A stumbling block or a stepping stone?
“It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” ~ Charles Darwin
Often, we are faced with tough and demanding circumstances at the workplace (and in personal lives as well). A mountain of constraints and bottlenecks. Sometimes, one might feel as if the Murphy's law was created only for you - Anything that can, could have, or will go wrong, is going wrong, all at once.
Last few weeks have been a reflection of such extremities for one of the improvement leads at one of my clients. We have been exchanging notes around our experiences towards transformation programs over a cuppa of coffee, glass (es) of beer - the project goals, risks to success, stakeholders, current state, improvement agenda et all.
One would wish the improvement programs follow the text-book : burning platform for change, senior leadership sponsorship, engaged process owners and subject matter experts / team members, appropriate incentives / dis-incentives in place to drive the "right" behaviors...
BUT, wake up - that's not the reality.
My colleague's program has been characterized by stakeholders having hidden agendas, process owners across different parts of the organizations operating in silos and not engaging in open dialogues to discuss issues / concerns, identifying solutions and working together towards a better future state, technology being seen as a panacea (should I be surprised!), and...
In my last conversation with him, while I empathized - I asked him what's he doing about it...And, what I heard back was uhhh...ahhh...What can I do!.
I just remembered and told him the age old cliche - "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". And, then we had to stop short our conversation due to other prior commitments.
I am scheduled to continue the dialogue with my colleague over the next round of beer later today evening. I am wanting and hoping to do my best to make him see the current situation as an opportunity instead of an obstacle, a stepping stone instead of a stumbling block.
What have "you" done when faced with an adverse situation?
Hello Chander! It appears your "target audience" feels threatened. The first step needs to make them feel safe... Good luck!
@ Chander I see, more difficult problem, how to have the confidence to deliver radical change in a hostile environment. Your improvement lead is acting on both the end-customers and the managements behalf. People's failure to support them in delivering radical change is the same as them saying they are against both end-customers and management. Confidence can be found in having a clear mandate - the project charter. This spells out exactly the purpose of the initiative and support required from people. Would suggest this lack of buy in is discussed with the sponsor and advice sought.
@ Robin - You are right towards the people vs. process side of change. The challenge though in this specific case is not the solution to the problem (as well described by you), but more so the fact that we need to deal with such adversities with confidence AND strength...worrying doesn't help the cause... @ Peter - well said...never follow the text books :)...
influence at the right level understand the relationships and to which groups people want to belong and never follow the text books ...
It's not people that are the problem, it's their behaviour. You need to understand what is driving the behaviour you are seeing, what is their motive. The behaviors you describe - silo working and lack of cooperation, hidden agendas and lack of openness suggests a problem with the business leadership not business process. Investing time trying to fix a business process may be a waste of time in a political business where there is little to no trust. I would take a step back and look at the organisational dynamics of the business. It might be the business cannot improve with its current culture and you will need to redirect your efforts to address this before you can improve customer experience and productivity. Good luck.