BAM 2014

This paper is from the BAM 2014 Conference Proceedings

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Introduction

This article examines the sector-confirmed successful turnaround of a large metropolitan criminal justice organisation following the arrival of a new leader. It will consider leadership behaviours, which had a significant impact in order to explore the difference a leader, might make to organisational transformation or turnaround strategy. In 2009, staff morale was low and target culture deeply resented. Since a poorly planned and executed merger of a number of services in 2001, there had been three previous leaders and a short period under a Specialist Performance Improvement Action Team. In an attempt to address the performance deficits, there had been three significant structural re-organisations, which, in the context of additional legislative changes, had negatively impacted on employees’ attitude both to change and senior management as well as not achieving the required performance improvements. This was the environment into which the leader was invited by the appropriate state ministry, with a remit to address the challenges of a troubled organisation.

Taking the personal account of the leader, this article will filter that personal narrative and test assumptions about the effect of leadership skills on transformational change. The narrative correlation of elite interview with public empirical results, participant observation and theoretical analysis provides a unique and innovative lens through which to consider corporate change. Such a method allows a deep, insider, change-leadership perspective, as well as providing an opportunity to compare the actions described with theory and evidence from the managing change literature. Indeed, quoting Dyer and Wilkins (1991, pp.618), “ However, we hope that many scholars will continue to try to tell good stories which have theoretical import”, we as authors have tried to capture the spirit of the ‘classic’ case studies, with their context, depth and narrative much advocated by Dyer and Wilkins in their response to Eisenhardt.

Context

In 2009, a new leader with a known track record for improving performance in a similar, albeit smaller organisation, was contracted for four months with the task of ensuring the organisation meet key performance targets in the first quarter of the new financial year. When a replacement was not found at the end of that period The Chief Officer (CO) was asked to stay for a further 12 months. Within the first four months this CO had rapidly improved performance and within nine months the targets which had been set (which could only be reached via a battery of sufficiently achieved KPI’s), of achieving Trust status for the organisation had been met.

Analysing an organisation and its need for change is the first step for a leader (Kanter et al, 1992). Even before taking up post, the future CO had been briefed about the problems facing the organisation. Claiming awareness of “all that was needed to be known about its failings” from a serious case review that had attracted negative media attention, and in particular, “insufficient senior management awareness of locality, capacity and competence issues”, he found an organisation from director level down which had “lost its grip”. In terms of human resources, recruitment, frontline management, communication, training and accountability, the organisation lacked a performance culture. To his advantage the new leader found a general and high level of disgruntlement at being perceived as a failing organisation amongst staff and he viewed this as a motivating factor that would help make the changes that were required to radically improve performance and meet government targets.

The leader’s personal narrative – themed in terms of change levers

This section provides a narrative of the series of strategic instructions and actions, which flowed following the confirmation of the new CO’s position. Taking the levers of change concepts stated by this leader as a filter, we have placed the narrative within sections under the self-same headings he himself suggests. We have grouped these within meta-headings to cluster the conceptual nature of the descriptions.

The leader states the tasks facing him as new most senior officer as:

• Creating order from chaos at the corporate centre • Engendering a new culture of joint responsibility and accountability to the senior management group • Setting the tone and behaviour for the organisation • Earning the trust of middle managers • Issuing a small number of focussed and consistent messages • Spreading “home truths” to challenge organisational myths that supported a “can’t do culture” • Fostering a sense of pride in organisational success to move to a “can do” culture • Tackling Information Technology • Tackling the endemic problems in HR • Improving industrial relations with staff and the union

Interpreting the narrative from the leader interviews, author familiarity and participant experience with the case suggested particular groupings of the above: ‘Creating order from chaos at the corporate centre’ and ‘Engender a new culture of joint responsibility and accountability amongst the senior management team and middle managers’ and ‘Tackling IT’ and ‘Tackling the endemic problems in HR’ are placed under the umbrella term: From loose to tight coupling

‘Setting the Tone’, ‘Earning the trust of middle managers’, ‘Fostering a sense of pride in organisational success to move to a “can do” culture’ and ‘Improving industrial relations with staff and the union’: Deliberately altering the climate

‘Issuing a small number of focussed and consistent messages’ and ‘Spreading “home truths” to challenge organisational myths that supported a “can’t do culture” ‘: Communicate effectively

From loose to tight coupling

The new CO considered that the kind of cohesive leadership expected from a senior management team was significantly absent. Compulsory weekly meetings of all operational and non- operational directors were established. Performance was made the focus of SMT meetings and everything that was discussed and planned in those meetings was guided by how it would improve performance. As well as weekly meetings, “away days” were arranged to ensure that the SMT developed a strong commitment to the organisational goal of achieving much improved performance.

