State of the Craft: October 2000
By Doug Wesley
Copyright 1996, 2000 All Rights Reserved
This organizational transformation process was first detailed in a
manuscript by Doug Wesley and Kaye Whitefeather (1993) based on four
years of research and about eight years of
experience in transformation projects. Since that work was completed,
the practice of our craft has generated many new lessons about
transforming corporate cultures, organizations and
business operations. ChangeCraft™ represents a proprietary set of
transformation techniques that increase the odds of success when
undertaking this complex and risky venture in a large organization.
ChangeCraft™ is a philosophy, an array of
techniques, and a set of skills that are used to implement major change in
organizations. This transformation methodology works through the people of
a company to quickly create operational changes that help the organization
pursue a new strategy; typically these changes – and the strategy they
support – are demanded by larger changes in the outside environment. ChangeCraft™
creates an extraordinary partnership between senior officers of the
company and employee volunteers to pre-authorize needed changes. Diverse
employee Change Teams undertake short-term projects to reinvent
small-scale social and technical processes within the company: processes
that currently impede – or could speed – fulfillment of the mission
set forth for the transformation. The goal is to generate a critical mass
of small changes that can transform the way the entire organization
operates. To assure that these changes transform the "heart" of
the company (its culture) and not just its machinery, ChangeCraft™
gives as much attention to political systems and social conventions as to
production systems and work processes.
ChangeCraft™
is a non-hierarchical approach that seeks to involve all ranks of the
organization in designing, organizing and implementing major change. We
see management institutions as primarily charged with responsibility for
efficient and predictable production using current processes. Management
organizations challenged to transform the organizational machines they
operate tend to focus only on quality improvements and cost reductions;
thus, they are the lowest-leverage point of entry for significant
transformations or culture change.
In general, ChangeCraft™
methodology calls for building a temporary infrastructure for
transformation within the organization. Energy for change is drawn from
15-25% of the organization’s employees who commit to the transformation
mission and work to make changes. These people are specially trained to
work as Change Sponsors, Change Agents, Change Team members, Team Coaches
and Process Champions. These employees create and implement a change
process under the direct sponsorship – and with the authority – of
senior officers. Changes are made by lots of diverse, self-managed teams,
which are formed by Change Agents who independently plan Change
Initiatives. Members of these teams continue to work in their regular
jobs. If the teams together can be seen as comprising an army, it is a
citizen army.
[ Contents ]
Processes for Transformation
Cultures are self-sustaining. We believe that cultures do not equip
their members with the knowledge or skills to dismantle the culture;
smart people with good intentions still need a transformation process.
Cultures tend to blind their "citizens" to the existence of
the culture, itself, and to many of the behaviors that are essential to
perpetuate the culture. Therefore, ChangeCraft™ installs an
infrastructure built on several strange and foreign processes to pave
the way for transformation. These new processes are: Senior Sponsorship,
a Transformation Coordination Process, a Change Agent Process, a Change
Team Process, a Team Coaching Process, a Process Champion Process and a
Governance Process. Each of these processes is specially designed to
break down the barriers of the old culture and to stimulate rapid, small
high-leverages changes in the organization. Based on "Tipping
Point" principles (Gladwell 2000), a critical mass of these small
changes generates a culture transformation.
Senior Sponsorship Process. Senior Sponsors are corporate
officers who have the authority to order a transformation of the
enterprise and who accept the responsibility to promote and support the
effort. They must continue to fulfill their executive duties within the
old structure even as they back something of a revolution: this creates
great conflict for the individuals who serve in the role and, perhaps,
even greater conflict for the managers who report to them. Sr. Sponsors
are provided an Executive Coach to offer special training, counsel and
feedback during the course of transformation.
Transformation Coordination Process. This appears simply to be a
project management function, but it differs in several respects. The
Coordinator must not only deeply understand transformation process and
each role involved, s/he must aggressively protect the project from the
tendency to be assimilated into the old culture. The Coordinator
nurtures and stimulates the change process while acting as a steward on
behalf of the Sr. Sponsors.
Change Agent Process. Employees who volunteer for this duty are
trained and certified to plan change initiatives and to generate teams
to implement these initiatives. As Change Agents master their craft,
they take on responsibility for training and coaching new Agents.
Change Team Process. The heart and soul of the ChangeCraft™
process lives in Change Teams. Even as they are implementing their
initiatives, Change Team members are learning and inventing a new way of
working in the company. They take these lessons back to their work
groups after the team completes its initiative and disbands.
