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In my last article I discussed the first three reasons that the change initiative failed. In this article I will discuss why you need to:
In my example, the manager went about terminating managers without anyone knowing what his plan was. He worked in a vacuum, and did not discuss his plan until Julie’s boss was removed and her duties were changed. The people who were hired to perform the daily duties had no input into the process. This resulted in a great deal of anxiety and hostility because of fear of the unknown.
Any change initiative that you attempt will require careful planning, input from the affected parties, and precise execution to succeed. Those people who will be required to follow through with your initiative will not take ownership of it unless you allow them to have some input into the process they will be executing. Remember that nobody is as smart alone as the group is together. Many of the problems that will arise during the implementation stage will be identified by the members of the department, and thus can be avoided or at least minimized.
This does not mean that you will necessarily use all of the ideas that you are given. You need to be willing to listen to all of the ideas presented, and show proper respect for them. The employees need to know that they can trust you, and that you take them seriously. Failure to do this will result in the ultimate failure of your initiative. You do, however, need to make it perfectly clear that the initiative will proceed despite the inevitable attempts to derail it during the discussion. Clearly State Goals and Positive Results In the original scenario, the new manager told Julie that his research into the division’s problems had shown that there was a lack of communication between the various departments, and that his experience proved that the problems usually came from management. He told Julie that he intended to phase out all management except himself and human resources. This would effectively remove all roadblocks to communication within the company. He went on to explain that if the customer service department could improve communications with the customers they could take more calls. This would lead to greater clarity among the customers, which would lead to more precise orders. Better precision in the orders received would allow the order-processing department to be more efficient, and would reduce the mistakes being made in production. He also had a plan for recombining the two separate divisions of the department, and wanted to create a steering committee to oversee this recombination process.
The copyright of the article Self-Directed Teams: Part III - Analysis Continued in Management Skills is owned by Lincoln Bittner. Permission to republish Self-Directed Teams: Part III - Analysis Continued in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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