The CO considers the most important decision was to have instructed all managers to meet weekly. As well as the weekly meetings of the senior management team, he introduced and chaired weekly meetings of all second line managers (assistant chief officers). The purpose of these meetings was for assistant chief officers to provide highly detailed performance information from their areas/departments and to examine in depth the lessons to be learned from successes and failures. For public sector managers who had not previously been used to this degree of granularity, this represented a large cultural change, as did the public scrutiny of their department’s performance.

The chief officer made absolutely clear to the SMT, as well as to the organisation, that a four month period had been granted to bring about a significant improvement in performance or the government would take alternative action. He was aided by a real sense of urgency about the task in hand, much along the now conventional lines suggested by Kotter (1996). Gersick (1991) suggests that a crisis serves to awaken staff from complacency or inertia. The new leader capitalised on the sense of urgency that lay behind the appointment as CO.

The new CO was aided by an initiative that had already been developed and was ready for implementation. ’Onwards and upwards’* (OAU) was a new accountability and performance structure which external consultants had designed with input from operational staff to address under-performance. This represented a huge cultural shift for managers and staff, who were not used to such a level of accountability.

The CO set the Management Information Team (MIT) the task of producing data to aid managers by identifying what work was outstanding and what work had not been completed on time. This team level data was to ensure honest discussions in management meetings, counteracting the previous perceived culture of middle management filtering information and telling SMT what they wanted to hear, described by Kotter (ibid) as management “happy talk”.

Making the OAU strategy central to the transformation strategy, he personally monitored progress rigorously in meetings with middle managers. This level of attention to detail ensured that the required changes penetrated to every corner of the organisation. Generating coherence and alignment within the senior team led almost automatically to the creation of a ‘strong guiding coalition’ Kotter (ibid). To strengthen the senior coalition further, there was a requirement that the Directors become directly responsible for answering to the Board about the performance of their own departments, rather than speaking for them. The CO recalls the directors felt empowered by the recognition of purpose and authority in their role.

Tackling IT A major barrier to success that the chief’s plans faced was the high number of working days lost per month as a result of the organisation’s poor IT infrastructure. He considered the seriousness and importance of the removal of barriers as critical to empowering people for change. Within two weeks the status quo was under challenge as matters were taken to Government Ministers and weekly meetings held with the IT provider until the problem was resolved and the system much improved. The significance of this was not only to reduce a huge source of stress but also actively and publicly to demonstrate listening and commitment to staff, essential to the process of building trust.

Tackling the endemic problems in HR

The CO identified that another stream crucial to the change management plan was tackling the endemic problems within the organisation’s Human Resource function. A previous HR director having departed within weeks of the new leader’s arrival provided a catalytic opportunity to look at longstanding industrial relations problems and HR policies. The CO labels the sickness policy “of poor quality” and other policies “ok but badly implemented, as a result of middle managers relying too heavily on HR managers, who lacked insight into operational culture, for a decision”. In his view recruitment had previously been guided “by a misunderstanding of the equal opportunities policy into un-businesslike decisions” which had had a detrimental impact at all levels of the organisation. A high number of grievances and disciplinary hearings across the organisation evidenced further the poor relationships between staff and management.

Early on, he began the task of aligning both HR policies and the union with the performance agenda. Under the slogan, “high on performance, high on duty of care” the CO made sure awareness of staff well- being was not overlooked in the drive to meet targets.

A Human Resources taskforce with representatives from HR, the union and all staff grades was set up to revise HR policies that would result in a more efficient, effective and fair organisation, particularly in relation to capability, sickness, mobility, and discipline. When completed, the training for middle managers in the new HR policies was jointly led by the training department and union, illustrating an improvement in industrial relations. A significant drop in the level of sickness absence during his tenure seemed to reflect that the strategy was having an impact.

Deliberately altering the climate

This new chief officer made clear a core value that “the behaviour and tone of the CO sets the tone for the organisation”, and therefore set out in terms of behaviour, dress, presentation and strategies to role model the tone desired.

Standards for behaviour and tone were made explicit in a paper called ‘A Shared Responsibility – How we achieve high performance in our organisation’. It described the behaviours all staff needed to demonstrate “to become the organisation that we aspire to be”. The CO clarified the underlying importance of both meeting targets and completing high quality work and in contrast to previous leadership statements, made explicit that the consequences of not meeting targets lay in formal sanction.

Earning the trust of middle managers Another element the leader considers key to the turnaround strategy was developing relationships with middle managers to build trust. The CO held meetings with all of them to hear their individual perspectives on the problems facing the organisation and was surprised to discover that for some of them, it was first time they had been in the CO’s office or had held a one-to-one meeting with a CO. Such relationship building or affiliation is acknowledged as a key building block when implementing a successful change management plan (Kanter 1992, Goleman 1998, Mento et al 2002, Jick 2003).

Another stratagem he used to earn trust was to empower middle managers to set the pace and manage the improvement of performance at the front line. Surprised by the ambitious pace that they suggested but not wanting to undermine their enthusiasm he decided in favour of supporting their suggestions.