Team Coaching Process. If Change Teams are the heart and soul of
the process, Team Coaches provide the muscle and discipline. Team
Coaches are seasoned veteran team members who certify to practice in
this tough, ever-vigilant role. The most highly skilled Coaches train
and certify new Team Coaches.
Process Champion Process. Employees who have mastered the work of
Change Agent or Team Coach may certify for expanded responsibilities as
Process Champion. In this role, resides "The Knowledge," a
deep understanding of transformation process: how it works and how it
must be protected from assimilation into the mainstream culture.
Governance Process. Because of the tendency to be co-opted into
the old culture, a transformation effort cannot be managed by the
organization’s hierarchy. Non-hierarchical teams of employees,
experienced in the change process, are trained and coached to govern the
process and keep it in bounds. The most experienced Change Agents and
Team Coaches also form councils amongst themselves to advance and
protect their crafts.
[ Contents ]
Twenty Traditional Elements
of the ChangeCraft™ Approach
1. The Course of Transformation and Achievement of Critical Mass.
Central to the ChangeCraft™ philosophy is a pattern of change
that may take years to play out. Organizational transformations proceed
through three stages: Awakening, Transforming and Integrating. During
the Awakening Stage, the organization becomes aware of persistent
pressures from the outside to do business differently and it begins
experimenting with ways to adapt; this may take several years (in some
cases, decades) and leaves a trail of partially successful – or
abandoned – attempts to transform. During the Transforming Stage,
efforts to change the organization begin building upon one another;
their results become permanent features in the landscape of the culture;
a Critical Mass of small changes finally sparks the
transformation, which begins to take on a life of its own: changes
chaotically emerge all over the organization (to adapt to these new
features) and, even when resources and executive support are withdrawn,
the magnitude of change continues to increase. After the organization's
capacity to transform reaches its Natural Limits, the magnitude
of change in the organization dramatically drops. During the Integrating
Stage, many old systems are retired and those that remain are
adapted to work with new ones that have emerged; people who cannot –
or will not – adapt to the new ways leave the organization; those who
remain accept the new ways as normal and begin to forget the pain of
transformation.
2. Senior Sponsors. Since transformation projects seek to change
the very nature of an organization, such efforts must be undertaken only
with the permission of people responsible for the life and health of the
enterprise: senior officers of the corporation. These top executives act
with the authority of the institution's owners as they sponsor a
transformation initiative. When the owners withdraw support for a major
change effort, Senior Sponsors must put an end to the transformation or
they jeopardize their jobs. Sometimes owners withdraw their support by
firing the Senior Sponsors.
3. A Charge for Change. The first act of Senior Sponsors using ChangeCraft™
methodology is to describe the change they envision. By clearly
articulating the motives and goals of the intended transformation,
Senior Sponsors describe the field of play: targeting certain activities
and processes for change, and excluding others. This Charge for
Change sets forth the marching orders for scores of people and teams
who work – for the most part, independently – to transform their
organization.
4. Culture Analysis. This is comparable to a physician conducting
a thorough physical examination before beginning surgery. At the very
least, this is an exercise in due diligence: assuring that the planned
operation is needed, can succeed, and will not aggravate other (perhaps
unknown) systemic problems. At best, the examination yields vital
information about how to proceed with the operation in a manner that
does the least harm and produces the most benefit. ChangeCraft™
techniques are used in significant interactions with at least 5% of the
people in a culture to develop this vital information.
5. Weaving Transformation Plans into Traditional Culture. ChangeCraft™
respects essential traditions and uses them to build a new future.
Efforts at radical change are easily overwhelmed by strong corporate
cultures. To weaken unnecessary resistance, many important values of the
old culture must be integrated into the plans for change. This allows
people who would directly oppose the change either to take a neutral
position or to actually join the change efforts and attempt to influence
from the inside.
6. A Systemic Approach: Mapping Processes and Dependencies. ChangeCraft™
uses a systems approach to understand the organizations it serves. By
translating a business organization from the language of jobs,
departments and divisions into one of processes (and relationships
between processes), layers of social structures and traditions can be
stripped away from the vital work of the organization. New possibilities
for effectiveness become evident.
7. Job Analysis and Skills Assessment. To find ways that
experienced employees can contribute to transformed companies, the
skills they possess are inventoried. ChangeCraft™ has developed
its own assessment process to map an organization's current skills
assets (and deficits). This process identifies the activities in current
jobs, and assesses the abilities of employees to perform those
activities (thus, their skill levels). At the same time, we collect
information about existing skills not required by the job. A database of
the results of this study can easily separate job titles from people,
allowing a clear look at the skills they have to offer a new and
different organization.
