Conference 7.286::digital

1172.0. "change (How I learned to dock my cabincruiser)" by BCSE::KREFETZ (Reality is the fiction we live by.) Wed Aug 29 1990 19:04

  
  'Learning to Love Change' by Tom Peters 
     (C) 1990 TPG Communications
  
  I have time and again insisted that making everyone's business perpetual 
  improvement is the single most important competitive weapon for the 
  volatile, global 90's.  More pointedly, I remonstrate about "learning to 
  love change."
  
  Not suprisingly, I am repeatedly asked to "operationalize it."  Few disagree 
  with the prescription, but getting there is a far different matter.
  
  The following factors, taken together as they must be, go a long way toward 
  inducing a requisite fondness for change.
  
  -Trust/respect/don't underestimate potential.  Begin with the "knock-out 
  factor". If you, as the manager, don't trust, respect and see the full 
  potential in the average front-line employee - well, forget all that 
  follows.
  
  If we've learned anything from the experience of Ford, Harley-Davidson, 
  NUMMI, Worthington Industries, Johnsonville Foods, Milliken & Company and 
  other firms profiled in this column over the years, it is that people will 
  rise to the occasion if sincerely and respectfully asked to do so.  That 
  clerk who successfully races cars on the weekend, and the secretary raising 
  three kids by holding another job-and-a-half outside of "normal" hours, 
  surely have the wherewithal to respond with ideas and commitment - if you 
  exhibit the trust, care and support that demonstrate your commitment to 
  them.
  
  -Insist upon (and promote) lifelong learning.  I, and others, such as 
  Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, don't cotton to the old notion of 
  corporate loyalty: "Keep your nose clean and we'll give you a home here."   
  Today, loyalty given is a matter of the company committing to help a person 
  grown perpetually; loyalty returned is the employee's willingness to 
  contribute as long as the compnay abets their growth (i.e., their personal 
  "competitiveness").
  
  The individual unafraid of change is the individual constantly re-tooling 
  her or his skills, and occassionally repotting them entirely.  "Education" 
  for today's surviving firm or employee (that lover of change) goes far 
  beyond a patchwork of occasional training courses.  Instead, the commitment 
  to continuous learning per se becomes the driving/defining force that 
  energizes the person, his or her career, and the firm as a whole.
  
  -Share information.  Sharing all the numbers is a major form of trust (see 
  above).  But it also allows people to join the boss in playing "the great 
  game of business", as Springfield Remanufacturing's peerless chief, Jack 
  Stack, calls it.  When people are privy to the numbers (where they come 
  from, what they mean, how the individual influences them), miracles of 
  engagement, commitment and contribution occur.


  
  -Get customers involved.  Customers (and to a large extent, vendors and 
  distributors) make things "real".  Business comes to life when the buyer or 
  would-be buyer is brought inside corporate walls.  (Or the employee goes 
  outside the corporate confines to work with the customer.)  Realism and a 
  sense of urgency - sterling reasons to embrace change - are immeasureably 
  enhanced by the regular presence of outsiders.
  
  -Emphasize "small wins."  It's easy for the chief to get worked up about 
  giving a bonus to a star saleswoman.  It's another matter entirely to ferret 
  out the clerk in the order-entry department who has improved a cumbersome 
  form - and to recognize her or him for a job well done.  Given normal 
  corporate attitudes, there is no such thing as taking a "small" risk: 
  "small" from on high looks huge and dangerous from up close.  Remember, 
  small but consistent acts of recognition are much more important to inducing 
  a penchant for change than big but sporadic ones.
  
  -Tolerate failure to the point of cheerleading.  It's obvious in "real life" 
  (before you cross the corporate threshhold):  You learn to dock a 35-foot 
  cabin-cruiser by docking it, and your first 25 tries will be disasters.  But 
  if you are intimidated by the dockside titters after the first try, you'll 
  either give up (sell the boat:  I almost did) or start looking for easier 
  moorings; in both cases, learning and improvement stops.  The same applies 
  directly to the warehouse or production line:  Only constant, heartfelt 
  empathy (even applause) for the honest try that goes amiss will lead that 
  would-be world-classs helmsman to brave it one more time.
  
  -Reject "turf" distinctions.  Smart companies are quickly moving from a 
  narrow, "vertical" organizational orientation to a broad, project-oriented, 
  "horizontal" approach.  Focusing on task-centered improvement teams induces 
  affection for change.  If all of life on the job consists of projects aimed 
  at making things better (i.e., different), then change becomes endemic.
  
  Change is a normal part of life.  (Watch a 4-year-old sometime.  Watch 
  yourself learning to garden on the weekends.)  It only becomes abnormal in 
  our corporations.  Yet for most employees every day is a day of coping - 
  with a distracted colleague, a broken-down machine, a persnickety customer. 
  Such coping means routinely adapting, accepting the abnormal as normal.  All 
  we have to do as managers is hitch a ride on these everyday facts; that's 
  what cheerleading for perpetual change is all about.