Fast:
You work for an organization that is spending millions of dollars on a major new process that will completely change the way you work and who you work with, and will require you to think about your work in a whole new way. The success of the company depends on you and your co-workers!
Do you feel pretty confident right now? I don’t believe it. Every day, in organizations around the world, these kinds of challenges are placed on the people who do the work of the organization. Of course, he rarely expresses himself so bluntly. More often than not, the organization simply announces the initiative, whether it is a new technology, a new process, or a new way of thinking…as if the initiative itself represents the sum total of change.
This is rarely the case. Change is always about people. As jarring as our “go for the tiger” example has been, it at least represents a level of clarity often lacking in organizations.
the people piece
Dramatic case studies are not hard to find. Let’s take ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) as an example. For the uninitiated, ERP is a complicated and comprehensive technology initiative that promises system-wide efficiencies by sharing common data across every part of an organization. Star strike, many companies have taken over ERP like Indiana Jones lifting a golden idol from an Inca temple.
The results have been just as encouraging. (Remember that giant rolling rock?) For example, in 1999, Hershey’s ERP startup problems cost the company $150 million. That same year, FoxMeyer Corp’s failed ERP installation cost them a billion-dollar lawsuit…and ended in bankruptcy for the company. Waste Management abandoned their initiative and had to bear the cost of $150 million.
The lesson here is not to avoid this ERP business. Or total quality, cultural mergers, Six Sigma, CRM, shared services model, supply chain, or any other comprehensive change initiative. Many companies have been transformed by these powerful initiatives. No, the lesson here is much deeper. And simpler. Here’s how a Nestlé executive summed up what the company learned in a May 2002 interview with CIO magazine: “No major software implementation is really about the software. It’s about change management… When you move to SAP (a specific ERP software), they are changing the way people work… You are challenging their principles, their beliefs and the way they have done things for many, many years.” People must accept the importance of the initiative.
In other words, just because you’ve installed the software and finished the training, that doesn’t mean your job is done. You are heating up. To produce powerful results, you need to insert the ‘people variable’ into the equation, which changes, and communications company Paradigm Learning puts it this way: The equation is a variation on a theme.
This release comes from a change leader at consumer products giant Kimberly-Clark. Michael Fischer uses the equation to describe why his massive supply chain initiative has been so successful. Kimberly-Clark realized early in the process that changing an entire organization, or even part of one, is a complicated equation.
Much has been said and written about the first element of the above formula, the quality of the change initiative. Although fiendishly difficult, this variable has the virtue of being obvious: misinstall the technology and it won’t work, end of discussion. Many consultants and much of the change management literature focus on this first critical variable. But it is this second area, the alignment of people, that is so often neglected. And this is where powerful leverage can be found. For transformation to occur and for real results to be achieved in organizations, there must be an alignment of organizational culture – norms of behaviour, operating principles, shared understanding of “how things work here” – and mental models. , the often hidden beliefs, conclusions, assumptions, and ways of thinking that drive how individual people perceive the world.
The Great Transfer: Vision, Knowledge, Responsibility
Cultures. Mental models. Paradigms. It would be nice to be able to change them by printing a slogan on a coffee mug, but the experience of countless organizational change agents continues to show that this is not the case. People are fiercely resistant to changing the way they perceive and interact with their world, especially if such a change is forced upon them. Those organizations that have been successful in leading the horse to water and getting it to drink suggest that widespread and voluntary enrollment is a positive.
Making the case for people:
Not quite. Training involves something that you ‘do’ to employees. The goal here is that more elusive activity, which is learning. As the theorist David Kolb illustrates, learning occurs when people choose to embrace a new concept, practice applying it in their own contexts, reflect on their experience, and ultimately extend its application more holistically.
You can’t do this with a PowerPoint presentation. Author Michael Robin suggests an intriguing approach to learning in his powerful article, Learning By Doing: Organizations Find That Practical Experience Produces the Most Valuable Learning (Knowledge Management magazine, March 2000).
In it, Michael says that: “In today’s knowledge-intensive global economy, performance is difficult to predict and standardized behavior may not generate success. Companies must innovate faster, respond to new challenges and discover opportunities to create value In this new situation, traditional training methods fall short in several important areas… relevance… time… and cost.”
