The Art of Strategic Leadership

Chapter 11The Art of Driving Change

The Story: Sara

At 6 a.m., Alex bounded out of bed, threw on his biking gear, and hurried over to a local café for breakfast. At that early hour, only a few other customers were in the restaurant. All were dressed, as he was, for hiking or bicycling. Before setting out for his ride along the Columbia River, he checked his email, a task he deferred during yesterday's long drive.

On this sunny morning, Alex was excited to be back at the Columbia River Gorge, but his feelings were also tinged with regret. The Gorge was one of his favorite areas in the Pacific Northwest, and at just a three-hour drive from Seattle, he had made dozens of trips here over the years to camp, hike, and bike. Today he felt almost as if he had come to say goodbye to an old friend. Shrugging off his melancholy, he reminded himself that change, especially because it held the possibility of great rewards for the Dallas plant, would inevitably be disruptive. Leaving Seattle was turning out to be more difficult than he'd expected it to be, but taking the Dallas offer had been the right move. Dallas was his shot at navigating around the obstacles to advancement, opening up exciting new possibilities to grow, and putting his new plant at the center of the company's blueprint for the future.

The team leaders in Dallas gave Alex ample grounds for optimism; over the course of his first eight weeks at the plant, he'd discovered that they were even more resourceful, creative, and ...