Eleven lessons on how to approach change by Daniel Cable, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School.

1. The new path to
organisational change
Business has entered a new era, one that means
that the old paradigms governing change are no
longer the road to success.
Daniel M Cable, Professor of Organisational
Behaviour, London Business School shares his
eleven change lessons.

2. 2
Today, the basis of change is small
changes in human behaviour, rather
than grand organisational changes.
It’s a matter of hundreds (or even
thousands) of individuals acting in
new ways – by this, people inside
a firm bring about organisational
change that customers can see and
respond to.
1 Understand change

3. 3
It takes leadership to make the
changes that have a beneficial
effect. Good leaders build up the
employees’ individual patterns of
behaviour to create substantial
organisational change.
2 Joined up behaviour

4. 4
The workforce is more sceptical, questioning,
sophisticated – more cynical and educated than ever
before. They are more aware of the world around them,
of the struggles that the world is facing, and of the value
of self – their lives outside of work.
3 Your changing workforce

5. 5
That change in employee
awareness demands a different
kind of management. Good
ideas cascaded into the
workplace clearly aren’t going
to cut it anymore. Change is,
in a sense, more of a group
activity, one that can come
from the bottom up.
4 A bottom up approach

6. 6
Leaders must provide their
employees with hope, purpose,
and encouragement to try new
things. They can provide a sense
of common purpose by rallying
their workers with stories –
stories about how their collective
efforts will create a better
tomorrow.
7 The new model of change

7. 7
Leaders must make certain their
workforce knows that making change
will be a struggle, it will take time
and it may not work perfectly.
There is a learning curve. Like any
coach, leaders have to encourage
people to push on through.
It’s what coaching is all about.
7 Be a coach

8. 8
Leaders must encourage
workers, by emphasising again
and again, that they should
focus on the purpose that the
end result will make what they
are going through worth it. But
purpose aimed at the long term is
rare.
7 Focus on the end-game

9. 9
Promote change with the people who
actually have to change, have to work
in new ways or do other (perhaps
difficult) new things. Collective action
is about a common sense of purpose.
And it’s up to the leader to convince
the workers.
8 Promote the desire for change

10. 10
Innovation and creativity must take place in an
organisation for it to remain competitive in the long
term. Leaders have to give their employees the belief
that change can take place and that new ways can help
everyone to succeed.
9 Make them believe

11. 11
The only way to build an organisation
that is change-ready, adaptive and
resilient, is a psychological approach,
not a strategic one. Organisations work
best when there are hundreds of people
looking every day for ways to make a
better tomorrow.
10 Take a psychological approach

12. 12
Don’t forget that change just keeps coming
because the world changes and
competition keeps challenging us.
11 Change is changing

13. 13
The full article was published
in Business Strategy Review
Special Edition 2014‑2015.
Visit the new
London Business School Review website:
www.london.edu/lbsr