Oreg (2006) examined the link between trust in management and resistance to change, and found a strong association between distrust, negative emotions and behaviours. He also found that a lack of trust in management might provoke a full spectrum of resistance forms. Michaelis et al (2009) also identified that trust in top management is likely to be associated with high levels of affective commitment to change and a greater willingness to cooperate. Busch, Cadwallader and Parish (2008) found that employees who enjoy good quality relationships with their managers feel more desire and duty to support an organisational change. The CO’s desire to win the trust not only of the SMT but of all managers and staff was integral to the change effort.

Fostering a sense of pride in organisational success and changing the culture to “we can do it”

Experience had convinced the CO that people required a sense of achievement and pride in themselves and the organisation in order for culture to change. Hayes (2007) contends that empowering people to change includes creating a climate in which people believe in themselves and are confident they have the support of others to make things happen. The CO found that the first urgent task was a significant backlog of assessments and so organised a completion “blitz” with a two-week deadline. Staff and managers across the organisation were assigned to the task and many worked long hours until the job was successfully completed. This was a significant turning point signalled by Kotter (1996) or Mento et al (2002) as a “short term win”; evidence that “we can do it” and the provision of the motivation for people to keep the momentum going. According to the CO, this evidence of change helped people disassociate from failure and develop a sense of pride in their organisation, an intrinsic reward essential in the public sector.

Improving industrial relations with staff and the union

One key aspect of tackling the overall human relations problem was addressing the poor industrial relations with the trades union, as this was a further barrier to improving performance. The CO described the union dimension to the problem as “off the wall”. Senior figures in the union were still opposing the completion of performance targets and were viewed by senior management as supporting a culture of poor performance and entrenched attitudes. There had been, before the leader’s arrival, a combative environment between a senior director of HR and the union. It would have been difficult for performance to have improved while the trade union and HR were at loggerheads.

The CO suggests that the arrival of a new acting senior figure in HR - coincidentally at the time a new union chair was elected, led to a huge improvement in industrial relations.

Borrowing from the South African national example, part of the strategy for tackling jointly these two areas was called the “Truth and Reconciliation process” and was designed to expurgate the old behaviours and allow new behaviours in. This included an event organised to support the work of the “HR Taskforce” and to provide Board members, trade union representatives and managers with the opportunity for a frank exchange of views in order to clear the way for the work of the HR Taskforce.

Communicate effectively

Kotter (1996) famously stated that vision is often under-communicated by a factor of ten and then undermined by managers whose behaviour is not consistent with the message. This is echoed by Burnes (2004) who says that managers need to send important messages “six times, in six different ways”.

The CO was clear that a communication strategy was vital to building trust and bringing change to this organisation. Focussing on a limited number of messages was made central to the change process and all available vehicles were used for spreading the message to all parts of the organisation. Personal updates as chief officer, and from all the directors about their spheres of control, sent out key performance messages. Across all media, he consciously chose direct, clear and authoritative language to communicate the message, believing that to earn respect and trust as a leader, honesty or “home truths” must lie at the heart of such communication.

Central to downward and upward communication were daily team meetings and weekly managers’ meetings under the OAU strategy. Messages were communicated at six-weekly operational managers’ leadership forums and via the in-house quarterly publication. Significantly a conference was held for all managers across the organisation where the CO addressed them with a series of “home truths” central to the communications strategy.

The OAU strategy recognised the need for two way communication (Kanter 1992, Burnes 1996, Beer 2001) by including a channel for feeding back concerns and barriers to hitting targets to senior management, enabling staff to become involved or for example to express frustration when progress was hindered by the poor IT infrastructure. Evidence gathered of lost hours from IT problems in turn strengthened the CO’s hand with the IT provider.

Oreg (2006) cites Wanberg & Banas, who found that “employees who reported receiving timely, informative, and useful information about an organizational change presented a more positive evaluation of the change and increased willingness to cooperate with it”. Lines (2005) found that as well as leadership ability, fairness, and openness, participation helps to build trust in management. Van Dam et al (2008) also stress that good communication and participation encourages staff buy-in and minimises resistance to change. Through OAU all staff potentially had a channel for feeding back information relating to performance via their middle manager to the SMT.

Spreading “home truths” to challenge organisational myths that supported a “can’t do culture”

One of the obstacles that the CO recognised at an early stage was a “can’t do” culture (Knight, 2006). Operational staff thought they were “too busy or too under resourced” for targets. Managers, historically without support and commitment from the corporate centre, lacked the confidence to insist targets were met. The CO’s leadership was important in challenging this mental model by communicating about and adhering to the exigencies of performance. The CO was very clear about what was required and made his authority absolutely clear by stating unequivocally that failure to meet targets would not be tolerated and would face sanction. The OAU strategy further invested authority in managers at all levels and empowered them to drive through change.