8. On-Track and Off-Track Indicators Rather than Project Goals.
Scientific management uses goals and objectives to attain efficiencies
by allowing – and reinforcing – only activities that achieve the
ends imagined before the project began. ChangeCraft™
transformation projects are exercises in innovation; they typically open
new possibilities as they progress. On-Track Indicators signal
movement in the right direction (long before ends are achieved) and Off-Track
Indicators point out movement in the wrong direction. Using these
Indicators allows significant freedom to explore possibilities uncovered
along the way.
9. Free Choice of Change Roles. ChangeCraft™
acknowledges the reality that employees make independent decisions about
the roles they will play in a change process. They may adapt and behave
as expected, they may act in support and argue for the change, they may
become obsessed with changing the organization, or they may make a
philosophical stand against the change. They may even ignore change
activities. People in a transforming organization often move from one of
these positions to another over time (and depending on the issue at
hand).
10. Change Agents. People serving in this role take a far more
active and operational role than do the Senior Sponsors who initiated
the process. Change Agents act on behalf of Senior Sponsors: in support
of the Charge for Change. Their authority is derived from serving
as Agents of Sponsors, not (as popular literature often indicates) as
agents of change, itself. Since Senior Sponsors must maintain an
arms-length detachment to preserve their perspective and objectivity,
they need Change Agents who dig into change activities up to their
elbows. Change Agents, in all cases, must volunteer for the
responsibility. Change Agents plan Change Initiatives, then recruit
Change Teams best fit for each job. Change Agents need not hold a
position in management (often this is a liability), but ChangeCraft™
has identified certain personal strengths and skills they must bring to
the assignment to be effective. This is a high-profile, norm-breaking
role that exposes those who play it well to real career danger.
11. The Breakdown/Breakthrough Pattern. Major leaps in
performance capacity – both personal and organizational – typically
follow performance breakdowns. While all breakdowns do not produce
breakthroughs, these periods of frustration and failure often lead to
rethinking basic assumptions and the development of entirely new
theories that transcend old barriers. The ChangeCraft™ approach
encourages – and often forces – such breakdowns in order to open the
possibility of a breakthrough.
12. Engaging Organizational – Not Just Personal – Resistance.
Individuals adapt to changes imposed on them by the environment much
more readily than organizations adapt. Organizations serve people by
structuring activities and relationships to keep them consistent and
predictable from year to year, even from generation to generation. The
sources of tenacious resistance to change are more often found in the
organization than in its members. When problems of organizational
resistance are resolved, people in the organization tend to adapt
quickly. When only individual resistance is addressed, the organization
continues to generate waves of new resistance.
13. Seeking Leverage Opportunities. ChangeCraft™
contends that all components of an organization are linked together; a
permanent and significant change in one component will cause resistance,
then adaptation, in the others. Leverage opportunities are found in
those organizational components that are most ready and able to change.
By seizing these opportunities, small investments of time and resources
often can create relatively large changes. If this
"high-leverage" change takes hold, other parts of the
organization (after offering resistance) will adapt and multiply the
return on the small investment.
14. Training Technology as a High-leverage Tool. A fresh, highly
disciplined training process offered by ChangeCraft™ can
significantly reduce the time required to learn a new skill. Since major
change always involves people learning to perform different work,
speeding up the skills development process decreases personal resistance
to change and increases the speed with which the organization can
change.
15. Managing the Pace of Change. Executives who sponsor
organizational transformations typically want the change to be
accomplished as rapidly as possible, both to limit the disruption
inherent in this process and to achieve needed positive results. In a
stable culture, accelerating the speed of change creates an
increasingly high "bow wave" of resistance that can swamp
the entire effort. The challenge is to move the change fast enough for
the momentum of initiatives to build upon one another while keeping it
slow enough that it does not produce deadly levels of resistance. ChangeCraft™
encourages vigilant management of pace, monitoring its indicators as a
good driver watches the speedometer on a car, balancing speed with
road conditions (regardless of desires for an early arrival).
16. Dealing with People as a Solution Rather Than as a Problem.
Unlike other transformation technologies, ChangeCraft™ does not
encourage a spending great deal of time and energy on predictable
individual resistance in the change process. Instead, people who are
resisting are given little or no attention, and those who are ready to
change are given a great deal. As increasing numbers of people in the
organization change the ways they do their work, others find it more
difficult it to resist the change.
