Earlier in the month, I had the opportunity to participate in a research workshop at Cranfield University on the topic of ‘Enabling Middle Managers to Lead Change’.

The workshop was designed to eavesdrop on some real managers from both the private and public sectors discussing change management in a loosely structured way. The outcome for Cranfield was hopefully some direction for further research on the topic and for participants a chance to network and share experiences.

It was an enjoyable day.

I have no idea what the moderators learned from the exercise but, for me, a couple themes stayed with me.

Change is easier than Innovation

The distinction is definitely artificial but, in a room filled with HR managers, IT leaders and people with the title ‘transformation leader’, it was interesting how many success stories were told and how many common challenges experienced.

Over time, there seemed to be a bit of a pattern in the conversation. Successful initiatives were about changing or transforming the organization and tended to be driven from the top. In these cases, senior management decided the direction and the businesses had developed over time very successful human processes and technology platforms for supporting and implementing change.

Many stories involved a devolution of decision-making on the nature of the implementation to a wider group early in the change process to give the program legitimacy and broader support in the business. In these cases, the end result still needed to be inside the parameters determined by senior management.

No matter how mature an organization was in change management, everyone agreed they could improve further.

There were no stories that I can recall of bottom-up change being harnessed successfully. Innovation at front line of the organization and filtered back up the hierarchy to senior management seems like a harder nut to crack. Even organizations that devolved a significant amount of decision making in their change management process struggled to let the front-line drive the strategy behind the overall program.

I wonder how much of this dynamic comes down to senior management ego and sense of entitlement? An ‘I’ve earned the right to make the calls so I will’ kind of attitude?

The Middle is Hard

Another constant theme was the idea of middle management. The concept of ‘middle’ was quite fluid in the conversations and seems to be relative to the kind of change that is being implemented.

If you are charged with implementation, but lack decision-making power, effectively you are middle management. Even, if you are the chief technology officer or chief operating officer of the business.

Being in the middle is hard for precisely this reason: You have the mandate to change things but it’s not your mandate.

I should mention again that these are only my anecdotal impressions of the day and not the culmination of the research being conducted at Cranfield University and the University of Bath. If you are based in England and are interested in an opportunity to participate in a similar research session, there is one happening as part of the same study on Friday June 17th at Bath University.