Step Up, Step Back: How to Really Deliver Strategic Change in Your Organization

Many strategic change efforts fail. And virtually all of them are harder than they need to be. Why is this? And what can we do to make change more likely to stick?

SystemShift’s founder, Dr. Elsbeth Johnson, has spent a decade researching how to deliver strategic change in practice. Based on asking managers what they needed from leaders, rather than just asking leaders what they did, her resulting ‘Step Up, Step Back’ approach challenges some of our most fundamental beliefs about how to lead change – and indeed, about what we even consider to be 'leadership'.

The Step Up, Step Back approach suggests leaders need to step up and do more than they typically do in the early stages of the change – in specific ways and at specific times; and then step back and do less than they typically do in the later stages of the change – again, in specific ways, at specific times. The result is not only change that sticks, but empowered, motivated managers who can get on with delivering change, without needing ongoing input or cover from leaders.

Using real-world examples of how to apply the science in practice, ‘Step Up, Step Back’ gives you a roadmap for how to deliver strategic change in your organisation.

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Harvard Business Review:

How to Communicate Clearly During Organizational Change

June 2017

“Sending the right signals to our organizations is important at any time, but especially during times of strategic change.  In my research asking followers what they need from leaders during times of change, there are three main ways in which leaders too often send confusing signals to their organizations. Get them right, and you can signal clearly and effectively; fail to pay attention to how and what you are signalling in these three modes, and you will have confusion at best — and at worst, the opposite of the strategic changes you’ve asked for.”