Bold Leaders Embrace Facts and Move Fast, so They Don’t Burn Out…and Fail!

The best leaders Innovisor works with are bold! They dare to see the hidden facts in their organization… even if their gut tells them the facts will not be pretty. They know they need the facts to act fast on the most impactful matters. If they don’t, they will not succeed, and risk burnout and change failure.

We just delivered our Change Accelerator solution to such a leader. She was relatively new as the top executive of a 500-person knowledge organization and knew that building the necessary awareness of the informal organization, its hidden value drivers, and the unspoken resistance she felt would take years to generate.

Having worked with Innovisor before, she knew Innovisor could accelerate the process and help her drive impact with greater accuracy and a much lower cost, than if she had worked with the go-to management consultants or the internal HR business partners of the organization. Both introduced what they thought was an accelerated plan for analysis.

In her view, they were slow and biased, and she needed to move fast to avoid failure.

Fueled by #SixChangeBlockers Intelligence and the #ThreePercentRule algorithm, the turnaround of the Innovisor deliverables was speedy. After only one week the top executive had a clear path forward. She knew:

• The What: The baseline, telling what to prioritize.
• The How: How to act on the priorities.
• The Who: Who needs to be engaged to ensure widespread commitment.

The unspoken resistance she felt in her gut was proven true. Her leadership team understood the logic of the change ahead but had actively sabotaged it when conveying it to the organization. Less than 50% of employees felt they knew what was going on in the organization and that leaders were acting as visible role models.

The scores became even more concerning when Innovisor specifically examined the 3% of employees responsible for driving informal sensemaking, referred to as “informal catalysts.”

 A small group of individuals that collectively drove the sensemaking of– in this case– 92% of their colleagues. This group had a stronger impact than leaders, which despite being 10% of the workforce only impacted 55%. There was no way the top executive could succeed with change, without working directly with these people!

62% of them did NOT see a future in the organization. The same critical group also complained that leadership failed to communicate what the organization was trying to achieve – or even just be visible.

In essence, this was the quick fix she was looking for. She now knew exactly who to engage with. A manageable group of 14 people shaped the opinions of 92% of the organization.

 A classic case of how a focus on the close beats a focus on the many, which again beats a focus on the powerful.

She had to work directly with the people in a bottom-up manner to succeed and now she knew who to work with first to ensure widespread commitment.

Learn more about the Six Change Blockers and the Three Percent Rule in the Innovisor whitepapers.