Effecting change- leading by building consensus

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The leadership change at Time magazine after new CEO Jack Griffin was asked to quit  in six months is surprising. Obviously Jack Griffin is a highly talented and effective manager. In fact this report suggests that there was agreement in the organization about most of the initiatives that he was trying to put in place at Time.

Similarly,the Wisconsin situation with Governor Scott Walker re-iterating that he is only trying to implement election promises is not going well, with comparisons of protester crowd sizes to the middle-east protester crowds!

Both these leaders were trying to effect change in their organizations that probably a majority of their stakeholders would agree with,at least privately. The dispute seems to be around the manner in which change was introduced and that a significant ,vocal  minority of detractors could not be persuaded to join in with  the leader's vision.

Building consensus is difficult, but just an effort in trying to do so makes change easier. In fact, those who disagree might not change their minds but would at least agree with some of the goals that the leader is trying to achieve. Let's see how Wisconsin and the rest of the cash strapped State Government-Employee arguments pan out.

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