17. The Personal Stages of Change. Just as organizations pass
through identifiable stages of Awakening, Transforming and Integrating,
so do the people who work in organizations. Because people change more
quickly and often have more capacity for change than organizations, it
is possible to see individuals go through this process several times
before an organizational transformation is complete. ChangeCraft™
leverages the power in these individual stages to hasten organizational
transformation.
18. Engaging the Strong Emotions of Change. Human emotion runs
hotter – at a much more intense level – during a transformation than
at any other time in an organization's life. ChangeCraft™
prepares Change Teams to deal with uncommon levels of grief, anger, joy
and fear in the people affected by their Change Initiatives. Handled
properly, these emotions can fuel further change; handled improperly,
they can compromise the entire effort.
19. Managing the Political Vulnerabilities of the Change Agent
Position. Change Agents take extraordinary career risks in
fulfilling the responsibilities of their roles. It is not uncommon for
an individual serving as Change Agent to suffer personal political
losses or even to be dismissed from the company. Though effective Senior
Sponsors do not intentionally condone this outcome for Change Agents, it
is not difficult for opponents to build an ironclad case of by-the-book
violations against an active Change Agent. Therefore, ChangeCraft™
provides special career survival training and counsel to people who work
as Change Agents.
20. Conservation of Change Capabilities in the Organization.
Organizations must undergo radical transformation because they have lost
touch with reality: they have failed to adapt incrementally to changes
in the demands made on them by external forces. ChangeCraft™
transformation projects seek not only to close the gaps between an
organization's current realities and these external demands, but also
seek to build into the renewed organization a capacity to make continual
small adaptations. By doing this, the organization may never again have
to suffer the pain and chaos of another transformation.
[ Contents ]
The abstracts below outline a dozen
advances adopted over the past decade to improve the ChangeCraft™
methodology. For operational details on our techniques, see our
paper, The ChangeCraft™ Process.
1. Integration of the Elements: Head, Heart, and Legs. This
innovation recognizes three elements that must be targeted in a major
transformation: an organization’s strategy (its "head"),
culture (its "heart") and structure (its "legs").
While ChangeCraft™ has always acknowledged these elements, it
originally offered no approach to integrate the transformation of
strategy, culture and structure. We believe that culture trumps
everything: no matter what changes a company makes in its strategy and
structure, it will revert to a form supported by – and demanded by –
its culture. On the other hand, attempts to change only the
culture are perceived as nonsense (because of detachment from the head,
or corporate strategy) and ultimately fail (if not given legs, the new
structures that allow a different culture to work). Today, ChangeCraft™
first assures a planned transformation is congruent with the
organization’s strategy and then creates a separate "change
culture" which is responsible for transforming –
piece by piece – the structures and processes that stand in the way of
transformation goals. As changes are made, the values and capabilities
of this "change culture" are built into reinvented
organizational processes so that the alternate culture will have a place
to grow. (Adapted from Corporate Culture and Performance, Kotter and
Heskett, 1992)
2. Change Process Invention Convention. Transformation literature
places great emphasis on "buy-in": gaining the commitment of
employees to adopt and implement changes proposed by management. ChangeCraft™,
with its non-hierarchical approach, works to preempt the problem of
"buy-in" by inviting employees to design a change process
appropriate for their company. After a Charge for Change is articulated
by Senior Sponsors (and with ChangeCraft™’s Culture Analysis
and Transformation Design completed and accepted), a broadly diverse
group of 2-3 dozen employees is assembled for a three-day conference to
create the organization’s change process. Prospective members of the
group are invited from throughout the organization so that the diversity
of the conference matches that of the company in every reasonable
manner; particularly, the ratio of managers and non-managers in this
group is equivalent to the company’s ratio. Members must volunteer for
this duty. The meeting is highly structured and closely coached by
veteran ChangeCraft™ practitioners. The result of this
conference is a document: the Charter for Change. This document
includes an outline of the goals, mechanics, roles and rules of the
change process they have created; it also includes a clear set of
On-Track Indicators and Off-Track Indicators by which transformation
activities can be monitored. The last phase of this conference is a
meeting with the Senior Sponsors in which a final document is negotiated
and signed by all involved. This manifesto for change is an appropriate
announcement to the company to initiate transformation activities.
