOUNG UPSTART

The role of the change leader requires a certain standing. This survey finding is not surprising. What is perhaps sur-prising is that change leaders tend to be seasoned managers with broad experience of change projects. What – not the smart young things in their mid- to late thirties who have grown up with networks and digitalisation? No, is the clear answer. The average age of the highly effective change makers in our ‘change leader’ cluster may not be higher than that of the change manag-ers or change controllers, but 37 per-cent of them have held positions of responsibility in change projects for over ten years. For the change manag-ers, this proportion is 27 %, and for the change controllers just 13 % (Fig. 21). We can therefore see that years of pro-fessional experience are particularly valuable in change projects and es-sential to playing the part of motivator.

34

From loser to problem-solverSkiers know the drill: fall, take a deep breath, get up and keep going. Stay down and you will never reach the finish line. In the worst case, you could even catch pneumonia and never fully recover.

But in skiing, no-one is booed off the piste just for misjudging a turn or overestimating his skills. You are in business or at least in European business. In the USA, people do the best possible thing after a setback: continue. Of course, you can complain if you want to. Complaining earns you a frown and a scornful invitation to stop whining.

Here, failure is met with scorn and contempt. The winner takes it all; cue applause, back-slap-ping, ‘what a great job’. If some-thing goes wrong, however, you have to fight hard to get a sec-ond chance even if you have learned from your initial mistakes, and do a better job the second

time. Or the fourth or fifth time. Max Levchin, co-founder and chief technology officer of the online payment service PayPal, talked to the business magazine BRANDEINS (November 2014, p. 34ff.) about his many attempts. ‘The first company that I founded went up in smoke. The second failed slightly less spectacularly, but it still failed. And you know what, the third company also failed, but somehow, that was okay. I recovered quickly, and the fourth company survived. It wasn’t a huge success, but it worked. Number five was Pay-Pal.’ Two years after its estab-lishment, PayPal had over 200 million registered users and was sold to eBay for 1.5 billion dollars.

Let us turn the question around and boldly postulate failure as one prerequisite for future suc-cess, the other being that you have learned from that failure. If this is the case, and you are reasonably confident about your project, it will in all likelihood be

more successful with than with-out previous failures. On a solid mathematical basis, risk manag-ers see previous failure as an advantage.

Gradually, something does seem to be changing in good old Europe, at least in the media and ITC sector and in start-ups. A paper launched to drum roll and fanfare is taken out of circulation after just a few issues. Okay, that didn’t work, what will? One portal is closed, another opens. That’s life in the digital era. The Zalando IPO did not live up to expecta-tions. So what? The Samwer brothers will be smarter with their next start-up.

Anyone seeking change is taking a step into the unknown – in every respect. We can start by rethinking failure, and testing in ‘change niches’ until the process finally works and the master plan is perfected.


35

Anyone regularly given new procedures to implement and who has played an active part in company change will not have escaped the odd bloody nose. You have to live with setbacks, to be able and allowed to deal with them. You need enough cases to practise on without putting the company in jeop-ardy in order to develop error toler-ance. Change leaders flourish when and where failure is not seen as a re-sult of personal failings. They do not give up and they do not retreat. In-stead, they simply learn how to do things better.

Experience cannot be generated just like that. The value of older staff is in one respect quantitative – they have experienced more of the possible mis-takes, their own mistakes and those of others, and have considered them in depth and at length. However, there is also a qualitative element: change leaders have learned that dealing with an error can lead to an unexpectedly positive result. Had they never made mistakes, they would probably never have arrived at this realisation. This knowledge gives them superiority and a certain calm. They deal with mis-takes, problems and omissions quite collectedly, for they know that there is a solution to everything.

CHANGE LEADERS WANT TO CHANGE EVEN WHEN IT HURTS

Change management seeks to change existing structures and patterns of in-teraction in social systems to reach genuine, objective goals. The process can and in many cases will be a painful one for managers and staff. Change leaders are aware of this, but still grasp the nettle. Any reduction in targets to a lower common denominator, no matter how high the initial objective, is foreign to them. Since Doppler and Lauterburg

(13th edition, 2014), there has been no doubt about the particular effective-ness of unpopular measures.

Small groups of employees in which change leaders can make full use of their personality, their leadership skills and their talents as ambassadors of change are the ideal context for change leaders (see Chapter II). Change leaders’ range of knowledge and experience covers all types of change projects. They therefore have infinite resources on which to draw and are committed to keeping their (!) peo-ple on board. A change leader’s ‘peo-ple’ in turn know him from previous projects and see him as trustworthy and reliable; they are therefore confi-dent that he is sure to manage the project somehow. And the change leader lives up to these expectations. He wants to achieve change, and to do so rapidly with a team that supports him but is also an equal partner. They rely on each other. It’s as simple as that.

INDEPENDENCE OF SPIRIT MAKES CHANGE LEADERS STRONG

A change leader does not place enor-mous importance on his position in the hierarchy. He is aware of it, of course, but would not go to any lengths simply to rise further up the pecking order. He draws his strength from within himself, not from the internal company order. What drives and motivates him is the job in hand for the ultimate, higher goal, and the work with his team with people he can influence and who can grow and develop through their work together. His targeted approach, intel-ligent decisions, fairness in his dealings with others and his genuine indepen-dence of spirit earn him respect. Re-spect from his environment is impor-tant to him, and he finds this type of

36

feedback a genuine motivation. He is not interested in one-dimensional com-pany politics, strategic haggling or ma-nipulative tactics.

Characteristically calm, change leaders avoid the stress trap into which man-agers often fall: the trap of ‘over-identi-fying with one’s own success’ (cf. Romhardt, K., 2013, p. 15). Those to whom their role in the hierarchy is not of existential significance can succeed in achieving changes in the face of great outside pressures and consider-able resistance. Romhardt differenti-ates between strain and effort (Mühe und Anstrengung). ‘Effort is the energy required to implement an action.’ Strain, on the other hand, believes Romhardt, also covers the fear of fail-ure. ‘If we are vigilant, we can put an end to these energy-sapping process-es.’ (ibid. p. 15)

This change leader personality struc-ture is of immense value in change projects, as it means they are not tempted to defend the status quo. People generally want things to remain

the way they are. In cases of immediate threat, the automatic rejection of the new may be useful, but resistance can also block desirable change. Defend-ers of the status quo run the risk of becoming the prisoners of their own defensive mechanisms.

THE CHANGE LEADER SETS THE PACE OF CHANGE

There is one result of the digital revolu-tion that we find particularly striking: the re-emergence of values that seemed to have been forgotten. That does not reduce the power of the per-formance indicators, but it shifts the focus, or rather creates a new balance.

Personality traits that may be on the list of company requirements but that have, beyond the HR department, been termed ‘soft’ and therefore at the best ‘nice to have’, suddenly regain enormous importance in the context of the effectiveness of change processes.

For line managers, this means a depar-ture from the primacy of strict


37

rationality. For those in HR, it harks back to the pre-crisis years before 2001.

A highly effective change maker as described by the respondents in our study is calm and in control, open, interested, willing to learn, happy to teach, and inspiring. He likes people and is constantly setting them new challenges so that they can grow and develop. Sometimes, he overshoots the mark on purpose, because he wants to encourage his team to go further, to test the limits; to look at the bigger picture. He does occasionally betray impatience, but this is forgiven because of his honesty and reliability.

Not everyone in the team is able to keep up with the pace set by the lead-er. However, everyone believes that he is genuinely committed to the change target and has made it ‘his’ project.

The experts we spoke to cited authen-ticity in particular as the ‘motor for change’. In their view, successful change leaders are ‘credible and pas-sionate’, ‘inquiring’ and have a ‘desire to see change as progress’. One inter-viewee stressed that ‘behaviour is shaped by attitude’. A change leader had to show ‘appreciation’ to his team members and a ‘fundamentally positive attitude to himself and to staff’. He should demonstrate ‘empathy’, ‘integ-rity’ and ‘passion’ and master the art of ‘clear and open communication’.

Gradually, we hope, the personality of the ideal change leader is now emerg-ing. A super change maker demon-strates empathy, he trusts his team and is genuinely interested in their develop-ment. He sees making himself surplus to requirements as an incentive rather than a threat. A change leader does not need the outward trappings of au-thority or success to satisfy his ego. He

is independent in spirit. To him, it is enough to know that he is making the organisation stronger.

And strengthen the organisation he does: the change leader’s character leaves him less vulnerable to that par-ticular form of stress that often affects other managers. The stress that results from the ‘paradox of decision-making’ (‘Paradoxie des Entscheidens’) de-scribed by Niklas Luhmann: in complex situations, decision-making powers are often given to individual managers, yet mistakes are not tolerated (cf. Luh-mann, N., 2000, p. 147).

To make a choice at all, a decision-maker needs to have one. If it is clear what needs to be done, it is not a deci-sion (cf. Groth, T., 2006, p. 11). You could just as well toss a coin.

