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The Thought in Brief

When a company is teetering on the brink of ruin, most turnaround leaders revamp strategy, shift around staff, and root out inefficiencies. Then they wait patiently for the payoff—merely to suffer bitter disappointment as the expected improvements fail to materialize.

How to make change stick? Conduct a four-stage persuasion campaign: ane) Prepare your organization'southward cultural "soil" months before setting your turnaround plan in concrete—past convincing employees that your visitor tin can survive only through radical change. 2) Present your program—explaining in detail its purpose and expected touch. 3) Later executing the program, manage employees' emotions by acknowledging the pain of change—while keeping people focused on the hard work ahead. 4) Equally the turnaround starts generating results, reinforce desired behavioral changes to forestall recidivism.

Using this four-office process, the CEO of Beth State of israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) brought the declining hospital back from near-certain death. Hemorrhaging $58 million in losses in 2001, BIDMC reported a $37.4 million net gain from operations in 2004. Revenues rose, while costs shrank. Morale soared—every bit reflected by a drop in nursing turnover from between fifteen% and 16% in 2002 to just 3% by 2004.

The Thought in Practice

Apply these steps to persuade your workforce to embrace and execute needed change:

Gear up the Stage for Credence

Develop a bold bulletin that provides compelling reasons to do things differently. Example:

On his first twenty-four hour period equally Beth State of israel Deaconess Medical Middle's CEO, Paul Levy publicized the possibility that BIDMC would exist sold to a for-profit institution. He delivered an all-hands-on-deck e-mail to the staff citing the hospital's achievements while confirming that the threat of sale was real. The email also signaled actions he would take, including layoffs, and described his open direction style (hallway chats, lunches with staff). In addition, Levy circulated a third-party, warts-and-all study on BIDMC's plight on the hospital'due south intranet—then staff could no longer merits ignorance.

Frame the Turnaround Plan

Present your turnaround plan in a fashion that helps people translate your ideas correctly. Example:

Levy augmented his several-hundred-page plan with an e-mail that evoked BIDMC's mission and uncompromising values and reaffirmed the importance of remaining an academic medical heart. He provided further details about the plan, emphasizing needed tough measures based on the tertiary-party report. He also explained past plans' deficiencies, contrasting earlier efforts' top-downwards methods with his program'southward collaborative approach. Employees thus felt the programme belonged to them.

Manage the Mood

Strike the correct notes of optimism and realism to make employees feel cared for while also keeping them focused on your program'due south execution. Example:

Levy best-selling the pain of layoffs, then urged employees to wait forrard to "[setting] an example for what a unique academic medical center like ours means for this region." He also issued progress updates while reminding people that BIDMC notwithstanding needed to control costs. Equally financial functioning picked up, he lavishly praised the staff.

Forbid Backsliding

Provide opportunities for employees to practice desired behaviors repeatedly. If necessary, publicly criticize disruptive, divisive behaviors. Case:

Levy had established meeting rules requiring staff to land their objections to decisions and to "disagree without beingness disagreeable." When one medical chief due east-mailed Levy complaining near a conclusion fabricated during a coming together—and copied the other chiefs and lath chairman—Levy took activeness. He responded with an east-mail to the same audience, publicly reprimanding the chief for his tone, lack of civility, and failure to follow the rule nigh speaking up during meetings.

Faced with the demand for massive change, about managers respond predictably. They revamp the organization's strategy, and so round up the usual set of suspects—people, pay, and processes—shifting effectually staff, realigning incentives, and rooting out inefficiencies. They then expect patiently for performance to improve, only to be bitterly disappointed. For some reason, the right things still don't happen.

Why is modify so hard? First of all, nearly people are reluctant to modify their habits. What worked in the by is practiced enough; in the absence of a dire threat, employees will keep doing what they've ever done. And when an organization has had a succession of leaders, resistance to change is even stronger. A legacy of disappointment and distrust creates an surround in which employees automatically condemn the side by side turnaround champion to failure, assuming that he or she is "just similar all the others." Calls for sacrifice and self-bailiwick are met with cynicism, skepticism, and knee-jerk resistance.

