The Science of Successful Organizational Change:

How leaders set strategy, change behavior and create an change agile

culture

For draft chapters and release information: www.paulgibbons.net/sign-up

DRAFT – FOR EDITORIAL REVIEW

PAUL GIBBONS

Now available for pre-order online at Amazon, and Barnes & Noble

The world of change is too riddled with fads, and myths. The book offers readers a look at the latest science of behavioral change, influencing, change-agility, risk psychology, and evidence-based management.

• 300 pages• Published

by FT Press• Release

May 2015

ALL OF THE ABOVE

• Does major change fail because:– We leave it to specialists, rather than build leaders at every

level?– We educate leaders so that change is an exception, not most of

what they have to do?– We ground change leadership in wrong ideas about how people

grow, learn and change?– We emphasize change tactics at the expense of change strategy

and change agility?– We use 20th Century science, and pseudoscience, to lead 21st

Century organizations?– We ignore many ideas from outside mainstream psychology –

behavioral economics, mindfulness, choice architecture, risk psychology, and complexity/ probability theory?

Why this book?• It is a reasonable premise that increased connectivity, and faster information flows, create a more VUCA world (volatile, uncertain,

complex, ambiguous)

• The idea that businesses are “frozen” or static entities, punctuated by episodic change, is a harmful myth – this has implications for business education, and executive development

• While the 70% change-failure rate is an unhelpful myth, change still fails more often than it succeeds – change-agile organizations appear to succeed 80% of the time

• What do such businesses get right?

– Change strategy – because change tactics can rarely fix a broken change strategy

• Most of what is written about change is tactical

– Change agility (agile structures, people, processes, and culture)

• Some organizations have a deep bench of change leaders requiring less tactical change “fire-fighting”

• In change-agile businesses, major change leaves the business more able to execute rather than “change fatigued” – they are in a constant state of change readiness

– Change leadership – the new role for change leaders is more creating a change-agile organization, and less leading individual projects

– Sound change strategy in a change-agile organization removes the need for what is called change management

• Change management needs an overhaul

– Many canonical ideas are pure myth, based on disproven, or unproven psychological theories

– Many of the psychological theories that are popularized as Truth by pop psychology writers, are completely false

– The 21st century has seen major advances in understanding the human mind, its rationality and fallibility

– The human sciences, beyond psychology, have been largely ignored by the “change canon”

– Among the most promising new areas are behavioral economics, mindfulness, and the “nudge” theory

• Change leadership must evolve into a science-based craft (like surgery)– The scientific mindset (skepticism, curiosity, experimentation) is part of a change-agile organization (a business of “tinkerers”)

– Evidence-based management is in its infancy, but show great potential to transform 21st Century businesses

The book in a single diagram“V

alid

ity”

“Usefulness”

1) Make valid ideas, from academic research, useful – create tools based on science.

2) Validate (or debunk and discard) commonly used practices

CHAPTERS

INTRODUCTIONI. Failed Change – the greatest (preventable) cost to business

CHANGE AGILITYII. From Change Fragility to Change Agility

CHANGE STRATEGYIII. Governance and the Psychology of Risk

IV. Decision-making in Complex and Ambiguous Environments

V. Cognitive Biases and Failed Strategies

CHANGE TACTICSVI. Misunderstanding Human Behavior

VII. Changing Behaviors in the 21st Century

VIII. Changing Hearts and Minds in the 21st Century

CHANGE LEADERSHIPIX. Leading with Science

PAUL GIBBONS

CHAPTER 1 –FAILED CHANGE

PAUL GIBBONS

• Billion dollar failures, lack of consultant accountability, underestimating

complexity (especially social complexity)

– Business is critical to human flourishing, a force for great good, or harm –

great prosperity, or wastefulness

• 70% failure statistic = useless pseudo-science

– The SOCKS framework for analyzing change failure

• Change is a people problem and a leadership problem at every level

– Change management is too important to be left to specialists, change is too great a portion of a manager’s “day-job”

• 20 change myths that many specialists still believe

– E.g. “burning platform”, “carrots and sticks”, “benchmarking and fast-following”

• The war between “validity people” who say “there is no evidence for what you do”, and “usefulness people” who say “leave me alone, I have a job to do”

CHAPTER 2 –CHANGE FRAGILITY TO AGILITY

• VUCA

• Definitions of change-agility– Integral change model

• Agile people– Growth mindset, learning agility

• Agile cultures– Innovation, storytelling, climate behaviors

• Agile structures– Project-based business, holacracy

– Fragile and anti-fragile structures

• Agile processes– Agile ideas

– Agile learning (learning 3.0)

PAUL GIBBONS

Anti-fragile systems strengthen under stress. Ecosystems and species do this over eons. Compared to those, businesses are very fragile entities indeed.

CHAPTER 3 –RISK PSYCHOLOGY

• Change strategy and strategic coherence

• Volatility– Systematic errors people make in estimating risk

– The planning fallacy and escalation of commitment

– The deterministic fallacy

• Uncertainty– Normal distributions and abnormal events

– Pre-mortems

– Where math meets culture – risk appetite

PAUL GIBBONS

It is more important for leaders to understand the psychology of risk, than the mathematics of risk.

