Strategic change decisions: doing the right change right

Abstract

We use the case of German aviation Group Deutsche Lufthansa and its strategic change program, ‘D-Check Maintaining Leadership’, to illustrate how a large company was able to execute group-wide change in order to effectively secure its future despite a highly turbulent environment. In this context, we found that top executives must systematically make two decisions. First, they need to decide what the right change is for their company and second, they need to decide how to implement the change correctly. In the process of making these decisions, various critical factors also need to be taken into individual consideration in a methodical, deliberate way. Details of Lufthansa's program are provided and the benefits of and insights into pre-implementation decision-making processes are assessed for framing and subsequently implementing strategic change. The impact of leadership and management decisions for successful strategic change is discussed in the analysis. We round up our discussion with major lessons learned.

Keywords:

• Strategic change management
• leading change
• decision-making