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Hot Concepts
While business buzz words and fads come and go, there are some very
basic business concepts that we have come up with to help our clients
work through business challenges and achieve real bottom line results.
We have found that our Hot Concepts are viable over time and offer
a practical way to explain some key ideas that can benefit virtually
every organization.
Hot Concept
#1 - Red Zone Management
In football, the Red Zone is the last 20 yards on the way to a touchdown
-- a "make it or break it" time for a team. In business, Red
Zones are the critical times when companies face opportunities for great
gain or great loss. To navigate through Red Zones such as strategy changes,
mergers, or e-implementations, companies must shift to a new way of
managing.
The Business Situation
Managers inevitably encounter what we call Red Zones, those critical
times and places in the life of a company that are characterized by
the simultaneous presence of
- The opportunity for Great Gain and
- The real likelihood of Great Loss.
In the Red Zone, failure to achieve the Great Gain will result in
the Great Loss.
The figure below shows the performance path of the company as it struggles
through the Red Zone and emerges on the other side with either the Gain
or the Loss. Either the company makes a leap forward or takes a step
backward. There is no "in between."
The Red Zone problem is simple. Many companies enter Red Zone conditions
as a part of moving their businesses forward without realizing that
their ways of managing the business must change significantly or their
companies will experience significant loss. Doing business with
the regular rules that management plays by will not take a company successfully
through a Red Zone.
Once inside the Red Zone, football teams shift to their Red Zone Offense,
the way they run plays to make scores happen. In business, managers
also must shift to a new level of managing. Red Zone Management is a
set of guiding principles and rules applied in a formal and disciplined
way to navigate a company successfully through their Red Zone.
Some of the important Red Zone Management Principles include:
- Recognizing and declaring that the company is in a Red Zone that
requires special behavior and commitment from everybody … especially
key managers!
- Switching Leadership over to the "do or die" level of
commitment…or risking certain loss!
- Putting the strongest managers and employees into the thick of
Red Zone Management…it's not the time for rookies to learn
how to do business!
- Placing direct responsibility and accountability for achieving
the Great Gain on designated key managers…managers achieve
what they are individually accountable for!
- Ensuring that the needs of today's customers/owners are met while
in the Red Zone…customers and investors are king and can't
be harmed while the company is in the Red Zone!
- Meeting the special needs of workers while the company is in
the Red Zone…workers will lose heart and energy before Gain
if not given intense attention!
Hot Concept #2 - Run the Business/Change the
Business
This is the only choice for organizations that want to survive in
this rapidly changing environment. If you don't run the business, you
won't eat tomorrow. It's like discovering you have to make major modifications
in the plumbing while living in a house. You can't stop living while
the changes are made, and you can't continue living in the house with
faulty plumbing. You must do both at once.
Use the dual perspective
How you look at something greatly influences your ability to manage
it. In this case, it's important to use a dual perspective, keeping
both initiatives in clear focus at the same time. The diagram below
illustrates the situation. The horizontal arrow symbolizes the running
of the business -- keeping things on an even keel so that you continue
to serve customers and pay bills. The arrow angling up stands for the
changes you need to make in the way you run the business. Both arrows
together take you towards your vision for tomorrow (circle V).
Organizations without this dual perspective often end up with an unbalanced
focus. In most, the predominant focus is on running the business. Words
are spoken about the need to change, but no concrete explanation about
"how" to change is offered. One CEO we know has repeatedly
said, "We need to do things differently here." When pressed
for specifics, he gives "run the business" examples such as,
"We need to get more sales." His focus is still on running
the business -- not on changing the way the business is run. At the
opposite extreme is the CEO who sees the business only through the perspective
of change. One executive incorporated everything -- including current
sales goals and strategies - under his proposed change initiative umbrella.
Employees were quite confused and missed key points of the change.
Align energy sources
The next question is "How do we energize these two different initiatives?"
All organizational initiatives take energy. If they don't have energy,
or aren't championed by the right people, there's a high likelihood
of failure. Change occurs effectively only when top management drives
the change while other managers drive the running of the business,
as shown in the illustration.
Unfortunately, the opposite frequently occurs: top managers get overly
engrossed in running the business and caught up in too many details,
to the detriment of themselves and the business. Other managers, sensing
a gap, end up trying to drive a change initiative. However, these other
managers don't have the horsepower, political stroke, perspective or
tools to actually bring about a major change. The result of top management's
abdication of change leadership can be high levels of frustration for
all involved and little (if any) progress towards the vision. Such
is the case in organizations where upper management decides the company
needs to be reengineered, then abdicates the actual reengineering to
middle managers. Imagine how successful that is!
Ideally, business leaders would become excited by the challenge of
making changes in the business while running the business. When looking
at issues in one area, they would consider the impact and potential
for the other initiative. More and more they would find (and create)
synergy between the two.
You can't live for long in a house with bad plumbing...and you can't
stay in business if major elements need changing. Taking care of both
at once is a juggling act that requires an ability to live with ambiguity
and deal with conflict. But the potential rewards are great. Good luck!
