If you’ve found this blog, like it and want to keep reading new posts, please amble on over to the new address www.systemsthinkingmethod.com/blog
Same blog, same person, different address.
See you there.
Stuart
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Change of Address Notice
August 6th, 2010HR - A Different Perspective
June 8th, 2010Human Resources means many things to many people, and that variety encompasses the differing needs of businesses and people and cultures, but have you ever considered what HR could be - if it reached it’s full potential?
Here’s an MP3 file of Andy Lippok interviewing the founder of the Vanguard Systems Thinking Method, John Seddon, about trends in HR for 2010 and beyond.
Once you’ve had a listen I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Stuart
Confused about where to start your Change Programme?
May 26th, 2010A first meeting with a chief executive normally starts with the same question, ‘we want to make a change but we simply don’t know where to start, any ideas?’
Let’s think about the problem logically, you’d want to make sure that you get the best return on your actions wouldn’t you? So you’d probably start in your most broken and highest volume areas.
But how do you get the right combination between volume and urgency, I hear you ask. Well I’ve created a 2×2 to help you with the dilemma.
The horizontal axis measures the degree to which a service or business unit is failing and the vertical measures volume of customer transactions going through the area. (see figure 1 below)
The graph then gives four quadrants. Low volume low failure, high volume low failure, high failure low volume and high volume high failure. All you then have to do is to place a symbol that represents the service or process in the appropriate quadrant to prioritise which area needs the greatest attention.
Of-course you could do this intuitively, which I think is often good enough, or you could do it scientifically.
To use the empirical model simply measure the volume at each point of customer transaction for each service (phone, fax, e-mail, walk-in or letter). This will give you your number for the vertical axis.
Next measure the degree of failure demand (using the same scale) for each service. For example if you had four different service areas and area one took ten thousand calls per month turn the percentage failure into a number (50% being 5000 failure calls).
Then simply plot it on your graph. This gives you a simple method of plotting which service goes first.
This graph is known as the Corrigan volume/failure matrix (I’ve just named it), I hope you like it.
As per usual comments and questions always welcomed.
Stuart
The Wrong Sort of Competition
May 18th, 2010Fabio Capello, the England football manager, was forced to suspend his controversial player ratings website last week amid a storm of criticism from the press. They were upset because there were suggestions that the ill fated scheme might simply be a ruse to make Capello more money, and that it might take his eye off the ball during the upcoming world cup.
The idea behind the site was that Capello, after each game, would give each player ratings which in turn would encourage them to play better; after-all no-one wants to be at the bottom of the league do they?
This kind of scheme is very appealing to managers, ‘make my team members compete with one another and it will bring out the best in them’ they claim. But much to the misguided manager’s surprise, it makes performance worse not better.
I got my first (proper) managerial job at age 26 with Standard Life. I had 10 highly skilled, highly qualified technical consultants in my team. Naturally, I wanted to bring out the best in my team, so I set up a large white board on the wall and listed everyone’s name. Each person was then given a rating for their performance on a weekly basis (think Fabio without the money and media attention).
When I announced the board my team weren’t happy. I reminded them that competition is good for everyone [sic] and that they should stop bleating.
But I was soon proved wrong. Some members of the team simply gave up, stating that they’d never be as good as ‘what’s his face’, and that others would hold business back or bring it forward to make sure that they got to the top that week.
They also stopped co-operating. If a consultant needed a colleague to call in on a client and complete a deal they’d say no and ask ‘why should I help you get to the top of the ratings board?’
The lesson is this: put in place inter-team, department or division competition and you’ll have your teams competing against each other rather than concentrating on doing the right thing for the company and the customer.
So in the end my exercise in extrinsic motivation lasted 3 weeks and then I took the board down (if only Fabio had sought my opinion I could have helped him avoid all the embarrassment). Though for me I look back on it as turning point in my business life because it was one of the events that started me on my systems thinking journey.