Three of the top scores for the change leader are closely connected to his personality. He is able to accept that he does not possess all available knowledge (rating of 4.33; see diagram of Top 5 effectiveness cluster), he knows that his attitude has an influ-ence on others (also 4.33 on the scale) and he is excellent at dealing with un-certainties (rating of 4.25; Fig. 26). The Socratic paradox of knowing that you know nothing; charisma and a toler-ance of ambiguity: these are the main characteristics of the successful change leader.

BEHAVIOUR AND LEADERSHIP OF THE CHANGE LEADER

‘Cooperative, integrative, transparent and impressive; convincing rather than didactic’: these were the main leader-ship qualities expected of a change maker by one specialist we inter-viewed. Another interviewee added that ‘there is a growing demand on the part of staff that they be included and

38

involved in changes’. Bottom-up man-agement was seen by many of the ex-perts as at least conducive to change.

Ratings from respondents confirm this assessment. In the group of change leaders, the top-down approach ranked bottom of all 20 effectiveness features. Authoritative leadership, it appears, tends to backfire. A cross-check confirms this: change managers and change controllers under whose management change projects did not achieve the desired results still manage on a top-down basis (Fig. 26).

The latest study thus confirms the pic-ture painted two years ago: change management must help managers ‘to develop appropriate new approaches to managing and coordinating as

hierarchical power and physical pres-ence diminish’ (cf. Capgemini Consult-ing, Digitale Revolution 2012, p. 13). Staff in the team and the workforce as a whole want to offer their input when comprehensive changes are imple-mented. They no longer simply hope to be involved; they expect participatory structures.

HOWEVER, change managers are supposed to produce measurable re-sults within a limited timescale. They are supposed to achieve hard targets with soft resources. But that is some-thing only water, fire and air can do, and all three elements take a long time to do it. For people, this is almost a demand to square the circle. Limit the design tools to a ruler and a pair of compasses, and the task is impossible,

but there are approximate construc-tions that are accurate enough for many purposes.

We believe that the solution lies in an open approach. In situational leader-ship where the change leader has the full range of options at his fingertips and can respond flexibly to the relevant circumstances, he may take a top-down or a bottom-up approach, or indeed combine the two. In certain situations, he may even hand over leadership to his team.

Alongside the personal characteristics discussed above, the five most-cited change levers include two that are tes-timony to the importance of a change maker’s leadership style. The state-ment ‘The change leader motivated the

© Capgemini Consulting 2015Figures are averages; scale of 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree

3,38

2,00

1,88

1,83

1,86

4,33

4,33

4,31

4,31

4,36

3,08

3,04

3,15

3,19

3,62

The change leader motivated the employees to actively contribute to

change initiatives.



The change leader was always aware that his attitudes and emotions have

an influence on others.


The change leader fostered an open feedback culture.




The change leader was able to accept that he did not possess all available

knowledge.



The change leader always lived up to his decisions.



The change leader acted always according to his previously taken

decisions

The change leader knew how to win people for himself and his ideas.






Fig. 26: Characterisation of the change leader cluster on the basis of attitude and behaviour


39

employees to actively contribute to change initiatives’ received the highest score of 4.36. There was a similarly high level of agreement with the follow-ing statement: ‘The change leader was a person who quickly adapted to changes’, which received a strong ‘yes’ rating of 4.31 (Fig. 10, p. 17 and Fig. 26).

The following statement scored 4.14, the highest rating of all attitudes at-tributed to change leaders: ‘It is a prior-ity for change management measures to make affected people understand the change.’ This statement was also often ranked positively for change managers, but much less often for change controllers (Fig. 27).

Responses to the item ‘It is a priority for change management measures to involve the affected people emotionally’ are particularly interesting. For the change leaders, this was the third-highest rated statement. The rate of agreement for the other two groups was significantly lower: the statement came in 11th and 12th place respec-tively. This difference is so striking that we can in turn safely conclude that leaders who do not ensure that their employees feel emotionally involved in change are less effective than those who do.

Methods and leadership tools give structure to a change, but the spirit is down to the change leader. His team will ask ‘Does he stand up for what he asks of us? We want to believe there

will be an improvement. Can we actu-ally believe that?’

Ultimately, it is the personality and be-haviour of the change maker that de-cide the success or failure of a project. A talented change leader does not simply preach values such as cred-ibility, authenticity and reliability: these values underlie how he thinks, and guide his actions.

Overall, the study findings make one point quite clear: transformational lead-ership with ‘idealised influence’, ‘inspi-rational motivation’, ‘individualised con-sideration’, ‘authentic leadership’, ‘servant leadership’ and ‘intellectual stimulation’ (cf. Abrell, C. et al., 2011, p. 207) has lost absolutely none of its importance.


3,75

3,25

3,00

2,75

2,88

3,77

3,94

3,63

3,75

4,14

3,65

3,50

3,72

3,85

4,26

It is a priority for change management measures to make affected people understand the

change.

The main function of change management is to anticipate and

proactively address potential reactions to the change.

It is a priority for change management measures to

involve the affected people emotionally.

Knowledge transfer and information about the change are key objectives of change

management.

Employees can participate in change processes across

hierarchies (bottom-up).

Change measures are planned and implemented along the

hierarchy (top-down).

It is a priority for change management measures to make affected people understand the

change.

Communication is conducted in a controlled manner via specific

communication channels, and participation in the communication is

managed.

Knowledge transfer and information about the change are key objectives of change

management.

Change management is predominantly conducted based

on a linear planning process, e.g. analysis, development,

implementation.

Change measures are planned and implemented along the

hierarchy (top-down).

In our company, change management activities are usually initiated only

when the project has arrived in the valley of tears.

Change management is predominantly conducted based on a linear planning process, e.g. analysis,

development, implementation.

In our company, change management activities are usually initiated as soon

as a change is imminent.

The main function of change management is to respond to events

arising during the transformation process (e.g. address conflicts).



Fig. 27: Top 5 statements on the use of change management

40

TESTING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN STUDYING

A change leader gene has yet to be identified. Certain personal character-istics are useful and helpful in the im-plementation process, but in isolation from specific knowledge and expertise in change these are reduced to cha-risma. We all are familiar with some such leaders of men: John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Steven Jobs, Warren Buffet, Ferdinand Piëch, Rupert Murdock, Sheryl Sandberg, Richard Branson… They only become change leaders once they have gained extensive expe-rience in restructuring processes. Those who are allowed to test them-selves in their role, who make mistakes in the process and learn from those mistakes, will ultimately become pow-erful drivers and effective implementers of change.

The study does not allow us to draw universal conclusions on the training and professional background of the highly effective change makers we have termed change leaders. We did not ask about those aspects. However, we can draw conclusions on how long change makers have been working in their profession. Perhaps not unex-pectedly, the study showed that all those whom we categorised as change leaders have in-depth and extensive experience in practice (Fig. 21, p. 28). To put it perfunctorily: they have learned. They know how it works. And after a while, they can do it.

For companies, this can only mean giving their talented staff greater op-portunities to learn, and creating an environment in their organisation that is open to changes of all kinds and in which mistakes are tolerated. Such an environment is essential to growing


41

and developing the practical experi-ence that managers need. This area is discussed in more detail in the next chapter but one (V).

Another finding is that a lack of clarity on roles and competences creates weak points. A company must there-fore reach a compromise between its change leader’s desire for indepen-dence and the desire of its hierarchical organisation for structure. Networks will, however, soon overtake that structure. Surely it is therefore better that unavoidable change be initiated from within.

The change leader must in turn accept boundaries, limits and set forms. Par-ticipatory leadership can achieve much, but not always and not every-thing. Change leaders must at least define clear basic principles for them-selves and their project team: what aspects have been fixed and cannot be discussed, and where can the team still give its input?

Finally, a conclusion that should be self-evident. Companies that embrace and are capable of change have nei-ther a culture of fear nor a feel-good culture. They have a feedback culture in which not only the active change

makers, but also all other managers involved in the change know where they stand and how their actions are viewed. Real change leaders welcome such a culture. They genuinely want fair and open criticism of their produc-tion, from the first scene to the final curtain: they know that there is another performance tomorrow.

Five important characteristics of the change leader § Spirit: he brings the vision of change to the company

§ Standing: he is calm, independent, experienced and a person of integrity

§ Dialogue: he is open, clear and fair in his communication

§ Empathy: his leadership style recognises and values others

§ Passion: he is committed to the change

43

IV A successful change leader’s environment

The change leader’s role is to lead change. This may be circular reason-ing, but it highlights the exceptional importance of leadership in situations in which something entirely new is to be created. In the previous chapter, we looked at what enables change makers to accomplish transformation. We clearly saw that management of change requires more than a well-or-dered toolbox in the hands of a certi-fied change engineer.

