Learning From Elephants
One of my most memorable life experiences was getting to ride an elephant near Pattaya, Thailand.
My elephant was gently carrying us down a jungle path, yet I also knew this majestic animal also had the power to tear down trees and chase down humans. As serene as my experience was, the reality is that no matter how well trained, if the elephant decided it wanted to head in another direction, we would have been pretty powerless to stop it. And that's where it reminded me of leadership in a large organization, especially when seeking to make change.
Large organizations are a little like elephants. They can become big and powerful and deliver strong results over a long period of time, but they can also be difficult to turn around or steer in a new direction. This is why I want to share with you my favourite book on change leadership - Switch” by Chip and Dan Heath. (There’s also a link to this information on buying the book in the Resources section). In this excellent book, Chip and Dan spell out what I have found to be not only the simplest, but also the most effective change model I have seen - and not only that - it’s about leading an elephant! In their book, Chip and Dan detail examples from many companies and organizations that have sought to bring change successfully.
In order to steer an elephant in a direction, a simple summary of their thesis is that we need three approaches:
“Direct the Rider” - The rider sits on top of the elephant steering it in the direction they want it to go. The rider represents the ‘rational mind’, the more cognitive side of leadership. The use of facts, information and rational thinking can direct organizations towards change.
“Motivate the Elephant” - the bulk of the elephant represents the ‘emotional mind’. The basic instincts and reactions of the elephant can at any time override other factors, and the elephant can move off in whatever direction it wants. It often takes emotionally compelling reasons for people and organizations to change. The elephant must ‘want’ to go in the direction of choice.
“Shape the Path” - Even if the elephant is being steered in a direction that it wants to go, if the path is uphill, unstable or unappealing, the elephant may decide to not go in that direction. Leading change also requires clearing obstacles, providing a clear pathway, and making the path more ‘downhill’.
In 2013 I accepted the challenge of leading the global student work of Cru (Campus Crusade). We had around 8000 staff working on about 5000 campuses across 151 countries. By 2020, there was still around the same number of staff, but we had grown to almost 9500 campuses across 181 countries. We had expanded by about the same number of new campus ministries over a 5 year period, that we had grown to in the previous 50 years. How did this massive change take place?
Clearly there was a work of God that bought this shift, but we he also led us to some very practical changes:
Rational - I remember standing in front of our global leadership team in a hotel room in Athens, Greece in 2015. I drew a chart of our progress to date, and compared it to our 2020 goals. We had done a really good job in recent years of gathering the information we needed to help us measure progress against key goals, but we were a long way off reaching them. I mentioned that, clearly, if we hoped to accomplish our 2020 goals we would need to change our current trajectory. I drew a line representing our current path, then a line representing our new trajectory. It became known as the “Hockey Stick” chart. Cognitively people got it - we needed to change. Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results." We needed to change what we were doing.
Emotional - Our mission was reaching students, but the dominant model of our organization was to have a team of full time staff on campuses to engage with students. While it was a stable strategy, we realised this was not a feasible model to expand rapidly. However, we knew that there were students on every campus in the world, and we shared a belief that where there are students, there were also potential leaders! So we began to engage students as the key leaders in our work. We brought students from around the world to join our leadership meetings for the first time. We invited them to speak at our staff conferences and share stories of what they were doing. We wanted the hearts and faces of student leaders to be at the forefront of our minds. As they shared their visions for their campuses and countries, we were carried along with hopes for the future.
Shaping the Path - We also knew that cognitive understanding and heartfelt vision were not enough, we also needed to provide practical steps and a pathway for change. We looked around the world for different models and we began to promote a strategy called ‘catalytic’ - a strategy to help students lead the mission. This was not a new idea, it had been in our history for 30+ years, but it had not had the global support and direction we were ready to give it. We formed a specialist team of people who had experience in this approach, raised funds, developed new training materials, and began to offer it to teams around the world.
With all these aspects at work, things started to change and grow. We experienced pushback in some areas, but overall many were willing to embrace the emphasis and a new generation of student leaders helped open ministries on over 4000 new campuses in just 5 years. One of the coolest ideas students developed was a “Global Student Launch Week” where students encouraged other students to go to nearby campuses and start new groups. In the first year of this initiative over 1000 new campuses were explored this way. It wasn't all success, of course - many campuses that were explored did not produce a long term result, and some that began, soon stopped. But overall the rapid expansion led to a steady increase in our global presence of not only new campuses, but also expansion into 30 new countries by 2020. The “hockey stick” was becoming a reality.
By presenting this example and a simple model, I don't want to give the impression that change is simple or easy - it isn't. Change is complicated and messy, and we certainly experienced that. Change is difficult, especially in large established organizations where the institutional factors can be overwhelming. However, to me, the alternative of not seeking to make change, and just hoping for better results is not only insanity, it is irresponsible when the scope of the mission and stewardship of the future of an organization is at stake. It is always a risk to initiate change, but often the greater risk is to not attempt something new and the faith step God is calling us to.
The jury is still out on some of the longer term effects of our change, but our experience has given us much to celebrate, and Chip and Dan’s model gave me much hope that it is possible to set elephants off in a new direction. And that they might even enjoy it!
