When Mark Smith shows up at your company, change is in the wind. The Toronto-based consultant is the dean of Canada's change management specialists, driving the softer side of the hard business of organizational transformation. At 61, he now occupies a global leadership role in the change practice of professional services giant KPMG LLP. That keeps him very busy at a time when many companies are beaten down by economic and business hits, and watching their business models disintegrate.
So you have to tell people already shell-shocked from the economy that now they have to change?
Yeah. Shell-shocked is usually a sign that you do have to change.
Is this environment easier or harder for a change consultant?
In some ways, funnily enough, it is easier. There is a famous saying that nobody likes change except a wet baby. So the question is: What causes you to really change? Typically, it is one of two things - either a bolt of inspiration or a bolt of fear.
As an outsider telling demoralized people what to do, you can't be the most popular person.
You have a disadvantage and an advantage. The disadvantage is you are not the most popular guy. The reaction of many people is: "Who is this jerk from the outside who is trying to tell us what to do?" But what you are is independent, and you can bring industry knowledge to bear.
How do you soften up an organization for change?
As I suggested, what causes change is some kind of attractive future that people are drawn into, or something about their present that scares the heck out of them. Part of getting people to engage in the act of change is helping them figure out what that balance is for them, in their company and their industry. Then they realize that "I don't like being demoralized and upset," and so "I would rather find a way to get ahead of the curve."
Does the initiative to hire you come from the CEO?
It is almost always from the executive suite. It may not be the CEO, but it might be the chief operating officer, the vice-president human resources, or the chief financial officer. One of the first things you pay attention to is: Is the person who brought you in speaking for the whole executive team or only one slice of that team? You have to sort that out.
I'm a little bit blessed in this regard. I have an MBA in finance and a PhD in psychology. I used to tell clients that "We can read your balance sheet and we can read your group dynamics."
In this downturn, is change management a good business?
It is doing quite well, not because people are particularly afraid but because the world is changing so quickly that the basis of competition is changing. And once you change that basis, you have to rethink strategy; you have to rethink organization; you have to rethink people and leadership.
Many executives know this is a historical moment when they have to change, but their impulse is to rely on something familiar.
This is a very tricky field and it is full of fads. So what you don't want is executives to say "Okay, we have a problem, so let's do Six Sigma," or "We have a problem, let's do execution-oriented strategy." First, you help them realize that, as I often say, "prescription without diagnosis is malpractice." You want people to sit down and say "Let's think carefully about the nature of our opportunities and dilemmas, but also about what our change capability is." Not everybody's change capability is the same.
Doesn't change management have a very 1990s feel to it?
That's right. It goes in and out of fashion. This is the fourth incarnation in my career. When it's out of fashion, people say, "Oh, we can take care of that and we know what we're doing." Then a new set of opportunities and shocks hits the place and as a consequence, the need to realign strategy, organization, and people and leadership comes up again. We are now in one of those phases when it is more au courant.
