Insights to Embracing Change, a Systems Thinking Approach®
You see things and you say, Why?
But I dream things that never were; and I say, Why Not?
~ George Bernard Shaw
Are you a mid-level manager, a supervisor, the CEO of a young, growing organization, an owner of a small business or a board member of a non-profit organization?
Guess what? When it comes to planning you all share one identical challenge. This is likely not news to you, except maybe you feel all alone in your conundrum, which is "where do I get the time and resources to do a good job of planning and then to follow through with a diligent implementation of my plans?"
This is one of the greatest challenges of all organizations. We are constantly challenged to ask "WHY should we change or even consider changing?", right? The quote above might seem comically absurd, in the sense that many of us rarely feel we have the luxury of dreaming things that never were, much less the courage to say "WHY NOT?"
In past articles I have explored some of the unintended consequences of not thinking systemically, or we can say, holistically, about issues and problems.
For example, it generally makes sense and is customary to place backup generators in basements of buildings, right? But that worked out poorly for the Japanese nuclear reactor buildings whose basements flooded. Other than a catastrophic building collapse from an earthquake, for which the buildings were fairly well prepared, flooding seemed to have never been considered.
I imagine all nuclear reactor plants around the world today are rethinking the configuration of their building and support systems. However, a simple four to eight-hour exercise in rigorous systems thinking in the design of the Japanese nuclear plant might have anticipated a flooding incident and adjusted for it in its construction with a much more positive outcome after the earthquake.
Back to the topic of Systems Thinking and "dreaming things that never were". Planning for disasters is actually a fantastic exercise in working those systems thinking brain muscles. It's easier to compel yourself and your colleagues to really press for those "what if" scenarios.
In doing so you will find yourselves asking those tough, uncomfortable questions that are key to the appreciative inquiry process that is so productive in systems thinking. You will more quickly produce the answers to the "why not?" questions, and begin to appreciate how the process can be productive in general business planning.
Whether you are tackling the plan for a project, a product launch, creating a new department, a business plan or a strategic plan, the elements of a rigorous and disciplined Systems Thinking Approach® to the planning process can be amazingly simple and will produce sustained excellent results.
If you are stuck asking "why?" about a problem or issue, it is high time you stop doing so and start "dreaming what has never been" and asking "why not?", over and over again. You'll find yourselves changing and moving in productive directions you never believed possible.
Send your comments to eric.denniston@hainescentre.com
LEAD
Creating Customer Value
Frequently we hear the term "the customer is king" or
"our customers always come first." But in reality most companies don't deliver on that phrase.
A survey of more than 1000 Fortune 500 companies by the management consulting firm, Rath & Strong, revealed that while 87% said delivering customer value was critical to their success, 70% also admitted that performance was driven by internal operating measures, not external customer satisfaction measures. *
Customers want relationships with their suppliers today. The advance of technology and social media has made it possible for customers to demand real time response and delivery on their terms, not the suppliers' terms.
This creates a major challenge for companies operating in the B2C space. How do you deliver what the customer wants, when the customer wants, and still meet shareholder demands?
Four Steps to Creating Customer Value
Step 1 - FOCUS
Focus on your customers' wants and needs in terms of their expectations of you. This becomes the driving force or vision for your organization - understanding your different customer segments and delivering what each wants.
Step 2 - DEFINE
Define your marketplace positioning that makes you unique in the eyes of your customer. You can't be all things to all people, but you can stand out in one area over your competition - as your customers view you.
Step 3 - IMPLEMENT
Implement the necessary changes to move your organization from an internally-focused one to one that focuses on serving the customer. Every department and every employee must have this focus and understanding. This requires flexible, responsive and participative people in empowered work teams.
Step 4 - REDESIGN & REALIGN
Review and redesign every aspect of your organization - its efforts, processes and people to focus on the customer. This is about changing the culture and customer mindset of your organization, not necessarily the organization chart. Every organizational element must be efficiently aligned and effectively attuned in a holistic manner that results in delivering customer value.
Click here for the full article about this.
Creating Customer Value Enterprise Wide
Social Media Marketing
Employee Satisfaction
Strategic Life Planning
Business Disaster Preparedness Planning
Click here for a wealth of tools and information on strategic thinking and planning.
Haines Centre for Strategic Management
5 Steps to Success using the Systems Thinking Approach® ...Based on over 50 years of scientific research.
For small business owners, nonprofit boards, major functional area teams, project / work group teams.
~ Lack of time
~ Putting out fires daily
~ No standard systems
~ Doing it all yourself
Sound familiar?
Our simple 5-Step Process will help you find answers to those questions and more.
