The other division did not experience comparable improvements. Its leaders, in contrast to those of the first group, failed to s

The other division did not experience comparable improvements. Its leaders, in contrast to those of the first group, failed to see the program’s value — perhaps because they were not under the same pressure to change. Their short-term performance was good, after all. The CEO and his senior team had not assessed each division’s receptiveness to the new vision and readiness to carry it out, nor had they made clear the type of organizational transformation they expected. As a result, the two divisions responded quite differently to the same program.
   Contrast Cardo’s experience with how ASDA, a grocery chain in the U. K. , approached its transformation in the 1990s. Archie Norman, the CEO at the time, led a turnaround of the company and its 200 stores by avoiding the fallacy of programmatic change — that is, the common impulse to roll out sweeping, companywide initiatives without gauging local readiness. ASDA began by creating a few model stores that demonstrated the leadership and organizational capabilities needed to build a more employee- and customer-centric culture. The company then devised a "driving test" to assess the remaining stores’ capacity to implement what came to be known as the ASDA Way of Working. A store would receive corporate funds to invest in needed physical changes only if it passed the driving test. Stores that did not pass received consulting support from a corporate transformation team and then retook the test. If a store failed the test again, its manager was replaced.
   Even in companies with strong leaders and healthy cultures, discrete units require distinctive roles, responsibilities, and relationships — and distinctive capabilities to function in them. Moreover, each unit is probably at a different stage in its development. So CEOs and their HR chiefs must be sensitive to local variables when defining an integrated change agenda — one that simultaneously addresses performance improvement and capability development. To do that, they should answer the following questions, first at the top and then in each major unit;
   - Is the leadership team aligned around a clear, inspiring strategy and set of values?
   - Has the team collected unvarnished employee feedback about barriers to effectiveness and performance — including senior managers’ own behavior?
   - Has the team redesigned its organization, management systems, and practices to address the problems revealed by that diagnosis?
   - Is HR offering consulting and coaching to help employees learn on the job so that they can practice the new attitudes and behaviors required of them?
   - Do corporate training programs properly support the change agenda, and will each unit’s leadership and culture provide fertile ground for it?
   If your answer to any of those questions is no, your company is probably (with the best of intentions) overinvesting in training and education and failing to put talent development in its proper strategic change context.