Hot Concept #3 - The Theater Metaphor
Imagine a theater company that is stunned to hear that, after a good
run, their play will close and a new play will open. Imagine the performers
crying out in anguish and despair at the thought of having to learn
new lines in a new play!
Today's employees have not yet accepted the mindset of professional
actors who are fully responsible for their own performance in what will
inevitably be a series of plays. They must learn change just like their
brothers and sisters in the theater, or they should not expect successful
work careers.
Individual Change Mastery: An Operational Definition
So what does this mean to you? Defining change mastery for an individual
in a work organization is easily done with the use of our theater metaphor.
We will say that, by definition, a successful, professional actor has
mastered change. So what does this look like in our theater metaphor?
Our successful actor:
- Stays alert and attuned to the ongoing success of the current production
in which he plays.
- Understands the time when the theater company might need to transition
to a new performance.
- Provides input to the theater company or Director in discussions
about possible new productions.
- Pursues, negotiates and contracts for a role in the new production.
- Follows the lead of the Director and works cooperatively with the
cast in rehearsing and developing his role in the new play.
- Ensures that he has fully developed his role and integrates it into
the overall production in time for Opening Night.
- Cooperatively works with the company to close out the old production.
- Gives his best performance in the new play, taking the initiative
to refine his role under the leadership of the Director.
So you don't work in a theater, but your show must go on too. Our metaphor
translates to the workplace in much the same way. We believe that individual
workers in organizations have mastered change (we'll call them Change
Masters!) when they can successfully and consistently perform on each
of the eight dimensions of competence listed:
- Staying Alert and Attuned to Organizational Success
A Change Master will stay tuned to the business environment and
his organization's level of success…with customers, with investors,
and with employees.
- Understanding the Time for Organizational Change
A Change Master will understand and appreciate the need to make
changes in the organization…and will understand that he must
alter his role to fit in the changing organization.
- Providing Input about the Future
A Change Master will provide information to his manager and others
about what the organization might do and how it might do it for
future success.
- Actively Contracting for a Role in the New Work of the Organization
A Change Master will be alert to new roles she can play after the
change or to changes in her current role.
- Taking the Initiative to Develop the New Work Role
A Change Master will responsibly develop her new or altered role...
with the leadership of her manager and in cooperation with fellow
workers in her organizational unit.
- Changing Over to the New Work Role with High Performance
A Change Master will Change Over on schedule to the new way of operating
called for by the Vision for Organizational Change.
- Stopping Old Work
A Change Master will stop doing work the old way and shut down those
parts of her role that are no longer in sync with the Vision.
- Refining the New Work Role to the Needed Performance Level
A Change Master will rapidly work to refine her changed role to
reach the targeted and needed level of performance.
Professional actors in theater companies must master change because
it is the nature of their business. Doesn't it also make sense for today's
individual workers in other kinds of organizations to strive for change
mastery since change seems to be the nature of business today?
Hot Concept
#4 - Engineering Organizational Change
Engineering Change
Engineering Change comes from a simple but often overlooked reality
of organizations. At their roots, organizations are like mechanical
systems -- with bits and pieces and moving parts that all have to work
together to produce results. (Can you hear the gears grinding?!?) Unfortunately,
for forty some years, it has not been popular to refer to an organization
as a machine. Too bad, because the use of the machine model is exactly
what's needed to get leaders and managers the change results they need!
Engineering Change is all about physically altering the nuts and bolts
of the organization to make the envisioned change turn into reality.
Yes, you still need a clear vision of where you want to go and an intensive
program to communicate that vision to all parties concerned. And you
still have to have a plan for action for "what to do every Monday
morning" during the implementation. But Engineering Change is all
about altering three critical categories of "stuff" that make
up the organization:
- its Processes/Procedures
- its Plant/Equipment/Tools (PET)
- its Performance Management Systems (translated to mean its
"contracts" with its employees)
The way any organization works at a given point in time is the direct
and inescapable result of the configuration of the firm's processes,
its PET, and its performance systems. Just as in a mechanical system,
the way the organization operates cannot change without a change in
its key components. So organizational change requires physical alteration
to these three components or there will be no change at all. Calling
these needed alterations "requirements" allows us to see change
as a true engineering challenge!
Engineering Change has two fundamental elements: (1) identifying requirements
for alterations of the components and (2) physically changing those
components.
Engineering Change is the critical piece for many companies that are
having trouble with change. We see it all the time -- a company is struggling
with making the changes they have so carefully designed. And the struggle,
in our experience, rarely comes about because managers don't know about
leading and managing change, about participation and communication and
patience and understanding. The struggle comes with the failure to recognize
that the change they desire is not optional -- it is required for survival
in the market place -- and that change requires physical alterations
to the organizations moving parts!! The final step in organizational
change is the unglamorous, detail-oriented, hard work of Engineering!!
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