Back in the 1980s, internal restructuring was the first choice of business leaders dealing with challenges of business growth or derailment, market surprises or dysfunction in the delivery system. Less acknowledged reasons for such restructuring were the need to manage career aspirations of ambitious professionals by creating the illusion of role change/enhancement, or the questionable belief that ferment in the team through role reshuffles was preferable to steering a steady ship in complacent hands.

A lot has changed since then.

Regime Change to the Fore

If we thought regime change and decapitation are ill-advised strategies that only global hegemons attempt to extend their influence and shape international relations, think again. Organisations world over use these very same strategies, perhaps founded on the belief that the turbulence, shock and grief at the loss of a familiar past will gradually give way to a superior regime that all stakeholders will eventually welcome.

In India, the advent of liberalisation in the 1990s, the emergence of the ‘new economy’, and globalisation spurred vaulting ambitions in home-grown organisations to diversify, scale up and enter new markets. There was a concerted effort by Indian organisations to ‘professionalise’ management—prioritise the customer, systematise and become process-driven.   

Management and engineering graduates and professionals from other relevant domains were inducted at leadership levels (the new regime) to steer this change. Managers from multinationals were prized. Their induction was accompanied by injection of raw talent from campuses. The old order had to be expunged to make way for the new. The new ‘masters’ enforced a fresh set of structures and rules of governance, performance standards, codes of conduct, and in some instances, even dress codes. The effort was to build a ‘meritocracy’, and it was quite fashionable to remind people that ‘there is no free lunch’.

Just as in geopolitics, the experience of regime change in organisations was often messy, even bloody (targeted decapitation and replacement), and it triggered prolonged uncertainty, churn and deep anxiety. Regime change challenged the pre-existing web of people relationships, paternalistic and personalised styles of engaging and cultivating loyalty, hierarchy of role relationships, and extant culture. Exoduses, realignments amongst individuals and teams, loss of tacit knowledge, past heroes reduced to insignificance, and a restatement of the psychological pact between the employee and the organisation were other fallouts. The mantra perhaps was ‘no pain, no gain.’

The newly installed leadership mostly doubled down and brazened it out, believing that their unpopularity was temporary, and passive resistance or insidious sabotage by the team was a predictable price to pay for a desired departure from the status quo.

A Case in Point

A recent experience offers interesting insight on the struggles of organiaations grappling with (regime) change. Here is the abridged story, embellished, but faithful at its core.

The organisation operated in a difficult and competitive environment. Its growth was modest, profitability discouraging and overall market standing unflattering. When faced with the possibility of winding down, its prospects were unexpectedly buoyed by investor interest. One thing led to another—capital infusion, a revamped board, an ambitious growth plan backed by a road map and strategic initiatives. A risk-averse, content, relationship-centred, benevolent and caring organisation was suddenly confronted with expectations of high performance.

Regime change, seen as an unavoidable step to deliver on the ambitious commitments to the investors and the board, followed quickly. In came leaders hired with a mandate to collectively deliver on these commitments. In addition, some managers from within were moved up to senior management roles, in what seemed more as an act of faith rather than from conviction about their readiness. An unspoken purge of deemed misfits created a void in some areas and opportunities in some others.

The new leaders were supposedly knights, with rich resumes and tall reputations. They were supposed to hit the ground running. No time to waste on testing soil and ground conditions. They had little time to befriend and build relationships. Their tendency was to direct rather than dialogue. They were the clean-up crew. They wanted to own the new and had little patience for organisation history, not wanting to get seduced by present-day rationalisation of past decisions and unresolved issues. Differences and conflicts remained unaddressed. Too certain of their knowledge and expertise, their poorly disguised inquiries with older colleagues often seemed like judgement, with fact-finding instead feeling like fault-finding. They were the overlords in a hurry. And the subjects were not readily obliging.

Older members in the organisation felt ambushed. They felt betrayed by the erstwhile leadership and belittled by the new bosses. They felt their past contributions were being unfairly judged and dismissed. They were unsure who might be in the firing line. Their injured pride and damaged self-worth came in the way of willing participation in change efforts. The culture they were steeped in was perceived as a drag and needing overhaul. The aggression and impatience of the new regime felt like arrogance, its attempts to fast-track new initiatives seemed performative. The leadership’s directives felt like unreasonable demands, and their attempts at inclusion felt like a concession rather than a step towards meaningful dialogue. The feeling that they were being tolerated at best, and patronised at worst, was inescapable. There was civility and apparent bonhomie but no real engagement. They were not privy to the projected future or the chosen path to it but were being asked to put their faith in the regime.

Alignment and cohesion within the new regime were a concern to start with. Each senior leader came on board knowing that the organisation’s overall health was precarious; they had responded to the professional challenge of turning things around and the allure of handsome rewards if successful. This was an assembly of battle-hardened professionals. Each had claims to success and trophies from varied organisations with distinct contexts and cultures. A shared map of the future or a deep diagnosis of prevalent organisational realities became a priority. A challenge that emerged was to ensure that their competitiveness and the need to show quick wins, and to assert authority did not create bad optics, fresh stresses and wasted energies/resources due to misaligned actions.

Performance fell short of targets. As months passed, it became clear that business growth was faltering. Glib talk and exhorting team members down the line, enforcing actions without a why or WIFM, veiled threats and scare tactics seeking to blast away resistance only created the illusion of ‘stuff happening’. This bred resentment rather than build commitment. The clock was ticking. Something vital was missing.

A time-out was called and an extended management team huddle over two days followed. It was overdue. It was time to harness and redirect the energy of simmering disaffection, instill self-belief, generate conviction around strategic goals and aim for a collective lift-off.

Investing together in a process of discovering the other and mutual valuing was an important first step. People encountered people, a connection that went beyond roles. No blaming. No shaming. The team then invested in a facilitated dialogue to develop a diagnosis of current realities by examining the dysfunction across structures, systems, processes and teams. There was a growing sense of being in it together to shape the future. As colleagues felt safer with each other and dropped their pretenses, taboos and sacred cows were challenged. What of the elephant in the room? Well, there was a herd to deal with. But the team was not fazed. New rules of engagement and a readiness to co-create the ‘new’ slowly took shape. The invisible walls and shackles that divided or held back people all but disappeared. The strategic imperatives that had been a black box for most, was not so anymore after a detailed walk-through. The consequences of a slip-up in goals and targets for the business and the team became abundantly clear. A new sense of urgency to make up for lost time was palpable. There was recognition that all issues had not been resolved but there was a new resolve.

How its next chapter will unfold is anybody’s guess.

There is a mountain of published literature on management, managing change and leadership. It would appear, however, that their lessons haven’t been learnt by many. The broad contours of the story above are more common than we may concede, and offers some obvious lessons for leaders. 

There are perhaps worthy examples of regime change, where goals were met and the impact on the morale and other aspects of the human dimension stayed net positive. Do share if you have a story. For sure, there must be much to learn from them too.

Image: Anna Tarazevich via Pexels