One effective lever was found to be the style of leadership, which in turn de-pends on the personality of the man-ager, his experience on change proj-ects and his ability to learn. Not simply the what, but also and above all the how is important here. Nowadays, hardly anyone would expect to achieve

change simply by ordering or announc-ing it. The attention paid to the emo-tional aspect of change processes increases year on year. This is the ba-sis for our established model of effec-tiveness (cf. Capgemini Consulting, Change Management Studie 2012, p. 20 and Fig. 28, Studie 2012 p. 28 Er-folgstreiber/Sieben Hebel [‘Drivers of success/seven levers’]). Respondents in our study reported how the change leader meets this challenge in change projects in practice.

However, before we place all responsi-bility for success at the door of the change maker and retreat to the posi-tion of mere onlookers, we should be clear about one thing: no change mak-er, no matter how effective in theory, can fulfil his potential in an environment

that constantly prevents him from exer-cising his full abilities.

A LEADERSHIP CULTURE IN DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES? WHERE ELSE!

Let us take a step back, and look at a rather larger part of the picture. The targets of the change leader are chal-lenging, but realistic. They correspond to the vision and the nature of the company, and to how the company rewards its managers. In other words, the incentive and remuneration system reflects the importance and scope of the task and the necessary speed of the change.

Fig. 28: Capgemini Consulting sees seven change management levers as driving successful business transformation from the ‘people’ perspective

© Capgemini Consulting 2015Source: Change Studie 2012

Our change management understanding: the change management levers

Change management

framework

Change vision &people strategy

Manager commitment

Sustainability of the change

Stakeholdermobilisation

Cultural development

Organisation &process focus

People performance

44

Our study reveals significant room for improvement. Despite the fact that nearly all managers are affected by transformations, companies appear to assume that lower and middle man-agement have some intrinsic source of motivation. Worse still, some compa-nies simply appear to place little value on the motivation of their lower-level managers. Only just over a fourth of all team leaders and fewer than every second departmental head are offered the prospect of personal benefits in return for their commitment to change. The situation is different at the upper levels of management. A majority of respondents confirmed that their com-pany had a payment and incentive sys-tem tailored to change processes (Fig. 29). For the change leader group, there is a whole range of measures; the situ-ation is the same for change manag-ers. Apparently, not only has there been a recognition that all levels of management must be included – and that this means a defined commission and clear allocation of roles but mea-sures applicable across all levels of the hierarchy are also employed to achieve this. We see this as another indication that the companies in which change leaders operate have a different change culture from those that only ‘tolerate’ change controllers.

Take another step back, and look at the environment in which the change leader operates. This framework is the organisation shaped by a specific cor-porate culture in which changes are to take place; a framework with defined structures, processes, rules and values both written and unwritten. The envi-ronment gives the change leader go, wait and stop signals, and these in-structions limit both his sphere of ac-tion and his range of behaviour. If the environment imposes sanctions for a certain situation or attitude, the change maker (if he fails in his attempts to fight

Incentive systems for the top level of management

Fig. 29: Incentive systems by management level

75

64

43

21

78

57

48

22

33

100

Dialogue formats with top management/project management for planned changes

Incorporation of change targets into individual target agreements

Allocation of an active role in the change project (e.g. as a change agent/multiplier)

Monetary incentives




Monetary incentives



Incentive systems for middle management

69

66

54

34

68

64

40

24

57

29

14

14

57




An offer of special further education measures

29Personal career development by actively participating in the change




Personal career development by actively participating in the change

20An offer of special further education measures

No special measure



Monetary incentives


Incentive systems for lower management

53

50

41

35

50

45

32

23

29

17

71

An offer of special further education measures




29Personal career development by actively participating in the change



Personal career development by actively participating in the change


23No special measure

No special measure



© Capgemini Consulting 2015Change leaders Change managers Change controllers



45

against the corporate style) will either adapt his behaviour or withdraw.

What, in your view, would a highly mo-tivated change leader do when faced with these alternatives? The indepen-dent, free spirit we have described above, who is convinced of the useful-ness of the change but knows full well that he needs the critical mass of his colleagues? Who recognises the hier-archies, but who does not see them first and foremost as a boost to his personal chances of promotion? Precisely.

In this study, we asked managers ex-perienced in change about the ele-ments that defined the culture in previ-ous change projects. We wanted to find out whether or not, and how, the environment aided or obstructed trans-formation. For each statement, abso-lutely free from any value judgement, respondents could award up to five points. We also asked specifically about the degree of freedom granted (cf. Chapter II, page 27). The responses supported our hypothesis. Change leaders are given the greatest freedom in their organisations, change control-lers the least.

We were amazed at the extent to which responses bore out our effec-tiveness model (Fig. 30). The model proposes that change leadership must, as the situation demands, employ all available change levers, i.e. vision; tar-gets; structures; processes; culture, and people, both managers and em-ployees. This removes the artificial dif-ferentiation between ‘leadership’ and ‘change management’. Respondents in our study clearly agreed that this is the approach to take, as shown by the significant differences between highly effective and only partly effective change makers which emerged when we analysed the questionnaires. The

differences were largely down not to the person of the change maker, but to an environment not conducive to change. A lack of resources and the lack of enabling activities were the main problems.

This becomes clear from our examples.

One of the statements presented to respondents was ‘Change measures are planned and implemented along the hierarchy.’ For those change mak-ers we identified as change leaders, agreement with this statement was only slightly above the average at 3.46; the rate of agreement was much higher for eight other statements. For the change controllers, on the other hand, the top-down indicator has by far the highest score with an average of 4.26. The average rate of agreement with this statement from change managers (3.75) was also much higher than for any other change characteristics. Change leaders would therefore ap-pear to have access to more and dif-ferent change levers than their colleagues.

The response to the statement ‘Em-ployees can participate in change pro-cesses across hierarchies’ supports this impression. Change leaders’ agreement with the statement was 3.63, the fifth highest rating, whilst the item came only 16th (1.75) and 17th (2.92) out of 20 respectively (Fig. 27) from change managers and change controllers. Where bottom-up is not possible, the transformations in our sample were apparently not as good as in organisations that listen to their employees. This finding is not new; it was also the conclusion of a previous change management study by Kien-baum (2011).

We cannot conclude on this basis alone that top-down change projects

46

are always less likely to succeed, but the point is worth considering even essential to consider, in the light of the rate of agreement to ‘It is a priority for change management measures to make affected people understand the change.’ Yes, that was the situation for us, signalled the high average agree-ment of 4.14 for change leaders. Con-firmation from controllers was similarly strong (3.85), but the statement met with more disagreement than agree-ment where change managers were responsible (2.85).

HIDDEN INVESTIGATIONS

The divided response to the statement ‘In our company, change management activities are usually initiated only when the project has arrived in the valley of tears.’ gave us food for thought. Change managers’ average agreement

with this statement was 3.25; their agreement to the statement was the second highest of all scores for that statement. Change controllers also found that the statement described their companies fairly accurately: the average agreement was 3.13, in 10th place. However, the picture from the change leaders was quite different. Their very moderate agreement (3.0) ranks this statement third-last.

What does a high rate of agreement mean in this case? We conclude that participation in companies where transformation fails has been largely removed from the agenda, and that an exchange across the hierarchy is not promoted. Otherwise, in the areas in need of work, the company would al-ready have sounded the alarm and the signal would have been heard and un-derstood at the top. Change at the last

minute, almost a makeshift solution, is often the sign of a corporate culture in need of improvement. ‘The top man-agement never gets the message. And we are left to clear up the mess.’ They could have heard the alarm bells ear-lier. Anyone who initiates change only after the situation has become urgent is driven by pressure and will not be in control of the process.

Change experts must therefore be in-volved in all discussions and decisions on translating the transformation vision into the change objectives and ulti-mately into the change project. The change managers we identified and the change controllers all reported that they were not involved until later. No matter how much ‘later’, ‘later’ in change management means too late. If the process starts in the wrong direc-tion, valuable time is lost recalculating


Design of the change study

Effectiveness of managers in the change project

=attitude + behaviour

Organisation

Drivers

Control

Freedom

Training for change makers

Dependent variable

Resources/budget

Expectations on players

Transformation skills

?

Research questions:

• To what extent does the effective-ness of managers depend on the drivers?

• What is the specific pattern of attitude and behaviour of an effective change leader?

Screening questions• Company size (turnover and workforce)

• Sector

• Management experience

• Gender

• Role in the last change project

• Duration of the change project

Facilitators• Methods and tools


47

the route. And the wave of frustration, disappointment and ‘We knew it wouldn’t work’ will threaten to drown all motivation.

TRUST-BUILDING ACTIVITIES

Our analysis of responses to two fur-ther statements puts the spotlight back on values lived out in practice and how people in the company work together. The first statement was ‘The main function of change management is to anticipate and proactively address po-tential reactions to the change.’ From change managers, the score was a moderate 2.25, in 9th place. Change controllers also ranked the statement 9th, but tended to agree (3.16).

The response was quite different from the change leaders. They ranked the statement second with the majority

agreeing; the average rating was 3.94. For good reason: they know their team, and they know what change means for those affected. They can foresee the objections, concerns, scepticism, even rejection; they take them seriously and approach the task proactively. They seek to clear up any unanswered questions; they seek dialogue.