A communications strategy called “spreading home truths” was employed to change the current mental model and bring about cultural change. The main thrust of the message was that this organisation had comparable resources to similar organisations where performance was much higher and was therefore considerably under-performing compared with these agencies. His outsider status combined a level of normative and coercive benchmarking (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). It was also made clear that achieving targets was what staff were paid to do. The CO pointed out from personal experience that staff in other organisations had undergone this cultural shift many years ago and this organisation needed to catch up. This shook many staff out of their comfort zone and exposed them to a new perspective of the external world. Heifetz and Laurie (1997) argue that challenging people and taking them out of their comfort zone lies at the core of leadership and encourages people to find their own solutions. Some staff took exception to the directive tone and there were complaints to the union.

End game?

By December 2009 the leader had completed the task the government had set and achieved Trust status. Beer (2001) identifies a series of factors which are influential in the failure of an organisation to perform well: “unclear strategy and/or conflicting priorities, an ineffective top team, a CEO whose style is either too top-down or too laissez faire, poor coordination and teamwork across parts of the organization that must work together, poor vertical communication, particularly upward communication, inadequate management and leadership development and not enough down-the-line leaders and finally, the inability of lower-level employees to have an honest conversation with their leaders” (p241). It seemed that the interim CO had dealt effectively with the bulk of these failure factors.

Analysis of the foregoing narrative

The new CO had managed to change an organisation, which had been consistently failing throughout the era of new public management and target culture. As authors, we were interested to know the extent to which his experience and intuitive behaviours reflected or resonated with wider theoretical perspectives on change. As a preliminary process, we compared the empirical activities to certain planned change management models:

Bullock and Batten’s (1985) exploration, planning, action and integration approach showed similarity with the change management plan in its brevity, although there was only limited time for exploration and planning as this CO relied on a model commissioned by a predecessor. However, he seems to have recognised that integrating change in frontline performance with back office functions was central to, rather than after, the ‘action’ stage.

The approach of the new CO also resonates with Kanter (1992) in particular in terms of tuning into the environment, challenging the prevailing culture, communicating a compelling aspiration and building coalitions.

The turnaround strategy could be seen to exhibit many of the early stages of Kotter’s 8 Step Model (1996) which outlines the need to establish a sense of urgency, form a powerful guiding coalition, plan and create short term wins.

Jick’s (2003) model could be seen to develop Kotter’s thinking and further, as with this case, has an emphasis on a strong leadership role as well as developing enabling structures. As with the new leader’s home truths, Jick also attaches importance to honest communication.

Nadler and Tushman’s (1995) congruence model identified the need for the whole organisation or system to be aligned for change to be successful. It takes into account the nature of the work and the staff as well as the informal and formal organisation within a system. In this turnaround strategy the CO sought to align formal processes with the day-to-day activities of staff through OAU but it could be argued lacked the time to explore fully the areas that this model would emphasise as important especially with respect to the people aspects. Working on the assumption that staff were already trained and capable of fulfilling the task, the leader here assumed that a change in prioritisation and accountability would bring the required results. Additionally goal setting and achievement, critically important to the CO’s model, do not appear in the congruence model.

The systems alignment approach of Mckinsey’s Seven S (Waterman et al. 1980) or even 8 ‘s’ (Higgins 2005) illuminates certain aspects of the CO’s turnaround change management plan in that the strategy would have more chance to succeed if style, structure systems etc. were not in dissonance. There was a purposeful move to align strategy with leadership style, and to improve systems, however structure was inherited and was not altered in the short term. The attempt to alter staff behaviours and inculcate shared values also chimes with the model. It could be said that the strategy resembled a 7 S prescription although somewhat after the effect rather than as an integrated purposive blueprint.

Lesser resonance was found with staged-process models such as Lewin’s (1945) classic freezing, moving and refreezing model, Bridges ending-neutral zone-new beginning model (1991) and Carnall’s (1991) model. The longer-term issues of sustaining and renewing organisation change, while of great merit, hardly feature as a way to understand the impact of the plan to improve performance within a four-month period.

It is argued elsewhere how diverse and inconclusive current leadership theory might be (Gill, 2011; Grint, 1997; Hughes, 2010), however certain behaviours, nuances and characteristics may be discernable within this literature. Our analysis suggests a context and set of leadership proclivities which are firmly ‘essentialist’ in the manner suggested by Grint – a very clear and largely agreed context as a result of history and behaviours and outward signals that are rooted fundamentally in the ‘DNA’ of the leader’s organisational practice. Here, self-knowledge and sound awareness of the current situation allow a contingent leadership response in the sense suggested by Grint.

There is agreement to be found in a comparison with Adair’s (1979) work, as the CO in question here demonstrates an evenly balanced focus on task, organisational team maintenance and individuals’ needs. In the situational sense (Blanchard, 1993), there is a notable tendency toward “selling” and to a lesser extent “participating”, where a great deal of energy went into clarifying issues rather starkly yet engaging the enthusiasm and desire of employees to take part in the turnaround.

