I've included. Simply stated, every part of this book benefited and was transformed by the lessons these incredible leaders provided. They provided validation of many of the ideas I had been teaching and added their own stories of how experiences unfolded for them. My hope is that by presenting parts of my history and that of other leaders, I can help readers leap over potential pitfalls on their own leadership paths, thus accelerating success, their own and that of their organizations.
Heading into Change
My experiences in a variety of capacities for corporations that differed in size, goals, industry, corporate culture, and more have shaped how I see change. A brief overview will give a better sense of where these principles came from and the opportunities I've had to put them into practice – or when I failed to put them into practice.
In 1976, I began my career in financial services at Citibank, where I had my first experiences in implementing breakthrough change initiatives. I went from Citi to Shearson, a traditional brokerage that was not interested in change; they were far more interested in sales. When I joined Charles Schwab in 1984, it was still a fairly small company. CEO Chuck Schwab and his chief operating officer, Larry Stupski, were never afraid to dream big. Chuck was the visionary guy and Larry was the strategist and implementation leader. His job was to sift through Chuck's myriad ideas, find the three most likely to work, and get them done. They were courageous leaders and I knew that I was indeed fortunate to join this team.
Originally hired as the director of marketing, I was working on small improvements in the types of ads we were running, the ways we were handling our inbound inquiries, and how we were measuring success. As my career grew, the changes become bolder and more challenging. Joining Schwab when I did was a huge stroke of luck: circumstances and corporate culture combined to provide an unprecedented space for experimentation and risk-taking. I made my first stabs at leading breakthrough change there, and I discovered a lot of ways I would lead differently in the future.
Since those early days, I have served on the boards of many companies – from companies in their earliest stages, to young public companies, to Fortune 50 corporations. I have seen them succeed, and I have seen them stumble and fail. I've been part of two start-ups that invested over $150 million in getting off the ground. One failed completely and the other is blossoming even as I write this. I've been on the board of Intel since 1998, and I've seen their successes and the challenges they've faced.
I have been on just about every side of change, big or small. I've seen and made many mistakes, sometimes of judgment and sometimes of process. Somewhere there may be a file of mistakes labeled, “What was Dave thinking?” The redeeming fact is I usually didn't make the same mistake twice. As a self-proclaimed change junkie, I kept at it, trying new ideas and tactics, and learning; over time, I started to succeed more and more.
Change and Learning Are Continuous
Breakthrough change never, ever stops while the world progresses. Competition, the marketplace, and technological advances make it necessary to keep growing and changing. In my own career, I experienced firsthand what happens when you stop leading bold change. I weathered a number of storms during my two decades at Charles Schwab, but the burst of the dotcom bubble in the early 2000s caught me by surprise. Suddenly, my job as Schwab's CEO became entirely about finding new ways to downsize, new places to cut. I did what I had to do: I downsized a 25,000-person company by 10,000 people. But I was slow and uncertain, and had trouble coping with this new reality of my job. I was emotionally paralyzed by the prospect of waking up every day and thinking about the men and women – people I knew well and who had been instrumental in making the company successful – whose jobs would be eliminated. And it was my job to direct these firings, by the thousands.
I think the Schwab board could tell that my heart was not in it. And they could certainly tell that I had stopped scanning the horizon for breakthrough transformative change. I left the company in 2004 due to a combination of my own inability to continue innovating and my board's shrunken patience. Being fired was devastating, and is still painful to this day. Much as I wish I had responded to the downturn differently, Schwab needed more than I was able to deliver. I had stopped leading change, and instead I became a change that someone else needed to make.
I tell this story to make it very clear that the strategies and plans described in Stacking the Deck are not easy for me, or for anyone, to implement. Overcoming emotion (your own and others'), convincing people to follow you, maintaining an extraordinary level of tenacity and resilience, conceptualizing change, and realizing it successfully: these are all tremendously difficult. Every leader I interviewed emphasized the inherent difficulty of breakthrough change. Over and over, they told of struggles that tested people to their very core and how they persevered through grit and determination.
This book is not intended to convince you to make breakthrough changes. The world will convince you to do that! Instead, it is designed to help you make those necessary changes as effectively as possible.
Leading Breakthrough Change Is Not for the Faint of Heart
A fundamental truth lies at the core of introducing any large-scale change: leading change requires leading people. Any transformation you propose, small or large, will ultimately not succeed if you don't have the leadership skills to drive the process forward. Success never comes from one person's efforts; transformative change is a team sport. There is, therefore, an absolute requirement for exceptional leadership skills, a proven process, and a team capable of getting the job done. As a consequence, leadership and communication are constant threads throughout the Stacking the Deck process and throughout this book. In fact, I encourage you to be sure you have truly absorbed the information and guidance provided in the chapter on leadership communication (Chapter 11) before you begin to implement the steps. The time you spend on the foundational steps of preparing, planning, and communicating will definitely reap benefits.
Today's business world will always demand that you do it faster, spend less money, and still get exceptional results. The ongoing pressure to take shortcuts is likely to intensify in years to come. Sometimes you may have no choice but to compress the effort and consider skipping something – in fact, some changes do not require every step in the process. However, it's relatively easy to decide to cut corners when you're thinking abstractly; it's more difficult when you can actually see which elements you are cutting out and what they specifically contribute to ensuring success. Since the Stacking the Deck process concretely shows you all the steps of a change initiative from inception to completion, you can make needed cuts with an understanding of exactly what you are removing – and what the consequences will likely be. Each of the nine steps will guide you along the way to breakthrough change.
But make no mistake: leading breakthrough change is definitely not for the faint of heart. In fact, I found it rather heartening that time and again, the people I interviewed – leaders across all fields in businesses around the world – reinforced just how much more difficult leading breakthrough change is than anyone anticipates.
More than money, time, or resources, it's your ability to lead people, your tenacity, and your grit that will determine your ultimate success or failure. Before communicating about the change, be sure you fully understand what the change represents to all of the groups who will be involved. If you remain open to possibilities, eager for constant challenges, and lucky enough to find mentors, your path will be easier. Most important, understand that inspirational leadership communication is critical to each step along the way, every single day.
Part OneThe Stacking the Deck Process
Breakthrough change is inherently unpredictable, making failures inevitable and flexibility an asset. You may find yourself needing to lead change in an environment that is indifferent or even fundamentally hostile to the new. How can you achieve breakthrough change more effectively and efficiently in such an atmosphere?