All these aspects indicate a genuine culture of trust in the change leaders’ environment. That environment is not something that an individual manager can create. It must be permitted and enabled throughout the company; rooted in the company and actively promoted. Chapter VI discusses how the right environment can be fostered.

The purposefully open statement ‘The individual experience of change is the priority’ explored a new aspect. You

could also phrase the statement as a question: Do all employees in your company feel they are being involved in the change process? Change control-lers and change managers responded with a rueful shake of the head – the item comes second-last for those two groups. From the change leaders, there was greater agreement with the statement: it was rated eleventh, roughly in the middle, with an average of 3.28. Just to be clear: a sense of personal involvement is a response to recognition by others. This does not, however, automatically imply that those affected have a positive experience of the change.

RESOURCES

We were particularly interested in re-sponses to the following statement, as they would enable us to draw direct conclusions about the environment in which change was to be implemented: ‘Practising new behaviours and testing are key objectives of change manage-ment.’ The majority of change leaders said ‘yes’, and the average agreement from change leaders was 3.61 out of 5. Change controllers were less in agree-ment (3.35). The lowest rate of agree-ment was from respondents who clearly had a change manager in charge of change: a score of 2.0, and 11th out of 20.

The statement is a complex one. A high rate of agreement indicates that the change project has been allowed time and therefore also money and freedom to experiment, and that there is a tolerance for mistakes. All studies on transformation show that where these resources are lacking, change projects are at a disadvantage from the outset.

The budget is a factor that should not be underestimated, but it is far from the only important aspect. Having

Doing it right from the start § Change management is often not recognised as a lever for change

until something has gone wrong. By this stage, as our study clearly shows, its effect is limited. Bringing the project back on track is much harder that setting the right course from the start.

§ This is not a new discovery. What makes it so difficult to put it into practice?

§ Is it the limited budget?

§ Is the lack of knowledge?

§ Is it because the change experts do not talk to the decision-makers often enough?

§ Or because they are too seldom included in the strategy process?

§ Or not taken seriously?

§ Or…?

Why not join in the dialogue and tell us what weak points you have found: www.de.capgemini-consulting.com/change-2015

48

qualified, motivated, open-minded and quick-thinking staff at the critical inter-faces between old and new is at least as important. As is time. Time to pause, to reflect and to question and criticise. And freedom to stop when you need to, to review what has been achieved so far. To ask: are we on the right track?

The change maker in particular must constantly consider and reconsider the situation. Have I involved the right peo-ple? Have I involved them in the right way; employed them in the right plac-es? Would they perhaps be better em-ployed elsewhere? What do employees need during and from the change? Where are the change advocates in the team and in the organisation, and where does the opposition lie? What resistance can I expect from which quarters? And last but not least: what have I achieved so far; what have I done right, what has gone wrong, where are the sticking points, and what can I learn from them? What kind of

manager am I, and what kind of man-ager do I want to be?

We wanted to know our change mak-ers’ overall assessment of the available resources in their organisations. ‘Just right’ responded half of all change leaders, but only one in five change managers (19 %) and even fewer change controllers (13 %) (Fig. 30). One in every four change leaders also rated the current resources available as ‘somewhat too little’, and 22 percent of change managers and 13 percent of change controllers agreed. Three quar-ters of change controllers found that ‘too little’ resources were provided. This view was taken by over half of the change managers (52 %), but only ev-ery fifth change leader (22 %).

SUCCESS: CAUSE OR EFFECT?

It is striking that those change makers who best succeed in implementing change express the greatest satisfac-tion with the level of resources. We cannot judge whether change leaders really have access to more resources,

or whether they simply use them better.

The important part played by resourc-es is also clear from the question about the five most important measures tak-en to help managers expand their change management competencies. Over one third of change managers and half of all change controllers passed on this question, selecting ‘No special measures’ (Fig. 31). Surely it is not an over-interpretation of the results to suggest that there is a direct link between success and support with professional development.

Well over half of change leaders, 58 percent, are sent to team development workshops or training, but the figure for change controllers is just 38 per-cent. For change managers, these measures are not among the top five; top-down information is more wide-spread. ‘Special communication events for executives’ came top for change managers, but only second for change leaders and change controllers.



Fig. 30: Did you find the resources (budget, staff, etc.) provided by your company reasonable?

1. More than what was needed 2. Just right 3. Somewhat too little 4. Too little

13

13

75

19

22

73

52

50

25

22

5. No resources were provided


49

In the group of change leaders, 53 percent are trained to reflect on their role in the change process (statement ranked 3rd). Whilst this figure was only 37 percent for the change managers, they nevertheless rated the importance of the measure highly (ranked 2nd). Only one in four change controllers (25 %) found the measure important (ranked 4th). Support in developing their change management competen-cies is provided to 42 percent of change leaders and 26 percent change managers. Change controllers do not receive support.

The conclusion on this point is that comprehensive change management must consider roles, structures and processes, and ensure that they are clearly defined and that the people in the organisation have the framework that they need. In other words, change

management is not solely about the right leadership style and about keep-ing employees on board. Organisa-tional development is at least as important.

Competency in this area can be sys-tematically developed if suitable mea-sures are offered and requested! If a change project is to have a high chance of succeeding, workshops, training courses and coaching should be provided for team development and to improve managers’ ability to reflect. That is not simply our recommenda-tion, but the response of the change makers we surveyed.

BE CAREFUL WHOM YOU TRUST: ATTENTION MANAGEMENT

Part of the environment of the suc-cessful change leader is lastly but cer-tainly not least the acceptance of and complete support for the change proj-ect from top management.

Yet how can you tell whether a trans-formation has genuinely met with ‘in-ner’ acceptance? In our previous study in 2012, we found that top manage-ment’s willingness to change was rated much higher (70 percent rated it as very high or high) than their change competencies (this varied depending on the level of management between 21 and 57 percent for very high or high). This year, we also asked respon-dents to rate the personal change competencies and willingness to


Workshops/training measures for team development

Special communication event for executives

Workshops/training measures for executives to reflect on their role in

the change process

Training measures for relevant specialised topics

Workshops/training measures about change management/

dealing with changes



the change process

No special measures

Workshops/training measures about change management/

dealing with changes

Enabling activities for the role as change agent/multiplier

No special measures


Workshops/training measures for team development


the change process

Training measures for relevant specialised topics



42

44

53

56

58

25

38

38

50

25

26

26

37

37

52

Fig. 31: What measures were taken to support the involved executives before or during the latest change project in expanding their change management competencies?

50

change on the part of those managers responsible for the change on a scale of 1 (‘very low’) to 5 (‘very high’). Change leaders gave the highest scores in the two categories and change controllers the lowest.

The change competencies of top man-agers are rated at 3.3 by change lead-ers and 3.2 by change managers, but at just 1.8 by change controllers (Fig. 32). A comparable spread can be found for the aspect of willingness to change: 3.6 (change leaders), 3.4 (change managers) and 2.0 (change controllers) (Fig. 33). Middle manage-ment is rated equally well by leaders and managers (3.0). Change control-lers give the middle managers their highest rating (2.5).

It is also significant that the lower level of management receives a relatively high rating from change leaders for change competencies (2.9) and for willingness to change (3.0). Change managers awarded significantly poorer ratings here of 2.4 and 2.6 respectively. Change controllers were even more critical with ratings of 2.1 and 2.0.

The most striking result was from the change controllers. On the two criteria of change competencies and willing-ness to change, they clearly rate the upper level of management lower than the staff who report to that manage-ment. You could take this in two ways: you could complain that the project team does not feel it has enough sup-port from the top. You could also wel-come the fact that the ‘dead weight’ of middle management has been by-passed at least in those companies that see globalisation and digitalisation as an opportunity rather than a threat. Chapter VI sets out how you can es-tablish whether your organisation is one of those companies.

3.37

2.97

3.09

3.22

2.44

3.00

1.88

2.13

2.55


Management and senior executives

Middle management

Lower management (e.g. team lead, group lead, etc.)



Fig. 32: How do you assess the individual change competencies of your executives?

3.59

3.00

3.14

3.41

2.59

2.89

2.00

2.00

2.63


Management and senior executives

Middle management

Lower management (e.g. team lead, group lead, etc.)



Fig. 33: How do you assess the individual willingness to change of your executives?


51

What if our interviewees had spoken to each other rather than to us? We have put together the key statements and views to create an imagined discussion. It makes for interesting reading, and is a useful illustration of the study findings.

The expert interviewees:Prof. Claudia Peus Technische Universität München

Prof. Thorsten Petry Hochschule RheinMain

Prof. Georg Schreyögg Freie Universität Berlin

Prof. Omid Aschari Universität St. Gallen

Prof. Thomas Steger Universität Regensburg

Prof. Uta Wilkens Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Prof. Jens Rowold

Technische Universität Dortmund

In your opinion, what defines a good change leader in this mod-ern, digital age? What character-istics and behaviour are useful?

