By Rhythm or Rote?
Peter de Jager is a provocative Speaker, Writer and Consultant. His primary focus in on how we manage change, technology and the future.
In addition to speaking at conferences worldwide, he also writes monthly columns for Computerworld Canada, the ABA Bankers Journal, CIPS Across Canada, Voyageur, HR Gateway, Galt Review... to name a few of his writing activities.
His goal is always to question what we think is so, and in so doing perhaps open up new opportunities.
If you'd like permission to reprint any of Peter's articles, please contact him directly.
You can contact him at
pdejager@technobility.com
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After the last MC&T we gained a flood of new subscribers and it turns out that several people had sent out a note to their peers generating the mini-deluge. My thanks to those who do this on a regular or irregular basis; we can always do with more subscribers.
What I found interesting is that I could summarize several of these recommendations into the following phrase - if you're interested in Change Management, you should subscribe to de Jager's Journal... he's a bit philosophical BUT he offers some really concrete advice.
Obviously, I was struck by the highlighted portion and the management implications of that perspective. There is a consequence to the notion that we don't have to understand the "why" of a process, all we need know is "what" to do to achieve an effect.
My concern is that in the search for the short snappy answer, we forget the importance of answering the right question.
Here's an analogy to highlight my concern: We could, if we had to, learn to dance by following painted footsteps on the ground; but if we really want to dance, we're better off if we move naturally to the music in the air.
Part of the motivating force behind this "just the answers please" perspective is the push towards immediate action. The impact of "Internet Speed" has forced us into the situation where action is more valuable than understanding -- especially since we can act quickly, but understanding takes time.
I belong to several dozen discussion groups. One of them is a Human Resource list and a certain question gets asked repeatedly, month after month. The message reads something like this:
We're putting together a "team building" (or any other management issue) day next week.
Can someone suggest some really good exercises?
The questions which spring to my mind are:
What problem are they trying to solve?
WHY do they need a team building day?
What is wrong with the way the team is currently operating?
Why is it operating this way?
What would they like the team to do differently?
I don't think these are idle questions. We can't, or at least shouldn't, write a prescription for a patient until we know what the illness is. Yet this is exactly what the above request is asking for.
Something's not right with my team. I can't/won't/am incapable of describing the problem, but I want a solution. I want it now! Tell me what to do and ask me no questions.
When I think about how to describe change management, I am torn between describing it as either a very easy subject, or an incredibly difficult one. It all depends upon which perspective I'm using at the time.
This dilemma of problem solving, boils down to an almost childlike observation. If you know what's wrong then it's easy to fix, if you don't then it's almost impossible.
Time for a story.
Many, many moons ago at the dim distant beginning of my career, I took a position as an Information Centre Manager. My mandate was to bring about 600 PCs into the corporation. The first year in that position was the most difficult year of my entire career. At every turn I ran into "Office Politics". It stopped me from achieving even a miniscule level of success.
I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. The central thought in my mind was this...
I didn't sign up for this. If these stupid office politics would just go away I could get my job done. Grrr...
Sound familiar? (If this were a presentation I'd ask for a show of hands.) My guess is that about 9 out of 10 people have felt this way in the past... and likely STILL feel this way today?
The next year everything changed, every project I touched turned effortlessly into success. I still had the same internal clients, I had the same mandate, and nothing changed except that I finally seen the light.
I, and the mandate I was trying to execute, was the sole source of the office politics. My role in the organization was the problem... As Pogo said, "I've met the enemy and he is us."
As a technical person I saw my job as being a very technical, and hence a relatively easy one. I first identify someone who could benefit from what a PC had to offer, arrange training, order the PC, do the installation, provide a help desk and ongoing support, and move onto the next unsuspecting candidate. My only reason for doing this is to help people become incredibly more productive than doing things manually.
From my client's perspective what I was doing was very, very different. I was someone who was, at every turn, upsetting workloads, shifting the balance of power, creating new interdepartmental dependencies, and generally disrupting perfectly good ways of doing things.
The office politics I was experiencing was nothing more than an adverse reaction to the change I was attempting to implement.
But I can hear the complaint already... Peter we don't want to know why your office politics problem existed, we want to know what you did to solve it!
The problem is, I did a thousand things differently. More to the point, I did them effortlessly, practically without thinking. I did things differently to solve the real problem... How do I get people to want me to come into their office with this technology called Personal Computing? How do I alleviate the legitimate concerns generated from their perspective? Just being aware, and of course accepting their resistance, enabled me to approach the problem differently. I could NOT do this until I understood the 'philosophy' ('psychology' if you prefer) of the problem.
The net result was that I was no longer fighting their resistance, instead I was embracing and respecting it and the problem went away, as if by magic.
Of course, there's a problem to this approach. It takes time, sometimes a lot of time. It took me 12 months to understand why something is the way it is.
It takes far less time to identify a need, send them on a course, order a PC, setup a help desk etc. etc. The trouble is, while you can do these things immediately... what's the point if no one uses the services you've provided? Or the system you've implemented? Or if the two organizations aren't melding into one after the big merger? Or there is residual resentment after the large layoff?
To 'solve' any of these situations requires a deep understanding of what exactly the problem is, only then can we suggest solutions with some hope of not making matters worse.
It would be nice if there were a list of all possible actions you could take to solve a related list of change management problems. There are of course some general pieces of advice suitable for all occasions... communicate, communicate, communicate is one of them... but this is far more effective after you've taken the time to understand, understand, understand.
© 2005,
Peter de Jager – Peter is passionate about change, how it affects both
individuals and organizations and allows them to grow and prosper. To contact him, and
host internal seminars on Change Management visit www.technobility.com
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