The 21st Century Change Agent - The CEO as a Social Architect
Stephen Long, PhD
The 21st Century is proving to be a turbulent, volatile era, and chief executives who’ll successfully lead their organisations will have one thing in common - they’ll be the Social Architects of their organisation, designing systems for consistent high performance.
Orchestrating From Behind the Curtain
Social Architects understand their organisation and how it works. They know who says what to whom and what kinds of actions are taking place. Principles of high performance are subtly transmitted that bind the organisation together.
Social Architects create the understanding, participation and execution of the change; they generate the commitment to principles and values toward the change; they present a shared interpretation of organisational events, teaching people how they are expected to behave; they serve as a control mechanism, rewarding and reinforcing required behaviors to accomplish the change; they provide the context and system of change that brings about commitment from all stakeholders.
Managing Interdependent Relationships
Interdependence occurs when two or more people have power over each because ironically they depend on each other to accomplish their own personal objectives. Social Architects manage up, down, across and outside the organisation - power is achieved by gaining co-operation without formal authority.
Managing relationships is tested by the willingness and ability to deal not just with individuals, but also with human systems comprising of many inherent interdependencies among and between stakeholders throughout an organisation.
The Change Paradox
Social Architects devise systems that help employees manage the inherent paradox between change and stability. Continuity is a process of continuous, but relatively small change efforts. Continuity provides a range of options along the change-stability continuum. The goal is to define the relationship between the past and the present.
Social Architects move their organisations forward by understanding where they’ve been, where they are and how they got there. Social Architects recognise that long-lasting change starts individually by getting people to understand how they work best and what they need to do to progress the organisation. Continuity begins with a micro-pragmatic view, empowering individuals and then spreads throughout the entire company in an organisational tidal wave.
Conclusion
Executives don’t fit nicely into a box. No executive is a purebred - everyone is a mutt - and they adopt leadership strategies from here, there and everywhere. They use what works for them rather than conforming to a particular theory. Any change in the management process, organisational structure and leadership style must all support the desired end - change.
Words, symbols, communication, recruiting and training don’t go far enough. Beliefs must be changed in order for actions to change. Only then will change occur and take hold. 21st Century Change Agents turn intention into action. It’s not just altering the organisational mission. It’s not just altering the organisational chart. It’s not just altering the human resource systems.
Social Architects engineer the political and cultural forces that drive the entire organisational system. Successful change is illustrated by preserving the best of what has preceded and moving toward a profitable future. It’s proactive, not reactive. It’s developmental, not instrumental. It’s holistic, not segmented. It’s appreciative, not evaluative. It’s hopeful, not filled with despair and fear.
Stephen Long, PhD
The Institute for Level Six Leadership
DocLong@LevelSixLeadership.com
www.LevelSixLeadership.com
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