Claudia Peus: ‘Fundamentally, the so-called “big five” personality traits alone are good indicators of success-ful management style in particular. An open attitude to the new, extraversion and conscientiousness are the most important features of a good man-ager. Great conscientiousness is, however, more a feature of a good specialist. Another aspect of decisive importance to managers in all areas is integrity. As regards behaviour, it is particularly important to communicate well and to take a fair and participa-tory approach.’

Georg Schreyögg: ‘A change leader should give his staff stability and sup-port, deal with them openly and transparently, act in accordance with corporate and ethical values, be a role model for staff, inspire their enthusi-asm, and most importantly show an interest in their work and be able to express his appreciation.’

Thorsten Petry: ‘I would take a similar view. Managers must be enablers. They must allow and foster new ideas, and also act as promoters to

drive those ideas forwards. It is im-portant for them to set an example; to approach change proactively as change leaders and keep staff on board.’

Thomas Steger: ‘There is no such thing as a “perfect” manager; every-one makes mistakes. However, there are examples of various “good man-ager” traits. For example, Steve Jobs had an innovative leadership style with flat hierarchies. Winston Churchill told people openly and honestly that things would be difficult, and his very honesty brought them on board.’

In your experience, what leader-ship style inspires employees to genuinely embrace the change?

Uta Wilkens: ‘I avoid the term “leader-ship style”, as there is no one best way. In general, however, you could say that transformational leadership is a good starting point, that means that the manager acts as a role model and inspires a sense of identity. You then have to consider the situational fac-tors: change processes in engineering firms, for example, are very different from those in universities. The contex-tual factors must be considered and a fundamental understanding of organ-isational structures is required.’

Omid Aschari: ‘I am an advocate of situational leadership. One example often cited is that of the golfer, who needs a range of different clubs de-pending on the terrain.’

The expert panel asks ‘what makes a good change leader?’

Fictitious discussion:


Thomas Steger: ‘The leadership litera-ture of the 1970s already had the meta-phor of the ‘surfer’: you cannot alter the surf, but managers must still try and stay on top of the waves, help to shape the change and respond to trends.’

Claudia Peus: ‘The solution is evi-dence-based leadership, and evidence from studies conducted does in fact point to transformational leadership.’

Jens Rowold: ‘Absolutely. In medicine, no drug is approved until it has been tested on tens of thousands of people. In the field of change management, highly scientific meta-analyses con-ducted by independent researchers around the world have shown that the behaviour that leads to long-term change commitment on the part of employees is to be found primarily in transformational leadership. Two ap-proaches in particular on the part of managers result in direct change com-mitment and long-term commitment from employees. The first is highlight-ing the vision and the second is con-ducting an environmental analysis, in other words observing how the market and conditions are changing and con-sidering where resources can be ob-tained and products marketed.’

So directive leadership should be consigned to history?

Claudia Peus: ‘Yes and no – a combi-nation of two leadership styles can often be useful, and directive leader-ship plays an important role here. This combined approach is known as “am-bidextrous leadership”. A bottom-up approach to change would start with “opening” (a participatory stage to

gather ideas); a top-down strategy largely follows the “closing” style. The latter is comparable to directive leader-ship. To retain one’s credibility in pro-cesses of permanent change, it is im-portant to make the reasons for the change transparent, and thus the long-term implications of the change fore-seeable, and to remain authentic.’

Georg Schreyögg: ‘We must also un-derstand where directive leadership comes from: in the past, the top man-agement needed to set a stricter struc-ture for managers; that structure is now defined by the organisation, by software, by statutory regulations, etc. Managers in the past also simply had to execute orders, to monitor business, to prove their commitment to their job, etc. Nowadays, they are required to provide active encouragement and to empathise with their staff.’

Our findings show that particularly effective change leaders are of-fered a wide range of opportunities by their companies to improve their leadership skills. What specifically can be done to help managers be-come good change leaders?

Jens Rowold: ‘It all starts with the se-lection. Managers are usually great in their area of specialism, but problems arise after promotion: employees have difficulties, oppose the manager, etc. Most managers do not know how to deal with this and respond with over-management and pressure. Care needs to be taken when selecting managers to ensure that they have the necessary skills and characteristics. Studies have shown that leadership and management skills are more im-portant in terms of their effect on staff

than management approaches for con-trolling and monitoring.’

Uta Wilkens: ‘Managers are not fully prepared for their role. Of course, there are management seminars and change seminars, but there is a need for more coaching and support from colleagues. The role of the change leader also re-quires experience and not just aca-demic knowledge. Advanced research does exist in the field, for example on “dynamic capabilities”, but this often cannot be implemented in practice in exactly the same way. In practice, manager development therefore needs to relate more closely to context, as change leadership can vary greatly depending on that context.’

Georg Schreyögg: ‘Coaching is an extremely useful activity. It should not just be a one-off, initial session, but rather used regularly as a manager development measure. It can be of-fered by a manager’s own superior, however in that case, a strong relation-ship of trust is needed.’

Interestingly, our study disproved the hypothesis that particularly effective change leaders are strongly driven by digital transfor-mation. In fact, it is the companies of the change controllers that are particularly influenced by digital transformation. This group, more-over, primarily consists of very large businesses. In your view, how do these findings add up?

Jens Rowold: ‘They add up quite logi-cally. Yes, digitalisation can automate management tasks, a process that is needed most by large companies. At the same time, however, leadership

53

tasks are now more important but are often pushed into the background by digitalisation. The illusion that prevails in some IT companies is that you can do everything digitally. That is not en-tirely true, but most companies do not realise this because they do not realise what the optimum is. Companies that have never experienced what effective communication and therefore the best possible employee performance and satisfaction is like do not notice that they are no more than average.’

Georg Schreyögg: ‘Exactly. The focus has for too long been solely on the manager, as if those who are to be managed are a faceless, homogenous group that simply need the “right style” or a stereotypical concept. Leadership is much more than that and is a prod-uct of the interaction between manager and employee. In large companies in particular, it is important to work with the expectations of the employees, to approach them with interest as indi-viduals, and to stand by and support them. Digital transformation is not nec-essarily making this interactive element easier.’

Thorsten Petry: ‘In my view, digital transformation is accelerating develop-ments that we are already seeing in leadership: digitalisation is leading to more open, agile and participatory communication and collaboration. Many large companies are already ad-vocating or driving forward digital transformation. The desire for change is therefore there, above all in large businesses; however – and herein lies the problem – the managers are not being well enough prepared for their new change and leadership roles.’

Omid Aschari: ‘In business, the ques-tion “Who are our managers?” demon-strates that we are still dealing with “giants” of conceptualisation and “dwarfs” of application. Change man-agement is often clear, but digital transformation is usually a blank spot on the map. It will take time to develop new managers who are fully equipped for digital transformation. Today’s man-agers may, if you like, function as the “midwifes” who bring new digital man-agers into the world.’

To close, could you give us your personal leadership motto?

Claudia Peus: ‘Value creation through appreciation. Ethical leadership is worthwhile.’

Thorsten Petry: ‘Transparency in the process, openness to other opinions, clarity in decisions and focussed implementation.’

Many thanks for talking to us.

55

V How can we make change leaders more effective?

In Chapter III, we held up a mirror, in a manner of speaking, to respondents to the 2015 Change Management Study. (Readers will doubtless also have rec-ognised some familiar aspects). We drew together all statements, observa-tions and assessments from the main players in recently completed change processes, and compared and con-trasted what conclusions, in the re-spondents’ views, could be drawn from those projects.

We were then able to define three clus-ters of change makers and sketch their profiles: § Change controllers are excellent specialists in their field. The company knows their worth. With milestones, reports and Excel, they get the project done. Like the one before, and many more after. And at some point, it works out.

§ Change managers are talented transformation organisers. They have fully understood change manage-ment at an intellectual level. Despite the fact that to them, the process poses more risks than opportunities, they can deal with this in their position.

§ Change leaders are independent and independent-minded drivers of change. They want things to change. They know that they must keep people on board throughout the process, and they are masters of the art, as they have frequently been involved in transformations in the past.

§ We can draw two significant conclu-sions from our random sample. The first is that successful change makers are to be found in each of these groups. The second is that the change leader is ultimately the type of change maker most likely to achieve a successful transformation.

§ If – and this is a categorical imperati-ve, cited implicitly and explicitly by those we surveyed and supported by our analyses –, if the change leader is operating in an environment conduci-ve to his task. We illustrated this in the examples given in the previous chapter.

IT’S THE TEAM, STUPID!

One important aspect of such an envi-ronment is the company’s manage-ment team. The team should include not just the visionary and the sponsor of the change – who can, but does not have to be the CEO – but also and above all those decision-makers whose judgement the change leaders particularly value. Ideally, managers of the change manager and change con-troller type should be working on the team alongside the driver of transfor-mation, the change leader. One has a clear view of results, the other of struc-tures and processes; together, they broaden the team’s perspective. Change managers and change con-trollers can play the important part of critical sparring partner, intellectual challenger and supportive promoter for the change leader. Such a constella-tion, such a team, is what can create the amazingly inspiring group dynam-ics that send expectations of actual success skyrocketing.

