Most of us are familiar with the Mother Goose rhyme “the house that Jack built”. What I love about this rhyme is that it shows us the cause and effect of small things. In business we are often building something if not houses, and all of those things have things that happen in and around them. Has anyone noticed that we often have not just one rat that eats the malt? We also seem to have a lot of cats that we are trying to herd into chasing the rats. The problem is not necessarily the rats or the cats, but the fact that we are not focused on the root of the problem. The malt. Why didn’t someone pick it up? Where was Jack? Like most of us he got busy, building a new house, maybe chasing squirrels or just on vacation. Regardless, by not taking care of the clutter in the house he has a rat problem.
We all have rat problems in our personal and business lives, and why we are constantly looking for or trying to herd cats to solve the rat problem. What we have though is a malt problem. Have you ever noticed that “Change Management” is rarely taken up by consultants?
Do you know why? Cost? Nope. Too hard? Closer. In order to do this right the person or organization must want to change. Look at the show “Biggest Loser” focused on people who have been out of control in one or many aspects of their lives and retrain to restore balance. Change Management are the words we use to describe something that we should be doing every day. Changing how we do business to meet new challenges. What has been successful in the past will not necessarily be successful in the future. The only things that can stand the test of time are our morals and values. These are continually tested and we often think of them changing but what often is the case is our inability to live up to them. Values such as trustworthiness, loyalty, being helpful, courtesy, kindness, obedient, thrifty, bravery, and reverence seem to be missing in our everyday lives. If we adhered to values then managing change becomes much less complicated. If you look carefully the people have forgotten to follow these basic values. They cannot trust themselves around food. In the business world it is short term gains. They stopped being helpful and were selfishly feeding their pain rather than facing it. They stopped being kind to themselves and were not brave enough to carry through. Luckily they have found a trainer.
Many organizations need trainers like those on biggest loser. Bob the spiritualist and Jillian the bully to get them moving. Both are necessary for true change to occur. Internally we must bully ourselves into doing things that are not comfortable, but need doing and to push ourselves beyond what we think is possible. Nothing is impossible it just requires will, and often help. I have been involved with many projects that have been divided into consultants implementing the technology and management responsible for “change management”. After many years of working with this model, I am certain that management was looking to solve a series of problems with the little blue pill. Inevitably it did not yield the results advertised or expected. Why, because there is no pill that will solve the problems, nor a piece of software that is a solution. The solution is in the application of the software, much like the treadmill, it is only good when used often and properly. We can make all the excuses and listen to all of the infomercials we can handle. Nothing will make the treadmill work unless you use it. ERP will not help your company unless you change processes and properly come to understand the capabilities of the tools at hand. We have created some amazing tools. It is time we start to learn to use them.
No comments:
Post a Comment