Root Cause LO8208

Keith Cowan (72212.51@CompuServe.COM)
28 Jun 96 16:58:26 EDT

Replying to LO7984 --

Carol Sager <sagerent@world.std.com> asked:
>.... Today business is forced to make change in a very narrow
>timeframe, working only with the top 20% and dragging many of the rest
>"kicking and screaming". While this might be a bit of hyperbole, the
>question is, what are the best options for systemic change when you
>don't have adequate time to promote buy-in?

There are categories of change that can be made very quickly and
effectively. This is often called "the low hanging fruit" and can
sometimes be recognized by words in the cafeteria like "it's about
time they did that". This is also referred to as ENTITLEMENT because
it usually does not involve major capital expense.

Our experience is that the sum of all the new initiatives should not
exceed 15% of the time of the people (not counting the change agents
and trainers). Above that, the level of static gets pretty high and
damage control activities start to consume more than its worth.

I know that many instances demand more change than this. The cost,
at least in human capital, becomes prohibitive and often the changes
do not get firmly "installed" in new behaviours.

The worst situation is to think the changes are all done and then go
back and find erosion after 6 to 12 months!

-- 

Keith Cowan <72212.51@CompuServe.COM>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>