On the subject of roles, change man-agers and change controllers are to be found in almost all businesses. Can you, on the other hand, off the top of your head name a manager, a col-league, who is made to be a change leader? No? In that case, he may still be ‘swimming’ in your talent pool. Get him out of there as soon as possible and into the open sea. Give him a life-jacket just in case, but let him test him-self on field sales projects, in foreign branches or in change projects at sub-sidiary firms.

Experienced managers also need op-portunities to develop their change expertise. Kai Diekmann, no less a person than the editor-in-chief of the BILD newspaper, spent several months at an IT company in Silicon Valley learning about the challenges to be faced by a traditional publishing house in the digital age and about the difficult journey ahead. Our study strikingly demonstrates the importance of practi-cal experience in the planning and im-plementation of change projects (see page 27).

56

COMPANY EXPECTATIONS MUST CORRESPOND TO CHANGE LEADER EXPECTATIONS

No matter how much hope they invest in fresh young talent, companies would be ill-advised to simply arbitrarily as-sign a manager the role of top change maker. More than one impatient candi-date would doubtless be happy to oblige. However, our analysis suggests that such an approach would tend to produce change managers and change controllers. Change leaders, those we actually want, would most probably decline such an offer. Unless, of course, they were already burning with enthusiasm for the task in which case, they would already have come to our attention.

Of course, a company can and indeed must make the change leader aware of its expectations. Perhaps along these lines: ‘We’re not going to dictate the detail, but we expect you to define your role in the change process yourself, and that in clear and logical terms.’ This suits the change leader, as he knows how important it is to ensure clarity on roles. The same applies to relations with his staff, with whom he discusses and agrees what is to be done and how. The definition of roles is an important tool in classic organisa-tional development. Highly effective change leaders know from experience that unclear responsibilities constitute critical weaknesses in change projects. Change leaders set out clear basic principles: what aspects have been fixed and cannot now be defined, and where can staff still give their input?

PROMOTING COMPETENCIES: ABLE AND ALLOWED TO DO MORE

Changing the organisation’s direction from status quo to target focus re-quires the virtuosic use of skills that a change leader cannot learn at univer-sity. This is where strategic staff devel-opment comes into play. Many compa-nies already accept that this is something they need to offer, yet man-ager development is usually limited to agreeing or more frequently setting targets and performance measure-ment, plus measures to deal with prob-lems: communication, team develop-ment, conflict management and dealing with uncertainty. All these steps are useful and important, but they only improve the effectiveness of the change leader by degrees. Devel-oping individual strengths can lead to greater and more rapid progress; how-ever, individual strengths must first be recognised before they can be built up to the level of a master. Regular as-sessments can be a useful tool for per-sonal development and career plan-ning within the company. This is the only way to ensure that managers can be selected for specific tasks in line with their abilities.

Knowledge of tools and methods is only ‘half the story’ when it comes to getting change on track, as any human resource development expert will con-firm. In the previous chapter, we looked in detail at the personality of the change leader to highlight the impor-tance of role identity and the ability to reflect. Human resource development, which sees itself as supporting change management, must further develop existing potential along with the busi-ness, of course. HR processes should enable discussions on targets and use-ful measures with the individual depart-ments. The aim here is not to give

business the priority in HR develop-ment. Instead, it is to work on the basis of both parties’ understanding that the sole focus must be to improve the ef-fectiveness of the change leader.

As our study has shown (see Chapter IV, p. 42), companies that produce change leaders know that they need to support and develop their entire man-agement team. After all, a manager must develop the qualities of a change leader and that takes time. The sooner the lower level of management is given the opportunity to reflect on their roles and explicitly take on an active function in the change process, the greater the likelihood of those managers becoming change leaders.

If a company is to meet the challenge of change, high potentials must learn to become and if possible be taught by masters of the art. We recommend en-gaging a seasoned change maker to act as the change leader’s ally, mentor or coach. This change maker could also be an outsider, as the high proportion of external experts among change leaders indicates. The key criterion is practical expertise in bringing about change, the longer the better, and in as many differ-ent forms as possible. These can in-clude failures that have been reflected upon and internally dealt with.

Our study shows that change leaders are familiar with the methodology. A mentor can communicate that knowl-edge, but this should not be his pri-mary task. A much more effective role is talking through change projects from the excellent to the so-so and the com-plete disaster; discussions should also examine the role that the change mak-er played in those projects. Was he happy with his role? With what was he dissatisfied? What needs to change? How? Who is to change what and by when?


57

A lot can be learned from case studies in which the instructor held a respon-sible role. For example, how to achieve useful findings from the meta-level and apply these to a current project or fu-ture activities. This includes being able to detect patterns – now a core com-petency for every professional change maker. What can I conclude from cer-tain things that go well or badly in mul-tiple projects? Is such a generalisation actually admissible? Or absolutely es-sential? In what circumstances could what happened here also happen there? What underlying conditions must change to achieve a positive change in results?

Plausible responses will only be found by those who are prepared (and who are granted the freedom, see Chapters IV and VI) to take a step beyond and away from daily business, and look at the project as if from the outside. Re-flection skills, as the analysis of suc-cessful change leaders also clearly shows, are one of the most important personal qualities in change manage-ment. The good thing is that these skills can be practised to great effect. Together with his mentor, or even bet-ter with his colleagues in the manage-ment, the change leader should dis-cuss the current status of and his role in the project. What should his role be? What is it in reality? How can he get back on track? Or does the ‘track’, do the targets, need to be redefined? Dia-logue helps change makers to estab-lish where they stand and where they want to be in the team, in the project and in the process.

Profiling the strengths of the managers and change agents positioned at key points in the change serves the same goal, and helps to organise change. The core question is: who is particularly good at what? Surprise: the answer often opens up new options and resolves a

number of problems. ‘The door of op-portunity won’t open unless you do some pushing.’

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU?

What the change leader can do him-self, but where he should also receive support from the organisation, is to keep his knowledge of change man-agement theory up to date. Our study shows that he has that knowledge, but only the best is good enough. So what if he could show his team the way even more effectively thanks to coaching training? Would a dedicated network structure be useful for the change proj-ect, with a separate social network with all the technical gimmicks that today’s digital natives find essential? Change leaders love thinking laterally, and if they get the go-ahead from the top, all the better.

The digital era and that era’s genera-tion Y are also demanding new leader-ship qualities. Employees determined to participate and share in the growing sharing economy plan, decide and manage differently in the digital age than was the case in the old industrial and declining service economy. Flat hierarchies and fluid structures are consigning linearity and rigidity to yes-terday’s world. Technological develop-ments are bending rigid decision-mak-ing trees in the wind of change. The first management apps are already being developed. Ask your change leader whether he feels ready for the challenges of digital transformation. But don’t just ask what he can do for the organisation. Also ask what you can do for him.

59

VI How can organisations become more change-friendly?

In art, the star is clearer the darker the backdrop. With the spotlight on the leading lady, the rest of the cast fades into the background; her surroundings become insignificant. In nature, how-ever, even the smallest of interactions between the leader and the led can be of enormous significance and changes in human communities are always ‘or-ganic’. A change leader has an im-mensely important role in change proj-ects; there is no doubt about that. To be effective, however, he needs an environment that reacts positively and is able to change. ‘I can’ and ‘I want to’ are the conditions required for change to succeed. Yet to complete that change, there must also be a degree of ‘I may’.

THE RIGHT PERSON IN THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT

‘May’ requires permission or at least no interference. These are aspects that relate to the very DNA of the company. To its goals, structures, business mod-els, guidelines, incentive systems and processes; to the culture, values, at-titudes, focuses, convictions and con-ditions on which there is more or less unspoken agreement. The change leader must be able to act anticipa-tively on both levels if the company is to change. The influence of the various layers of the company structure on leadership and on the way in which decision-making processes are initi-ated is undisputed. They have no less an effect on the achievement of a planned transformation, or at least that is what this study indicates.

The term ‘culture’ is currently experi-encing something of a comeback in business. Not necessarily because greater worth is now placed on values in interpersonal relationships, but rath-er because, firstly, the world of work is undergoing demographic change. We can see clear evidence of this in em-ployer branding, which now centres on the values of the employer. Secondly, more rapid digitalisation is bringing changes to society. Technology is breaking down the barriers of geogra-phy, culture and habit. We are at the start of an information revolution that will change our established methods of managing and doing business more radically that we can currently conceive.

Nonetheless, even the digital leaders of the present still move in quite earthly spheres. Spheres with rigid structures and antiquated business models, with processes in need of improvement and goals that are laughingly known inter-nally as ‘moving targets’ and which no-one therefore makes a serious at-tempt to meet. At each company, you can also find indicators of the specific corporate culture. It does not matter what precise term is used for the cul-ture or corporate culture. The organisa-tion may be seeking a family image (IKEA) or to create a company ‘person-ality’, or may already be promoting the general use of first names as proof of a break with hierarchical structures and evidence of a strong and healthy cor-porate culture.