Our enquiry into organizational transformation has involved settings every bit diverse equally multinational corporations, authorities agencies, nonprofits, and high-performing teams like mountaineering expeditions and firefighting crews. We've found that for change to stick, leaders must design and run an effective persuasion entrada—one that begins weeks or months earlier the actual turnaround plan is ready in physical. Managers must perform pregnant work upwards front to ensure that employees will actually mind to tough messages, question erstwhile assumptions, and consider new means of working. This ways taking a series of deliberate but subtle steps to recast employees' prevailing views and create a new context for action. Such a shaping procedure must exist actively managed during the first few months of a turnaround, when dubiousness is high and setbacks are inevitable. Otherwise, there is piddling hope for sustained comeback.

A typical turnaround process consists of 2 stark phases: plan development, followed by an implementation that may or may not be welcomed by the organisation. For the turnaround plan to be widely accustomed and adopted, still, the CEO must develop a divide persuasion campaign, the goal of which is to create a continuously receptive environs for change. The campaign begins well before the CEO's starting time day on the job—or, if the CEO is long established, well before formal development work begins—and continues long later the final plan is announced.

Like a political campaign, a persuasion entrada is largely one of differentiation from the past. To the typical change-averse employee, all restructuring plans await alike. The trick for turnaround leaders is to show employees precisely how their plans differ from their predecessors'. They must convince people that the organization is truly on its deathbed—or, at the very least, that radical changes are required if it is to survive and thrive. (This is a particularly difficult claiming when years of persistent problems have been accompanied by few changes in the condition quo.) Turnaround leaders must also proceeds trust by demonstrating through word and deed that they are the right leaders for the job and must convince employees that theirs is the correct plan for moving forwards.

Like a political entrada, a persuasion campaign is largely one of differentiation from the past.

Accomplishing all this calls for a four-part communications strategy. Prior to announcing a policy or issuing a ready of instructions, leaders need to set the stage for acceptance. At the time of delivery, they must create the frame through which information and messages are interpreted. Every bit time passes, they must manage the mood so that employees' emotional states support implementation and follow-through. And at critical intervals, they must provide reinforcement to ensure that the desired changes take hold without backsliding.

In this article, nosotros describe this procedure in more detail, drawing on the instance of the turnaround of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Heart (BIDMC) in Boston. Paul Levy, who became CEO in early on 2002, managed to bring the declining hospital back from the brink of ruin. We had ringside seats during the kickoff six months of the turnaround. Levy agreed to hold videotaped interviews with us every 2 to four weeks during that period every bit we prepared a case study describing his efforts. He also gave us admission to his daily calendar, as well as to assorted e-mail correspondence and internal memorandums and reports. From this wealth of data, we were able to rails the change process equally it unfolded, without the usual biases and distortions that come up from 20/20 hindsight. The story of how Levy tilled the soil for change provides lessons for whatever CEO in a turnaround situation.

Setting the Stage

Paul Levy was an unlikely candidate to run BIDMC. He was not a doc and had never managed a hospital, though he had previously served every bit the executive dean for administration at Harvard Medical School. His claim to fame was his role every bit the architect of the Boston Harbor Cleanup, a multibillion-dollar pollution-control project that he had led several years before. (Based on this experience, Levy identified a common yet insidiously subversive organizational dynamic that causes dedicated teams to operate in counterproductive ways, which he described in "The Nut Island Effect: When Good Teams Get Incorrect," March 2001.) Six years after completing the Boston Harbor project, Levy approached the BIDMC board and practical for the job of cleaning up the troubled hospital.

Despite his lack of hospital management feel, Levy was highly-seasoned to the board. The Boston Harbor Cleanup was a difficult, highly visible alter effort that required deft political and managerial skills. Levy had stood house in the face up of tough negotiations and often-heated public resistance and had instilled accountability in city and country agencies. He was likewise a known quantity to the board, having served on a BIDMC steering commission formed past the board chairman in 2001.

Levy saw the prospective chore every bit one of public service. BIDMC was the production of a difficult 1996 merger between two hospitals—Beth Israel and Deaconess—each of which had distinguished reputations, several all-time-in-the-world departments and specializations, and deeply devoted staffs. The problems began after the merger. A misguided focus on clinical practice rather than backroom integration, a failure to cut costs, and the repeated inability to execute plans and adapt to changing conditions in the wellness care market place all contributed to BIDMC's dismal performance.