3. Senior Sponsor Coaching. We have consistently found corporate
officers powerfully reluctant to submit themselves to training for their
change roles; generally, they have been even more reluctant to engage in
experiences that might transform them, personally. Though we understand
this resistance, we connect it to the fact that all our projects have
suffered – to some extent – from ineffective sponsorship. ChangeCraft™
offers – and requires – special coaching for executives who serve in
this role to give them the best chance of success and survival. We also
require a small team of Senior Sponsors (rather than a single
individual) to take responsibility for initiating and sustaining the
transformation effort; we elicit a commitment from each member of this
Senior Sponsor Team to engage a personal coach (skilled in ChangeCraft™
techniques) for the duration of the change process.
4. The Role of Employee Change Agents. Change Agents conceive –
or take responsibility for initiating – Change Initiatives: conducting
preliminary research and developing plans, recruiting appropriate teams
for implementation. Once a Change Team is recruited and developed, the
Change Agent transfers all responsibility for the initiative to the
team. In large organizations, dozens of Change Agents are needed to form
scores of small change teams. By using many, autonomous – but
commissioned – Change Agents and focusing them on small projects, the
considerable risks assumed by this role are limited. Change Agents are
able to plan an initiative for a few weeks, hand it off to a Change Team
and then blend back into the population for a rest, or begin a new
initiative. Employees who volunteer for this role receive intense
training and are certified before beginning to work as Change Agents.
These Change Agents, launching many teams over time, are the engines of
growth in a large project.
5. Self-managed Change Teams. After a Change Team is formed, it
assumes all responsibility for the Change Initiative planned by the
Change Agent; thus, the team, as a unit, effectively becomes the
Change Agent for that initiative. Change Teams must engage a certified
Team Coach. ChangeCraft™ works through small, diverse
self-managed teams of volunteers for several reasons. If a single leader
or manager is responsible for the initiative, traditional management
techniques and styles are inevitably employed; the important issues
become control, consistency and predictability, stifling the exploration
required for transformation. Leadership responsibility is vested in this
small, diverse, well-chosen group of volunteers rather than in one
person. Decisions about the Change Initiative are made by consensus of
the entire group to assure the minority – or unusual – point of view
is empowered. Teams receive special training and on-going team coaching
in collaborative group process, the use of conflict, project management,
and basic ChangeCraft™ techniques.
6. A License to Change. Legitimately constituted Change Teams –
those with an initiative planned by an Agent and with a certified Team
Coach – are pre-authorized by the Sr. Sponsors to actually
implement changes that fall within certain parameters (usually
established by the Charge for Change). By issuing such blanket authority
to any team that may be formed, Change Teams are truly empowered small
groups that have the clout to transform the company; they are not merely
committees that make recommendations or ask permission. Anyone in the
company may challenge the legitimacy of a Change Team’s license and
the Change Team must thoughtfully respond to the challenge. In the end,
the team, itself, decides about the legitimacy of its license. Only a
Sr. Sponsor can revoke the license of a Change Team.
7. Prescriptive Transformation Values. Based on analysis of the
organization’s culture – and focusing on new behavior patterns
needed to pursue a new corporate strategy – ChangeCraft™
defines a handful of unconventional values prior to formation of the
first Change Team. Adherence to these values creates a pattern of
behavior that is distinctly counter-cultural. Team Coaches make a
critically important contribution to organizational transformation by
holding the people working on Change Teams accountable to these values.
To be effective, the values must not only create appropriate
counter-cultural behaviors, they must also be acceptable – even
attractive – on their face while, at the same time, paradoxically and
maddeningly difficult to live up to in practice. The result of working
according to this new "code" must be far more personally
gratifying than living according to old culture rules. It is through
these prescriptive values that a new, appropriate culture takes root in
the people of the organization.
8. An Independent Team Coaching Process. Though self-managed
teams are the most effective structure to implement major change,
employees of large, stable hierarchies seem to find such teaming an
unnatural act. In our experience, Change Teams tend either to devolve
into miniature hierarchies reflecting the company’s management
traditions, or to fall apart. We require each Change Team to appoint a
certified Team Coach to give it a fighting chance at life and success.
This Team Coach accepts responsibility for assuring that the team stays
focused on its mission, the skills of team members continue to improve,
the team continues to develop its own effectiveness and the team is
effectively applying ChangeCraft™ techniques. Coaches are free
to resign from their duties with a team just as the team is free to
dismiss its Coach. Coaches receive training and earn certification in
this role.
Because Change Team Coaches accept no responsibility for a Change
Team’s accomplishment of its goals, they must operate free from the
organization’s normal performance management systems. In the best
case, certified Coaches work as an independent team among themselves to
develop rules of operation for Team Coaches, to establish standards for
coaching performance, to provide peer review and to certify new Team
Coaches.
