What is Tipping Point Leadership?

Tipping Point Leadership is a rapidly-spreading framework for leadership development and major change inside an organization. It constitutes the behavioral extension of the Value Innovation strategy and innovation process described elsewhere on this site.

Tipping Point Leadership involves a four-step process. It starts by confronting the rank-and-file members of the organization with the harsh reality faced by its external customers in their day-to-day life. In a second step, the process translates this vivid picture of customers' issues into a new Value Curve for the business, leading to an internal re-allocation of resources -- this is the link with the Value Innovation strategy framework described elsewhere on this site. In a third step, the process identifies a limited number of key influencers inside the organization and places them in the spotlight through a formal process of peer reporting. This step gives its name to the larger process, in that few influencers can "tip" the entire organization toward change at comparatively low cost. In a fourth step, the process focuses on the creation of new external alliances and the removal of political barriers outside the organization.

Where does Tipping Point Leadership come from?

The Tipping Point Leadership methodology was originally created by Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, both Professors of Strategy at INSEAD, the leading European business school, located in Fontainebleau, France. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne are Academic Partners of the MAC Partnership. Both are world-recognized thought leaders in academic and business circles. Their work extends across the spectrum of strategy and innovation challenges (the "hard" part of change) and behavioral issues (the "soft" part of change).

Together, they have authored multiple articles on Leadership, most notably:
"Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy", Harvard Business Review, July-August 1997.
"Tipping Point Leadership", Harvard Business Review, April 2003.

What's the difference between Tipping Point Leadership and other approaches to Leadership or Large-Scale Transformation?

Most purely behavioral approaches to Leadership are ineffective because they fail to recognize the link between the external reality of customers and the internal motivation of the organization for change. They also tend to underplay the role of left-brained models such as conceptualizations of strategy, or understate the relevance of economic considerations. The Tipping Point Leadership approach moves an organization across the full spectrum of external and internal realities, using vivid images of customers' frustrations to mobilize the organization toward change. It also addresses both the conceptual side of change – through the articulation of a differentiated Value Curve – and the behavioral side of change – through the use of targeted individual and collective processes.

The strength of the Tipping Point Leadership process lies in the attention it pays to resource considerations. Many approaches to Leadership Development require a vast amount of resources to produce large-scale change: creation of transformation teams, moving people off their jobs, etc. The Tipping Point Leadership approach offers a way to produce large-scale change at comparatively low cost.

Who should sponsor Tipping Point Leadership programs?

CEOs and General Managers are in the best position to launch Tipping Point Leadership efforts, given the breadth of the approach. Heads of Strategy, Chief Transformation Officers, or functional managers responsible for change inside their organization also commonly sponsor Tipping Point Leadership efforts. The Heads of Organization Development or Leadership Development also frequently play a major role in Tipping Point Leadership efforts, either as internal pathfinders for the approach, or as functional support to CEOs or General Managers driving the effort.

Please address any question on Tipping Point Leadership to fgouillart@macpartnership.com.