Tag Archives: Change Management

Who is the First Person You Should Hire (Part Deux) – Lutts and Mipps?

Posted on by
2

A question that has been asked repeatedly after my last post is related to asking the right questions so I thought that instead of responding individually, I would use this week’s blog post to respond to it.

Those that have been through the Decision Making or Change Management training with The Mpower Group may well remember the experiential learning simulation called Lutts and Mipps. In essence, teams are handed lots of answers related to a classic time/distance/speed problem. The only challenge is dealing with Lutts and Mipps instead of miles and hours to put the participants in a different context. In addition, the teams are provided with way more information than they need. The challenge is in identifying that they were given two of the variables and they can easily solve for the third, in a total of about 45 seconds – IF THEY ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS! Invariably, there are many teams who never get to the answer in the allotted time(45 minutes) let alone the “solvable” time which is under a minute. And the ones that fail the most miserably? Glad you asked. It’s always the overly analytical types who start gathering the data and crunching it with all kinds of wild formulae. They are also the ones who insist that we must not have given them all the data that they needed! And this is after we have just finished a module on problem solving thinking!

We have been trained and trained and trained to gather as much data as possible and start crunching all kinds of analyses with that data – without determining the Key Questions we must address to arrive at the answer. And this rush to action is nothing but a fool’s errand. We would be far, far better served to make sure that we take the time at the beginning to make sure that we fully and deeply comprehend the question(s) we are trying to answer. Otherwise, how will you know that you are capturing the right data, the complete data, no extraneous data etc. etc.? Which is really what my two friends Pete (Drucker) and Al (Einstein) were essentially saying. And we have proven time and again to many of our clients that determining the right Key Question(s) is a critical and an absolute necessity. Unfortunately, we have all been conditioned to jump into action and time spent in reflection is often viewed as an unnecessary delay. Ironically, that reflection time and developing the right Key Questions and getting consensus on them is a powerful accelerator. And oh by the way, if you follow a structured methodology to develop the Key Questions, it is also a significant Change Management enabler as it builds tremendous credibility with your most reluctant stakeholders. In addition, it enables you to logically structure your argument and essentially serves as a blueprint for your presentation. Furthermore, you can also employ the technique of a reverse hypothesis to completely disarm your most stringent and die hard resistor(s)e.

I cannot begin to tell you the level of frustration that Lutts and Mipps generates in our workshops (which have included CEOs, EVPs, etc., etc.). This is clearly not an issue that distinguishes between seniority. Most people are pretty dumb founded when they realize that they wasted the entire allotted time when they could have had the answer in 45 seconds – if you invest the 3-4 minutes needed to develop the Key Questions. I wish I could show you some of the bizarre answers we have received from teams. How about your organization? How often does it take the time to make sure that it knows what the Key Questions are? And if not, do you think it should? If you would like to know more about any of the concepts mentioned in this post, give me a jingle.

Did you like this? Share it:

Hewlett-Packard and Seeing the Bigger Picture

Posted on by
Reply

Back in August, Hewlett-Packard announced a complete overhaul of their business by lessening the company’s reliance on PC and splitting the company in two. The Chief Executive Officer at the time, Leo Apotheker, wanted to lessen the company’s reliance on PCs as tablets and cloud services have started becoming more popular. In many ways the announcement made sense as Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner Inc. stated “The hardware business has become a difficult business. In many ways it’s a commodity-driven business. This is a major strategic shift for HP.”

Fast forward two months and now there is a new CEO in town and she is looking at the change in a whole new light. According to the Wall Street Journal, Meg Whitman, the new CEO has been looking at the numbers and things don’t seem to be as cut and dry. The new analysis shows that the company might be better off keeping the division which contributes $40 million in annual revenue. The reasoning, however, goes beyond the revenue numbers. Separation would lessen the company’s economy of scale and diminish their buying power AND leverage with their supply base. The supply chain could also become more complicated and decrease profit margins on their other products as well.  Some feel that because of this, the spin-off isn’t worth it.

