Unable to
make progress with traditional “mechanical” models?
The issue is usually not which tools and techniques
are used, but a question of attitudes and mindsets.
Read this page or follow the links to find out
more about our approach to create sustainable change.
On this page:
| The
good of the company – or protecting
my interests? |
|
“One for all and all for one” may
have been good for the three musketeers, but does
it actually work in business?
Conventional wisdom these days
seems to say that if you are looking after the
good of the enterprise as a whole, you are failing
to look after your own interests. This may well
be true in the short term.
In the long term however, things are different – shares
go up and down, positions with good salaries might
suddenly disappear, new technologies may create
radical change.
We take an holistic view and invite you to consider
the long term vision. A company successful over
time is more attractive to investors, staff and
customers alike. We look at a company as an organic system. Our approach to change
uses systemic organisational consulting principles. We include people
into change management and hence call the process
business transition.
A healthy company has happy customers, happy share-holders and happy
staff. We think the musketeers were right.
| Change
management – what does it all mean?
|
|
Often “business transformation” (and
the management of change) is conceived as the:
- Installation of new technologies
- Software and
scheduling
- Who gets transferred across and when
Communication
on the timing and impact of all of this is via
newsletters and personal emails. Know the story?
Have you been involved in it? Was the implementation
successful?
I don’t know about your experience, but I
have been involved in many projects where the result
was well short of anticipation (with commensurate
impact on the business case). Some of these projects
didn’t even get off the ground. And in most
instances, I came across fierce staff resistance
to the change – voiced to me as an external
person delivering training.
What went wrong?
Effective and lasting change needs more
than attention to detail in a technical or process
mapping sense, or in selecting the statistics measuring
process performance. Such an approach
is:
- Focussed on process re-engineering
- Workplace
redesign
- Process maps
- Diagnosing problems
- Data driven
- Focussing on planning, delivery
and communication
- Valuing analytical skills
Such an approach is required
for any change project to succeed, although on
its own it is not enough. What
made Motorola a successful company? Was
it the invention and application of Six Sigma and
process improvement? Malcolm has
first hand experience and is sure it wasn’t
just that, it was
process focus plus the
heart.
What makes an organisational change successful
and sustainable? In addition to the topics listed
above, a cultural change is needed
to:
- Ensure people own the change
- Get the buy-in
of every member in the
organisation
- Prevent staff and middle management
from sliding back into old behaviours
The culture in an organisation is just
as (if not more) important as the processes in
place. Customers pick up on the culture of your
organisation more than the actual processes.
Have you heard this said before?
What does it mean to you? What does it mean to
your customer?
What is meant by “culture?”
What does it mean in today’s world, where
individual tasks are increasingly specialised,
and narrower in scope, in more and more companies?
We typically know about
the culture of a region reflected in architecture, language, food and personality
traits - developed over a long time. We have also heard about companies, in
particular family businesses, where people feel proud to belong and responsible
for the company.
The culture of a company
What contributes
to the culture of a company? Is it a set of rules
plus membership of the social club? Is it whatever the boss says? Or
is it a more organic, growing product – a “compost
of the characteristics of its members?” Experience
suggests that every company has
its own distinguishable culture, even
where it shares the exact same rules as other companies.
People form the culture of a company
Consider a food dish specific to a region. Ingredients
have been put into patterns and, if they worked,
have over time become stable and repeatedly replicated.
This is the process applicable to behaviours in
a company. These behaviours can reflect:
- Patterns
of a region
- Professional blueprint
- Position in the organisation
- Gender and age
specific prototypes
There are more
that could be listed here, and you may know of
some that are specific to your organisation or
industry.
Behaviours in a company can also be inexplicable.
They point to a hidden
dynamic.
And we have the tools
and techniques to expose such dynamics.
Once understood, hidden dynamics can turn in to
a creative and productive force.
| Transforming
your business successfully |
|
We
believe that change in a company is possible – with
the right kind of impetus.
Often in change projects, the people factor is
either overlooked or not given the consideration
it demands.
For example, in outsourcing bids the people that
will be changing company (transferring to the outsourcer)
are examined only from a wage perspective for cost
modelling, and from a skills perspective for placement
in the structural hierarchy. Other factors, such
as how these people, and those staying behind,
feel, is not valued. This can have an adverse affect
on the project, with users resisting the change
openly, or as more often happens, through negative
talk. If not asked for in the Request for Proposals,
as a bidder you could offer as a value added service, transition
support from a human perspective, including
services such as:
| Reasons
for choosing us as your consultants for change |
|
We take a holistic approach to change. Not
only are we up to date with the “traditional” change
management methods, we also have the skills, tools
and techniques to initiate a cultural
change. We look at organisations as a system and set about business
transformation using the systemic
organisational consulting concept.
Above all we honour the things that work – this
gives us the right to change what doesn’t.
We apply systemic
organisational constellations as
an instrument of change and to foster wise decision-making.
For example, a result could be a new organisational
structure, where everybody feels they have a rightful
place in the company and can work together in harmony.
- We
see the small detail in the big picture and the
big picture in the small detail
- We include employee
development in an organisational change management
program
- Whilst working on individual change we
are ever mindful of the enterprise transformation
as a whole
- We are aware the implementation trauma
and work minimise lasting effects
- We know how
important the recognition of an employee’s
contribution to the organisation is
- We can address
large scale changes, such as mergers
and acquisitions
- We help to make transition
periods exciting. Thrill to the possibilities
of the new!
Preeti Helena
