How does an organization drive change from WITHIN their current system? Assessing what changes need to be made by forward thinking. Creating a plan based on honest assessments. Look for gaps and ways to close them long term. Create a vision for the organization. Link the vision to every member of the organization. Establish great two communication. Utilize change agents to implement the new vision and keep the momentum of the change. Ensure change agents are aware of how the vision impacts each person. Use the change agents to generate a pulse for the members. Ensure the members of the organization are bought into the ideas and utilize their feedback to make changes. Leverage the most important assets which are people and the relationships. Ensure that the change is clearly linked to the initial goals and vision by reflecting. Lastly, none of these are possible without filling THE NEED FOR LEADERSHIP! Having a great leader to create this vision is critical.
Hillel International was established in 1923, the world’s largest Jewish campus organization. The focus of Hillel is to engage college students in religious, community service, cultural, and artistic activities. Richard Joel had a vision much different from what was happening prior to him arriving at Hillel. Joel had a vision to engage the youth in order to grow the Jewish community. There was a huge gap in the engagement of young Jews and he felt the best way to capture their attention, was while they were in college. He created a vision that would change the culture of the organizaiton and strategically place Hillel to grow and become independent. Joel was selected as the leader of Hillel because of his background as a lawyer, youth work, and charismatic leadership. His communication style commanded attention and people followed him. Joel utilized his leadership to build great partnerships and surrounded himself with people that supported the vision. He was able to separate from the control of the organization which controlled Hillel for 65 years and become a self sufficient non profit through relationships with philanthropist and restructuring of the organization.
A transformational leader has to operate on multiple levels and appeal to several audiences. By applying Kotter’s approach from, Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail, in order to have a successful transformation, “the guiding coalition develops a picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate and appeals to customers, stockholders, and employees (1995, p.63). This begins with Joel having a great vision and being able to communicate it to his coalition. The vision has to go outside the numbers and must be a long term plan. The vision also clearly demonstrates the direction that the organization needs to head in. In order for the vision to also be successful, it will be shaped by the input of others and be transformed to meet the demands of the organization (Kotter, 1995, p.63). For example, Joel was able to implement new change by placing new leaders into the organization selected by him. Through this process, he communicated the changes through his constant updates that were honest and clear for the members to understand. This was not easy for everyone to accept, but the honesty of Joel invited anyone to share their opinions. Joel used his forward thinking to select the first development manager and financial planner. As a result, the organization changed dramatically into a franchise format for each Hillel and it allowed each Hillel to be self sufficient.
Joel was aware of Hillel’s poor reputation in the Jewish communal world as well as on campus (Rosen, M. I., & Sales, A. L.,2006, p.28). He knew that in order to turn around the organization, the reputation of the organization would need to improve, so his vision was set out to do just that. The vision stated the if the members of the organization related carefully to the issues of the poor perceptions, things would change (Rosen, M. I., & Sales, A. L.,2006, p.32). As Kotter states, “focus on business problems and the new vision. The guiding principle is simple: use every possible channel, especially those that are being wasted on nonessential information” (1995, p.64). In order to deliver clear honest communication to the members of the organization, Joel conducted speeches to communicate goals. His two goals were to provide leadership for the movement and services to the Hillel network. As any leader must do, Joel assessed the current talent of his organization and was able strategically remove ineffective Hillel directors (Rosen, M. I., & Sales, A. L.,2006, p.32).
Who is who? Joel has a solid entrance strategy to identify gaps in the organization, but doing it respectfully. He also recognized those that helped him early in here tenure at Hillel. Hillel was not entirely defunct, they had solid programs in place, but did not broadcast their impact. Joel was able to reinvent these programs through his talent of using language (Rosen, M. I., & Sales, A. L.,2006, p.34). Hillel had many problems in its larger system so Joel created a system to even the playing field between the branches by recognizing top performing Hillels. He developed an accreditation program committee with standards that created a common language and vision of what each local Hillel was to accomplish. As stated by Drucker, “accept the fact that other people are as much individuals as you yourself are. They perversely insist on behaving like human beings. This means that they too have their strengths; they too have their ways of getting things done; they too have their values (2005 p.107). Hillel did not forget the human aspect during the transformation of Hillel.
Hillel was in need of restructuring and Joel had a formula to successfully implement change. Similar to what the leader Ernesto Bertarelli did to establish a great sailing team. He first formed a vision, then set out to discover a great team. He did it by ensuring that the diverse group of people were all in support of his vision (Jenewem, W., & Schmitz, C.,2008 p.31). Joel incorporated his vision into everything he did, for example he met with philanthropist that would become a critical aspect to the success of Hillel because Joel was able to relate the vision to his audience. Joel was able to align himself with some very influential and wealthy leaders that all supported the vision. He was able to manage the results of Hillel once he had the funding, people in place, and an improved perception in the Jewish community.
The leader Ernesto Bertarelli was “focused on creating a transparent environment where there was great mutual trust” (Jenewem, W., & Schmitz, C., 2008 p.31). Hillel needed transparency if a transformation was to occur and Richard Joel provided just that! Joel made this a critical piece of his strategy and utilized his language to deliver a positive message even with tough subjects like laying people off or having a substantial shortage of funds to run the Hillel organization. I believe his positivity and transparency is critical in any organization if the goal is to maintain an engaged and committed team.
In application of the 4+2 management strategy from What Really Works , a successful manager must implement the 4 primary management practices and at least 2 of the secondary. The four primary management practices are Strategy, Execution, Culture, and Structure. The four secondary management practices are Talent, Innovation, Leadership, Mergers and Partnerships (Nohria, N., Joyce, W., & Roberson, B., 2003, p.48). Joel did great job of implementing the 4+2 strategy to the management and transformation of Hillel. He utilized his vision to implement a strategy that changed the culture and restructured the organization. Plus his dynamic leadership style and partnerships with influential leaders, improved the organizations credibility and image. The 4+2 strategy may look simple, but if pieces of the strategy are not followed, it can be catastrophic and the change may not last.
Richard Joel was a great leader, but had two areas that were not successful. The two areas can be summed up by focusing on the future . He was a visionary and implemented a lot of great changes, but neglected to slow down and asses if it was long lasting change. Joel did not develop a successor so that his legacy would continue. Once Joel left Hillel, a study showed that over half of the Jewish students studied did not have any contact with Hillel (Rosen, M. I., & Sales, A. L.,2006, p.77). This illustrates that his vision lost momentum, and if Joel would have established a backfill, his vision would have continued to thrive.
It is important to run the race all the way through. Joel did not look far enough into the future and establish a system to continue what he built. As stated by Kotter, “After a few years of hard work, managers may be tempted to declare victory with the first clear performance improvement. While celebrating a win is fine, declaring the war won can be catastrophic. Until changes sink deeply into a company's culture, a process that can take five to ten years, new approaches are fragile and subject to regression. In the recent past, I have watched a dozen change” (1995, p.66) We cannot forget that Richard Joel saved an organization that would have eventually imploded. His leaderships is what transformed Hillel to the International organization that it is today.
Leadership is critical to the success of any transformation or the success of an organizaiton. Richard Joel’s visionary leadership transformed Hillel into an independent organization. His leadership had a positive impact on many and is the reason why Hillel still exists. The implementation of change requires constant feedback and analysis of the impact and course correcting when needed. Through the application of leadership theory, it is apparent that Joel was a transformational leader and without him the future would be much different.