A company’s specific corporate culture is the framework in which change management can be more or less suc-cessful. More, when the boundaries are flexible and allow for the specific demands of transformation. Less, when they lack resilience and suffocate the will for change for example when change controllers put down the change leaders with the killer argument ‘We can’t do that’. Or when, with all the assurance of their specific expertise, change managers argue that you can-not question what so much time and effort has achieved as this would upset the staff. The typical change leader will respond ‘And?’, and point out that it would be useful. It is a shame when this argument is dismissed, for ulti-mately, it is the only one that matters in change processes.

60

One aspect explored in the next chap-ter is worth mentioning here: thinking and acting within strict boundaries is increasingly untenable in a world shaped by VUCA (Volatility, Uncer-tainty, Complexity and Ambiguity). Net-works and fluid structures demand new methods of leadership and deci-sion-making. The American organisa-tional theorist James March sees lead-ership as a skilful combination of ‘exploitation’ and ‘exploration’. Exploi-tation is the efficient use of existing resources, and exploration is the reso-lution of complex questions and in-novation design. Exploration is set to become increasingly important.

THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE CROWD MAKES TOP-DOWN OBSOLETE

Organisations must share their knowl-edge if they are to participate in and benefit from the global network culture. The social media, generally seen as a major challenge, can in fact make this process easier: they help to break through the boundaries and limits born of routine. The openness of digital na-tives in their forums makes initiatives, ideas and information accessible to a crowd, whose wisdom and intelligence must then be harnessed. We should assume that the feedback received by a blogger on the Web raises him more in the eyes of his readers than does his position in the company hierarchy. For generation Y, peer recognition is more important than that of supposed authority.

Many older managers may have dif-ficulty getting used to the free thinking of the next generation. However, the new organisation must and should be better at embracing change. Why? One reason is that it is under daily pressure to change. But that is nothing new. Markets have always constantly demanded new products, processes and innovative services. Experiencing pressure is therefore only the first part of the equation. The second is digital transformation. Digital transformation is revolutionising the micro-economy, and rewriting the macroeconomic rule book in the process. A third factor is that corporate culture will only be sustain-able if it allows contradictory objectives where that serves the interests of the organisation as a whole. Ever more flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity are now expected of management, yet this demand is often at variance with actual


61

practice in the company, in particular in transformations.

In many organisations, changes are initiated top-down because this is sup-posedly easier and faster. The appro-priateness of this approach is too rarely questioned, and we believe this is a conceptual error. A CEO is seldom the first to realise the need for a change. Best practice rules – for as long as possible.

WHO CHANGES FIRST?

But wait a minute: is this a chicken and egg situation? The organisation needs to change; the managers need to change. Who first? Willms Buhse is internationally regarded as a pioneer of the digital elite. He is clear about the cause and effect mechanism. ‘Manag-ers must learn to change themselves before they can sustainably change their company’ (Buhse, W., 2012, p. 238). Managers should demonstrate and communicate the transparency and error tolerance that they require of their environment and of others. We noted back in 2010 what else is need-ed. ‘One core element of changeability is trust in the competence of others’ (cf. Capgemini Consulting, Change Management Studie 2010, p. 34).

The signs of the times are for change, including in management culture. Command and control are losing their force, and the vacuum they leave can only be filled with trust and manage-ment attention.

Courage and confidence are required to voluntarily relinquish control. At the same time, letting go is also a sign of personal strength. Those who dare to trust others, who give others freedom to act, are necessarily able to tolerate mistakes both their own and those of others. We see an error culture as

synonymous with a culture of trust. A changeable organisation will con-sciously accept the possibility of errors, for errors are nothing less than the necessary price of learning. The ability to learn is in turn one of the most im-portant organisational characteristics in today’s world.

To conclude, let us return briefly to the issue of resources. Resources must be available, there is no question about that (see Chapter IV). However, we must be realistic: there is never enough money, no matter how large the bud-get is, and the timescale is always tight. Ninety-nine percent of change process project managers surveyed by Kienbaum wanted above all more time. Fifty-five percent said that they never had enough time (cf. Kienbaum Man-agement Consultants, Change-Man-agement-Studie 2011-2012, p. 15f.). A generous budget can lead to extrava-gance, and a generous timescale to a lack of prioritisation. This is not a call for strict asceticism; it is merely an appeal to common sense.

63

Many agree with the bestselling author Reinhard K. Sprenger that the role of the change leader is to make himself surplus to requirements by implement-ing change management in the organisation.

Does the opposite perhaps apply? Would we no longer need change management if we just had enough change leaders?

Change leaders may follow Sprenger’s methodology, but they are first and foremost managers and only occasion-ally full-time change makers. They are committed to change management, identified by change management and given a firm status in dealings with the organisation. As always with defiant young talent, the change leader con-vinced he is on the right track does not care about where he started. He does his thing, and if he does it well, he is applauded, gives lectures and writes blogs and books about how to plan and implement change. His methods are praised, read and copied just like those of hundreds of other change leaders. There is an advantage to this, besides the supposed copy & paste benefits. Once there are enough suc-cessful approaches on the market, no one will need to worry about the further development of change management methods and theories: we will know how it works.

Would that signal the end of change management as a discipline in its own right?

The problem is, however, that each transformation is unique. There are just as few magic formula as there are model organisations and model chal-lenges. The solution is an open source environment in which you can carefully explore the ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ to reach reliable findings. Findings that are ac-curate enough to warn change makers against serious mistakes, and flexible enough to offer a guide for a whole range of challenges. If it takes root in such fertile ground, change manage-ment has a genuine chance of survival.

WRITE-OFFS LAST LONGER

Change management is also useful as a conceptual and methodological framework for targeted change be-cause companies are constantly faced with new situations. Nothing and no-one can guarantee that instructions effective in one case will be useful in another. Change management enables abstract evaluation, highlighting con-nections that are hard to recognise from the outside. It can prevent mis-takes that are otherwise overlooked or accepted because of the ambitious target or rapid pace, and later bitterly regretted. Change management lies like a safety net over all the potential pitfalls of a change project.

We believe that this legitimises change management as a separate discipline. Change leaders should make it their task to defend that legitimacy.

But what will become of change man-agement as we know it? Strong and opposing forces already operate in current, everyday management prac-tice: hierarchy against participation, knowledge for the sake of control against the wisdom of the crowd, di-rection against dialogue, status against competence, benchmarking against spontaneity. If we look to the future, to management of change in five to ten years’ time, which way will the pendu-lum swing? ‘Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future’ (said Karl Valentin, Mark Twain, Niels Bohr or perhaps someone else; even that is unclear). We will take that risk.

We do not view change management as a fad, subject as fads are to the product life cycle. We do not see change management being rejected or scaled down. In response to the open questions ‘What would happen if there was no change management? How would change projects in your com-pany look then?’ One of the profes-sionals we asked responded ‘Like ten years ago: uncoordinated, untranspar-ent, unsupported, purely top-down, poorly communicated…’ Most re-sponses were similar. One respondent even noted that ‘[the] question is illogi-cal, the two are identical. Change proj-ects involve change management.’ Another respondent, however, had no concerns about the prospects of change project success without dedi-cated management. ‘A great deal of change expertise has been built up over recent years, and many aspects of change processes now run without explicit change management.’ This

VII Prospects: how is change manage-ment changing?

64

expertise will not be lost. It has already been shared.

Let us leave the professionals for a moment and look at change manage-ment from the outsider’s perspective. We believe that, as a discipline, it must become more strategic and move away from its fixed belief in tools. The role of change management is to de-velop new architectures and method-ologies that reflect its comprehensive approach. At the same time, it must speed up: shorter cycles are making change planning increasingly iterative – a company moves from here to there, and then reviews prospects and prog-ress. This requires a massive rethink on the part of change experts.

DEALING WITH CHANGE STARTS IN YOUR HEAD

Time for that rethink is limited. The win-dows available to companies to refo-cus are visibly shrinking, and the prob-lem is exacerbated by the fact that change is still often used simply as a more or less spontaneous spot repair on the grounds that ‘something must be done’. A company installs tools and expects improvements. Rightly so, of course. Yet change from this perspec-tive is backward-looking. The company is only thinking about change once change has become necessary. And that is too late.

We are convinced that transformations must be forward-looking and have a long-term effect. An integral part of change management must therefore be to anticipate all foreseeable change drivers. But that in itself is still not enough. Change requires an environ-ment that allows and fosters change.

The greatest challenge is not even rec-ognising change drivers and managing the change itself. It is in fact to make

the company as a whole able to change, and maintaining that ability in the long term. The aim is ‘to create a fundamentally changeable organisation and not the specific design of the change in a specific situation’, as we wrote back in 2010 (Capgemini Con-sulting, Change Management Studie 2010, p. 41). We stand by that asser-tion, but now see that change also demands a great deal of energy. Enough time must be allowed to en-sure that the managers are not swept away by the hectic pace of work. The organisation must give them the breathing space they need. ‘Build a change platform, not a change pro-gram’, agree Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini (2014, p. 1).

