Creating sustainable change in your business operations

Tumbleweeds …

We have all seen the classic scene in western movies of the ghost town with the tumbleweeds blowing down the deserted main street, a sign of something that was once new or vibrant and that now has ‘gone by the wayside’.

Business improvement projects often suffer the same fate.

We have been into many businesses, plants and factories where the tell-tale signs of a change or improvement initiative are still present, but the initiative itself is well and truly dead. Charts on walls not updated for months or years, empty frames where signs and results were meant to be placed, posters of slogans and quotes literally covered in dust, and prominent spreadsheets containing tabs that are no longer updated. Maybe this resonates with you?

A good idea or initiative, even one that the majority agree with, often isn’t enough to deliver a successful outcome. Factors such as communicating the change, explaining why the change is important, properly resourcing the change initiative and having measurable objectives are often quoted as important success factors.

We agree, BUT …

Dr. Henry Cloud said, ‘We change behaviour when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.’ Our experience is that this is true in operational change and continuous improvement. As business owners, leaders or managers, how do we make change ‘painful’ without being mean-spirited or behaving unfairly? Put differently, how do we make it hard to keep doing it the old way? Humans are creatures of habit. We revert to what we know and what we are familiar with doing repetitively if we are allowed.

The classic 1980’s movie Mr. Mom contains a theme in which a child is encouraged to relinquish his security blanket (called a woobie). After much encouragement, incentives, negotiation and explanation, the security blanket had to be physically removed. It is the same with operational change. AstuteOps can support your organisation to create 'NO EXITS' strategies that prevent things reverting to the old way of working and maximise your chances for sustainable change.

AstuteOps Tips

> Formulate a ‘no exits’ strategy (make it impossible to go back to the old way);

> Focus on what STOPS happening in the new process, not just what is new;

> Prevent staff from treating the change as an ‘add-on’ (additional work);

> Look for signs that staff don’t want to ‘let go’

Otherwise you may be seeing tumbleweeds down the road.