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If you did you’d see the CEO at the top sticking out of the water and his Lieutenants, the senior team as they say, sitting right out there with him. Under them around water level is where you start dropping in to middle management, according to the experts, the scourge of change mana

All the talk today is about managing change in organizations. Leaders talk about it like it is really something one can ‘manage’. Everywhere I go I see consulting practices with change leaders and much of what comes out the other end, is only slightly better than the snake oil salesmen of time gone by. So what is up with managing change?

The first thing to realize is that you cannot manage change you can only preferably lead or manage people. There is no such thing as organizational change, there is only people change. Organizations are large groups of people, yes organized in a particular way to accomplish a particular task, but they are still people. Right here is where most organizations, especially large ones, stumble when it comes to change.

Imagine with me you are looking straight at an iceberg, a huge iceberg. If you could look straight at it you’d see a small tip on top, above the water and a huge bottom, probably at least three to four times the size of what is floating above the water. Imagine this is your organization, it look a little like an org chart doesn’t it? What if we laid an organization chart over top of what you see of the iceberg?

If you did you’d see the CEO at the top sticking out of the water and his Lieutenants, the senior team as they say, sitting right out there with him. Under them around water level is where you start dropping in to middle management, according to the experts, the scourge of change mana

gone by. So what is up with managing change?

The first thing to realize is that you cannot manage change you can only preferably lead or manage people. There is no such thing as organizational change, there is only people change. Organizations are large groups of people, yes organized in a particular way to accomplish a particular task, but they are still people. Right here is where most organizations, especially large ones, stumble when it comes to change.

Imagine with me you are looking straight at an iceberg, a huge iceberg. If you could look straight at it you’d see a small tip on top, above the water and a huge bottom, probably at least three to four times the size of what is floating above the water. Imagine this is your organization, it look a little like an org chart doesn’t it? What if we laid an organization chart over top of what you see of the iceberg?

If you did you’d see the CEO at the top sticking out of the water and his Lieutenants, the senior team as they say, sitting right out there with him. Under them around water level is where you start dropping in to middle management, according to the experts, the scourge of change mana

a particular way to accomplish a particular task, but they are still people. Right here is where most organizations, especially large ones, stumble when it comes to change.

Imagine with me you are looking straight at an iceberg, a huge iceberg. If you could look straight at it you’d see a small tip on top, above the water and a huge bottom, probably at least three to four times the size of what is floating above the water. Imagine this is your organization, it look a little like an org chart doesn’t it? What if we laid an organization chart over top of what you see of the iceberg?

If you did you’d see the CEO at the top sticking out of the water and his Lieutenants, the senior team as they say, sitting right out there with him. Under them around water level is where you start dropping in to middle management, according to the experts, the scourge of change mana

small tip on top, above the water and a huge bottom, probably at least three to four times the size of what is floating above the water. Imagine this is your organization, it look a little like an org chart doesn’t it? What if we laid an organization chart over top of what you see of the iceberg?

If you did you’d see the CEO at the top sticking out of the water and his Lieutenants, the senior team as they say, sitting right out there with him. Under them around water level is where you start dropping in to middle management, according to the experts, the scourge of change mana

rg?

If you did you’d see the CEO at the top sticking out of the water and his Lieutenants, the senior team as they say, sitting right out there with him. Under them around water level is where you start dropping in to middle management, according to the experts, the scourge of change management. Stick with me now and keep looking at the iceberg with the org chart overlay. Under the water level is everyone else in the organization.

The problem in today’s organizations is the gap that exists between the CEO and the work taking place down at the bottom of the iceberg. The gap has never been greater. Most CEO’s, while personally bright, articulate and politically savvy, don’t have a clue what is happening at the bottom of the iceberg. Not a single clue. And what’s worse is they don’t care. Herein is the issue of managing change, the incredible gap today between worker and boss man at the top.

There of course is the old adage of managing things and leading people and while it sounds trite there is truth to it. When you have a CEO come in like the one did at Home Depot and wreak havoc on the organization, destroy all semblance of customer service and leave with over $250 million you see the problem. He said all along he was managing change. He wasn’t managing change he was changing people to his way of doing business or else. Worked for him, he left an even richer man than when he came. And the gap, the organizational iceberg as I call it,