Egypt and Change Management Principles

I’ve been thinking about the events we are watching unfold in Egypt… the protests, the ideology, the violence, and the leadership gap.

And I’ve been wondering what we can we learn from this as it relates to change management. Specifically how this situation dramatically highlights the consequences of not managing change. What happens if we apply the basic rules of change management and consider what went wrong, the consequences, and what is going to happen next.

These are my initial observations and I will continue to comment on this as things progress.

• It looks like there is a clear and compelling problem driving change in Egypt. What we are seeing is a wake up call to the President Mubarak and the world. What’s strange is that while this seems pretty obvious to me (and probably the rest of the world), President Mubarak appears to be in denial and continues to stick to his guns. Literally.
• It looks like President Mubarak has surrounded himself with “yes men” who don’t appear to have provided him with a real understanding of what has been going on in his country. Until the protests, I wonder how much objective and unfiltered information he was getting about the unrest bubbling in his country. And if he did get this information—why didn’t he do anything about it? If no one was holding him accountable and telling him implications of his actions—why would he feel a sense of urgency to change?
• Which leads me to wonder who is really in charge? When people are confused, angry, frustrated, they look to people they trust to understand how to interpret and react to what is going on. Egypt’s politicians have isolated themselves, cut off communications, and used violence to try to suppress the unrest. So they have not really established themselves as credible leaders. Citizens look for guidance and right now it looks like the guy with the megaphone is in charge.
•  I am sadly watching as the country loses an opportunity to define a new vision of the future. No one – the politicians, president, or protesters – has clearly articulated the desired end state. Right now the protests and the reactions are fueled by anger and frustration. But when this calms down, something more substantial will be required to keep the country focused on creating a new future.
• And even if the leaders and influencers of each group had gotten together to create the picture of the future, they haven’t put any thought into what it will take to get there. Even a high level idea of what happens after the “big event” would be extremely helpful in engaging the country and the world.

So in a nutshell, we have a leader who has isolated himself, surrounded himself with people afraid to tell him any bad news. We have a change being forced upon the country and a leader in denial. We have leaders in reactionary mode dealing with the crisis in old ways—with no way to get real information that could influence what they do. We have a lack of credible leaders to communicate in meaningful ways. We have frustrated, confused, and angry people who have no access to real information. We have no real vision for the future, no way to engage and motivate people, no plan to move forward.

Interestingly, I wonder if this situation could ultimately be a metaphor for some of the changes we see in our own companies. On the most extreme end of the continuum, what can we expect to happen if we don’t proactively manage our own changes? Some of my observations…

1. Without the context—why we must change, where we are going, and how we will get there—people will all be running in different directions, lots of confusion and frustration, and resulting chaos in the organization.
2. Without leaders committed to the change story—a loss of credibility, inability to get people to change behaviors, no one motivating people to make the changes required. Things slow down.
3.  Without regular access to unfiltered and objective information—leaders react to ad hoc situations, unrest and resistance bubbles up and is not addressed until it becomes a huge problem
4. Without credible and established leaders and influencers at every level—people don’t know where to get information, how to interpret what is going on, they get worried and distracted, performance drops, and current business loses focus

Ultimately, leaders hear the concerns only when they are out of control, everyone retrenches to focus on getting the business back on track, leaders send in the guns to take care of the resistance while the outside drivers continue to take over, and the company implodes.

How will Egypt going get out of the situation they are in? I am interested in watching what happens and applying change management lenses in different ways. I will continue to comment on what I am observing and I welcome insights from readers.