LEADING CHANGE IS HARD. HERE’S MY FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

Abstract The author, an entrepreneur and longtime executive at IBM, describes change initiatives at that company that take into account the need for a new mindset around change, and not to think in terms of “change management.” He believes that “change should be regarded as a high‐value‐add product that deserves the same levels of resource support and operational rigor as any top‐performing product.” He describes a program, known as Hallmark, that was initiated at IBM in 2013, where “my colleagues and I helped thousands of interdisciplinary teams at IBM become more entrepreneurial, more agile, and more customer‐focused.” He details a “formula” for the program, which in his words is: CULTURE = OUTCOMES Then, CULTURE = PEOPLE + PRACTICES + PLACES And then, finally, PEOPLE + PRACTICES + PLACES = OUTCOMES. He further describes: “We started small and focused on willing partners. We demonstrated tangible value to create pull, rather than push. We made participation a privilege, not an obligation. We gave complete transparency into what was working and what wasn’t. We allowed teams to adapt the approach to their specific context rather than enforcing rigid uniformity.”