Change Is A Constant

Several years ago a senior executive told me he was, "Sick and tired of hearing about change." He's probably almost terminally sick of change today. Change is now a constant. Businesses try to change their business models, the way they process information, and how they deal with suppliers and customers. Six Sigma is no longer something only the "big guys" try. It seems everyone is jumping on some kind of Business Process Management (BPM) bandwagon.

A recent 8,000+ word report on BPM by Gartner, a leading provider of IT market research, reflects current thinking regarding making desired changes. They open their report with, "Implementing BPM is difficult. The main problems to any significant change are the human barriers - inertia and vested interests." Ten pages later the authors state, "More recently, management has recognized the importance of the human contribution to work - The ability to lead and collaborate has become important as value networks are increasingly interdependent." Later they contend, "Good management now requires a balance of skills in process, staff management, and use of IT."

That's it for the human element. The other 7,900 plus words detail the technical aspects of BPM. Please don't misunderstand; this is not an indictment of Gartner. Their document simply represents current business paradigms. The human element of business process management is often addressed with psycho-babble, marginalized with vague platitudes, or conveniently ignored.

Let's set the record straight, the people side of process improvement is no mystery. In collaboration with Dale Carnegie and Associates, a giant aircraft manufacturer works with teams of people to produce simultaneous advances in technical and non-technical areas. Here's a snapshot of what we've learned.

Process improvement initiatives, including Six Sigma, lose momentum due to the human element. Black Belts often tell us that "buy-in" and momentum are critical to their initiatives. They typically invest sixty percent or more of their time trying to restimulate participation and focus, and twenty percent using their technical Six Sigma capabilities. This is the same breakdown of an individual's success pattern. As people move up the corporate ladder, they produce eighty or more percent of their results using non-technical abilities but, they take their mental- models with them.

Eliyahu M. Goldratt, the brilliant author of The Goal, constantly reminds us to check our premises, or "rules". Here are several paradigms we've uncovered in our work helping organizations move from where they are to where they dream of being.

Underlying Assumption #1: Simply knowing something is the answer. We often get requests from executives to achieve outcomes such as assisting technically competent individuals in developing their ability to deal with others, become more confident, be better listeners etc. The goal is clear until the person on the phone adds, "Can you do a half-day seminar for these people?" We can conduct an effective workshop, but simply talking to people about the subject or engaging them in "exercises", seldom produces desired changes. It surprises us how many business people actually think from the knowledge acquisition paradigm. At first, we thought executives were just trying to save time and money. We were wrong.

If you are serious about producing outcomes, vigorously avoid the knowledge paradigm trap. When we hear the knowledge acquisition assumption, we ask, "If people improved in the areas you requested and your business results stay the same, is that okay?" This quickly uncovers the business objective behind the request. If we don't do this, our client may waste precious resources on the wrong things. Unless we clearly tie project outcomes to a business objective, skills rarely stick.

Focus on desired outcomes rather than simplistic "learning objectives." Underlying Assumption #2: We need "buy-in." "Buy-in" implies agreement. If you try to gain consensus or agreement on everything by everybody, you'll never make progress. What you require is support. Not everyone supports a business initiative in which they do not agree. It's fine to disagree, and smart executives invite challenges to their ideas, but not in the implementation stage.

You gain alignment and support through listening, not speaking. This is one of the most common missteps, especially in Business Process Management initiatives. "Rolling out" an initiative with a one-way PowerPoint® pitch seldom gets a project up to speed. This approach actually creates resistance.

Engage others in conversations around your desired outcomes and each individual's connection to them. Hear what is important to them and listen for alignment rather than artificially trying to create it.

Underlying Assumption #3: We need to change other's behaviour in order to achieve our goals. We admit we've fallen into this trap. A change in behaviour may be desired, even required, however, this assumption is based on a "single-cause" mindset. There is no single-cause behind most human behaviour. Processes sometimes have a bottleneck or underlying cause, but as Eliyahu Goldratt and Peter Senge clearly tell us, a global or systems view often exposes a different reality. Our colleague Robert Fritz contends, "Structure gives rise to behaviour."

Similar to our Gartner report example, we observe many executives acknowledging the human element in the early stages of an initiative, but only focus resources, time, and attention on it when it becomes a "problem." People are not a problem to fix; they are the source of desired outcomes.

Underlying Assumption #4: Creating the future we desire is a problem to be solved. Listen to conversations around your boardroom table. Gauge how much time you invest in problem solving. When a water pipe breaks, that's an immediate problem. Fix it. Creating the future we want is not a seek-and-destroy mission; it's a design-build process.

Our business culture is steeped in problem solving. We reward those we perceive can solve problems. Unfortunately, many of our business "firefighters" are pyromaniacs. They create many of the "fires" they put out. For example, when executives speak in vague concepts and generalities, they wonder why others don't "buy-in" or "get it". What's to get? Is it clear what you are creating? Is what you don't want clearer to others than what you want? If so, people will have difficulty doing their part helping you create your desired future.

In one case, we worked for several hours with an executive to clearly communicate what he was creating. It was time well invested. He outperformed his peers by several months at less than a third of the cost.

Another executive repeatedly describes a burning platform "forcing" people to jump off and move to a "higher" platform. It is an unfortunate analogy. Attempts to manipulate based on fear motivation may appear to achieve short-term gains, but results crash and burn (sorry) when veiled threats fail to materialize into a genuine disaster. People fade into a "this too will pass" mindset or need an even more "serious" disaster to move them to action. This executive is better off using the same vivid language to engage others in creating something of value to the organization and to each stakeholder.

Replace "make the problem go away" with "bring what we want into existence."

Underlying Assumption #5: Workload causes stress. Workload does not cause stress. The problem with "stress leave" is that the cause of stress goes with the person. This is less simplistic or heartless than it sounds. Unrealistic objectives, poor resource allocation, fuzzy initiatives, and ineffective communication cause plenty of waste in an organization. Management is responsible for much of the confusion. Management is responsible for producing results through the willing cooperation of others. The workload/stress assumption is responsible for a plethora of ineffective "solutions" that treat symptoms, not causes.

A well-executed Business Process Management System combined with advances in key player's competency in gaining willing cooperation, alignment, and accountability, goes a long way to reduce stress in the workplace. Much of the stress we see is sincere, committed individuals trying to get things done in a structure that makes goals almost impossible to achieve. In contrast, after two months of a synchronized approach, one executive declared, "We almost quadrupled our business in the past two years, yet I've seen less stress around the office than I've ever seen". Workload increased dramatically, but we increased our human capacity.

Change Is A Constant - To learn more about this author, visit Dave Mather's Website.

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