Organizational change has two key issues - getting started and not quitting. And, oddly enough, not quitting is harder than starting.
It is difficult to start if the changes are big. This problem is solved simply - you need to start little by little, in pieces. For connoisseurs, let me remind you - this is called agile, and also - fail fast, fail cheap. I took a step, appreciated it, either threw it away, or left it, and do the next one. To people with a more serious education, I will say that this is a banal Deming cycle, and not a fashionable hipster fiction.
But then the changes fade. Enthusiasm disappears, new steps are not made, and they are not even invented. The changes that were made are gradually rolled back. And everything goes back to normal.
According to my observations, "throwing" almost always happens in the second month.
From the life of the plant, I remember that the same garbage took place there. The first month is e-ge-gay, everyone is running around, fussing, giving out efficiency, enthusiasm like a fountain, “well, now everything will be different!”.
And on the second month almost always there is a failure. Indicators are steadily sliding down to the previous values. Enthusiasm dies away, burnout occurs, everyone swears, swears and unanimously abandons the changes that have begun. To the delight of critics and observers. Of course, the initiators of changes, subsequently, no longer engage in such nonsense.
This is the curse of the second month. Because of him, change stops. But, the worst thing, the participants of the changes refuse not only from what they did in the first month, but also from the idea of any changes in general. Up to the point that they move into the ranks of critics and observers (“I didn’t succeed, so you don’t get involved either”).
In fact, there is no curse, if you put it on the shelves. Let's try.
First, where did the month come from? Everything is trite here - most companies have traditional, monthly reporting. The goal of the changes is set for the month (“this month we need to…”). It is easy to overcome - to work for weeks (we did this at the factory), for decades (this is how one factory I know worked), or use sprints of an appropriate length.
The second is the start of changes “by hand”. In the first month, the processes, system, tools have not yet lined up. Everything is done on foot, quickly, with the simplest methods, “come on, come on”, etc. The result is fast, but not systemic. The real restructuring has not happened yet, everyone just squeezed the rolls and ran to the finish line.
In the second month, the realization comes that running with compressed rolls is inconvenient. I want consistency, order, clarity and transparency. And, everyone wants it. The initiator of change is tired of running around in soap, micromanaging, keeping track of all tasks and jumping up and down due to any deviation. People are tired of the constant change of course, daily changing rules, constant pressure and goading.
Thirdly, some methods of the first month have to be thrown out. Unfortunately, often these are methods that give a significant increase in the result. In the short term, they were effective, but they cannot be applied on a permanent basis.
All this together adds up to the curse of the second month. A choice appears: to continue to run with an awl in the rear, or to stop, think and systematize activities. It's easy to guess what people choose.
But here a new trouble happens - it turns out that it is not so easy to systematize the experience of running with obstacles. It's one thing to draw a process that yields efficiency. Quite different - be by this process. This is often referred to as "being immersed in operations management".
As long as you run around and hand out cuffs, everything works. As soon as you went on vacation, or sat down to rest, people stop working with the same dedication. Because there is no process, instructions, methodology on how to act. There is only you with your cuffs, persuasion and help.
And what to do? Accept the curse of the second month as a necessary evil. Try not to fail, of course, or fail too much.
But the main thing is to turn the experience of the first month into a system. The first month is what is needed for this - experiments, hypothesis testing, the same agile and fail fast, fail cheap. Its goal is to quickly understand which methods work and which do not. Do not spend a lot of time and money on automation, technical means, conversations. Make a cast, an image of a workable process.
And in the second month, turn it into a system. Not worrying about the fact that the result will sag.
True, there is, after all, the second side - the customers of the changes. You kind of understand that there will be a failure in the second month, you need to fix everything and put it on the rails. But customers do not know and demand new growth.
Let them, the customers, read this text. If they want instant results and high losses, they will continue to put pressure on you. If they want sustainable growth, they will give you time to systematize the changes.
However, do not forget that the curse of the third month does not exist.
Source: habr.com