Too Many Changes Happening Too Fast Can Cause Confusion…
A Walk Down Memory Lane…
Many years back, my husband worked at Ford Motor Company. The years were 1999 through 2001, while I was studying to complete my MBA at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Anyone familiar with Ford’s history, will recall that those are the exact years that Jacques Nasser was at the helm of the auto giant as its President and CEO, and more than likely, those years are not remembered kindly.
1999 was the year that Nasser famously announced to The Economist, that he would transform Ford “from a boring old car maker” to a “consumer-products and services company.” (1)
Shortly after, in a speech he gave to new MBA students at the University of Michigan, he declared Ford to be, “an e-commerce company.”
I remember coming home after hearing the speech, and having my husband ask, “What did Nasser say?”
And I responded, not without irony, “Apparently you do NOT work for a car company… you work for an internet company.”
The confusion may have started there, but it didn’t end there. Shortly after Nasser became CEO, he announced that he was overhauling Human Resources processes, and that the lowest ten percent performing managers would be subject to possible termination General Electric-style. 1999 was also the year of the Volvo acquisition, as well as diversification and the acquisition of junkyards, and auto repair shops, and the divestiture of Visteon, Ford’s in-house auto parts maker. By early 2000, Ford was embroiled in a dispute with Bridgestone/ Firestone over tire tread separation that had caused fatal accidents on Ford Explorers. The battle between the companies continued well into 2001. During this timeframe, Ford stock prices plummeted, and the company posted a huge loss.
Before the year 2001 was out, so was Nasser.
Lesson #1: Experience is a Hard Teacher
So… if you’ve made it to this point, you may be wondering, “Why is she telling me this?’
In short, it provides a nice opportunity to share a few lessons about leadership, strategic direction and staying the course. Nasser’s experience as CEO, and Ford’s losses, show us clearly that the often heard quote below is painfully true at times.
Experience is a hard teacher, it gives the test first, and the example last. ~Unknown
The reality is that Nasser had had a largely successful career at Ford leading up to his short tenure as CEO. He was viewed a strong leader, a ruthless costcutter, and an “unconventional thinker.” (2)
So, what went wrong?
Lesson #2: Too Much Change Creates Chaos… and Stagnation
As a visionary with many ideas, and a highly creative thinker, Nasser must have been chomping at the bit while biding his time until he got the top position so that he could try all of his ideas out. And once he was CEO, try them out, he did!
All of them. At the same time.
Those of us who know and live the scientific method, understand that when we make changes, we need to do so in a controlled way. We follow Plan, Do, Check, Act, or PDCA, as our main means of experimentation. This means, we first study our current situation, complete with appropriate measures. Then we ‘plan’ what we want to try, we try it out by ‘doing’ our experiments, we ‘check’ the results. Did what we expected to have happen, happen? or were the results a complete shock? If we get lucky and results are good, we ‘act’ to create a new standard way of doing things. If not, we learn something, make some adjustments and restart back at ‘plan’.
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. ~Arnold Bennett
At least part of where Nasser went wrong as a leader, is that he may have been too creative, had too many ideas, and had too many shifts in direction. So while many folks were still shellshocked by the fact that they were no longer supposed to be a part of the ‘automotive’ industry, but instead were now part of the ‘internet economy’, Nasser was shifting rapidly from acquisition to acquisition, divestiture to divestiture, initiative to initiative.
The changes Nasser attempted were not small changes or little experiments: they were sweeping, large, expansive, high impact strategies.
Even if some of these shifts might have been the right ones, people could not keep up intellectually or emotionally. Folks who were still uncomfortable from the last change were being asked to accept another change before the first had even fully been implemented. People became so confused by constant chaos and the lack of any one coherent, clear direction, that they stopped reacting and became numb to the next ‘flavor of the day’.