I ask you to think now about how you might be trying to motivate your team, remembering that not all competition is good competition.
But I appreciate not everyone agrees with my views. I canvassed opinion on this issue and found a quote from a senior manager who says ‘I think Capello is a genius, internal competition is a good thing, everyone in my organisation believes that he should keep that ratings website in place.’ Still some might say that the Chief Executive of the Scottish Football Association is just a wee bit biased.
As usual if you have questions or comments just let me know.
By the way, we have a brand new housing services improvement workshop coming up soon. If you are interested you can get all the details here.
Stuart
Crucial First Meetings
May 7th, 2010How to handle that all important first management meeting.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been writing about the importance of getting leadership on board before you make a change. You’ve seen what to do to gain the curiosity of those that you want to influence but so far all you’ve done is get to the starting line, which is the first meeting with a leader. In this blog I’ll explain what to do when you eventually get to that first discussion.
First the wrong thing to do…talk, unfortunately that’s what most of us want to do when we meet a leader for the first time. We want to talk about the virtues of our method and what we’ve done in the past; really it’s an exercise in massaging our own ego (if you’re one of the rare few who don’t do this please accept my congratulations and apologies).
But guess what, the leader or manager that you’re trying to influence really doesn’t care about you (at this stage), also remember that you’ve already established your credibility and results earlier in the process.
What your leader wants to talk about is their views and positions, and through this process learn whether or not you are the right person to help with the change. So there are three skills that you need at the first meeting.
1. The ability to ask good questions
2. The ability to challenge current views (without getting thrown out)
3. The ability to build a relationship
4. A yes-able proposition
1. Asking good questions
Neil Rackham, head of a global research firm and bestselling author, states that in most first meeting situations the consultant literally bores their potential client to death. They ask questions about how many staff they have in their department, how long they’ve been in their job and the type of car they drive. Rackham claims that this type of banal questioning adds no value to the client at all.
Sure, he says you need a few basic questions to get the conversation going, but the sooner you ask questions that can help your potential client clarify their problems the better. Of course you’d be doing even better if rather than just asking “what are your biggest problems or concerns right now?” you were more specific. For example if you were going to visit the director of a project environment you would ask about their current ability to deliver on time, on budget and in full. If you were seeing the head of a benefits department you might ask about how she is coping with the volume of work and their time to settle claims.
The point is this: do your homework. Make a note of the type of issues that might be facing your client and ask about them. I have spoken to many clients who felt that they’d got great benefit from a first meeting simply because it allowed them to clarify their own thoughts on their problems and priorities.
2. Challenging current views
The second skill you’ll need at a first meeting is the ability to challenge any entrenched incorrect views your potential client may be harbouring. After-all you’ll want to know as fast as possible whether your type of solution would even be considered or whether you’re best to fail fast.
Here’s an example. We’re currently working with a couple of great leaders within a large council. During our initial discussions I asked whether they’d be willing to consider doing away with the council trading account (as I know the problems this causes) the reply was that ‘everything was up for consideration’, that’s all I needed to know to want to work with this client.
So the skill here is to do some pre-preparation and think about the kind of issues you’re likely to have to change within a service.
I do this by putting all services into two categories, operations or projects (there are actually four but 95% of the time you’ll only see the two above). If it is operations I know that the focus will be on volume, productivity and the use of service standards; if it’s projects I know that they’ll be measuring percentage complete and assigning due dates to tasks. So I will simply ask the question “just say that the solution involved changing the way that you measure your current service, for example we stop assigning due dates to tasks, would you be willing to try it?”
Again my view is if they wouldn’t even consider the big changes then why bother, all you’re doing is stacking up more problems for yourself in the future. A book worth reading on this subject is called ‘The skilled helper’ by Gerry Egan. Egan is an occupational psychologist who provides solutions for helping people to change.
