Tool Box
Issue No. 34 - April/May 2007
Who needs to change?
by Rex Buckingham
From time immemorial change has been spoken about as something that has to be ‘tackled’ or ‘endured’ as if it brought with it natural amounts of natural, inescapable danger!
This precept is at the heart of the self fulfilling prophecy – change is full of danger and barriers to overcome.
This conclusion brings people to the opinion that change needs to surreptitious – get it all thought through and then find ways to manipulate the people/situation to take on board this preconceived ‘solution’.
Change agents and other interest people will almost never use these words, but an astute reader of the publicity about change will see much mention of
•‘direct change’
•‘communicate and manage any resistance’
•‘facilitate the process of change’
•‘separate the negative from the positive’ etc
This type of wording is about someone else having had a thought and then getting others to implement. This is the fundamental problem, managers seeing themselves as ‘solution identifiers’ and others being seen as the implementers.
It is generally recognised that people not coming on board can derail a change but the thought process is still about “how can we get them to own something that they haven’t necessarily had much input into?”
As I reflect on my 25 or so years as a consultant and as a recruiter I come to the realisation that at least half the time (more probably 66%) an business seeking my service gives me a brief that is not appropriate to need – that is, they get cause and effect mixed up and reflect more on the effect than the cause.
When I talk to the operators, the store people, the sale folk, they know what will work and what will not/has not in the past and when ‘engaged’ they can share that before unfortunate decisions are made.
This is not to say they always have the best answer, but a...
