Where Will a New Technology Take You?
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's also written monthly columns for Municipal World and Computing Canada.
His goal is always to question what we think is so, and in so doing perhaps open up new opportunities.
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In the previous article we explored an informal process for selecting a new technology. In that article I promised (threatened?) to address the implementation of that technology. It’s time for me to make good on that threat.
Regardless of the technology chosen, existing business processes or the technical abilities of your organization, your implementation will travel through three distinct phases; resistance, chaos, and if you’re very lucky or talented or both, a return on your investment.
That prediction of resistance and chaos and a small chance of success is more truthful than the one most often offered by IT experts, “The implementation you’re about to undergo… will be transparent to the user.” Without delving into their source of perpetual optimism, we’re going to examine those three phases.
Resistance: Far from being a negative, the ability to resist Change is a desirable attribute in all organizations. I know that perspective is contrary to everything said about organizational change, but how can resistance be anything but positive? The ability to initially resist a new idea, until there is evidence that it’s a good idea, is a necessary survival mechanism. The alternative is to embrace every wacky idea that stumbles by.
Here’s a little exercise to prove the assertion that “Resistance isn’t futile, it’s necessary”.
Read any publication with pencil and paper at the ready. Read the entire publication and each time you encounter an idea which might add value to your organization, make a note of it. Once you’ve read the whole
magazine check your notes and do a rough estimate of how much effort it would take to implement every new idea you stumbled across. I’ve found that a typical magazine will yield a very conservative 5-10 years worth of effort.
Here’s the bad news. Next month, they’re going to send you a brand new issue of
your favorite magazine and it will contain even more new ideas. If resisting change was really bad then you’d be honour bound to implement every new idea you encountered every minute of every day. Madness would ensue.
So… when you introduce a new technology into any organization, you will inevitably encounter resistance. Mostly in the form of a simple question, “Why should we change?” That question isn’t an obstacle to what you want to do, it’s more an opportunity to enlist the enthusiasm of the person asking it – providing you can make the case for what you’re trying to do and, that you’re willing to invite the questioner to examine your reasoning.
Chaos: If the technology you’re about to inflict on your organization is intended to achieve something significant, then you’re guaranteed of only one thing, it will generate a lot of chaos long before it delivers on the any of the promised benefits.
Why? Because significant Change always requires the acquisition of new skills, and learning new skills always forces us first into incompetence before we can access the new competencies. We can’t play the violin perfectly on the first try and no matter how well intentioned my Mom was, I could not learn how to swim before I got into the water.
Learning to do something new requires that we learn by trial and error. We learn how to swim by first swallowing a prerequisite amount of water. We learn to play the violin by first annoying the neighbours.
The ROI: This is the Promised Land, the destination you had in mind when you first examined the original problem and then sought out a solution. This is what is delivered to your doorstep IF you jumped the dual hurdles of Resistance and Chaos and didn’t fall flat on your face.
The lesson here is that the ROI isn’t available to anyone just because they ‘buy’ a technological solution, any more than the ability to play Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 36 is bestowed on you when you pay a few million for a Stradivarius.
The “Return on Investment” phrase does spell it out, the emphasis is on the word “Investment” but unfortunately that has come to mean only the financial component of the total cost.
Years ago I saw an example of this lack of understanding that still sends shivers down my spine. A long time ago a company purchased a huge computer screen worth about $15k for a Secretary’s Mac computer. This was one of those screens which could display two legal sized documents side by side on the screen.
While sitting next to her one day watching her work I observed the following. She loaded her Word processor and made some final edits to a document. She then printed the document and brought it back to her desk. She then closed the WP and fired up her desktop publishing application. As I watched in amazement, she started to key in the document she’d just printed.
While the company was willing to spend thousands of dollars on the latest and greatest technology, they failed to send her to the $150 course that would have taught her how to cut and paste from one application to another.
Technology is only the lever, something we must learn how to use before we can roll the boulders up the hill. The truth of the matter is that there are no technological solutions to problems. All technology ever is, is a tool. We can buy the tools, but they only sit there gathering dust if we don’t learn to use them properly. Or, even worse, they’ll make the original problem worse if we use them incorrectly.
© 2008, Peter de Jager – Peter is a Keynote speaker who strives to make the complicated, as simple as possible, and no simpler. You can read more of his early morning scribblings at:
http://blog.technobility.com
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