Everybody Says They Want Change. Nobody Means It.
- Marion Heil
- vor 2 Tagen
- 3 Min. Lesezeit
Almost every executive search mandate we take over mentions change in some form. The language varies; sometimes it is transformation, sometimes disruption, sometimes the brief simply says the organization needs fresh perspectives, a new energy, someone who will challenge how things have been done.
I do not doubt that the organizations defining these briefs mean it when they write it.
I have observed a fairly consistent gap between what organizations say they want and what they are actually prepared to absorb.
But I have observed, over many years and many searches, a fairly consistent gap between what organizations say they want and what they are actually prepared to absorb once the person is in the room.
This is not a criticism. It is an observation about how change actually works inside complex organizations, and about the limits of what a single appointment can be expected to deliver.
When a board or a CEO says they want a change agent, they usually mean someone who will improve outcomes, accelerate initiatives, perhaps challenge assumptions.
When a board or a CEO says they want a change agent, they usually mean someone who will improve certain outcomes, accelerate certain initiatives, perhaps challenge assumptions that have calcified over time. The picture is purposeful, directed change. The existing organization, essentially intact, moving more effectively in a better direction.
A change agent tends to operate somewhat differently.
A change agent tends to operate somewhat differently, and this is not a criticism of either side. They ask why things are structured the way they are. They are skeptical of explanations that begin with "we've always." They form views quickly and are willing to act on them before full consensus has formed. These are not character flaws. They are, in fact, what was asked for. But they can make for an uncomfortable presence if you are part of the organization that represents the existing order.
This creates a tension that good intentions alone do not resolve.
This creates a tension that good intentions alone do not resolve. The board wants change. Parts of the organization do not want change, or they want a version of it that leaves them largely undisturbed. And the new executive, arriving with energy and a clear brief, sometimes discovers that the mandate they were handed in the briefing room feels rather different when they actually try to use it.
What happens next varies.
Some executives adapt, trimming their ambitions to what the organization will actually support. They survive, sometimes thrive, but they deliver a more limited version of what was intended.
Some push through the resistance and succeed, but at a cost to relationships and sometimes to their own longevity.
And some, particularly those who took the brief at full face value, find themselves isolated in a relatively short period of time, having underestimated how much of the organization was genuinely comfortable with the status quo.
I think about this tension a great deal when we am working on a mandate that carries a transformation brief. Our job is not to tell clients what they want to hear about their own readiness for change. Our job is to understand it accurately, and to find candidates who understand it too, and can act on it.
The most successful placements against transformation briefs were not necessarily the most radical candidates. They were the ones who could read an organization's real appetite for change, not its stated appetite, and calibrate their approach accordingly, and who could build the internal support needed to actually move something, rather than arriving with the conviction that the mandate was sufficient.
That is a different profile from the archetypal change agent. It requires a certain political intelligence alongside the strategic one. And it requires the candidate to be honest with themselves about what kind of change is actually possible in the environment they are walking into.
The question worth asking, before any search with a transformation mandate begins, is a simple one: What, specifically, are we prepared to change? And what are we not?
The question worth asking is simple: What, specifically, are we prepared to change? And what are we not?
The answer to both parts of that question shapes everything that follows.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marion Heil is the founder and managing director of Board+CEO Advisors, a Vienna-based executive search and board advisory boutique. She advises listed companies, family businesses and investors on C-suite, leaders and supervisory board appointments across DACH and CEE.