Much of the expected behaviour of the transformational leader is to be found in the case, where motivation around a specific set of values and beliefs rather than transactional motives to engage evolve over the period in question. However the classic expectation that vision plays a key role may be less apparent here although should a definition following Cummings and Worley (2008) be considered then ‘the core values and purpose that guide the organisation ‘ rather than an ‘envisioned future’ might adequately cover the CO’s communicated vision.

Modelling the strategy

How did the CO meet the challenge of achieving the required performance targets in four months and sustain that to December when the fate of the organisation was to be decided? In drawing together the different strands of his strategy the model that emerges consists of three main elements:

• Actions to link lines of accountability much more tightly • Rhetorical reframing of the climate • Strategically aligned communication

Actions to link lines of accountability much more tightly:

The CO’s task was to create a new legitimacy in an organisation that was deemed to be failing by its national governing organisation and associated Ministry. With a personal motto of “duty of performance and duty of care” he clearly divided actions into frontline and back office streams. Immediate actions were to spell out the goals, introduce accountability throughout the organisation and ensure all the senior managers supported the same goal. Clear objectives for units and for managers as well as a performance management system that was aligned with organisational goals introduced clarity about direction in a complex organisational environment. This was significant because these very clear messages moved the organisation away from a “pick and mix” culture whereby staff, showered by an overwhelming number of different messages from senior managers, chose those which seemed manageable.

The CO recognised the need to align back office functions, in particular IT support, human resources, management information and marketing and communications to support this performance demand. Of immediate importance was directing that the management information team should provide weekly data which ensured accountability in all units. This served to address the problem of information transmitted up the organisation which will show senders’ units in a good light thus filtering out key information relevant to understanding or managing performance issues (O’Reilly and Pond cited in Hayes, 2007). Grasping the nettle of ‘loose-coupling’ (Brignall, 2000), the CO forced through an alignment of accountability for performance recursively throughout the organisational levels.

Another priority which would take a longer time to complete was to re-write HR policies to support the desired behaviours and to address the high levels of sickness that threatened to impact on performance. The support of the union was sought in designing these new policies giving them the legitimacy of union backing. However, the CO did not expect or anticipate the HR department alone to bring about cultural change and ensured that all senior managers and all departments were working on performance throughout the chain: finance; legal resources; IT; marketing; front line operations.

Clearly the alignment of back office functions and policies could not be done overnight. The actions which focussed on frontline performance reaped almost instantaneous rewards. Given that government ministers had set a four month timescale for change it is perhaps not surprising that the CO adopted a “command and control” or “coercive” leadership style (Goleman, 2000), or “commander” (Grint, 2009). However, by demonstrating recognition that the organisation owed the staff a “duty of care” by setting out to re-write HR policies and tackling poor industrial relations, he sought to do more than force a sullen and unmotivated workforce to fulfil its obligation.

Rhetorical reframing of the climate

Bowditch and Buona (2005 p 127) identify that the content of change communications is a powerful tool in shaping images and mind-sets accompanying change by attempting “to stretch the imagination and to motivate people to rethink organisation possibilities”. For the CO an important element in the change management plan was spreading ‘home truths’ to support the cultural shift to one of being high performance. A new rhetoric was used to challenge the shared mental model, destroy debilitating myths and create a “can do” culture

The CO’s ‘home truths’, expressed verbally to managers at different meetings and the all-manager conference, were designed to create a new narrative based on the straightforward principle that employees are expected to do what the government pays them to do. This was reinforced by messages, which set out to destroy the organisational myth, or shared mental model that this agency was more poorly resourced than similar agencies. It also highlighted that this organisation stood alone in poor performance when other similar agencies had for a long time been on top of the task.

The rhetoric of the Shared Responsibility document summed up the new legitimacy of the organisation in its clear statement of purpose, individual responsibility, accountability, sanctions and behaviour.

This new legitimacy was supported by the OAU strategy which set the parameters for an (albeit intrinsic) reward and sanction culture, by publishing local data to show who was meeting performance targets and who was failing, down to an individual level. Managers were encouraged and empowered to manage non-compliance with the weight of the organisation behind them.

In the rhetoric behind the “Truth and Reconciliation process” on the other hand was a recognition that there had been flawed behaviour by managers, staff and union members, and this represented an attempt to expunge the horrors of the previous period of unsatisfactory industrial relations in order to leave the past behind, and clear the way to allow new behaviours in. This would include new behaviours by all staff to support the new performance culture; by managers to hold staff to account; but also on behalf of all staff to ensure the implementation of fairer policies across the organisation.

Strategically Aligned Communication

A sound communication strategy was vital to sending out the key messages to all corners of the organisation. The CO used all media and fora available and kept the message simple and direct. From the offset the tone of his communications made it clear what was expected; why it was expected and what the consequences of failure would be. The straightforward message was communicated consistently across all fora and at all levels, making the most of IT and face-to-face meetings. Under such a barrage of communication no one could pretend they had not heard what was expected of them or fail to recognise the consequences should they choose to ignore it.

