HBR Guide to Leading Through Change

CHAPTER 3

The Most Successful Approaches to Leading Change

by Deborah Rowland, Michael Thorley, and Nicole Brauckmann

Management of long-term, complex, large-scale change has a reputation of not delivering the anticipated benefits. A primary reason for this is that leaders generally fail to consider how to approach change in a way that matches their intent.

Consider Ling Yen*, a client of ours and finance director at an industrial manufacturing company. She sat with her leadership team, aware that the board’s decision to set up a global organization for the company’s specialist functions would not sit well with them. They had been through two global restructures in the last four years—with mixed success. Those changes had required endless governance ...