Summer 2000 FAQ:
Q: We are doing a lot of talking about the technical aspects of our upcoming ERP Implementation, but not much talking about changing the organization or the way people work. Can you suggest an easy way to talk about Change Management so that people get the point?

We have found in our business that Change Management is sometimes pretty tough to define. It seems especially tough to define in the context of a new technology being implemented in an ongoing organization. In other words, how do you implement a major technology change without sacrificing the operation and performance of your organization? Well, we have had our best luck defining Change Management with a silly (some have even said stupid!) example that most people can relate to. So here goes…

The Blindingly Stupid Example
Imagine the airline President who wanted his Boeing two-engine 737s to fly faster. He asked Boeing if they could help, and they assured him they could…so they added two additional engines to each airplane. After a few weeks of service with the added engines, the airline President asked his Operations Manager if his airplanes were flying faster. The President was surprised to hear that, in fact, they were flying slower … and that the number of oil-related engine failures on the old engines was up dramatically.  Bad news, huh!?

Now imagine that this action-oriented, hands-on President decided to check out the situation, so he sat in the jump seat as one of his crews got ready for a routine flight. The copilot meticulously read the checklist, and the pilot systematically complied.

Copilot: "Start engines 1 and 2,"
Pilot: "Engines 1 and 2 started."

The pilots then proceeded to make the flight with two engines running and two engines not in use. After landing, the President asked the pilots if they were aware of the extra two engines. They were quick to respond: "Are you kidding, of course we are aware! Dragging those things around costs us an extra 15 minutes of time and 3,000 pounds of fuel on that last leg alone!!" "Then why don't you start them and use them?" asks the bewildered President. "Hellooo," says the pilot, "Are you kidding? Our union contract specifically states that we fly two-engine aircraft!!"

The President deplaned to watch the fuel and oil crew do the turn-around of the aircraft for the next flight. He was surprised to watch an obviously confused maintenance man scurry back and forth between the four engines…providing haphazard at best oil level checking and filling. After the plane backed away from the gate, the President stopped the maintenance man to ask him what was going on. The maintenance man responded, "Beats the heck out of me! I'm supposed to be checking oil on two engines before each flight, but I obviously have four to check now…and not enough time or help to get it done before the pilot starts the engines. Besides, I'm still trying to figure out why two of the engines never need any oil and the other two are too hot to approach to put any in!"

And the plot thickens…
The Director of Operations looks up from his desk to see the airline President storming into the office.

Ops Director: "How's it going, boss?"

President: "Poorly, thanks to you! What have you been doing for the last six months while we were getting the extra engines put on those airplanes!?"

Ops Director: "I've been running the day-to-day operations of this airline! What do you think I've been doing?"

President: "I expect you to be doing that! That's your job! What I'm talking about is what you have been doing, or not doing in this case, to get your flight and maintenance crews to fly airplanes with four engines?"

Ops Director: "I thought that was Charlie's job…he was the Project Manager on the Engine Project." Oops, wrong answer!!!

President: "Charlie's job was to work with Boeing and get the engines on and running, and from what I see, he did just that. It was never his job to get the crews ready, they report to you, not to him. It was your job to foresee the union contract problem. It was your job to re-write flight checklists to four engines! It was your job to ensure we had a revised maintenance procedure and extra maintenance people!"

…and the painful dialogue continues…

Our goal is not to insult anybody with our blindingly stupid example, but this airline clearly needs an industrial strength dose of Change Management! The technology is there and working (the two new engines), but the manager of the flight crews and maintenance crews has clearly failed in his responsibility to get them ready to work with that technology. And his failure to get them ready is already producing very poor results…slow flights, wasted fuel, and increased engine failures. Clearly the problem has nothing to do with Boeing…their engines work!

And your point is…?
Okay, the point is that without proper Change Management owned and provided by the user organization's leadership, many ERP/SAP implementations wind up in similar shape! The technology works "technically," but the organization is not ready to use it to get their work done effectively and efficiently. This failure to ready the user organization will result in decreased organizational performance and severely decreased employee morale. The goal of Change Management is to keep the organization from looking back some months after implementation and asking, "How could we be so blindingly stupid!?"

So, let's look at this example again and perhaps reply to some things. Suppose the airline President had decided to use Change Management in his "go faster" initiative. How would that have looked? Imagine the kickoff meeting run by the President and attended by the Director of Operation, Charlie from Procurement, the Chief Pilot, and others. Imagine the President giving his vision and charter for his "go faster" initiative:

President: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to officially launch this exciting 'go faster' initiative that you may have heard about. I want to give you my vision for how I see this thing working out. By this time next year, I see business up considerably because of our faster flight times to our four key destinations. I know in my bones that we can cream Delta and US Air if we can cut 15 minutes off these flights. These new engines will do that when we put our aircraft back in service on October 15.

Charlie, I am officially naming you as the Engine Project Manager. It is your job to work with Boeing to ensure that the aircraft are properly fitted with the new engines and that those engines work. I expect all work completed by October 15 of this year as we have discussed. On that date, I see a seamless transition to the four engine aircraft. I want our passengers to be aware of nothing except faster flight times.

Director of Operations, I expect your flight crews to be fully prepared, trained and under contract to fly four-engine aircraft before October 15. I expect you to manage all the training for your people…Charlie can help there by making some of the Boeing people available…but the training responsibility is yours. Furthermore, I expect that you will have gone through all our maintenance procedures and modified them as needed to ensure those re-engined aircraft get proper maintenance. I expect no glitches in operations or maintenance.

Now, my plan is to personally meet with all of you once a month to ensure that both the engine project and the crew preparation project are going as expected. By the end of next week I want to see a complete project plan from each of you that reflects the critical path activities that we will need to accomplish to both get engines and crews ready. Questions?"

Now here is a blindingly stupid question: Do you think the airline example would have come out differently if the President had given that vision/charter speech and stayed in the game on a regular basis? The answer is "You bet!!"

In case you want some more info about Change Management and Technology Implementation, click below to get answers to some of the most commonly asked questions we get from our clients.

Q&A about Change Management Supporting New Technology

Dutch Holland, CEO of HDI, has worked as a management consultant for 30 years, helping organizations and leaders manage and implement change successfully. And if you enjoyed this short article on change, you'll love his new book, Change is the Rule (Dearborn Trade, Chicago, 2000). Check your local bookstores or read a review at amazon.com! Contact Dutch at 713.877.8130.

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