THE TRAVEL GUIDE IS THE CHANGE LEADER; CHANGE MANAGEMENT SETS THE ROUTE

One thing is clear: the task of manag-ing change is becoming increasingly difficult. We can see that change man-agement is now part of everyday busi-ness operations, but it is not always activated at the right time, namely right at the start of the process. Far too of-ten, change management is not initi-ated until things are already underway. It can then change the pace, but can no longer alter the direction. We are firmly convinced that the story and the architecture – and the construction manager – must be clear from the very beginning.

Even heading out for roadshows with just a well-equipped toolbox is no lon-ger enough. Companies need pro-found knowledge, born of experience, as to what is possible and what is not. This means that they must devote more energy than before to the choice of change leaders. Manager develop-ment is the right basis for such a


65

choice. For recruitment to become an integral aspect of change manage-ment, the competent professionals need the internal standing (‘may’) and the skills (‘can’) to engage with the de-cision-makers in a discussion on the right change leaders.

Will external supervision or mentoring become the new state-of-the-art meth-od for management in change pro-cesses? A number of indicators sug-gest that this is so. And some that change management is becoming more influential within companies as an established discipline. If change lead-ers are involved from the outset, they are more likely to reflect on their role and appear when and where they are needed. All other parties involved in the change are also more likely to share this view. Requiring and ensuring a

clear definition of roles is an essential part of change management.

Change management is becoming more visible. The value placed on and power of change management is in-creasing up the company hierarchy to the top management. The greater con-fidence that this engenders in change leaders must be accepted at the man-agement level. On the basis of a work-ing partnership. For the sake of the desired results. In short, by a ‘superteam’.

The group of people designated in this study as change leaders is composed largely of change architects. They have been given and taken the opportunity to influence the planning and imple-mentation of transformation right from the drawing board. Top management has given them carte blanche, and

ultimately reaped the rewards of its calculated risk acceptance. We see this choice of ‘travel guide’ as highly promising. The detailed route is pro-vided by change management.

BON VOYAGE!

At a ‘changeable’ com-pany: a typical scenario § Change is implemented on a

forward-looking basis and correctly approached from the outset. All managers are fully aware that half-heartedly planned and implemented projects will inevitably lead to setbacks or failures.

§ Reasonable resources are available for the change proj-ect: time, budget, personnel, expertise and tools and breathing spaces for the man-agers so that they can recover from their tiring change work, review progress and draw breath for the next stage of the journey. Successful milestones

are celebrated with the team.

§ Small ‘change incubators’ are created within the organisa-tion. These internal start-ups are given the time to test and prove themselves, and are then rolled out for the organ-isation as a whole. The culture of large businesses in particu-lar could benefit from creating such protected niches for cre-ativity. Harking back to a long-forgotten, family-based entrepreneurial culture, this would create the nucleus of a dynamic culture of change.

§ The top level of the organisa-tion gives the change leader freedom. It allows him to pro-ceed gradually and with the

results still open. Projects include enough time for an ideation phase.

§ Top management departs from the notion that strict con-trol is essential to success in transformation processes.

66

§ Abrell, C., Rowold. J., Weibler, J., Moenninghoff, M. (2011) Evaluation of a Long-term Transformational Leadership Development Program. In: Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 25(3), 2011, pp. 205-224

§ Barker, J. (2014) www.joelbarker.com

§ Boucher Ferguson, R. (2013) Big Data and Big Change Management: A Path Forward. In: MIT Sloan Management Review, Blog, May 17, 2013

§ Buhse, W. (2012) Changing the Mindset: Die Bedeutung des Digital Leadership für die Enterprise 2.0-Strategieentwicklung

§ Brunsson, N. (2003) The Organiza-tion of Hypocrisy: Talk, Decisions and Actions in Organisations. 2. Aufl. Kopenhagen 2003

§ Capgemini Ernst & Young (2003) Change Management 2003 – Bedeu-tung, Strategien, Trends

§ Capgemini (2005) Veränderungen erfolgreich gestalten. Change Management 2005 – Bedeutung, Strategien, Trends

§ Capgemini Consulting (2008) Business Transformation – Veränder-ungen erfolgreich gestalten. Change Management Studie 2008

§ Capgemini Consulting (2010) Business Transformation – Veränder-ungen erfolgreich gestalten. Change Management Studie 2010

§ Capgemini Consulting (2012) Digitale Revolution. Ist Change Management mutig genug für die Zukunft? Change Management Studie 2012

§ Deloitte (2012) Mergers & Acquisi-tions im Mittelstand. Studienserie „Erfolgsfaktoren im Mittelstand“

§ Doppler, K., Lauterburg, C. (2014) Change-Management: den Unterne-hmenswandel gestalten. 13. Auflage 2014

§ Ernst & Young (2014) Global Capital Confidence Barometer, October 2014

§ Groth, T. (2006) Entscheiden im Zeitalter der Globalisierung – Acht-samkeit statt Fassadenbau. Hernsteiner 3, 2006

§ Hamel, G., Zanini, M. (2014) Build a change platform, not a change program. October 2014

§ HayGroup (2007) Dangerous Liaisons: The integration game

§ Kienbaum Management Consul-tants (2011) Change. Points of View. Change-Management-Studie 2011-2012

§ KPMG (1999) Unlocking Shareholder Value: The Keys to Success. Mergers & Acquisitions – A Global Research Report 1999

§ Kruse, P. (2014a) Zukunft der Führung: kompetent, kollektiv oder katastrophal? Paper at ZUKUNFT PERSONAL in Cologne, October 2014

§ Kruse, P. (2014b) http://zukunftskon-gress2014.com/interview-mit-prof-dr-peter-kruse-nextpractice-gmbh/

§ Lotter, W. (2014) Wird schon schiefgehen. In: BRANDEINS, 16. Jahrgang, Heft 11 November 2014, pp. 34-45

§ Luhmann, N. (2000) Organisation und Entscheidung. 2000

§ March, J.G. (1991) Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning. In: Organization Science, Vol. 2 No. 1, February 1991, p. 71ff.

§ McKenna, S., Simon, P., Ranade, V., Weerda, K. (2013) The dichotomy of growth and stagnation – organiz-ing for success in a divided world. McKinsey& Company Consumer Report December 2013

§ Mercuri Urval (2012) Change & Productivity in Europe. Die Ergeb-nisse der Insight-Studie 2012

§ Roland Berger Strategy Consul-tants (2014) The Strategist’s Change. How successful CSOs transform their companies – Key finding of the Chief Strategy Officer Survey 2014

§ Romhardt, K. (2013) Müheloses Management durch Achtsamkeit oder was Change Manager vom Buddhismus lernen können. Ein Gespräch mit K. Romhardt, Organ-isationsentwicklung Nr. 2, 2013

Bibliography


Dr. Ursula Bohn Claudia Crummenerl Felizitas Graeber

Our thanks to the entire project team:

Gesine Lüdke

Dr. Kerstin Schaefer

Torsten Schuster

Sarah Staffen

Kathrin Stock

Rita Orsolya Seebode

Other Capgemini Consulting participants:

Bernd Burkhardt

Georg Ogulin

Barbara Schaffrath

Achim Schreiber

Frank Schubert

Katja Stepping

Enquiries about the brochure:

Capgemini Deutschland GmbH Marketing

Berliner Straße 76 D-63065 Offenbach am Main

[email protected]

Study available online

www.de.capgemini-consulting.com /change-2015

Managing Consultant Change Management (Study Coordinator)

[email protected]

Principal Change Management

[email protected]

Vice President Head of Strategy & Transformation

[email protected]

The information contained in this document is proprietary. ©2015 Capgemini. All rights reserved.. Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Contact for this study and all transformation enquiries:

Dr. Ursula BohnManaging Consultant Capgemini Consulting

ursula.bohn@ capgemini.com

Claudia CrummenerlPrincipal Capgemini Consulting

claudia.crummenerl@ capgemini.com

Felizitas GraeberVice PresidentCapgemini Consulting

[email protected]

About Capgemini Consulting Capgemini Consulting is the global strategy and transformation consulting organization of the Capgemini Group, specializing in advising and supporting enterprises in significant transformation, from innovative strategy to execution and with an unstinting focus on results. With the new digital economy creating significant disruptions and opportunities, our global team of over 3,600 talented individuals work with leading companies and governments to master Digital Transformation, drawing on our understanding of the digital economy and our leadership in business transformation and organizational change.

Find out more at:

www.de. capgemini-consulting.com

About CapgeminiWith almost 145,000 people in over 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services.

The Group reported 2014 global revenues of EUR 10.573 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organization, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore®, its worldwide delivery model.

Learn more about us at

www.de. capgemini.com

superleaders or superteam? - capgemini...superleaders or superteam? predictions of any kind may be...

Documents