Let’s take a look at this situation beyond a cost perspective and focus on Value.  HP sold 14.9 million PCs in the second quarter of 2011 alone, which means they are a huge player in the marketplace – particularly with their suppliers.  That scale gives them leverage that can and should go way beyond cost.  They should be using that leverage with their suppliers to help them manage risk, increase innovation (which should impact H-P’s top line not just their bottom line), expand their product offerings, etc.  H-P should be using this “leverage” to help move away from being viewed as a commodity to their customers and start viewing themselves as a “Value” provider.  When approached from a value perspective H-P would be foolish to exit the PC market.

So what, if any, is the lesson here? For one, it shows just how far reaching and influential the supply chain organization can be.  In times when we constantly hear that sourcing and supply chain organizations are losing their influence, H-P shows that there is still some bite left in those functions.  I wonder whether Supply Chain even had a seat at the table when the original decision was made.  I guess they do now, which is a VERY good thing!

Did you like this? Share it:

Market Perspective: What is Keeping You Up At Night?

Posted on by
Reply

I was recently asked to speak at another regional ISM event (click here to download the presentation Market Perspective: What Keeps Chief Supply Chain Officers Up at Night?) and having done a significant number of these over the years, I put together a presentation that I thought would work.  Until I realized that this was a rather unique audience and had to switch gears a week before the event.

This was a gathering of various Presidents of the ISM and NAPM regional chapters and they were gathered together in that capacity.  They were trying to figure out how to become more relevant for their regional markets and their customer was the entire Procurement, Sourcing and Supply Chain community of that region.  I decided to give them a perspective of their market based on a lot of the research that we have done and provided them with the proverbial Top Ten list (in no particular order).

I have included the list below and now it is your chance to test and challenge what I provided them and help us rank the list. Please mark your top three organizational challenges. Or if you think an item should not be included, then go ahead and add your inputs in our comments section.

Please pick the three items you lose the most sleep over.

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...


Did you like this? Share it:

Adoption / Implementation and “Going Green”

Posted on by
Reply

As I was getting my day going by catching up with my typical round of marketing blogs, I caught an article on mashable.com about the value Canon is getting from “going green” (4 Ways To Make Your Office Greener, http://mashable.com/2011/07/12/green-office-canon/).  I found this article interesting as I have always thought that the use of the word “green” in marketing and business is overused, trendy, and underwhelming. This feeling comes from my tendency to cringe every time a word becomes overused in advertising like cutting-edge (of course we will ignore my tendency to use the word awesome at every opportunity). However, as companies work to find ways to cut costs and streamline processes, it appears that the savings some organizations are experiencing by “going green” are anything but underwhelming. In fact the results can be quite impressive.

According to mashable.com, Canon saved 2.7 million kilowatt-hours of energy from 2009-2010. This equaled a savings of more than $300,000 in utility fees over a two-year period. With companies scrimping and saving these days, we aren’t talking small organic potatoes. The four areas they focused on in this initiative included replacing monitors, switching traditional light bulbs with low carbon lighting, and replacing personal printers with multi-function systems. However, the area of change that stood out most to me was on the operations side. The change went beyond the usual turning off of lights and updating equipment. The drive to “go green” also became part of the organizational cultural. As part of the program, they conducted environmental education and training for the staff. In my opinion, this additional step was why their initiative was so successful.

According to the Daily Energy Report (Feb, 2011 http://www.dailyenergyreport.com/2011/02/how-to-incentivize-employees-to-go-green-at-the-office/) most buildings that are considered green are not living up to their green performance ratings. The main reason for this discrepancy, the Report states, is that the employees themselves are not “going green.” They are not following the green guidelines for various reasons. To rectify this issue, organizations need to look beyond the processes and see what they can do to influence the organizational culture with stakeholder buy in from all.