By the time the board settled on Levy, affairs at BIDMC had reached the nadir. The infirmary was losing $50 million a year. Relations between the assistants and medical staff were strained, every bit were those betwixt management and the board of directors. Employees felt demoralized, having witnessed the rapid decline in their institution's once-legendary status and the disappointing failure of its past leaders. A disquisitional written report was conducted past the Hunter Group, a leading health-care consulting firm. The study, detailing the dire conditions at the hospital and the changes needed to plough things effectually, had been completed but not yet released. Meanwhile, the state attorney general, who was responsible for overseeing charitable trusts, had put force per unit area on the board to sell the failing BIDMC to a for-profit establishment.

Similar many CEOs recruited to fix a difficult situation, Levy's first task was to gain a mandate for the changes ahead. He as well recognized that crucial negotiations were best conducted earlier he took the job, when his leverage was greatest, rather than subsequently taking the reins. In particular, he moved to secure the cooperation of the infirmary board by flatly stating his conditions for employment. He told the directors, for case, that should they hire him, they could no longer interfere in day-to-day management decisions. In his second and tertiary meetings with the board's search committee, Levy laid out his timetable and intentions. He insisted that the board decide on his appointment apace so that he could exist on the job before the release of the Hunter report. He told the committee that he intended to push for a smaller, more than effective group of directors. Though the atmospheric condition were somewhat unusual, the board was convinced that Levy had the feel to lead a successful turnaround, and they accustomed his terms. Levy went to work on January 7, 2002.

The next job was to fix the stage with the hospital staff. Levy was convinced that the employees, hungry for a turnaround, would exercise their best to cooperate with him if he could emulate and embody the core values of the hospital culture, rather than impose his personal values. He chose to human action equally the managerial equivalent of a skillful doctor—that is, as one who, in dealing with a very ill patient, delivers both the bad news and the chances of success honestly and imparts a realistic sense of hope, without sugar coating.

Similar any leader facing a turnaround, Levy too knew he had to develop a bold message that provided compelling reasons to do things differently so cast that message in capital letters to signal the arrival of a new order. To requite his message teeth, he linked information technology to an implicit threat. Taking his cue from his individual discussions with the state chaser general, whom he had persuaded to keep the infirmary open for the fourth dimension being, Levy chose to publicize the very real possibility the hospital would exist sold. While he realized he risked frightening the staff and the patients with this bad news, he believed that a stiff wake-up call was necessary to go employees to face to the situation.

During his outset morning time on the job, Levy delivered an all-hands-on-deck e-mail to the staff. The memo contained four broad messages. Information technology opened with the practiced news, pointing out that the arrangement had much to be proud of ("This is a wonderful institution, representing the very all-time in bookish medicine: exemplary patient care, extraordinary research, and fine teaching"). 2nd, Levy noted that the threat of sale was existent ("This is our last chance"). Third, he signaled the kinds of actions employees could look him to accept ("In that location will be a reduction in staff"). And finally, he described the open management style he would adopt. He would manage by walking effectually—lunching with staff in the deli, having impromptu conversations in the hallways, talking with employees at every opportunity to find their concerns. He would communicate directly with employees through e-mail rather than through intermediaries. He also noted that the Hunter report would exist posted on the hospital intranet, where all employees would have the opportunity to review its recommendations and submit comments for the final turnaround plan. The direct, open up tone of the email memo signaled exactly how Levy's direction style would differ from that of his predecessors.

In the afternoon, he disclosed BIDMC's situation in interviews with the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, the city's two major newspapers. He told reporters the aforementioned thing he had told the infirmary'south employees: that, in the absence of a turnaround, the infirmary would be sold to a for-profit concatenation and would therefore lose its status as a Harvard teaching hospital. Staving off a sale would crave tough measures, including the laying off of anywhere from 500 to 700 employees. Levy insisted that there would be no nursing layoffs, in keeping with the hospital's core values of loftier-quality patient care. The paper reports, together with the memo circulated that morning, served to immediately reset employee expectations while dramatically increasing staff cooperation and willingness to accept whatever new initiatives might testify necessary to the hospital's survival.

Two days later, the critical Hunter report came out and was circulated via the infirmary's intranet. Considering the written report had been produced by an objective third party, employees were open up to its unvarnished, warts-and-all view of the hospital's current predicament. The facts were stark, and the staff could no longer claim ignorance. Levy received, and personally responded to, more than than 300 e-mail suggestions for comeback in response to the report, many of which he later included in the turnaround plan.