CHAPTER 4 –COMPLEXITY AND AMBIGUITY

• Complexity and emergence

• Simple complexity tools– The decision-making metagame

– Non-linearity and systems thinking

• Ambiguity– From data, to information, to insight, to wisdom

– 21st century analytics and big data

– The human side of analytics

– Big data and leading with science

PAUL GIBBONS

The problem of ambiguity is, today, not one of lack of information, but rather a deluge of information – as petabyte flows interact with human decision-systems.

Chapter 5 –COGNITVE BIASES

• When to trust your gut, when to trust a model

• When are all of us smarter than one of us – the wisdom and madness of crowds

• in business

• Cognitive biases - perception biases

– Overconfidence and hubris

– The halo effect

• Cognitive biases - problem solving biases

– Cause and effect fairy tales

– The is-ought fallacy

• Cognitive biases - solution choice biases

– Action biases

– Quick fixes – cost-cutting and reorganizations

– Escalation of commitment and sunk costs

PAUL GIBBONS

By understanding the limits of rationality, leaders can act like a sharpshooter correcting for wind velocity, or a yachtsman correcting for the tide.

CHAPTER 6 –MISUNDERSTANDING PEOPLE

• Folk psychology, gurus and pop psychology

– Don’t let Deepak manage your change program

• Psychological myths

– Grief cycles, learning styles, catharsis effect and other widely accepted nonsense

• Psychology – an infant science

– Psychology came late to the Scientific Revolution

• Neuroscience and neurobabble

– The fish and the brain scanner

– Early days for useful neuroscience in business

• Are psychologists making us sicker

– The happiness cult

PAUL GIBBONS

Gladwell puts the pop in pop psychology, and is revered in change management circles. Even the experts he makes famous roundly criticize his (mis-) use of science.

CHAPTER 7 –CHANGING BEHAVIORS

• Bad behaviorism – “punished by rewards”• The cognitive backlash in Psychology

– Change your insides to change your outsides• Neo-behaviorism

– Pass control of behavior to the environment• Behavioral specificity – checklists• Behavioral safety• From change agent to choice architect

– Nudging and its role in change• The mastery of habit

– Mini-habits, starting new habits, breaking bad habits• Behavioral (embodied) learning

– Beyond theoretical leadership to embodied leadership

PAUL GIBBONS

Neo-behaviorists pass control of behavior to the environment – and realize that sometimes you act your way into a new way of thinking.

CHAPTER 8 –CHANGING HEARTS AND MINDS

• Resistance– Greatly reduced in change-agile businesses

• Holistic model of resistance to change– Herd effects, ideology, habit

• From Change Management 101 to wicked messes– Most businesses would profit from solidly applying CM101, but CM101 does

not handle social complexity– Large group interventions

• Influencing with facts– The backfire effect– Lessons from science-based influencing

• The mindful leader– Mindfulness benefits– The research behind mindfulness– Mindfulness practices– Mindfulness in business

PAUL GIBBONS

If mindfulness came in pill form, drug companies would be spending billions, and I would certainly take it three times a day.

CHAPTER 9 –LEADING WITH SCIENCE

• What is science

– Science, pre-science, pseudoscience, and anti-science

• Stamping out anti-science

– From anti-science to scientific mindset

• From pre-science to evidence-based management

– Types of evidence

• Leadership, foresight, and rationality

– Most cataclysmic failures were at least part failures of rationality

• Science, leadership, change, planet

• Business leadership and human flourishing

PAUL GIBBONS

Although science is not easy in complex human systems, we cannot afford to throw our hands in the air and give up. It may take decades, but it is a game worth playing and winning.

NEOLOGISMS AND NEW ADAPTATIONS FOR BUSINESS

Leadership as “science-based craft”Change backwashSOCKS (shortfall, overrun, consequences, killed, sustainability)Change mythologyChange portfolio managementStrategic coherenceEpisodic changeProject based businessesVUCA and change managementDecision-making metagameCognitive biases affecting change strategyKiller cognitive biases questionsConfidence without competenceExtended rationalityHubris and leadershipPop leadershipPsychomythsFolk psychology in business

NeurobabbleNeo-behaviorismBad behaviorismMini-habitsBehavioral commitmentFrom change manager to choice architectHolistic model of resistance to changeGrowth culturesPsychologizing changeFour Ds of resistanceSacrifice “power over”, for “power to”Wicked (social) messesFact-based influencing and backfireMindful leadership21st century leadershipThird plane of leadership development –BE, DO, and “Foresight”Scientific leadershipThe human side of analytics

PAUL GIBBONS

New ideas for change experts

• SOCKS framework for analyzing change failure

• The psychology of risk – the implications of a probabilistic worldview (black swans, extremistan)

• The sixteen most important cognitive biases affecting change and their effect on decision-making and facilitation

• Neo-behaviorist approaches – choice architecture

• Change agility – learning 3.0, agile structures

• Habits, herd-effects, ideology and change resistance

• Trusting guts versus trusting models – the pitfalls of intuition

• 20 change myths that most people still believe (burning platforms, “business as usual”, Lewin, benchmarking, engagement, etc)

• Psychological myths (e.g. learning styles, the catharsis hypothesis, and grief cycle)

• The backfire effect, and new strategies for fact-based influencing

• New organizational models, including project-based businesses and holacracy

• The integral change model

• Embodied learning

• Research on mindfulness and its place in 21st century businesses

• Integral change model

New ideas for executivesNote: A few of these are topics are well-known by expert change practitioners, but much less known in the executive community.