3. The ability to build a relationship
I don’t care how good you are at change management, if people don’t like you, you have no chance. I have personal (and painful) experience of this. I was born with a face that doesn’t like to smile, my face and I have had regular chats about its inability to look happy (Gordon Brown and me go to the same therapy sessions) but it won’t change. Some people meet me and think that I’m grumpy, and I haven’t even opened my mouth.
So I try my best to think happy thoughts before I meet new people and see if some cracks will appear on my face. I’m making light of this but it’s a serious problem, I’ve worked with many consultants and managers in the past who were technically competent but got passed over for promotion because they were considered too difficult to work with.
When I worked at The Dale Carnegie organisation I learned 9 rules for building relationships, I try to re-visit them often.
1. Don’t criticise, condemn or complain
2. Show appreciation
3. Ask questions rather than jumping in with your ideas
4. Be interested in others
5. Smile (I try)
6. Get their name right
7. Listen intently
8. Explain what you can do in terms of their interests
9. Make others feel important
Try these using these nine rules for a while and I defy you not to make progress in work (and at home).
4. Provide a yesable proposition
John Seddon taught me this years ago, it’s one of the best bits of advice I’ve ever had. It means don’t ask someone to do something that they can’t say yes to. I’ve fielded many calls from consultants who’ve asked me why, after a brilliant first meeting with a client, they never got a second one.
My question is always ‘what did you ask them to do?’ inevitably they say that they’ve suggested five weeks of analysis, a massive change, and a 2 million pound spend. It’s like asking someone to marry you and have your children after a first date.
So ask them to do something to which they can say yes, a second date so as to speak. For example can you give a presentation to the management team? In my case I always ask to have the leader spend some time with me scoping out the size of the problem and direction of the solution.
You’ve probably guessed that the main lesson is to move slowly. Do your pre-work (see the last two blogs), plan your questions, test the views of your client, give them something to which they can say yes, and always try to be nice.
As ever your comments are always appreciated and always read.
By the way, we have a brand new housing services improvement workshop coming up soon. If you are interested you can get all the details here.
Stuart
My Worst Change Management Moment - part 2
April 22nd, 2010First my apologies, I promised this on Tuesday; it’s been a hectic week.
Last week you may have read about my early experiences working with senior leaders, if you haven’t, go now to ‘My worst change management moment’. You might remember that the basic premise was that if you want to be treated as an equal advisor, rather than a peddler of change management, you have to position yourself differently; the key is to been seen as the authority on a subject.
I said that there were four steps in the positioning process:
- Curiosity and desire
- Proof
- Bonding and relationship building
- Providing a sample
This works because you’re (metaphorically speaking) lightly tapping your future customer on the shoulder and saying ‘hey have a look at this’, as opposed to a full frontal assault of selling.
It’s a process of soft influence, one where your client can feel like they’re calling all the shots and deciding when to move to the next stage of the process. And when you do get called in to have that meeting you’ll find that the atmosphere is very different to what you may have previously experienced. You’ll feel like you’re there to help and advise, you’ll be asked your opinion, and you’ll be given respect; sometimes I’ve even been offered coffee!
So how does it work?
Let’s look at each step in detail.
Curiosity and desire. In this first stage you are providing your client with information that is contrary to their current belief systems. For example let’s say you’ve developed a new breakfast cereal so good it’s being hailed as a superfood, and your potential client is someone who is interested in keeping a healthy life style.
Now imagine that client had spent their whole life believing that what they normally eat - muesli - was good for them. They may have eaten it every day for the past 10 years, and love it.
Then a special report comes out that shows that muesli is in-fact full of sugar and is very bad for them. Might they just be a bit interested to read what’s in the report? Further, the report then suggests that there’s a new superfood on the market that will not only help them stay fit and healthy it will provide other benefits such as energy in the morning. Wouldn’t they just be a bit curious and want to find out more about this amazing product?
