In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins made reference to the Doom Loop and Flywheel concepts.
In the former, corporate leadership builds their strategy based on misinformation and therefore lack a clear understanding of the real challenges their organizations’ face. They then attempt to implement an initiative which after failing to solicit feedback from key stakeholders does not receive the required buy-in. The initiative then flounders and as a result cannot gain the necessary traction to drive positive results. Before you know it, the company is back at square one. (Once again refer to the 75 to 85% rate of initiative failure.)
Conversely, the good to great companies (the majority of whom ironically promote from within their corporate ranks versus looking to an outside source for leadership and guidance), relied on a “down-to-earth, pragmatic, committed-to-excellence process – a framework – which kept each company, its leaders, and its people on track for the long haul. This Collins asserted demonstrated the “triumph of the Flywheel Effect over the Doom Loop.” (I would strongly recommend that you obtain a copy of Collins’ book Good to Great to learn more about the Flywheel Effect as well as the other interesting results from his extensive research.)
So the real questions you have to ask yourself are; Has my organization established the necessary channels of communication with all of its key stakeholders?
Has my organization firmly established a solid foundation of understanding in terms of its current practices (including areas of potential improvement)?
Has my organization clearly identified a course of action that is capable of achieving its stated objectives?
Has my organization received the necessary stakeholder buy-in to systematically achieve graduated results on a consistent basis?
If you cannot answer these questions with a confident yes, a concentrated effort in collaboration with key stakeholders is in order.
In terms of motivating individuals, Collins’ book also highlights a number of corporate myths his research found (and I quote); “Companies that make the change from good to great have no name for their transformation – and absolutely no program. They neither rant nor rave about a crisis – and they don’t manufacture one where none exists. They don’t motivate people – their people are self-motivated. There’s no evidence of a connection between money and change mastery. And fear doesn’t drive change – but it does perpetuate mediocrity.”
Collins’ research ultimately reached the conclusion that “dramatic results do not come from dramatic process – not if you want them to last, anyway.” He went on to say that “a serious revolution, one that feels like a revolution to those who are going through it, is highly unlikely to bring about a sustainable leap from being good to great.” The City of Houston’s SAP initiative comes to mind here.
I have written a great many articles including the following titled How not to abandon your e-procurement initiative (the same principles introduced in this article also apply to ERP initiatives).
Links:
To obtain the corresponding reference material, please contact the author.
How do you motivate people to accept and work with the company's new ERP - To learn more about this author, visit Jon Hansen's Website.
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