People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1 - 55

THOUGHTLEADERS

MB: What did you observe in your consulting
and your own research with the Burke-Litwin
Model of Organizational Performance and
Change4 over the years?
WWB: I'm thinking of the SmithKline Beecham merger, and the degree of attention that
was paid to representativeness of the two
companies as they merged-in terms of positions of power and influence- with respect
to appointments of people. I worked with the
top team to get them to be more of a team,
and I think that the objective of the merger-
to make these two companies really become a
global player together-was realized. That
meant transcending the American part of it
and the British part of it, and going beyond
that. I was there for about three and a half
years and did multiple surveys, using the
Burke-Litwin Model for understanding what
was going on. The data always seemed to
point to leadership having a direct effect on
how the other elements of the model worked.
I can't point to many successes I've had with
respect to culture change and mergers and
acquisitions, but I had three successes, British
Airways, SmithKline Beecham and Dime Savings Bank. Those were three that worked. And
a common denominator across all three was
the combination of the chief executive officer

and their chief human resource officer working together. What I did in many respects was
to facilitate that engagement of the HR head
and the CEO and not get in between, because
the CEO listened to what the chief human
resource officer had to say, and what I would
do is reinforce that as much as I could. Successful organization change has to be a
combination of not so much the CEO or chief
financial officer, but the CEO and the chief
human resource officer also have to have a
reasonable amount of savvy about organization change currently out there.

MB: And what do you think the state of that
is?
WWB: I don't think it's great. There has
almost been an antagonism between HR and
OD (organizational development) in many
organizations and where that is not the case,
the companies seem better run or to operate
better. The power of the HR position is so
overlooked in terms of its potential. There
hasn't been a whole lot of competence in
terms of organizational development, but
where there is, it pays off.
The healthy organization is one where the
chief executive officer and the chief human
resource officer get along and work together

absolutely. I think there is a direct effect in
terms of that relationship and the health of
the organization. Can I prove that? No. But
would I put money on it? Yeah.
In each of the successes that I mentioned, the
chief human resource officer was highly educated and knew a lot about change. The
CHRO at Dime had gone through our
Advanced OD/HRM Program. That's how I
knew him.
So, there is a contingency in terms of my statement and that contingency is that chief human
resource officer needs to be pretty savvy about
change.

References
1

For more on this finding, see feature article in this issue
of the People & Strategy journal, Securing lasting value
through organizational health, by Bazigos, De Smet and
Schaninger, 36-41.
2

Kotter, J.P & Heskett, J.L. (1992). Corporate Culture and
Performance. NY: The Free Press.

Barsade, S.G., Ward, S.J., Turner, J.D.F., and Sonnenfeld,
J.A. (2000). To your heart's content: A model of affective
diversity in top management teams, Administrative Science
Quarterly, Dec. 2000, 45 (4): 802-836.

4 Burke, W.W., & Litwin, G. H. (1992). A causal model of
organizational performance and change. Journal of
Management, 18(3), 533-545.

VOLUME 38/ISSUE 1 - 2015

People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1