Organisational Learning

Organisational Change

Communications In Action is dedicated to helping you create change through organisational learning.

Change is simply what happens when you notice something is different. Many organisations create change as if it exists in itself - it does not. Change does not exist, it is merely an interference pattern.

If you hold two tuning forks of slightly different pitches together, you'll hear a regular 'beat'. You can try this yourself with a colleague. In a small room such as a lift or kitchen, each hum a very slightly different note. When one of you varies the pitch of the note, you hear the frequency of the beat change as you alter the gap between your notes.

You can see the same effect with light. In the diagram below, the blue and purple light beams have slightly different frequencies, as shown by the number of bands. When they meet, this difference is perceived by our eyes as blocks or bands of colour in the centre row of the diagram.

Change is therefore a trick of the way that we perceive difference over time. Some changes we notice, others we don't.

People and organisations have a rhythm too. When two different rhythms come together - during partnership, merger or acquisition, we notice the changes as interference patterns. That's all they are.

What does this mean for organisational change? It means that the noise and fuss that accompanies change is just a by product of the process of natural evolution. It is not the change itself. Change projects do not manage change - they just draw attention to it.

Every organisation changes every day, if you choose to notice what changes. Organisations that have changed radically have not changed at all, if you choose to notice what is the same. We often see this when organisations embark on major "culture change" programs, only to retain all of the bad things they had before. Other organisations survive for decades by constantly reinventing themselves, yet retaining their core guiding principles and branding.

Change is a function of our perception, it does not exist as an entity in itself.

There's a model of the impact of change which looks something like this:

The model is interesting in that it is based on the idea that all people will go through this emotional rollercoaster when presented with change. You might go through slower or faster, or the range of emotions may be greater or lesser. Nevertheless, you will, apparently, go through this and at some point emerge on the other side.

Existing, traditional, complicated change models and methodologies work on the basis of minimising the impact of change.

What would it be like if change never happened?

What would it be like if your business just evolved continuously, exploiting new strengths and letting old weaknesses go?

What would it be like if your business was always one step ahead, instead of spending so much time trying to be ten steps ahead that you can't tell which direction you're heading in?

Our work is based on a simple premise - that's there's nothing inherently "wrong" with your organisation. A traditional management consultancy approach would be to start by looking for problems. Sure enough, problems would be found and solutions applied. The problem with that approach is that people who look for problems find symtoms. They look for causes, to analyse why the problem exists.

We are not at all concerned with why the problem exists. In fact, we start by presuming that there isn't really a problem at all. if the organisation is trading, it must be working well. Any "problems" are in fact the symptoms of success. We concentrate on what is working well in the organisation. Organisations tend to solve their own problems when three criteria are met:

People are aware of the problem
People are motivated to solve the problem
People have the resources to solve the problem

Consider this simple example - you go to the fridge and find there's no milk. Is that a major problem? What would it be like if the people in your organisation solved all their problems as easily as you can go to the corner shop for milk? Well, the good news is that they already do! You don't tell the world that you just bought some milk, so the people in your organisation don't tell the world when they naturally solve even big, complex problems. They only tell you about it when something draws your attention to the difference over time.

There was a wonderful illustration of this on TV recently, in a program where CEOs are sent back to the factory floor for a week. A team of bakers in a bread factory solved a number of potentially show-stopping problems during the course of one shift. No-one noticed, no-one mentioned it and worse of all, the CEO didn't seem to notice the significance, even though he was working with them. A mixing machine broke down, and the bakers knew the dough would be ruined if they didn't do something. They took the dough and mixed it by hand. A packing machine had a fault that meant it jammed and production had to stop every few minutes. The team solved it by sticking a bit of cardboard over the gap in the conveyor belt. The maintenance crews were ineffective, the managers were nowhere to be seen and still the factory produced bread because the people on the shop floor fixed problems as they arose, worked effectively as a team and as individuals, aligned with a common purpose.

Contrast this with the scene when the CEO had his first meeting with the factory managers. They admitted to knowing about some problems such as the fact that the packaging machine was set up wrong (hence the need for the cardboard). They lied about other problems. They offered to set up a working group to look at using a redundant packing machine at peak times, and they offered to "pick up the pace" on a number of other production problems. They were competetive, narrow minded, short sighted and seemed to see their job as hiding bad news from the boss.

The production team's ability to solve problems as they arose is a perfect illustraiton of the three simple problem solving criteria listed above. All they needed was to be left alone to get on with their jobs.

The solution, the motivation and the resources all lie within the organisation already - all that is required is a catalyst to bring the pieces together and start the process.