It is amazing how these articles mesh perfectly with our AEIOU approach. The vowels stand for Adoption, Execution, Implementation, Optimization and Utilization. An organization can have the best processes of any company in the United States, but without the additional AEIOU, the process stays to paper and rarely becomes fully executed to its full potential.  AEIOU gives meaning to the measureable components and creates a real transformation effort.  Unfortunately, this additional step is frequently overlooked as organizations concentrate on the areas that are measurable.

For a company to truly go green, they need to look beyond how many energy-saving printers are available and look at how best to get employees to move from thinking to acting. Processes and Training are only part of the equation. The culture also needs to change to create maximum impact. That is why Canon was successful at going green, while other organizations have missed the mark. They understood that changing light bulbs and printers was not going to give them the results they were looking for. They created support from their employees and made them stakeholders in the change.

So perhaps I should look at “going green” a bit differently myself and see it as more than just a marketing catch phrase but truly a frame of mind.

 

If you have any thoughts or want to add to the conversation, please do.  I’m always interested in other perspectives.

Did you like this? Share it:

A “Side-ways” Look at Measurement and Change Management

Posted on by
Reply

Ever notice, that in spite of all the energy and “diligence” we put into selecting the right measures or metrics for business today, and how much measurement detail we wire into our Change Planning, we can still question these measures when change stumbles mid-stream or we find ourselves rationalizing (again) the outcomes upon project completion?  Measurement is certainly one of the facets of change management that can become over-engineered and we can get lost in the complexity we create.

Take for example, the oft cited disappointment with the “failure rate of change”–our OWN scorecard! It is estimated to be as high as 70% in studies by researchers at Harvard and McKinsey.  Just how badly should we feel?  Of course, we are motivated to succeed and are even drawn to the role of Change Leader to take on challenges from which many others would run.  That said, in a classic measurement mind-set error, we are beating ourselves up for this “high” and “unacceptable” failure rate.  Really?…what if the base-rate for failure is 100% and the best we can hope to achieve—the summit (as an average across initiatives and all companies) is 60% failure…now THAT changes your perspective…does it not?  If you only fail 2 of every 10 times, you’d be a genius!

The most frequent Change Measurement error I find, in spite of great diligence placed on defining metrics in many Change Teams, involves the arbitrary nature of the measures chosen.  Why, for example, were you asked to report monthly or define your project milestones relative to the calendar or company’s fiscal year?  Is this the natural cycle of change and the most meaningful definition of milestones and achievement for the transformation you’re leading—I doubt it.

When I was a child, we measured my height on the first day of the new school year, and marked my progress on the door frame to my bedroom.  Now…what if my “growth spurt” occurred during the months of June – October, is any conclusion about which school year included the most growth either accurate or representative?…No.

Take a look at the measures you’ve wired into your Change Initiative?…Do any of those seem to be a bit arbitrary—or moored to the wrong anchor for creating meaning and accurately representing change progress?  Consider, for example:

  • If you are attempting to influence your customer’s business, are your measures defined by the natural cycle of their outcomes…or your own?;
  • Look at the reality of the change you are driving—What are the early signs of progress?…What indicators would tell you that it’s taking hold?…How will you know when it is “complete?”…(my guess is that these have nothing to do with the calendar or your company’s fiscal schedule);
  • Do your measures of sales/revenue growth match the sales cycle?…or your customer’s buying patterns (e.g., their own fiscal year or timing defined by their market)?
  • And most fundamentally…

“If you took away the calendar, is there ANY reason why you’d chop up your transformational, complex endeavor into bits defined by December 31?…Fiscal “quarters?”…Days when it is most convenient (or traditional) for the Management Team to meet?”

Challenge your Change Team to re-examine the “logic” behind your measures or the measures that are important to your stakeholders.  In all likelihood, some of these measures lack meaning because they are not connected to how you are creating value through your initiative—even getting shaped by rather arbitrary factors (if not lazy efforts) like the calendar on the meeting room wall or your businesses monthly reporting cycle for everything from paying taxes to ordering office supplies.  Measurement plays a key role in managing expectations and delivering demonstrable value through change—get this part right and where necessary, lead a revolution to overthrow arbitrary accounting of success.

Did you like this? Share it: