I didn’t study economics in college, but years later I found myself curious about the concepts. It was probably for the same reason that I’m geeky enough to ponder all these process and human behavior issues in a blog.
Anyway, I picked up a really basic economics primer just to get the main concepts down. I seriously doubt that’d I’d ever read anything more substantial on the topic, but it was enough to make me dangerous. I was particularly interested by the concepts of monopolistic oligopolies and perfectly competitive situations. But, of course, that led me to thinking about monopolies and that’s when I realized that I worked for one.
No, the company I work for does not have a monopoly on the industry it is in. Far from it. However, the office I’m in does. Each department in the company is the sole provider of some service to the corporate economy. There are examples where competitive situations have arose internally, but largely there is one provider for anything.
For example, while one department has a reporting team whose job it is to create various reports for the clients, they’re overwhelmed and take a really long time to produce a report. So, another team was built (probably secretly at first) to do all the reports that the designated team couldn’t do. It has created quite a few problems, since people who assumed their role in the company was safe and sound have discovered that they have competition for the work they do. One would assume that either the original department will get smart and figure out how to compete or die off.
It was then that I realized we had not approached some change management situations properly. In a competitive economy, if you don’t like the service you are getting from, say, the phone company, you switch companies. The fact that you have choices forces companies to drive up efficiency and drive down costs. They have to offer you more for less than their competitor. But the office, for the most part, is not a competitive economy, it’s a collection of monopolies. Each department is the only department that can service your particular need.
In a competitive environment, I can berate my supplier about poor services or products because the threat exists that I’ll take my business elsewhere. Try that in the office and you will likely get worse service, not better. If the department is the only game in town it takes away all incentive for them to improve because they are secure in their role. Regardless of how much or how little you like or use the group, they all get paid.
My ideal model for process improvement is to be in charge of the organization I want to change. Barring that, my second choice would be for the head of the organization that needs to change to be the one who initiates change. And finally, the most common situation I get is like having an intervention with your alcoholic uncle. Somebody else wants the dysfunctional department to change and you’ve been tasked to make it happen. It’s just going to be an unpleasant conversation for all involved.
If you’ve read my “Me! Me! Me!” entry, then Bob will sound like a familiar fellow when dealing with almost every one of these situations. They department head will say “sure, set up a meeting, let’s talk” and then after you’ve done all the research and so forth you get “Fred, we like the process we have, it works for us and we don’t want to change.” Why does it make me think of Scooby-Doo? “And if it wasn’t for you meddling kids I would have gotten away with it too!” Except the villain does get away with it, and the meddling kids get a swift kick in the backside.
I hate interventions, but it is clear that we cannot approach them like we have in the past. There’s little value in providing overwhelming voice of the customer to them, they don’t care. At one point I was thinking I’d provide practical advice to appeal to their egos and this would be the same story that I wrote before. Then I thought to myself, “this is a blog and I can dream up any crazy solution I want because I don’t have to pitch it to my boss!”
Here’s my idea. Rather than trying to convince the organization that they need to change, you tell them they should change. Of course, they will do nothing, but you’ve warned them. Next, have someone (not you directly) begin visibly working on a plan to create organizational competition for them. Think outsourcing or just hiring a new team to do the same job. The organization may or may not have to hire anyone, but I think you have to be prepared to play a serious game of chicken if they call the bluff. Even if you can’t necessarily create competition, you can create the threat of competition. All of the sudden you have a powerful motivator for change. Then, once the threat of change is well established, show back up and see if there’s anything “you can do to help out the department.” I’d bet they’d be a lot more willing to talk. If not, you keep ratcheting up the competition pressure. In the worst possible case, the ineffective team will be replaced by a more effective team (since your cohort hired them) and the problem will be solved.
The constant threat of competition should be enough to keep people moving. This definitely ties in with my “People are selfish” philosophy. You’ve discovered that getting a paycheck has enormous utility to most people and that’s why they show up for work in the first place. If doing the same thing will no longer result in continuing to get a paycheck, they will change.
