A631.6.4.RB - Transformational Strategies

General Stanley McChrystal, a West Point graduate, four-star army general and Green Beret, has a fascinating and incredible performance record of achievements including creating a revolution in warfare that integrated intelligence and operations. He is credited with leading the US and international forces in Afghanistan and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) which in 2003 captured Saddam Husein. McChrystal is respected for his candor. Some of the key points he shares and discusses in the TED.com video include what he learned about leadership over his decades in the military. How do you build a sense of shared purpose among people with many skill sets and ages? By listening and learning and addressing the possibility of failure. Some of his key points include: 1. If your people do everything you taught them to do, and they do those things properly, you led them well. People follow leaders. 2. Leaders can let you fail, and yet not let you be a failure. 3. Leaders build confidence and trust in their people. Those you are leading have to have failth and trust in the leader. Leaders have to build faith, trust and confidence. 4. In failure, the leader must reach out to his force and rebuild trust and confidence. Rebuilt confidence in the force, leader and in the seniors of the leader and the force. 5. A leader must build consensus and a sense of shared purpose with his force. 6. How does a leader stay credible and legitimate when they haven't done what the people their leading are doing? Leaders must be more transparent and willing to listen. 7. Keep your promises and live up to your obligations to subordinates, peers and superiors. Be ready to support them when they need you most. 8. A leader isn't good because he is right. They're good because their willing to learn, and to trust. If you are a leader, the people, you've counted on will help you out. If you're a leader, the people who count on you need you on your feet. What is the Ranger creed? It says "I'll never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy." It's not a saying or poem. It's a promise. Every Ranger promises every other Ranger, "No matter what happens, no matter what it costs me, if you need me, I'm coming." And every Ranger gets that same promise from every other Ranger. Think about it. It's extraordinarily powerful. It's probably more powerful than marriage vows. And they've lived up to it, which gives it special power. And so the organizational relationship that bonds them is just amazing. I was raised to believe that soldiers were strong and wise and brave and faithful; they didn't lie, cheat, steal or abandon their comrades. (McChrystal, Mar 2011) As Brown states, "Organization transformation is more revolution than evolution." Transformations focus for organizational survival in a competitive environment. In General McChrystal's example, the relative strength of the corporate culture (army and Ranger) is strong culture as the member commitment to values and number of members sharing values are both high. As far as the strategy-culture mix, he managed the change because there was a high need for strategic change (including creating a revolution in warfare that integrated intelligence and operations) with a high need for compatibility of change within existing culture. He shared and implemented the vision. (Brown, 2011) Gallery Furniture in Houston, Texas is a national leader in sales among independent furniture retailers. Gallery Furniture prides itself on furniture delivery the same day a customer purchases. The "today" philosophy includes all aspects of the business from the customer shopping experience to deep-rooted community service commitments. As the housing real estate market expanded over the last thirty years, Gallery Furniture experienced years of profits and business growth. However, the 2007 and 2008 burst impacted sales hard for the furniture retailer. There was a big decline in the customer base and according to Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, owner of Gallery Furniture, "in order to grow during the recession, we had to innovate or else we were going to evaporate." In other words, they had to do something revolutionary. It was this need to innovate and take a larger share of the declining furniture market that caused McIngvale to go looking for a model to change behavior at his 150 employee business. He was looking for a process that would motivate his employees to want to change their behavior and act in ways that give the customers what they're looking for. He did not want to pursue Theory X techniques including directives, yelling and screaming. (Gallery Furniture, 2014) The solution was to use an organizational change model from Influencer Training including six different initiatives to innovate the way they do business: revamping their sales approach, reducing delivery reworks, improving safety and employee wellness and reducing inventory. There were two vital behaviors the sales team needed to adopt: 1. They needed to not change their demeanor from "Can I help you?" to "I'm disappointed you're not going to buy" when a customer was not ready to purchase. 2. Becoming prospectors rather than salespeople the moment a customer wanted to leave and getting the customer's contact information so they could follow up. The change plan included six different sources of influence with the following examples: personal motivation, personal ability, social motivation and structural ability (iPad). The bottom line results was that all six of the influencer initiatives have contributed to tremendous results for Gallery Furniture. (Gallery Furniture, 2014) As Brown states, "Organization transformation is more revolution than evolution." Transformations focus for organizational survival in a competitive environment. In Gallery Furniture example, the relative strength of the corporate culture is moderate culture (stable) as the member commitment to values was average and number of members sharing values is high. As far as the strategy-culture mix, he managed the change because there was a high need for strategic change (including creating a revolution due to the decline in housing market) with a high need for compatibility of change within existing culture. He shared and implemented the vision. (Brown, 2011) References Brown, Donald R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Gallery Furniture (2014). Retrieved from https://www.vitalsmarts.com/casestudies/gallery-furniture/ McChrystal, Stanley: Listen, learn ... then lead (Mar 2011) (TED Talks: Ideas worth spreading). Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/stanley_mcchrysta