Leading Strategic Change

It is often said that change is the only constant in organizations. In growing, developing and responding to changing environments, strategic change is inevitable as organizations adapt to shifting circumstances (e.g., organizations all over the world have needed to respond to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic) and proactively seek out new opportunities. Such change is key to sustained organizational success. It is also a major challenge on the “people side” of organizing. Strategic change can only be successful when the organization’s employees actively invest in making the change a success; however, research evidence and experience in practice show that mobilizing and motivating employees for strategic change is easier said than done. Employee resistance to change can be a major reason strategic change is not successful. This constitutes a core challenge in change leadership.

This executive course focuses on the challenges of leading strategic change. The course maps the psychological processes that lead people to resist change and how to proactively preempt these processes. The course outlines the frequently observed problems that are caused when senior management launches strategic change, expecting middle management to implement the change without much senior management involvement or strategic alignment between senior and middle management. The course then considers the superior alternative of (i) senior management’s active involvement in the implementation process (ii) in such a way that people throughout the organization are empowered and actively involved in the change process, creating ownership of rather than resistance to the strategic change.

This course strongly draws on participants’ own experiences with (leading) strategic change, both through in-class discussions and exercises focused on determining how these processes can be — or could have been — better managed.

Course Outline

Unit 1: Setting the Stage — Mapping the Psychology of Resistance to Change Unit 2: Meeting the Challenge — Identifying How to Create Alignment and Lead for Successful Implementation of the Strategic Vision Unit 3: (Re)considering One’s Own Experience — How to Lead Change in Your Company