Preface to This Blog: Most perspectives on organizational and leadership change propose that communication occurs in the context of change. Here, I invert that perspective and propose, instead, that communication—in the form of conversations—is the context in which change occurs. In other words, communication/conversation is the tool to successfully execute change, not a result or by-product of change. The promise of leadership conversation is that there’s a new and better way to lead an organization now that command-and-control is at best futile, and at worst, and probably more commonly, destructive. Satya Nadella is indicative of the best. Kudos to Microsoft for their choice. The blog below elaborates and extrapolates.
“If they engage with conversation in the right way,” Harvard’s Groysberg and Slind write, “they have the potential to unleash organizational energy of a sort that no leader could ever command.” That’s why the conversation between Adam Bryant and Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, grabbed my attention. And though an interview is not the kind of dialog that is inevitably revealing, the uniqueness of Nadella’s response can only be indicative of many highly astute leadership conversations.
Powerful rhetoric
Social science research finds that organizational mindsets form the boundaries of possible change within an organization. Proposed changes that do not fit within existing paradigms—including corporate leadership--simply do not ...