October 2007

Buying Time

By: Dutch Holland, PhD

Begging for Time

“I don’t have time to do my job today, much less have the time to [learn a new computer system, serve on another change task force, be interviewed by 26 kid consultants, attend a company forum to listen to our CEO answer stupid questions about why we have to change in order to meet a competitor’s price]. I am not against changing the way we do business … I get it … to stay competitive we all have to make changes. The plain truth is that I just don’t have the time … and I can’t bear the thought of telling my family once again, that I’m going to be coming home late … for maybe the next six weeks or so.”

Are we really listening to the fundamental message (plea!) in the above quote? Are we only hearing the message we want to hear? Can we hear him saying that he doesn’t need more explanation of the change, he doesn’t need to better understand the case for change, he doesn’t need to stand up and ask management to ‘justify’ the change … he just needs the time to make the change!

Buying Time

If we want to help organizations make changes happen on target, on time, and on budget, so that they can do business better … we must bring “time relief” to employees involved in business changes. And if we are managers who need to make our business run differently and better, we must “buy time” as well as new facilities, new software, new processes. Yes, making change happen does require “buying” new stuff … like the software mentioned above. Most companies “get it” and put in the bucks to buy the hard assets (you know, the high priority stuff). And if there is any loose money lying around, some of it might even by dedicated (temporarily at least) to fund an out-of-the-can training course that might be relevant to some way to the desired change.

The real focus for spending dollars on change should be on buying time for employees. The dollars should be spent to buy help, encouragement, tools, hands-on assistance, and even “do-it-for-them” services.  Let’s try an example.

What Buying Time Looks Like

One of our clients has been a pioneer in “rolling up” hospital pharmacies into a large pharmacy company. A hospital might sell their pharmacy operation to our client (for all sorts of reasons). Our client company then has to transition the pharmacy to the “company way of doing business.” In comes the company transition team … five folks come in to transition a five person pharmacy. Yep, one on one … each transition team member is trained to make the changes, explain and then clarify them, hand hold, demonstrate a “can do” attitude and show genuine appreciation for those five who have just joined the company. The lead pharmacist on the transition team pitches in to help fill prescriptions so that there will be time to “brief and explain” before the end of the shift. In one week’s time, the transition team saves the new employees from a lot of frustration, feelings of insecurity and, very importantly, overtime.

 “They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
-Andy Warhol

That’s right, each employee will inevitably have to make change happen … but having dedicated, talented people helping with each step absolutely will save time. So when do we start buying time? There is no time like the present.

To find out more about our implementing change approach, call Dutch Holland at 713.800.3663. Holland & Davis can give you success story after success story ...and suggest ways that you can engineer change.

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