Action: Before you finalize a major budget or strategic decision, set aside half an hour to make sure you have really considered the impact it will have on your people in your organization and your customers. Peter F. Drucker
"If you don't have the right people in place, don't proceed with the plan" Bruce Klassen (I'm sure I'm not the only one who has said that). Which is the other side of the coin of today's action call. Plans, budgets and strategies can't be managed, so without the people dimension, there is no management practice. Also see A.T. Kearney white paper from early 90's "It's all about People".
Experts in organizational behavior have provided a useful framework for practitioners at any size of organization. I spoke of this in a previous blog. Using "Informing Theory" each individual in an organization is affected by four separate but overlapping "spheres". Briefly again, they are the social, political, institutional, and business system spheres of influence. The individual's actions within the organization are "informed" by her interaction with others in these spheres. So, in considering the impact on the individual in today's call for action, you may want to do so within this context. I have done this formally many times, and it has always been of benefit. Anyone faced with transformation of any scale, must take into account (real time) the relationships of people to each other and vis-a-vis the program goals. Without that knowledge constantly updated, the most intelligent plans and strategies can't be implemented successfully.
Example 1: On my first day at the (then) 250,000 employee main automotive plant for VW in Wolfsburg,, Germany, I was told that there were only 100,000 inhabitants in the area. I should therefore assume that anything I said outside the plant was heard "inside" simultaneously, and to guard my tongue. My team had been brought in to help VW operationalize new maintenance policies and standards. I had also been brought in to operationalize the new water-soluble paint plant (of that later). My background in industrial engineering, maintenance and and complex manufacturing commissioning in my early career was supposed to qualify me for the work. We pretty soon had a plan for maintenance developed on a giant scale and on "pulse" with the factory, and now wanted to make sure we brought the people on-board whom we were going to help with the implementation. So, when we asked for an implementation team leader, senior plant managers huddled, and with great pride announced that "Henry" would join our team. Long story short, my colleague, Leo Peschl, finally found Henry three weeks later in the "caves" long forgotten from WWII located underneath the plant. He had built out a nice living area, and storage for his alcohol and food supplies. He stank, was dirty, and incoherently drunk when he was brought to our first implementation team meeting. When confronted with their team lead, and our disbelief, management stone facedly assured us that this was the right man for this job. The only thing Henry would be able to lead is the line to the washroom. Plainly that management team had no interest whatsoever in implementation.
Example 2: Redmond Washington was seeing its growth rate in its home markets (USA) for its key products, growing at a rate that was too slow. In addition to solving the riddle of why growth had slowed, management also took great pains to implement a Venture capital model of implementation. There were so many (over 20) separate growth driver programs that implementation by insiders was critical. This was probably the best instance I have seen in which individual "intrepreneurs" were given capital, plan, resources and authority to proceed with implementation. They were also regularly evaluated and and progress measured. Those projects which did not achieve were ruthlessly cut along the way, and resources redistributed to those programs which were succeeding and expanding. Microsoft is probably the best example of companies I know which makes positive competition within programs aimed at the same general goal a virtue.
Example 3: The example I gave you of the Engineering Construction firm also highlights again, the need to assess the impact of plans and budgets on the people expected to "live" the change. If there is even one critical person missed in the process, he/she can completely scuttle any well-intended plan or program.... and get away with it.
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