meant that there were a lot of products that got shipped out in the last three or four days of the quarter. James would clear his calendar so that he could be on the ground in the distribution center or working with customer service until midnight when we closed the books. Seeing senior management right there on the floor, serving coffee or doughnuts or pizza, running interference or making decisions, made a huge difference for people. Because of James, they didn't mind working late.
That was something we had in common. We never expected anything of anybody that we didn't expect of ourselves. People felt that. They felt a sense of responsibility, or even of duty, to a senior leader who was willing to get in the trenches with them.
James is one of few change agents who has lived to tell the tale, and anyone who reads this book will benefit from his remarkable storytelling. On top of all this, it could be said that James epitomizes the American Dream. Relying only on the currency of principle, purpose, and ambition, he's an African-American man who went from nobody in Georgia to CIO of a major Fortune 500 company. Sadly it's almost uncommon these days to find people who have not only climbed the ladder from the bottom, but have done so with integrity as their primary strength.
James did exactly that. I hope his book guides many other change agents to lead their companies to greatly exceed the rate of external change – with the full weight of their character propelling them.
Acknowledgments
First, I'd like to acknowledge and thank my family, who have always believed in me: my wife Celest; daughters Cherie, Angela, and Natalie; mother Edna; father-in-law Carl Gibson II; mother-in-law Beverly; and siblings Deborah, Joe, Theresa, and Waymond. You all are my most important supporters.
Thank you to all those who have inspired, mentored, and sponsored me: my grandmother Momma Jessie, Gabe Lance, Al Jackson, Jim Bostic, Pete Correll, Lee Thomas, Pat Barnard, Earl Bakken, Bill Hawkins, Art Collins, Omar Ishrak, Gary Ellis, Janet Fiola, Carl Wilson, Mike Blackwell, Dave Peterson, Darrel Untereker, Mr. Prather, Coach Prichett, Coach Wall, and the Brimstone Consulting Group. Thanks also to the individuals whom I have mentored who are too numerous to name, but from whom I've learned more than they ever learned from me. Remember, never limit yourself.
Thank you to my best friends in the world: Gabe and Tina Lance, Alicia and Henry Reed, John and Carol Thompson, Bob and Jeanette Pfotenhauer, Jim and Edie Bostic, Selwyn and Janice Vickers, Greg and Debra Morrison, Bill and Susan Hawkins, Barb and Jim Szczech, Brian and Jeanette Ellis, Carlton and Shayla Weatherby, Gene and Elaine Norman, Jacob and Joyce Gayle, and Bob and Barbara Bostick.
Finally, thank you to all the people who contributed to this book, either by pushing me to write it or by helping me along the way: Jennifer Milch, Yvonne Bryant-Johnson, Vanessa McCants, Claire Derricho, Becky Blalock, Cindy Kent, Karen Murphy, and Sara Grace.
Introduction: It Ain't Easy Being Green
Very early in my career, when I was a fairly green project manager, I experienced an eye-opening defeat. I was leading my first major project for Georgia-Pacific in Atlanta. Georgia-Pacific primarily made building and paper products, but it shipped so much product that people often thought it was a trucking company. Shipping was our second-largest cost after wood fiber. My job was to streamline a freight-rating system that would process thousands of transactions a day across six building product businesses with over 100 manufacturing sites. I spent months analyzing the situation and gathering high-level requirements.
The day came for me to present my recommendation to the most powerful men in the company. I was more than nervous; I was uneasy. My presentation would define me for these men, to whom I was still an unknown. At the same time, I was confident in my recommendation. My team and I had figured out a way to standardize all the businesses onto one of the existing systems. This approach would save the company from an investment of millions of dollars and several years of development, and it required fewer people to support it.
I didn't have to wait long to wonder what they thought of my brilliant plan. Not five minutes into my presentation, I was interrupted by the most senior guy in the room. We'll call him David.
“This is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life,” David spat out. My boss and my boss's boss were completely silent. So was I. I very quickly regained my composure, but it didn't matter. Before I left the room that day, a new project leader had been assigned.
The news spread quickly throughout the company. I went from being a highly regarded “up-and-comer” to the corporate equivalent of the guy no one would sit with in the high school cafeteria.
What I came to realize was that David and some of the other people in that room had already decided – before I walked into the room, even before I was assigned the project – that the correct recommendation was that we needed to develop a new system. It didn't matter how much sense my presentation made; as soon as they realized I was operating outside of their expectations, they stopped listening.
This was a powerful lesson in the politics of change. I realized then that creating impact requires a lot more than a good recommendation and the right job title. It requires you to be able to move others' minds from point A, a known, comfortable place, to point B, the great and threatening unknown.
I committed myself to figuring out how to manage those challenges. I would no longer first and foremost be a project manager; I'd become a change leader.
I started by taking some time to study change management as a whole and our department's track record in particular. I was stunned to find that 75 percent of recent, major change initiatives had failed to achieve their goals. Speaking now, after 25 years in organizational management, I am no longer stunned. I would say that's about average, whatever industry or department you're looking at. The pace of change has picked up dramatically, but the success rate has not. A recent McKinsey whitepaper puts the figure at 70 percent.1
As the years passed, I developed a comprehensive set of techniques and came to see successful change management being driven by four things: priorities, politics, people, and perseverance. Not coincidentally, these are the four sections of this book. You'll find my focus is a little different from what you might have learned in a typical change management course. I took all those courses, too, and what they cover is important. But this is what I've learned as a practitioner, and it's not covered in the three Ts of project management: tasks, timing, and technologies. I've found that without these additional skills, everything else you learned is useless. (See my opening tale of woe.)
Part I : Priorities covers how to develop and launch a change initiative. By priorities, I don't just mean those you'll set for the organization. I mean those that already exist within the individuals and the cultural DNA of the organization. In this section, you'll learn a particular method of gathering data that leads to much more accurate insight; how to pick the core team; and finally, how to prioritize tasks to move forward quickly.
Part II : Politics covers the practice and theory of influence – how to build the alignment you need to persuade and motivate others. Politics are driven by the boundaries, both real and emotional, that give people their sense of safety, significance, and control. In this section, you'll learn why Captain Kirk should be your new role model, the best kind of messaging and the words to avoid at all costs, and, finally, techniques to overcome resistance to change.
Part III : People provides the insight into relationship building and human nature that you'll need to sustain and monitor progress along the way. You'll learn how to get to know people
Simon Blackburn, Sarah Ryerson, Leigh Weiss, Sarah Wilson, and Carter Wood “How Do I Implement Complex Change at Scale?,” McKinsey & Company, May 2011. www.mckinsey.com.