That’s how the first stage of positioning works, you get some information to your client that A.) shows them you understand what they want (a healthy life style), B.) challenges their harmful current beliefs (muesli is good for you) and C.) shows the benefits of an alternative that will actually do what they want (the superfood). Stage 1 is complete, you now have their interest.
Proof. You may have their interest, but let’s be honest you’re the person selling the superfood; you would say it’s fantastic, wouldn’t you? So now you want them to hear from others who’ve eaten the food and now have the perfect body. So you’d take pictures and conduct interviews with others who’ve used the product and let them say how brilliant it is.
Now think change management. Most clients are about to invest a great deal of time and or money with you, so it stands to reason that they want to speak to others that have been though the process. Make it make it easy for them to get the information. For example you could interview previous people you’ve worked with, burn the interview to CD, or distribute it via an audio web link.
Bonding and relationship building. Maybe by now your client has decided that they want to try some of this superfood, but why should they get it from you? After-all they might never have heard of you. So this is where you give them information about your background, how you’ve been where they are and why you started to develop the superfood.
I often find I have empathy with managers because I was a manager myself. I think they’re relieved to find out that I wasn’t born carrying a laptop and mobile phone. I went through the same struggle they might have, I did all the traditional management stuff and I too found it difficult to accept that I’d been doing things wrong for ten years.
Provide a sample. They’re now keen to try your fantastic product, so give them some. Share some of your ideas and insights and recipes. I’m a genuine believer that if you help people you’ll get back ten times what you give out. So don’t hold, back send them some of your best ideas.
Here’s how you do it when marketing change management.
- Curiosity and desire
- Sit down with a piece of paper and write out what your prospective client wants to achieve.
- Brainstorm all their current beliefs about how they think they will achieve their goals.
- Write a short report which provides them with information about the wrong paths and methods you know many try in order to get where they want to go.
- In the report also provide the benefits of using the more effective alternative method.
- Drop a short email to your client to let them know you have written a short report about X and where they can get it.
- Even if someone begs you to help them, insist they read the report first so they move forward informed.
- Proof
- Interview a client or write a case study detailing the work you’ve done previously. Write to your client to let them know where they can get the report or audio.
- Bonding
- Get a colleague to interview you so you can explain your background and what you do for your clients. Make sure you lay out the journey that led you to you your current beliefs and practices.
- Sample
- Provide a report, audio or video that gives away one of your best methods for creating change
- Only now should you suggest a meeting or even better invite your client to a seminar to learn more.
This process works because you’re giving useful information and along the way positioning yourself as the expert. And once you have done it once you can re-use the information over and over again.
Please take the time to re-read and implement this method, it’s (in my opinion) some of the best advice I’ve ever given away - and it works.
You’ll find that by using these tools you’ll get more chance of getting people to listen and let you help them and better commitment to putting changes in place with less effort. More importantly however, when you kick off your next change programme you’ll know how to position yourself so that you’re being asked to provide advice and being asked to guide, rather than pushing your opinions onto others.
As usual if you have any questions just drop me a comment.
Stuart
PS If you think a friend or colleague may like this blog please pass it on.
My Worst Change Management Moment
April 13th, 2010My worst change management moment…and what you can learn from it.
If you’ve had anything to do with change maybe you can empathise with this. Exactly nine years ago this month I was working on a consulting assignment with the police - I’ll never forget it.
Asked by a senior officer to have a look at a simple process, I tackled the job enthusiastically… I was young and naive.
I mapped the process and then presented my findings to the officer and his colleague. To say that his colleague was annoyed is an understatement. You see what I’d failed to understand was that the other officer in the room had designed and implemented the process six months earlier. The fact that it was a mess was irrelevant; in his mind I was calling his new baby ugly.
When you think about it, his reaction was normal wasn’t it? He’d never met me in his life, even if I was the leading expert on service redesign he’d never heard of me, and I was told later my suit didn’t fit very well so I also looked about 12. I can recall the feeling of being ridiculed and humiliated acutely.