• Decision-making under complexity – the decision-making metagame

• Understanding complexity and emergence

• Strategic coherence is more important than strategic excellence

• Change leadership needs to evolve from leading programs to creating change-agile organizations

• Change leadership at every level will remove most of the need for change management

• When are all of us really smarter than one of us?

• The deterministic fallacy, and the probabilistic nature of change

• Trusting your gut versus trusting a model – the power and limits of intuition

• The planning fallacy, escalation of commitment, and change risk

• Systems thinking, systems archetypes, causal loop diagrams and how they solve the problems of dynamic complexity

• Large-group interventions and how the solve the problems of social complexity

• The myths and dangers of coercive (behaviorist) behavioral change

• The importance of behavioral specificity in leading change

• The difference between neuroscience and neurobabble

• How pseudo-science and anti-science can be replaced by the scientific mindset and evidence-based management

The author

• Brand: Science/ philosophy and business strategy and leadership

• Early career: Scientist, programmer, derivatives trader

• Consulting internationally, to worlds top-25 corporations for 22 years

• Part-time lecturer and researcher at major universities

• Founded, ran and sold well-established leadership boutique

• Degrees: neuroscience, organizational psychology, philosophy

• Two boys, European, living in Colorado

PAUL GIBBONS

QUOTES FOR JOURNALISTS

• When leaders talk about the next quarter, they ought to be talking about the next quarter century.

• Compared to ecosystems and some species, corporations are very fragile entities indeed.

• The notion of “business as usual” is a harmful myth

• It is time to euthanize change management

• Strategic coherence is more important than strategic perfection

• Sacrifice “power-over” to get “power-to”

• Most businesses would profit from consistently applying Change Management 101

• Leaders need to correct for cognitive biases the way a sharpshooter corrects for wind velocity or a yachtsman corrects for the tide

• Yesterday’s decision-making strategies are ill-equipped to deal with petabyte information flows

• Ambiguity, today, is not lack of data, but a deluge of data

• Green light, STOP - if you want to see where you are taking the most risk, look where you are making the most money.

• The problem is not lack of competence, it is confidence without competence

• All of us are not always smarter than one of us, leaders need to distinguish between the wisdom of crowds and the madness of crowds

PAUL GIBBONS

QUOTES FOR JOURNALISTS

• The best way to encourage out of the box thinking is to draw the box correctly in the first place

• The essence of rationality is to know when you are being irrational

• Too few leaders have the emotional fortitude to take responsibility for failure

• That which a team does not want to discuss, it most needs to discuss

• Psychological pseudoscience dies hard, especially when there are commercial interests at stake

• Creating change-agile businesses will eliminate the need for what we today call “change management”

• We need more leadership books that offer information as well as inspiration

• Pop leadership is among the most destructive forces in business

• The gap between thought and action, between belief and will, prevents us solving our most pressing individual and societal problems

• The key to behavioral change is to pass behavioral control to the environment

PAUL GIBBONS

• The “grief cycle”, for some people, may be excitement, enthusiasm, engagement, effort, and excellence

• Setting absurdly high-standards, and being unwilling to be a novice, are the joint enemies of personal progress and change

• Business is the most important institution on the planet for furthering human flourishing• Stamping out anti-science will eliminate an enormous amount of business waste• We cannot afford to have 21st Century businesses run on 20th century science, and

pseudoscience• Leadership must become like surgery, a “science-based craft”• Most change strategy models are not very strategic – change strategy is an important

lynchpin between business strategy and change tactics• Business people need to understand the psychology of risk more than the mathematics of

risk• The human side of analytics is the biggest challenge to implementing big data• The most damaging cognitive bias is overconfidence, making leaders use their “gut” when

they should be more rational

QUOTES FOR JOURNALISTS

PAUL GIBBONS

• The psychological theories that inform day-to-day business practices are comprised mostly of folk-psychology, fads, and myths

• Behaviorism was a busted flush, but neo-behaviorist theories, especially choice architecture, achieve behavioral change without coercion or the downsides of “carrots and sticks”

• Resistance to change should be a thing of the past if we could create organizations with “growth cultures”

• Mindfulness promises a great number of desirable benefits, and is based on much more solid research than many competing ideas on how to change people

• Many of the cataclysmic leadership failures were failures of rationality. The pendulum of leadership development needs to swing back toward the rational: strategy, creativity, foresight, decision-making, and analytics.

QUOTES FOR JOURNALISTS

PAUL GIBBONS