Avoiding Mistakes in Managing Crisis Change

For anybody leading change in their organization, here's a blog post well worth reading by Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter: 13 Unlucky Mistakes in Managing Traumatic Change - and How to Avoid Them. 

She lists 13 common mistakes made when leading change in a crisis, and some useful guidelines for avoiding them. Kanter notes that these actions are common during "traumatic" change; we'd argue that they are business-as-usual actions today in many private and most public sector organizations.

Our experience shows that executives who master leading strategic change while managing through the immediate crisis can avoid the traps Kanter outlines:

1. Pressure to act quickly undermines values and culture.
2. Management exercises too much control.
3. Urgent tasks divert leaders' attention from the mood of the organization.
4. Communication is haphazard, erratic and uneven.
5. Uncertainty creates anxiety.
6. Employees hear it from the media first.
7. There is no outlet for emotions.
8. Key stakeholders are neglected.
9. It seems easier to cut than redeploy.
10. Casualties dominate attention.
11. Changes are expedient, not strategic.
12. Leaders lose credibility.
13. Gloom and doom fill the air.

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