I’ve seen this happen to lots of internal change agents over the years. They’re sent into an area, often uninvited, to ‘help’ a manager who cares not a jot about change, who sees them (at best) as a hinderance, and they then wonder why they and their ideas get the cold shoulder.
Most (like I did) put it down to the manager ‘not getting it’, and in some cases they’d be right but in many more the problem is that there’s no work been done up front to position the consultant as anything other than a pain in the neck, rather than a trusted adviser.
Think about it, if you were sick and wanted advice, who would you turn to? Some stranger that you’d never met, who had never established their credentials or someone you know is a qualified expert?
This is the challenge we face as managers and consultants leading change. Before we even get to day one we have to have built a relationship and positioned ourselves as a thought leader, or we fail. If you are an internal agent of change and you do this you’ll get faster and easier change and you’ll be pulled into jobs rather than pushing yourself onto unwilling victims.
The question is how?
There are four stages to the process:
- Curiosity and desire
- Proof
- Bonding
- Adding value by providing a sample of your work
Think about the process you go through before you make a major purchase (even if a manager is not paying for your time, they’re weighing up their personal effort and whether you’re worth it).
- Something happens to make you dissatisfied with what you have
- You look for proof from other sources to decide who best to buy from
- You build a relationship with a brand or advisor
- You ask for a test before making a final decision
The process of consulting is no different but it is less tangible.
After my horrible experience with the senior police officer I spent a lot of time studying and learning the process of positioning. It has made my life easier and I’ve been able to deliver more. I shared the process with a few friends recently who suggested that I share it with you.
So I will detail exactly how you do it in next week’s blog. Look out for it Tuesday. One condition though, don’t go telling the whole world. I don’t want this getting out to my competitors.
More next week…
Many Thanks
Stuart Corrigan
Problem Solving - Am I allergic to Dolphins?
March 18th, 2010The family and I were on holiday in Gran Canaria last week. I got sick, I’m a man so trust me I was very sick.
As I lay in my bed trying to figure out how I’d got sick I remembered that the last time I was on holiday and got ill just as I was going on a trip to swim with some Dolphins (I never made it, I was sick). And on the morning that I took ill in Gran Canaria we were also off to see some Dolphins.
Well, you can imagine my immediate conclusion, ‘it must be the Dolphins that are making me sick’ I thought.
Let’s be honest, that’s a pretty stupid conclusion but when you think about it no less silly than some of the conclusions that managers in organisations reach when trying to solve their problems.
At the weekend I got a call from an old client, she’d resigned from her job because she’d got fed up with the crazy approach her Managing Director took to running the business. For example the error rate was high so he set everyone an objective that they must not make any errors.
Think about the logic.
- Errors are made by people
- So it must be their fault
- Therefore if I shout at them or set them a target the problem will go away
It didn’t! To get to the root of the problem would have required just a wee bit more thought.
Here’s the process:
- Get clarity on the problem
- Can the problem be contained?
- Analyse the problem
- Using the data from above try something
- Keep going until the problem is solved, then start again on the next one
a.There are too many errors, but how many?
a.Is there a short term fix that we can use to stop the problem getting worse?
a.How many errors, what type, when and where do they occur? What is the cause?
a.Run an experiment and see if the error rate changes, then try one thing at time and see what is most effective
We use this method when working with managers to help them start the process of never ending improvement of the business. It works. I’ve included a sheet you can use, just click here to download it. If you want more info drop a note to admin@vanguardscotland.co.uk with ‘more problem solving info’ in the subject line. I will make a short video and get it to you next week.
On a final note I’ve still never had that dolphin trip so feel free to send photos! And yes (before you say it) there is something very weird about having your head down the toilet and your only thought being ‘this would make a great blog!’
Many Thanks
Stuart Corrigan
PS: If you think a friend or colleague may like this blog please pass it on.
