Not only have I contributed to change management, also at many occasions I had the chance to exchange experiences with fellow managers. You probably know the standard change stories; where staff gets uneasy - up to even hositle - against the announced changes and the process seems like a dragging agonising suffering towards a 'forcefully ' imposed result.
If this is indeed the case, then obviously something has been applied the wrong way. Many mechanisms in every day business life are subject to a real time response requirement: If you see your stocks plummet on the market, you are expected to get rid of them as soon as possible, else you face a big loss - unless you are a gambler-type, relying on a full bounce-back. Or if demand is high and commodity scarce we know that prices go up...
Yet in other areas, which should equally respond more dynamically to market changes, this assumption seems almost non existent. Only after a decade or so, a department realises, it is applying inefficient or over outdated processes. Why does management - and it happens often enough - underestimate needs for changes, such that when it becomes unbearable a thorough turnaround becomes imperative - and is unnecessarily adding up to the distress?
Understanding, that e.g. on the technology side, one is to a degree limited by a status of hardware implementation for a set life-span. Nevertheless, many changes are a sign of reacting too late.
Businesses should understand that a business process or a philosophy may be just a temporary desirable state, needing adjustment the moment the external factors shift. Darwin's theory would also easlily apply here; not the strongest survives, but the fittest - the one, who knows immediately to react adequately to a change. Keeping this in mind as one of the business objectives can prevent much pain and agony from costly and too complex change management exercises. Better to regularly visit your doctor and take his advice to heart, rather than waiting too long, where perhaps in the worst case even the doctor would no longer be able to help the patient.
Michael, readers would do well to take note of what George Soros says, that every decision contains an error and that the faster he can see where the error is and change the decision, the happier he is because he has just cut his losses.
ReplyDeleteThis does not only apply to investments, it applies to anything where a person or organization invests his/her time. At some point, that investment of time and effort will not longer deliver a return, at which point, you either fix it or forget it.
Best wishes
Liam