Creating the Frame

Once the phase has been set for acceptance, effective leaders need to help employees interpret proposals for alter. Circuitous plans can be interpreted in any number of ways; not all of them ensure acceptance and favorable outcomes. Skilled leaders therefore use "frames" to provide context and shape perspective for new proposals and plans. By framing the bug, leaders help people digest ideas in particular ways. A frame can take many forms: It can be a companywide presentation that prepares employees before an unexpected modify, for example, or a radio interview that provides context following an unsettling layoff.

Levy used ane particularly constructive framing device to help employees interpret a preliminary draft of the turnaround plan. This device took the form of a detailed east-mail memo accompanying the dense, several-hundred-page plan. The memo explained, in considerable detail, the program'southward purpose and expected touch.

The first section of the memo sought to mollify critics and reduce the fears of doctors and nurses. Its tone was positive and uplifting; it discussed BIDMC's mission, strategy, and uncompromising values, emphasizing the hospital's "warm, caring environment." This section of the letter also reaffirmed the importance of remaining an academic medical middle, as well every bit reminding employees of their shared mission and ideals. The second part of the letter of the alphabet told employees what to expect, providing further details nearly the turnaround plan. It emphasized that tough measures and goals would be required only noted that the specific recommendations were based, for the most part, on the communication in the Hunter study, which employees had already reviewed. The bulletin to employees was, "You lot've already seen and endorsed the Hunter report. There are no future surprises."

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The tertiary part of the letter anticipated and responded to prospective concerns; this had the result of circumventing objections. This section explicitly diagnosed by plans and explained their deficiencies, which were largely due to their having been imposed peak-down, with piddling employee buying, buy-in, or discussion. Levy then offered a direct estimation of what had gone wrong. By plans, he said, had underestimated the size of the financial problem, set unrealistic expectations for new revenue growth, and failed to test implementation proposals. This department of the letter as well drove domicile the need for change at a deeper, more than visceral level than employees had experienced in the past. Information technology emphasized that this plan was a far more collective effort than past proposals had been, because it incorporated many employee suggestions.

By framing the turnaround proposal this way, Levy accomplished two things. Start, he was able to convince employees that the plan belonged to them. 2d, the letter of the alphabet served as the basis for an ongoing communication platform. Levy reiterated its points at every opportunity—not only with employees merely as well in public meetings and in discussions with the press.

Managing the Mood

Turnarounds are depressing events, especially when they involve restructuring and downsizing. Relationships are disrupted, friends move on, and jobs disappear. In such settings, managing the mood of the arrangement becomes an essential leadership skill. Leaders must pay close attention to employees' emotions—the ebb and period of their feelings and moods—and work hard to preserve a receptive climate for change. Oftentimes, this requires a fragile balancing act between presenting skilful and bad news in simply the right proportion. Employees need to experience that their sacrifices take not been in vain and that their accomplishments have been recognized and rewarded. At the aforementioned time, they must be reminded that self-approbation is not an option. The communication challenge is daunting. One must strike the right notes of optimism and realism and carefully calibrate the timing, tone, and positioning of every bulletin.

Paul Levy's challenge was threefold: to give remaining employees time to grieve and recover from layoffs and other difficult measures; to make them experience that he cared for and supported them; and to ensure that the turnaround plan proceeded apace. The process depended on common trust and employees' desire to succeed. "I had to calibrate the push and pull of congratulations and pressure, simply I as well depended on the staff's underlying value system and sense of mission," he said. "They were highly motivated, caring individuals who had stuck with the place through 5 years of hell. They wanted to do good."

The first step was to admit employees' feelings of low while helping them look to the future. Immediately after the offset round of layoffs, people were feeling listless and dejected; Levy knew that releasing the final version of the turnaround plan likewise soon subsequently the layoffs could be seen every bit cold. In an e-postal service he sent to all employees a few days after, Levy explicitly empathized with employees' feelings ("This calendar week is a distressing one…it is hard for those of u.s. remaining…offices are emptier than usual"). He then urged employees to wait forrad and concluded on a strongly optimistic note ("…our target is not just survival: It is to thrive and set an example for what a unique academic medical center like ours means for this region"). His upbeat words were reinforced by a piece of practiced luck that weekend when the underdog New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl title in dramatic manner in the last 90 seconds of the game. When Levy returned to work the following Monday, employees were saying, "If the Patriots tin exercise it, we tin, too."