Click here for to learn more
ACT
Managing Through the Rollercoaster of Change
Haines Centre for Strategic Management
The plan is done. The executive team has conducted their offsite planning sessions and either developed a new strategic plan or updated the current one. This required some changes to organizational processes affecting most if not all departments.
Now it's time to implement. Department managers were brought into the planning during the final stages to get their input and buy-in. Now that the plan is ready, the task of communicating this down and across the organization is ahead. Is it possible to do this without causing major upheaval and worker disruption?
Probably not, but there are things that can be done to mitigate the turmoil these changes may create. Recognize at the outset that any change will kick off a rollercoaster of emotions in each and every person. How they handle the change is a different story. The executive team and department managers already went through theirs in the planning process. Now it's time for the staff to experience theirs.
Start by recognizing that this is a natural, normal and predictable occurrence. Any time a change is made regardless of how big or small, it sets off a rollercoaster of emotions.
Some are instantaneous, others take longer (even months or more to weather through). But it will happen. And there are ways to manage through them effectively.
Similar to the grief process, everyone goes through five recognized stages in what we call the Rollercoaster of Change® - Shock and Denial, Anger and Depression, Hang In, Hope and Readjustment, and Rebuilding.
Continued in the column to the right...
|
Articles Inside
Systems Thinking Tip
Creating Customer Value
Better Exit Strategy Decisions
Knowledge Worker Productivity
Rollercoaster of Change
Business Solutions
Social Media Tips
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Learn to think, plan and act with strategic intent. ~OptIn_35~
Making Better Exit Strategy Decisions
Polaroid, the pioneer of instant photography and the employer of more
than 10,000 people in the 1980s, failed to find a niche in the digital
market. A series of layoffs and restructurings culminated in bankruptcy,
in October 2001.
This illustrates a common business problem: staying too long with a losing venture. Faced
with the prospect of exiting a project, a business, or an industry,
executives tend to hang on despite clear signs that it's time to bail
out. (Read the full article)
Does this sound familiar? Are you reading the signposts or sticking your head in the sand?
It's easy to get used to the current environment, even when things aren't going well. At least it's known, vs. making the decision to change and head out into the unknown territory where nothing is familiar.
Taking the time time to think strategically about the consequences of changing vs. continuing to stick with the listing ship, may help you make smarter exit decisions.
Work your way around the simple EABC Strategic Thinking framework to focus on various WHAT IF scenarios, and see what strategies might arise.
Spend time concentrating on your future desired outcomes. Get your team together, scan the external environment and try to forecast how it will be different at that future point in time. Then compare that with where you are today and see what opportunities and threats arise to your current direction.
Do you change direction or call it quits? Is it time to get out or just make a course correction?
The Dip, by Seth Godin, is a great book that might help you focus on the proper actions to take - whether to quit or to stick it out.
PLAN
from McKinsey Quarterly
Boosting Knowledge Worker Productivity
Improving the productivity of "knowledge workers" is a
challenge for many companies, especially in a global world where workers at all
levels are both diverse and distributed geographically.
According to a McKinsey Quarterly article, "many executives
have a hazy understanding of what it takes to bolster productivity for
knowledge workers. This lack of clarity is partly because knowledge work
involves more diverse and amorphous tasks than do production or clerical
positions, where the relatively clear-cut, predictable activities make jobs
easier to automate or streamline."
In research McKinsey has been conducting since 2006, they
found five barriers that restricted up to half of all interactions among
knowledge workers: physical (Geographic locations), technical (insufficient
tools or technical abilities), social/cultural (including rigid hierarchies or
ineffective incentives), contextual (the ability to translate and apply
information across and between departments), and time (perceived lack of time
which restricts sharing of lessons learned).
Click here to read the full article.
Social Media Tips
From Mashable.com
ZOMG now a legitimate word in Oxford Dictionary
ZMOG, a version of the abbreviation, OMG (Oh My God), used for extra
emphasis, is now an official word in the new Oxford Dictionary.
Computers, texting, and social networking have so influenced the English
language, that new words have been created and become official language
forms. Others include Twittersphere, social graph, and permalink. Read more
Rollercoaster of Change...
Some will pass through these stages more quickly than others. Some will get
stuck and need help moving through. And some will opt out altogether and choose
to leave the organization.
As a leader, it's important to understand these stages and
where each of your staff members is at any point in time, so you can coach and
guide them through the emotional process of change.
The key is to have a Game Plan before you announce the
changes, and to focus on the future desired outcomes expected after the changes
are implemented.
Carefully crafting this ahead of time will reduce the turmoil,
maintain morale, and keep productivity as high as possible.
Read the full article on this.
Questions or Comments?
858.357.9600 or email us at:
jeri.denniston@hainescentre.com
|