In terms of a communication strategy, the CO moved the organisation from a “spray and pray” approach, in which managers overwhelm employees with so much information they cannot tell what is significant and are not sure how to act, to more of a “tell and sell” approach, limiting the amount of information and explaining the reasoning behind it (Clampitt et al, 2000). Although the effectiveness of this approach lay in the forceful diffusion of a very limited message, even more impact may have been generated if a more sophisticated tailoring of message to medium (Quirke, 1995) had been undertaken. It is not clear that the CO had considered such methodological specificity but the reliance on a limited message in itself may have allowed the differing media to ‘funnel’ communication as appropriate and relevant to differing audiences.

Discussion

From the rich personal narrative, available documentary and other empirically sourced information, the authors consider that a transformation strategy and form of leadership practice have been implemented which in some senses exhibit aspects to be found within the current change and leadership literatures, yet in others provide for a different focus and the potential for some new theoretical considerations.

The turnaround strategy to be embraced by all actors in the organisation had been ignited by a specific demonstration of leadership. As noted earlier there is no consensus in terms of the most effective theory of leadership, however, arguably without the particular leadership examined here, the turnaround would not have happened, i.e. the same technical (managerial, operational, structural) features examined in this article may have been put in place, but the organisation may have remained in stasis or been convulsed by resistance. Such an interesting combination of effective leadership and its symbiotic relationship with technical change deserves further exploration.

Certain key circumstances may also have played a key role in the emergent unfolding of the turnaround: • The leadership role was always known and understood as temporary. Potentially, this very tenure allowed the interim leader to accrete goodwill and positive action in a way politically unachievable for a chief officer likely to be in post for a long or unknown period. This degree of separateness (Grint, 2009) allowed for the public signalling of the ‘elephant in the room’ not amenable to more permanent leaders. Further, the interim leader was an outsider, providing the space for public sacrifice should all not go to plan, again allowing organisational actors to more safely ‘give it a go’ and display followership.

• The outside change agent (Paton and Mcalmon, 2000) may have had a critical role within this transformation programme. The hiring of outside consultants, and their performance brief, had laid the conditions for the leader to amplify. The consultants had offered tangible processes and activities to achieve performance improvements. Rather than a new leader having to urge incumbent staff to generate new ideas for improving performance, the new, and politically untainted ideas, were already in place ready for use. Again, arguably given the emphasis on ‘tight-coupled’ accountability as a plank in the turnaround, this was a fortunate godsend for the new chief which allowed for a smoother implementation of the chosen tightened lines of accountability.

Taking the above into consideration however, our analysis of this case suggests that there is a degree of novelty and innovation within the strategy enough to posit a potential theoretical contribution to change and transformation understanding.

A metaphorical diamond model for organisational turnaround

Using the metaphorical 3 dimensional modelling of a diamond, we suggest 3 key considerations, modelled as three upper facets, were critical to the interim CO’s concept of turnaround, all interconnected and equally important.

Figure 1

All three of the above facets support each other iteratively and with strong features of positive feedback such that if any one is not present, holistic effectiveness drops significantly (the whole is less than the subtraction of its parts!). However, most importantly, we suggest that the apex of this upper pyramid represents authentic transformational leadership, and this very leadership allows the three ‘technical’ facets to work in an integrated manner within the organisation.

The very deliberate choice of tight-coupling reflects several pressures – the coercive mimetic of the state; a neo-classical nod towards objective efficiency; a way to gain traction and clarity in an environment of seething loose-coupled agenda; and a way to send the message about the new climate and expectations. This would appear to be particularly pertinent within the large public sector organisational space, where the authors would argue; it may be far more useful and effective than the generation of new ‘vision’.

As argued earlier, the loneliness of the new leader (Grint, 2009) allows for legitimately forceful, instructing and coercive behaviour. In this case, the leader requires acknowledgement of, and engagement with, a performance culture. If not, legitimate and formal sanction may follow. This ‘stick’ is accompanied however by a very sophisticated ‘carrot’, that of care and interest in staff, where previously it may have been significantly lacking. The emphasis on trust and the building of reciprocal trust is an intrinsic part within the overall coercive dynamic. Smollan (2006,p.152) identified that “trustworthiness of managers will influence employees’ response to change and this derives from perceptions of procedural justice”. Woodward and Hendry (2004 p159) identify that scepticism and cynicism result from “experiences of earlier, unsuccessful change initiatives and lack of effective leadership practises and lack of participation in decisions.” They contend that if change managers do not pay sufficient attention to the people aspects of organisational change the outcome is likely to be negative. By placing the importance of duty of care with performance the CO was not only trying to overcome barriers to change but also demonstrating particular awareness of the people aspects of change. This level of sophistication extends the more usual simplicity of the coercion elements found in Dunphy and Stacey’s matrix (1998) or Kotter and Schlesinger’s (1979) coercion, or Grint’s commander concept (op cit.).