The article goes on to state that, “One of the clearest organizational productivity impacts of experiential learning can be seen in higher levels of retention, ultimately resulting in greater transfer of knowledge to informed action.
While retention levels for traditional lecture or reading learning are typically only three to five percent, retention levels with experiential learning have been known to reach 80-90 percent.”
Technology and Alignment at Marathon Oil
Let’s go back to the world of SAP for a case study. The organization is Marathon Oil Company, a Houston-based energy company that in 2000 started its ‘Project Renaissance’ initiative to implement SAP for more than 2,400 employees worldwide. In addition to the formidable technology component, Marathon treated Renaissance as a people challenge from the start and put a plan in place for the transfer of vision, knowledge and responsibility. And they used the power of experiential learning to do it. By partnering with Paradigm Learning, Tampa-based experts in change and communications,
Renaissance developed a communication tool called “Discovery Map®”. A striking 4-foot by 6-foot illustration loaded with data, images, and metaphors related to the Renaissance initiative, Discovery Map illustrated three universal components for changing initiatives: Marathon’s current reality (including its challenges), its vision (or articulation of where you want to go), and the means to cross the map from ‘here’ to ‘there’ (in this case, SAP technology represented the bridge).
In a structured learning activity, members of the organization interacted with the dynamic content of the Discovery Map, connecting its metaphors with their own experiences. The end of this story is remarkable: Employees recognized and accepted the value of SAP’s challenging technology. With the power of this broad organizational support, Renaissance fell under budget. And after just 13 months of work (an industry record), they were up and running. In their reflections, leaders at the highest levels of the organization cited this “commitment,” not the technology or software, as the cornerstone of their success. Marathon got it right: It’s all about alignment. It’s about people.
Corn Products aligns its workforce
Imagine a scenario where an organization’s entire senior leadership team is focused on one goal. Now imagine that the majority of the workforce does not understand the goal. Not only do they not understand it, they don’t even know what the words in the written goal statement mean. That was the situation facing Corn Products, a world leader in food ingredients and industrial starch. It is run by the learner, not the instructor. It is team based. Treat learning as a cycle, building on each point of view. Allow time for reflection and internalization. Accept mistakes as a tool for learning. It provides an overview and nurtures new mental models.
Discovery learning is a that:
In the process of trying to strengthen their bottom line while expanding their product portfolio, “the mantra for the entire senior team became: ‘We must improve working capital, we must improve working capital,'” explains David Spirk, director of administration and organization developing. “But during a meeting, an employee raised his hand and asked, ‘What exactly is working capital?’ At that point, I knew we had work cut out for us.” Corn Products leaders quickly realized they needed to focus on alignment. They had to make sure everyone was on the same page for the revitalization process to succeed. Understand the notion that it was critical to success and, furthermore, that every employee can influence it, were mission-critical challenges.
To do that, Corn Products chose a unique method…a board game, again based on discovery learning techniques. Paradigm Learning offered Zodiak®: The Game of Business Finance and Strategy as a way to develop understanding, knowledge, and most importantly, a commitment to do whatever it takes to achieve the goal of Corn Product. Zodiak’s game put Corn Products employees in the role of business owners for a day and allowed them to ‘run’ an organization for three simulated years of operation.
During the game, participants learned how to read and build income statements and balance sheets, how to analyze numbers, and how to interpret the impact of their decisions on key financial measures such as working capital. As they immersed themselves in the game, making their own decisions, they became more fluent in the language of business and came face to face with the critical financial impact that people can have on the success of the company. Is working? Are employees lining up around what is important to Corn Products? Company leaders believe so. “It’s essential that our people know where this company wants to go and what we have to do to get there,” said Corn Products President and CEO Samuel Scott. “We all depend on each other, and this experience is something that vividly shows every employee just how true that is.”
Organizational Change and the Temple of Doom
You are in the Inca temple, looking for that golden idol of organizational change. Careful. Here are traps. ask yourself:
What are the results you want to achieve? How will you implement the change seamlessly…and with excellence? Finally (and this is the important part): How will you align the people in your organization around the clock? Look at the lineup and the prize is yours.