You see, we didn’t have a ‘change or die’ scenario that is the nub of what those in the know term a burning platform. We’re a 150 year-old manufacturer of pharmaceutical packaging and in the secure position with upstream drugs giants.
Despite that, we don’t want to rest on our laurels and the senior team were eager to begin an improvement initiative targeting gains in delivery scores and cost per unit. The goal was a more profitable and sustainable business. We had a lean consultant in who advocated finding a burning platform to accelerate our chances of success.
Without a fire in sight, we decided to light our own. The senior managers agreed to embellish the impact of external market forces. We drew up a scenario where one of our key customers was threatening to terminate a crucial contract unless we improved OTIF delivery and reduced unit cost. This was not a total fantasy; they had put us under pressure.
The next week we broke the news in an impromptu employee meeting in the factory canteen. We tasked them with the agreed improvements and plans to check progress at daily morning meetings.
Strangely enough the place was buzzing: people left with a spring in their step and a glint in their eye. There was a mood of defiance and it shone through in record breaking production figures.
And then disaster struck. A warehouse manager has a friend working at our fictional bullyboy supplier. He berated his pal in the pub and after much shrugging of shoulders, the truth came out. Cue an angry warehouse manager marching into my office on Monday calling for the leadership team’s heads. We managed to calm him down but the truth will out is in a small factory.
Where do we go from here? I know we have shouldn’t have told that little white lie but without it we don’t think we’d get the results. Will success go up in smoke when people realise the burning platform is artificial?
Response
Mal Read, Principal, Suiko
To answer the question bluntly, my response is ‘yes’. Truth and transparency is everything, so without a doubt you run the risk of jeopardising success if you continue down this course. There is real danger in applying steps of change management without understanding them or following an orderly process.
My preferred model is the ‘Kotter 8 step’ described in the ‘iceberg is melting’ fable. The first step talks about burning platforms, however it does not prescribe fabricating one. The first step in the Kotter model suggests ‘creating a sense of urgency’ or the need for change. A negative need or ‘burning platform’ alone is never enough, and should be balanced with a positive outcome. The most important outcome is for the management team to provide a consistent message.
It is encouraging that your company attempted to complete step one of the model. Most companies miss steps 1, 2 and 3 – and head straight to step 4 ‘communicate the plan’. It appears that your organisation missed steps 2 and 3. It is necessary to understand steps 2 and 3 to understand how your organisation found itself in the predicament described:
- Step 2 - Gather a guiding team:
- Step 3 – Create a future vision
Change will only be successful if you have the necessary skills in the team. In my view, the ability to create, challenge, communicate and influence are as important as the technical skills of management, finance, production etc. There can be only two explanations of why a ‘guiding team’ was not established here. Firstly the step was simply missed as the management team thought they were the guiding team, or secondly the key players were not engaged. This can only mean the need for change was not strong enough. In other words step two cannot be completed effectively if step one is not completed well.
I would start by asking the question, what does the new state look like? Imagine your perfect holiday and ask yourself what you can see; perhaps a beach, deck chairs, cocktails? Now ask yourself what you are doing here? Are you eating, dancing, swimming or doing nothing? Finally ask yourself what did you do to get here? Did you save money, surf the internet for good deals, book flights and accommodation, exchange money etc. Now apply the same thinking to your business environment. It’s likely that this will be much more difficult to do in a real situation.
Only when steps 1, 2 and 3 are completed should you go ahead and communicate the plan. This requires thought in how the communication should take place in order to obtain maximum buy-in. Who is the audience, what are the key messages, what do we expect them to remember. Clearly a one off sheep dip approach will fail, where as a more structured, regular multi-media approach is far more likely to succeed.