Although perhaps leaning toward command, such dualism would appear to have been largely welcomed within an organisation where morale had been lost, “Under conditions of change, followers look up to their leaders as a source of certainty and may thus be more attentive to their guidance and actions.” (Oreg and Berson, 2011,p.632). Indeed, evidence would suggest that the personal attributes ‘radiating’ from the new leader allowed for both a diminution in the likelihood of resistance amongst potential (and actual) followers; and a shift toward motivation to embrace the leader-inspired changes. (ibid). The transformational characteristics of the CO’s approach may also be deemed to have encouraged a ‘person- organisation’ congruence (Hoffman et al, 2011) where staff seem to have eagerly embraced the shape and feel of the organisation offered by, and reflected in, the behaviours of the new leader, “perceptions of congruence with organizational values, rather than perceptions of congruence with leader values, ultimately facilitate work unit effectiveness.” (ibid. p.791).

It appears likely that the authentic behaviours (Zhu et al, 2011) of the CO allowed followers, in a catalytic manner, to connect with organisational values more closely related to their own personal value set. Thus trust was established between staff and the leader not just by the transformational aspects of the new leadership process, but by the very authenticity of the leadership behaviours (themselves formed from and steeped in a cultural landscape well known to staff).

A communications plan which set out to convey the messages intrinsic to the other two facets allowed the new thinking to permeate seemingly all the nooks and crannies of the organisation. The communications network seems to have been considered strategically in terms of its capability to deliver the appropriate message (Barrett, 2002); and the variety of forms (serendipitously or purposefully) directed toward differing roles and groups of staff demonstrates much of the strategic diversity advocated by Quirke (1995). Further, the tight focusing of the message on the tight- coupling of lines of accountability left little room for misunderstanding or different interpretation.

The lower half of the metaphorical diamond represents a further 3 facets which connect into the upper pyramid: the apex here being resultant performance and the facets model commitment gained, trust given and climate impacted.

Figure 2

The lower apex of the diamond then represents performance – the kind exhorted by the leader, and willingly given by the staff. Connecting both ‘halves’ of the model gives the diamond construct itself (figure 3).

Figure 3

We suggest the above model reflects a process set in train where authentic leadership signalled a moral code and attracted trust. Leadership actions validated the communications; the communications about the actions affected the organisational climate; positive reinforcement of appropriate actions deepened the commitment to the new behaviours; the new behaviours modelled and further changed the climate; communications signalled the changing climate etc. etc. The mutually supporting strength of the diamond’s facets gave the momentum and impetus for this particular transformation strategy to succeed. Empirical public domain and organisation-private targets were met. The dynamics of this process flow are mapped in figure 4.

Figure 4

The model of strategic turnaround which may be discerned has specific features. The new and specifically interim leader displays a model of moral integrity and demonstrates familiarity and expertise with the occupational world known to the staff. There is a clear, and clearly communicated, shift to a narrower band focus on targeted performance standards which emanates from the new leader and is backed by reward and sanction which sets the new institutional tone. Not only are lines of accountability tightened in terms of expectations of information flow and type, but recognition of correct or incorrect results displayed by such flows is followed up via approval or threat of sanction.

It would seem the narrowing of focus and consequent senior corporate interest met with a certain degree of approval amongst staff, linking the new or changed environment to an image or aspiration around organizational values. The reciprocation from staff may be understood in terms of energy and willingness to adapt to the new expectations – which is critical to the success of the turnaround. Such a response engenders an altered climate where the new behaviours become norms, organizational culture may be tending toward one that celebrates or at least features a generalized sense of new behaviour. The actualisation of the shifts explicitly mandated by the new leader allows staff to trust even further in the appropriate leadership being modelled.

The dynamic at work here would seem to be that the relative narrowing and constraining of the set of activities was a valuable catalyst to the overall change. However the holistic interaction of the leader’s communications programme, modelling of moral behaviours, altered climate and trusting staff reciprocity formed a process whereby the generalized organizational shift occurred.

The emphasis on lower key operational activity and its evolving much more holistic dynamic would seem to stand apart from the more usual ‘staged’ strategic managerial process recipes in terms of its iterative and reciprocal elements; and from the more flamboyant emphasis on vision as critical success factor in the strategic and turnaround field. Specific use for such a turnaround diamond model

Our reflections suggest that the success and seeming effectiveness of the diamond metaphor may be circumscribed to ‘punctuating’ transformations or turnarounds, as opposed to incrementally improving endemic change, and further, more effectively associated with specific categories of managed change:

The choice of agenda to shift and focus on ‘tight-coupling’ may be an issue of more importance within the public and voluntary sectors, where multiple relations and co-existing paradoxes might be more prevalent than in the ‘clearer’ private sector.

‘Tight-coupling’ may represent such a strong threat to many groups within organisations that it may never gain the political traction to do the work we ascribe to it.