Simply put, when we don’t know what to expect, and we don’t understand where we are going, the reality is that all directions are potentially fraught with uncertainty and dangers. During this time at Ford, managers who were all too aware of Nasser’s cost cutting mentality, and his desire to eliminate the lowest performers, certainly came to the conclusion that not hopping up onto the next initiative bandwagon was a smart move.
With so much confusion, a rational person will simply arrive at the conclusion that no action is the best action. After all, why react, why do something, when doing nothing may be the safest course of action?
Lesson #3: Staying the Course is Often Incredibly Difficult
The Nasser example of jumping from idea to idea to idea in rapidfire sequence is not unique - nor is the dramatic flameout that accompanied his fall at Ford. If we are to take away anything from situations like this one, we should recognize that often times we are reacting to signals and events way too quickly. Unfortunately, what we are often reacting to is simply noise, not ‘real’ signals. (Side Note: if you haven’t read Mark Graban’s book, “Measures of Success,” I suggest you should. Buy it. Read it. Now.)
Reaction to ‘Negative’ Signals
The pressure to do something, to do anything, to make change especially in the face of a possible negative signal (or often, ‘noise’), can be so intense that we fail to step back, take a deep breath, and manage not only external expectations, but our own. We need to remember that change for the sake of change, is not only not beneficial, but may also have truly negative consequences by destabilizing existing systems.
Reaction to Positive Experience
Overreaction doesn’t happen just in the face of negative signals. Sometimes positive experiences have a very similar impact.
‘Freshness’ is a concept from the innovation space, in which we recognize the positive effects of trying and experiencing ‘new’ things. The very act of stepping away from one’s normal day to day experience, will inspire many creative ideas.
It follows that as leaders, any time we try something new the very act of making a change may spark countless ideas for improvement to the new system or process before it has even stabilized. When our energy and excitement levels are high, this is another time when we are most ‘at risk’ making uncontrolled changes, or reacting too quickly.
Something to Believe In
So, while setting a direction may be relatively easy, staying the course for a brand new Strategy, major Initiative or significant Process may be incredibly challenging. For too many leaders, it seems that as soon as something perceived as negative happens, BOOM! Direction change! As soon as something good happens, BOOM! Direction change!
Is this in part because leaders set directions that they are not committed to?
What do you really believe in? Are you committed to seeing through your strategy, through good and bad? Do you believe in your vision enough to commit to stick to it, at least long enough to stabilize to a new way of doing things before going off chasing the next shiny object or squirrel?
A Closing Thought…
In the course of Continuous Improvement, we spend a lot of time experimenting and making many rapid changes in succession via PDCA. After all, the heart of continuous improvement, is the fact that it is, in fact, ideally “continuous”, correct?
As a lifelong learner and leader of change, I would never suggest to someone that if something is really truly not working, that we should ‘sticktoit’ for the sake of sticking it out any more than I would suggest change for the sake of change.
But we must recognize that sticktoitiveness is not the same thing as stagnation, and it is not resistance to change. It means believing in the change, embracing the change, committing to it and protecting it and nurturing it long enough for it to spread roots and get strong. Good leaders know this.
Strong leaders know this and have the courage to say, ‘no, not quite yet’ to all those folks who want to change the change before its time.
And the best leaders? They know when to stay the course and when to shift directions, and how to bring everyone along for the journey.
©2020 Dawn A. Armfield, ValueFlo Consulting LLC
Meet the Author
Dawn Armfield is the founder and CEO of ValueFlo Consulting. Before forming ValueFlo, Dawn spent thirty years honing her skills in Leadership, Manufacturing Engineering and the Toyota Production System across a variety of industries. She has successfully lead lean transformations, has facilitated hundreds of System and Point Kaizen events, has authored several articles on lean and cultural transformation.
References:
(1) “The Revolution at Ford” (The Economist, 5 August 1999).
(2) Neumann, Cartb (2005), “Nasser, Jacques 1947-”. International Directory of Business Biographies.
