Step Up, Step Back, How to Really Deliver Strategic Change in Your Organization, February, 28th

By Simon Cocking, review of Step Up, Step Back, How to Really Deliver Strategic Change in Your Organization, published February, 28th by Bloomsbury, available here.

Dr. Elsbeth Johnson, a former equity analyst and London Business School Professor now teaching at MIT, 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 the change, without needing ongoing input or cover from leaders.

Step Up, Step Back, reviewed

Change is always a massive challenge for organisations. Careers have floundered or thrived based on how successfully the leader has managed to deliver these changes. It can seem a thankless task, and yet there are also numerous case studies and good examples of leaders, and companies that have nailed it, or, conversely, of those who blew it.

Elsbeth Johnson has a good pedigree to write a book like this as she has studied it extensively and also advised numerous companies on how to effect real, systemic and lasting changes. Throughout the book the chapters are informed by these hard earned insights and it makes for a useful, provoking and wise read. There are four long and indepth chapters specifically devoted to the concepts and strategies behind managing to achieve change successfully, titled clarity, alignment, focus and consistency.

These are all vital and useful concepts, each of them, if you do them well, will help you greatly, and equally if you fail to have a clear approach and concept, then not mastering these concepts will be your undoing too. As a leader tasked with managing change you may feel you do not have time to read books, but, like all great builders and carpenters, measuring twice before cutting once is never a bad approach to take. So too with this book, far better to be super focussed on what you hope, plan and intend to achieve, before making any irrevocable decisions. A smart book to read.

Dr. Elsbeth Johnson is a Senior Lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. Prior to joining MIT, she taught at London Business School for five years, having previously worked as an equity analyst and a corporate strategist. Through her consultancy firm, SystemShift, she works extensively with organizations and their leaders, advising them on strategy, leadership and change. She splits her time between London and Boston.

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