Carlzon's Change Leadership at SAS and Linjeflyg

Creating Urgency and Engaging Employees

Carlzon established a strong sense of urgency with his moves, and this was evident at both SAS and Linjeflyg. On his first day at Linjeflyg, he called a company-wide meeting that included all employees from across the country. He also met quickly with employees at SAS after his appointment, making clear that changes were coming. His first order of business was to engage employees in the change process before the specific changes had even been identified. In doing so, he encouraged the workforce to become part of the process from the outset.

The second step was to quickly establish the market and competitive realities. Senior managers were promptly asked to provide assessments of the key customer groups, and in doing so, Carlzon was able to identify the central issues. Strategies were then formed on the basis of these findings. The analysis was largely informal, which allowed it to be conducted with a sense of urgency — distilling down to basic truths rather than becoming lost in the details.

Building Organizational Buy-In

Carlzon took the approach that the entire organization needed to buy into the change effort for it to succeed. The first step in his change process was to engage the broader workforce. He gathered information from his senior managers, ensuring they would be quickly involved. Although Carlzon directed the process, he made few of the decisions himself. When he did make decisions, he was essentially confirming what many employees already felt about the situation, rather than imposing a vision that did not correspond with their own experience. This clarity of vision was key, because the groups within the company charged with implementing change were able to come together under a common understanding of what needed to be done.

Crafting a Clear Vision and Strategy

Carlzon's philosophy with respect to vision was that it needed to be simple. Vision and strategy are critical because they align employees with the efforts that need to be made, but they must also be easy to understand. If they are, employees cannot become confused. Carlzon therefore derived a concise, clear vision, outlined in just a handful of points, with no mutually exclusive elements.

With a vision in place, Carlzon was able to formulate specific strategies and tactics in support of it, giving the company concrete objectives to work toward. For example, the focus on business travelers as the primary customer allowed all SAS employees to galvanize around that mission, and service levels improved significantly as a result. Carlzon succeeded because he communicated the strategy in a simple, accessible manner that was well-aligned with the overarching vision.

Communication as a Leadership Tool

Carlzon was successful in large part because of his effectiveness as a communicator. At Linjeflyg, his messages were brief but clear, and all employees left that first meeting understanding what Carlzon wanted. At SAS, he refined his ability to deliver the message further. He even introduced a theme song for his change strategy, something that significantly boosted employee buy-in. Carlzon is also noted for his capacity to spread ideas widely. Described as a preacher-leader, he was capable not only of delivering a clear message but of repeating it frequently and to all people — reinforcing it across the organization's entire stakeholder base.

Carlzon supported his communication style with managerial actions. He wanted to reduce formality in communication and backed this up by actively removing the barriers to communication that had accumulated within the company over time. He employed a number of tools to accomplish this, including the "little red book" and reward mechanisms — each utilized specifically to reinforce the message with greater clarity and effectiveness.

Empowerment and Structural Reform

Carlzon's greatest achievement may be as a leader who genuinely empowered his organizations. At Linjeflyg, all employees were immediately engaged to assist in the change process. At SAS, Carlzon executed all the key functions of empowerment: he removed the bureaucratic layers that had paralyzed decision-making; he reorganized the company around his vision; and he allowed managers to make their own decisions. Equally important, he allowed those decisions to be evaluated on the basis of their outcomes, which encouraged riskier and more creative thinking on the part of managers. This gave employees more tools with which to drive the change effort forward.