Change Team Coaches perform an additional duty on behalf of the
overall transformation project: they assure that Change Teams operate
within the Prescriptive Transformation Values. By doing this, the Change
Team experience is one of working in an alternative culture: more
attractive and fulfilling than the employee’s normal work life. The
alternative culture is embodied and transmitted by Change Team Coaches;
they are the vector for Culture Change.
9. The Exception Process. Traditional corporate cultures value
harmony and agreement; they typically suppress and even punish people
who are seen as contentious or argumentative. To create a flow of
original ideas, to spark innovation and to generate consensus, the Exception
Process stimulates conflict – or contention – and facilitates
innovative collaboration in groups. After an individual (or a team)
takes a position, people in the larger group are asked to voice any
"exceptions" they take to the position. To take exception, one
must state the specific point of disagreement. Next in the process, the
person who took the initial position asks, "How would I have to
change my statement to gain your acceptance?" The "exceptor"
must then do all the work of changing the statement so that it is
acceptable. Thus, the burden of creating consensus shifts to the person
who took exception to the statement. The one who took the initial
position is challenged to include the points of those who made
exceptions while still maintaining the integrity of the original point.
In groups that have decided to act only with consensus, everyone is
motivated to find a way to include all positions.
10. Role of Outside Change Agents. Skilled Change Agents from
outside the organization can bring the technology to build an effective
transformation infrastructure. Just as important, they bring a fresh
perspective that – in the beginning – is free from influences of the
culture to be changed. With this technology and perspective, outside
Change Agents can train and coach the organization’s employees to
implement a transformation. While the technology can be transferred
fairly quickly, care must be taken to assure that the insiders who learn
it are given the opportunity to practice for a while with an experienced
"coach" to back them up. (ChangeCraft™ Corporation
recruits as practitioners people who have worked in these roles inside
companies undergoing transformation.) Over time, outside Change Agents
working closely with a transformation project lose their outsider’s
perspective; when this happens, they must be replaced. Therefore,
outside Change Agents must tenaciously sustain an independence from the
organization in order to maintain their value. One result of this is
that they consistently violate the organization’s cultural rules,
making insiders uncomfortable. In the end, nearly all outside Change
Agents are dismissed: either for failing to adapt to the culture (and
being a pain in the neck) or for adapting to the culture (and losing
their valuable perspective).
[ Contents ]
Manufacturing. After over a hundred years of functioning as an
internal supplier to its parent, a manufacturing organization was
divested, and had to develop new customers in a highly competitive
worldwide marketplace. It adopted a new strategy to make itself
"admired, desired and required" by its customers. This was a
transformational direction because the company had always functioned as a
monopoly with frank hostility toward its "internal customers."
Organizationally, it was extremely hierarchical and paternalistic; it was
deaf to the ideas of its employees, discounting their creativity and
initiative; it was pathologically secretive, using closely held
information as a weapon; and it threatened dire lifetime consequences for
non-conformity, surprises or failures.
ChangeCraft ™ implemented these Prescriptive Transformation
Values within Change Teams:
- Each person is essential to the team and to its work.
- Individuals are responsible for the group,
and the group is responsible for the individual.
- The minority voice counts.
- Information is free to all.
- Questions are as important as answers.
- Failures and breakdowns are essential for breakthrough.
Customer Service. A "customer service" organization was
designed and structured as an operation to police independent
distributors; it would take complaint calls from customers and code each
complaint so that distributors could be appropriately penalized. It would
then pass on the complaint to the distributor for further action, leaving
the complaining customer waiting to see how the distributor responded. As
a result, this organization generated and maintained strongly adversarial
relationships with both the distributors and with the customers (who
appropriately felt they were not being served during their call). The
organization, over its fifty-year history, had developed a pattern of
implementing innovative changes and solutions to problems very quickly,
predictably creating webs of new problems with its hasty solutions.
The operation staffed itself with part-time customer service reps who
underwent three weeks of training (learning more than 300 different codes
for customer complaints), but new hires stayed in the job only a median of
three months; turnover in this position was 187% annually.
ChangeCraft ™ implemented these prescriptive values within the
Change Teams of this customer service organization:
- People are our partners. We’re on their side.
- Get the story. Check the story. Tell the story.
- ThenK. (Then what? Then what?)
- Finish. Early.
- I can change the world. You’re essential.
[ Contents ] [
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