The next task was to continue employees focused on the continuing difficult work ahead. On April 12, ii months into the restructuring process, Levy sent out a "Frequently Asked Questions" email giving a generally favorable view of progress to date. At the same fourth dimension, he spoke obviously about the need to command costs and reminded employees that merit pay increases would remain on concord. This was hardly the rosy picture that almost employees were hoping for, of grade. Simply Levy believed sufficient time had passed that employees could suit a more than realistic and tough tone on his function.

A month subsequently, everything changed. Operational improvements that were put in identify during the offset stage of the turnaround had begun to take agree. Financial performance was well alee of budget, with the best results since the merger. In some other electronic mail, Levy praised employees lavishly. He also convened a series of open question-and-answer forums, where employees heard more details well-nigh the infirmary's tangible progress and received kudos for their accomplishments.

Reinforcing Expert Habits

Without a doubt, the toughest challenge faced by leaders during a turnaround is to avoid recidivism into dysfunctional routines—habitual patterns of negative behavior by individuals and groups that are triggered automatically and unconsciously by familiar circumstances or stimuli. (For more on how such disruptive patterns work, see the sidebar "Dysfunctional Routines: Six Means to End Modify in Its Tracks.") Employees need assist maintaining new behaviors, especially when their quondam ways of working are deeply ingrained and destructive. Effective alter leaders provide opportunities for employees to practice desired behaviors repeatedly, while personally modeling new means of working and providing coaching and support.

Six Means to Stop Change in Its Tracks

Simply as people are creatures of habit, organizations thrive on routines. Management teams, for example, routinely cutting budgets after performance deviates from plan. Routines—predictable, almost automatic behaviors—are unstated, self-reinforcing, and remarkably resilient. Because they lead to more efficient cognitive processing, they are, for the most part, functional and highly desirable.

Dysfunctional routines, by dissimilarity, are barriers to activity and change. Some are outdated behaviors that were appropriate one time but are at present unhelpful. Others manifest themselves in knee-jerk reactions, passivity, unproductive human foot-dragging, and, sometimes, active resistance.

Dysfunctional routines are persistent, but they are non unchangeable. Novelty—the perception that current circumstances are truly different from those that previously prevailed—is ane of the virtually potent forces for dislodging routines. To overcome them, leaders must clearly indicate that the context has changed. They must work directly with employees to recognize and publicly examine dysfunctional routines and substitute desired behaviors.

In our studies of successful turnarounds, we've constitute that effective leaders explicitly reinforce organizational values on a constant basis, using actions to back up their words. Their goal is to modify behavior, not just ways of thinking. For example, a leader tin talk well-nigh values such as openness, tolerance, civility, teamwork, delegation, and direct advice in meetings and eastward-mails. But the bulletin takes concord just if he or she besides signals a dislike of confusing, divisive behaviors by pointedly—and, if necessary, publicly—criticizing them.

At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, the chiefs of medicine, surgery, orthopedics, and other key functions presented Levy with special behavioral challenges, peculiarly because he was not a doctor. Each medical chief was in essence a "mini-dean," the caput of a largely self-independent department with its own kinesthesia, staff, and resources. Every bit bookish researchers, they were rewarded primarily for private accomplishment. They had limited feel solving business or management problems.

In dealing with the chiefs, Levy chose an approach that blended with a strong dose of discipline with existent-fourth dimension, public reinforcement. He developed guidelines for beliefs and insisted that everyone in the hospital measure up to them. In ane of his earliest meetings with the chiefs, Levy presented a simple gear up of "meeting rules," including such chestnuts as "state your objections" and "disagree without existence bellicose," and led a discussion well-nigh them, demonstrating the desired behaviors through his own leadership of the meeting. The purpose of these rules was to introduce new standards of interpersonal behavior and, in the process, to gainsay several dysfunctional routines.