Comprehensive understanding of (particularly) change communications needs to be in place, unsophisticated or poor communications networks may undermine the direction of travel.

There should be an organisational readiness or facility to allow in outside change agents, for ground preparation as much as for the strategy itself. This may include both the groundwork team and the new leader

Curiously, a definitive fixed term for the acknowledged leader may be crucial in ‘allowing’ an organisation to follow new, coercive instructions. The sacrifice at the end of the period gives cover to all competing groups or political agenda in the interim.

Conclusion

Described by a member of the senior management team as a “transformational leader” because he “has been responsible for transformational change in this organisation by focussing SMT entirely on performance”, how is the CO’s leadership to be interpreted? It would be overly simplistic to take from the analysis that acting authoritatively or coercively in itself generated the employee behaviours which turned the organisation around and achieved the outcomes set. Aspects of the kind of coercion or manipulation suggested by Kotter and Schlesinger where (as they would claim), time and urgency was of the essence were apparent, but much more importantly were the actions and strategies that chime with “Negotiation and Agreement” and “Facilitation and Support” from their framework. Along the lines suggested by Adair (1979), this leader was as concerned with individuals’ and groups’ capacity to perform effectively, morally appropriately in terms of held values and safely as he was by the task in hand.

Set against a backdrop of Gill’s (2011) six themes and associated practices of leadership, five of these principles are clearly visible. The communication of a ‘valid and appealing purpose’ for the organisation seems to have been demonstrated convincingly; the ‘identification, demonstration, promotion and reinforcement of shared values’ were to the fore in the strategy; the proposed strategies seemed to be rational and flowed from the set of shared values; staff were ‘handed back’ the power to perform professionally and autonomously (although clearly within the remits of the overall performance agenda); and the leader’s ability to ‘influence, motivate and inspire people to want to do what needs to be done’ seems to have been reflected fractally throughout the organisation.

Our contention is rather that this leader combined authenticity with authority, acted as commander yet was deeply interested in employee well being, and was very transparent in modelling publicly the values and expectations for the organisation. This brought about the staff willingness and enthusiasm to ‘perform’, not merely the fear of autocratic control and sanction. In some sense, the staff were given permission to follow authoritative instruction, powerful and valuable because it allowed alignment between their personally held professional values and the apparent direction of the organisation. The CO had legitimised the ‘right’ set of behaviours to be chosen from a welter of different forms of behaviour previously deemed equally legitimate.

Robbins (2005) defines transformational leaders as those who change “followers awareness of issues by helping them to look at old problems in new ways; they are able to excite, arouse, and inspire followers to put extra effort to achieve group goals” (cited in Hughes 2006). Performance did improve dramatically after the CO arrived and Trust status was gained in December 2009. Given the extra effort made by staff to win Trust status, it would appear that the CO’s leadership did indeed arouse many people to change their behaviour.

We contend that the empirical out-turn evidenced in this case may be explained by the combination of an authentically transformational leader pursuing a turnaround strategy described by the turnaround diamond. Certain attributes were made very clear to observers (particularly staff) and these concepts and behaviours were capable of promoting ‘moral uplift’ amongst followers. “These components include possessing moral characteristics (e.g., moral values, integrity, and honesty), individual moral behaviours (e.g., doing the right things), morality in decision-making processes and procedures at work (e.g. holding to moral values), moral role modelling through visible moral action, moral reward and discipline, and communicating ethics and values to followers and to the group. We suggest that these core moral components equip authentic transformational leaders to set high standards for moral/ethical actions, and to lead in ways that result in followers emulating the moral perspectives and moral actions of these leaders” (Zhu et al, p.6, op cit.).

Professional front line and administrative staff reacted well to this form of leadership, to such an extent that the key indicators of turnaround were achieved. It might be argued that at the meso- level, some middle managers, either not understanding the nature of authentic transformational leadership, or indeed by acting amorally in terms of ‘just getting things done’ to provide appropriate signals whilst abandoning other activities, may have been reacting more to overt coercion and reward. However, clearly enough of the ‘right stuff’ in most of the organisation was going on for the leader’s strategy to be considered successful.

Declaration of a morally courageous, almost one-dimensional strategy (performance), drove an integrated series of activities weaving together tightened accountability; rhetorical reframing and reinforcing of a new climate and limited and focused powerful communications. A demoralised staff seemed ‘ready’ to accept the authentic leadership behaviours; was persuaded to attempt the accountability route and was confirmed and convinced by supportive communication.

Over time, an evolving culture may demonstrate whether once and for all change occurred at this critical juncture. Whether the turnaround could be sustained and the climate could drive new and successful organisational structures and relationships provides potential for future research.

This article explores an approach to a turnaround strategy, analysing reaction to the exigencies of a poorly performing public sector organisation. The strategy’s components and outcomes may be case- specific or even unique; however such a model may be appropriate for use in other circumstances.

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