Housing is failing, but we don’t learn
March 10th, 2010The housing regulator is not happy; the service being provided by local authorities and social landlords is not good! For example in 2009 the Scottish Housing Regulator said that just under half of the landlords they had inspected were poor or only just adequate. I’m also fairly certain these problems are not unique to the Scottish property sector.
In my experience it’s not unusual for a repair to take up to 200 days, voids to lie empty for months, hundreds of names to be on the allocations lists, and rent arrears to be in the millions.
What’s being done to tackle these issues and solve the problems? A number of things actually, but they’re the same things that were done last year and the year before that; you know the old cliché we keep on doing the same things but expect a different result.
What about you, are you ready for a change?
If you are then over the next few weeks I’m going to let you have a series of reports on the problems in housing and how to fix it.
The first in the series has been written by Caroline Rodgers. Caroline has worked with me for the past nine years and knows housing as well as any hotshot guru. You can download the PDF from here.
We don’t want to spam you, so you’ll only get the reports if you ask for them, they won’t replace the usual blog. To get the rest of the free reports as they are issued sign up here.
The first report hits back at those suggesting that I.T. and outsourcing will solve the problem.
So if you’re ready to buck the trend, think differently and blaze a trail, I look forward to helping you get on the right track.
Many Thanks
Stuart Corrigan
PS If you think a friend or colleague may like this blog please pass it on.
The Google Slap and what you can learn from it
February 24th, 2010Google has a clear purpose: To ensure that when folks like us are searching, we have a great (and relevant experience).
What’s interesting is that they don’t make money from the searchers, well not directly. They make money from the advertisers (the little ad’s down the side of the Google page). But if there’s ever a conflict between the two it’s the end user who wins.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say that you are running an ad for your latest book. Your research has shown that 5,000 people per month type in the name of your book searching Google and there are no advertisers; result: you can run an ad for 1p per click.
However you get a bit lazy and greedy, rather than creating a site that gives the searchers lots of useful information about your book with different pages and lots of content you just throw up a single page site to sell your book, and worse you try to sell other books on your site. Google won’t be happy, they will deem that the visitor experience is poor and they’ll Google slap you.
What this means is that they’ll impose a minimum bid on your ad for anything between £5 and £10 per click, thus making your advertising pointlessly expensive.
The point is this: when Google have to choose between their intermediary advertisers and their end users the real customers will win every time, they know that if the customer has a poor experience then they’ll use another search engine. So they choose to take a hit on short term advertising money for the sake of long term visitor value; as a result they are the world’s largest and most popular search engine and make billions of pounds annually.
What can we learn from this? Two points:
- Make sure that you are clear on who your real customer is and decide how you are going to serve them.
- When there is a conflict between an intermediary and the real customer always take the side of the end user.
Google have a clear single purpose built around creating value for the end customer, as a result it allows them to stay focused and make good decisions in their business, how about you..?
Many Thanks
Stuart Corrigan
Improving throughput in public sector planning and casework environments - special report and video
February 17th, 2010A few weeks ago I wrote about how the Scottish Government had (in my opinion) got the solution to public sector planning badly wrong. (Local Authority Planning - How the government and the lean gurus got it wrong.) They had thought that the matter was merely about getting cases in clean. Whilst this is an issue (for most organisations) it’s really only the tip of the planning iceberg when it comes to making a change.
You see simply putting in a pre-application process actually means that for some, they are now looking at the application twice and therefore have more (not less) work to do.
The pre-app is important but so is the method by which it’s carried out. I believe the that government’s intent was to simply have a quick meeting or phone call prior to application being sent in, to make sure everything was fit for purpose. But that doesn’t seem to be the way it’s working. I’d be keen to hear from you if you either support or have an alternative view of our findings.
However the pre-app isn’t really the big problem. As I’ve blogged about before, the issue is the performance indicators combined with the volume of work pushed to the planners. As they (the planning officers) are trying their best to do a bit of work on all the cases in their queue, what actually happens is that everything takes longer. Some planners have openly told me that if an application goes over the statutory indicator they leave it, it’s already late so they’re better concentrating on the ones that they can get through in time.
