In a recent discussion about the difficulties of effecting change, I wrote this:
There are these vexing issues about change management generally:
·
The business is not stationary while the change
is ongoing; thus it’s difficult to fix cause and effect. Sometimes only a loose
correlation is possible.
·
Project success—in the sense of change
project—and business success—in the sense of the impact of change on the
business—are often confused; the success (or not) of the former may be
evaluated quite differently than the success (or not) of the latter, all the
more so because the latter takes much longer to evaluate… so which
success/failure are we really addressing?
·
Success/failure is too often measured by evaluating
consumption of input according to plan—as in cash flow—without regard to earned
value of outcomes. (Debate: If the
outcomes are acceptable/successful, but the input consumption is over plan, is
the project successful or not? Some say there must be success of both input and
output; others only evaluate the output)
·
Leaders and managers are largely trained in
process mechanics, less so in the psychology of change, whereas the issues that
dog large scale change are weighted the other way around: more psychological
than process mechanics
·
Leaders and managers fail to grasp that change
and opportunity are nearly synonyms, and that opportunity is the flip side of
risk (See Chapter 11 of PMI PMBOK). Thus, when addressing the opportunity offered by change, they are
also taking on the risk attendant to the opportunity. They fail to grasp that
the body of knowledge re risk management has a lot to offer to the manager
addressing change—like for example game theory and options management.
·
And, finally, when has the business
reached post-change steady-state such that we can say: the change has occurred
and is fully internalized in both culture and operations?
Dilbert is a creation of Scott Adams.
Dilbert is a creation of Scott Adams.
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