9 Change Management Tactics from Chairman Mao

If you are charged with changing an organization’s culture, you can not ignore the biggest sustained case study in change management over the last 60 years – the transformation of the Peoples’ Republic of China under the guidance of Mao Zedong.

 

And while Chairman Mao and his successors’ philosophy, approach and policies might be abhorrent politically and while no one can ever condone or minimize the butchery or the massive scale of human suffering brought on by successive campaigns, decisions or regimes, the actions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) offer the greatest number of lessons in how to transform a country from abject poverty to modernity and from political chaos and internecine warfare to stability and participation in the world political system.

 

Facing a smaller task – changing how a company can change its culture and act differently internally and externally – there seem to be several clear change management concepts that can be extracted from Chairman Mao.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating any of the CCP methods. But I am suggesting that the CCP understood underlying and possibly universal motivational and communications principles which can be extracted, humanized, tempered, democratized and applied in organizational settings to achieve scalable change.

 

Involve Top Leadership. From Mao thru Wen Jiaboa every Chinese leader has been an active front man and spokesperson for change. Routine and regular appearances to underscore the effort and tout the party line are key expectations of top leaders.

 

Create a Party Line. The CCP plans their work and works their plan. They articulate a clear, concise policy line and demand active adherence from all cadres. They use party discipline to enforce every zig and zag in the party line. But the existence of a clear point of view and articulated short and long term goals direct and orient the organization. Just don’t expect consistency or historical continuity.

 

Use Simple Slogans Frequently. While the CCP will never win any creative awards, they understood early on that communicating big concepts to the masses required shorthand that is universally and instantly understood and frequently repeated. Like Mad Men they crated short punchy slogans and bombarded the masses with them until they were unavoidable, unforgettable and firmly drilled into everyone’s consciousness.

 

Influence Every Unit. By identifying early adopters, purging dissenters and designating change leaders at each level of society, the CCP mobilized and motivated millions of “change agents” to accomplish their mission. Every house, block, factory, military unit and sector of society had party member and trained cadres tasked with instigating and sustaining change. Change requires worker bees at every important level of the organization.

 

Model Behavior. People need to understand what is expected of them. By calling out model citizens, model work brigades and model collective farms, the CCP held up the desired behavior and then dissected and disseminated the operative elements of the behavior they sought to encourage. By showing the end result, often entirely fabricated, they were able to drive behavioral change by showing the path forward and illuminating the desired end result.

 

Celebrate Every Victory. The corollary to modeling behavior is celebrating every win. In the case of the CCP many were entirely bogus, nonetheless they understood that change is an incremental process where success builds upon itself and small victories can be compounded, packaged and merchandized to yield increasingly bigger victories. They also understood the need for people to join a winning team and the attractiveness of perceived momentum as a recruiting and validating device.

 

Marshall Peer Pressure. People do what others are doing and often comply with widely held expectations. We and they are monkey-see; monkey-do cultures. The CCP set the bar and used every form of peer pressure and coercion to attain conformity. Their methods, while odious and brutal, built a culture where the cadre reinforced and policed its own behavior. This was further reinforced by the use of tangible experiences, music, operas and common symbols (e.g. The Little Red Book, Mao pins) to consistently reinforce the message. Accepting and implementing change is a viral process that builds on itself and needs to reach a critical mass.

 

Manage Self-Interest. It was always more important and better to be “red” rather than “expert”. Toeing the line determined everything from housing and work assignments to personal freedom. The CCP aggressively used the “performance review process” backed by secret police and Gestapo tactics to help people act in their own best interests. Baking expected behavior into key performance indicators and into personal objectives yields uptake and traction.

 

Provide a Feedback

Loop

.  Genuine attitudinal change is incremental and evolutionary and without admitting it the CCP was realistic in changing the tactics necessary to achieve its objectives. By creating ways to solicit ideas, participation and express dissent or frustration, the party kept the effort on track, adapted the plan to changing circumstances, accounted for anomalies and absorbed the best ideas for moving forward, unfortunately often over the dead bodies of dissenters.

 

Historians and political philosophers will debate the legacy of Chairman Mao for centuries. Arguably the greatest cynical tyrant and mass murderer of all time, the average Chinese today enjoys a quality of life unimaginable just 60 years ago. Within this massive sustained transformation, with all its flaws, evil and inconsistencies are lessons in change management worthy of observing and extracting for more benign and productive uses.

Comments

[Fern Flamberg]

this is brilliant! and not just because i'm partial.