The result of this is that two people suffer: the customer, who may have to wait an inordinate amount of time to get a decision and the planner, who is under a great deal of stress to do a ‘bit of everything’.
The fault lies not with the planners but with the government and management who refuse to see that setting an arbitrary target, pushing work to the planners and focusing on utilising and activity rather than throughput has actually made the system worse.
So what’s the answer? Dougal Mather one of our project experts in Vanguard (Scotland) has written a comprehensive report and made a video that lays out exactly what you need to do to fix the problem.
Visit the download page for the video and report
Also bear in mind that the solution here is not just for planning departments but any environment which has casework as the work method. You can get the video and report here.
Many Thanks
Stuart Corrigan
My best kept secret around sustainable change
January 28th, 2010I hope that this is one of those blogs that you print off, pass around and mark as important because what I’m about to tell you really is the difference between whether your change programme will flourish and grow or wither away with the passing of time.
There are certain rules when you’re trying to improve your business.
- How the leaders think about the design and management of the work determines how the work is done and it’s that relationship that predicts the success or failure of the business.
- Before you make change you have to get knowledge how the business works today.
- The direction of the change should be driven around a new way of thinking about work, policy and measurement design.
- Whether the change sticks depends on whether the leaders change their thinking and their behaviour.
I’m going to make an assumption. You’ve heard me rant on about points 1-3 for the past eighteen months so I’ll concentrate on why number four is so important and (what you want to know) how to actually get leaders to change.
Let’s take a typical failing leader. Their head is full is unit costs, setting targets, service standards, productivity, customer care and functional work design. This has an influence on how they spend their time.
For example if they receive complaints, which they will (in spades), their first reaction is that the poor attitude people are at fault and they need fixed. Fixing means customer care! That won’t work because the problem is likely down to the design of the system.
Or…they have a backlog, the assumption here is that the people are lazy. So a team of managers go and study how long it takes to do a piece of work and then set targets around how fast the work should be done. Anyone who fails will be punished! So people cheat and waste their ingenuity on cheating the system.
Do you get it? We change the processes, the policies and measures but unless the leaders actually: a.) understand why this was done and b.) how they need to behave differently, your firecracker change programme had just become a damp squib.
With me so far? Let’s look at what the new behaviour looks like.
- Understand the work from the customer’s perspective. The leader must know how it feels to be a customer and how the work design influences that experience. For example the targets in public sector planning departments (actually all departments) cause good people to ignore cases that go outside of statutory indicators. Hence if you are a customer who has a difficult one you might wait hundreds of days for your answer. The leader must be able to look at the work and make the connection between the policy (do work within 57 days) and the behaviour they see.
- Create new policies designed from the customer’s perspective. It stands to reason that what matters to the customer is to be dealt with first in first out. So the new policy becomes, do work in the order that it comes in the door and work on one thing at a time. And to make it work the leader must remove the 57 day service standard.
- Armed with this policy the leader creates a new purpose and has measures related to that purpose.
- And now for the secret. The leader must reinforce and problem solve around the policy. First they observe and make sure that everyone is using the new policy. If not the job is to find out why. If some people simply didn’t understand then the job is to reinforce the policy, explain why it was put in place and get people back on track. If people can’t use the policy because of a problem in the work then the leaders job is to problem solve.
Which leaves a final question, what’s the role of the consultant in all of this? To coach the leader. Which means the following:
- Make sure the leader knows the core polices around how work should be done.
- Go and study someone doing some work.
- If the policy is not being used, coach the leader to ask why.
- If it’s simply human error coach the leader on how to reinforce the new policy.
- If it’s because the work design prevents the use of the policy coach the leader on how to problem solve.
For sustainable change repeat two to three times per week for 3-6 months. Sounds tough, and it is. But no-one says change is easy.
Many Thanks
Stuart Corrigan
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