One serious test of Levy'southward ability to reinforce these norms came a month and a half subsequently he was named CEO. After a staff meeting at which all the section chairs were present, one chief—who had remained silent—sent an email to Levy complaining about a conclusion made during the meeting. The e-postal service copied the other chiefs besides equally the chairman of the board. Many CEOs would choose to criticize such behavior privately. Just Levy responded in an eastward-mail to the same audition, publicly denouncing the master for his tone, his lack of civility, and his failure to speak up earlier in the process, as required by the new coming together rules. It was as close to a public hanging as anyone could go. Several of the chiefs privately expressed their support to Levy; they too had been offended by their peer'south presumptuousness. More broadly, the open criticism served to powerfully reinforce new norms while curbing disruptive beliefs.

Even every bit they must set expectations and reinforce behaviors, effective change leaders also recognize that many employees just practise not know how to make decisions as a group or work cooperatively. Past delegating critical decisions and responsibilities, a leader can provide employees with ample opportunities to practice new ways of working; in such cases, employees' operation should be evaluated as much on their adherence to the new standards and processes every bit on their noun choices. In this spirit, Levy chose to think of himself primarily as a kind of appeals court judge. When employees came to him seeking his intervention on an consequence or situation, he explained, he would "review the procedure used by the 'lower court' to determine if it followed the rules. If so, the decision stands." He did non review cases de novo and substitute his judgment for that of the individual department or unit. He insisted that employees piece of work through hard problems themselves, fifty-fifty when they were not so inclined, rather than rely on him to tell them what to do. At other times, he intervened personally and coached employees when they lacked basic skills. When two members of his staff disagreed on a proposed course of action, Levy triggered an open, emotional debate, then worked with the participants and their bosses behind the scenes to resolve the differences. At the next staff meeting, he praised the participants' willingness to disagree publicly, reemphasizing that vigorous debate was healthy and desirable and that confrontation was not to exist avoided. In this way, employees gained experience in working through their bug on their ain.

Performance, of form, is the ultimate measure of a successful turnaround. On that score, BIDMC has done exceedingly well since Levy took the captain. The original restructuring program called for a three-twelvemonth improvement procedure, moving from a $58 million loss in 2001 to breakeven in 2004. At the end of the 2004 fiscal year, functioning was far ahead of program, with the hospital reporting a $37.iv million net proceeds from operations. Revenues were upwardly, while costs were sharply reduced. Decision making was now crisper and more than responsive, even though in that location was little change in the infirmary's senior staff or medical leadership. Morale, not surprisingly, was up as well. To take just i indicator, annual nursing turnover, which was 15% to sixteen% when Levy became CEO, had dropped to 3% past mid-2004. Pleased with the hospital's performance, the board signed Levy to a new 3-year contract.

Heads, Hearts, and Hands

It's clear that the key to Paul Levy'southward success at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre is that he understood the importance of making sure the cultural soil had been made gear up before planting the seeds of change. In a receptive environs, employees not only understand why change is necessary; they're also emotionally committed to making information technology happen, and they faithfully execute the required steps.

On a cognitive level, employees in receptive environments are better able to let go of competing, unsubstantiated views of the nature and extent of the issues facing their organizations. They agree the same, objective views of the causes of poor functioning. They acknowledge the seriousness of electric current fiscal, operational, and market difficulties. And they take responsibility for their own contributions to those problems. Such a shared, fact-based diagnosis is crucial for moving forward.

On an emotional level, employees in receptive environments identify with the organization and its values and are committed to its continued existence. They believe that the arrangement stands for something more than profitability, market share, or stock performance and is therefore worth saving. As important, they trust the leader, believing that he or she shares their values and will fight to preserve them. Leaders earn considerable latitude from employees—and their proposals usually get the do good of the uncertainty—when their hearts are thought to be in the right place.

Workers in such environments too have physical, easily-on feel with the new behaviors expected of them. They accept seen the coming changes up close and sympathize what they are getting into. In such an atmosphere where it'southward adequate for employees to wrestle with decisions on their own and practice unfamiliar ways of working, a leader can successfully allay irrational fears and undercut the myths that so often back-trail major change efforts.

There is a powerful lesson in all this for leaders. To create a receptive environment, persuasion is the ultimate tool. Persuasion promotes understanding; understanding breeds acceptance; acceptance leads to action. Without persuasion, fifty-fifty the all-time of turnaround plans will fail to take root.

A version of this article appeared in the February 2005 issue of Harvard Business organisation Review.