MIT Sloan Management Review

Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations, Leadership and Organizational Studies

 

Driving Organizational Change in the Midst of Crisis

By John S. Carroll and Sachi Hatakenaka

April 15, 2001

There is no recipe for pulling an organization through a crisis. You have to think on your feet. This case study shows that even in a complex, high-pressure industry openness to learning can light the way.

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After the dust had settled, the division CEO confided he had never seen a culture as broken as the one he encountered when he was hired. What it took to get his organization on its feet and moving in the right direction was an amalgam of powerful forces: an unprecedented regulatory fiat, third-party oversight and, above all, leaders at every level who were open to learning. The CEO would be the first to admit there was no solitary hero.

Observers often label an organizational crisis as financial or technological or as a failure of leadership, but the reality defies simple categories. We have studied firsthand a crisis in the ultimate high-pressure industry. The resolution demonstrates that organizations are more likely to weather a storm and emerge stronger if leaders avoid oversimplifying the situation and instead allow a gradual understanding to emerge and be tested in action.1 In the case study, managers and employees at every level learned life-changing lessons — lessons that can be used in all industries to improve managers’ effectiveness and companies’ competitiveness in turbulent business environments.

The crisis at Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Waterford, Connecticut, is a tale of lost trust, external pressure, internal strife, personal transformation, cultural change and emergent leadership.2 The resolution evolved from daily decisions, reactions to decisions and many contributors’ creative solutions.... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.

 
 

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