Causes of Failure for Change Drivers within the Business Infrastructure

You are all excited about the results and business improvements you are going to achieve as you implement your first process change or embark on the development of a new market.  As you move down the road things do not seem to be happening the way you thought they would.  What went wrong? 

To avoid the bumps - opportunities for failure - you need to know what to watch out for and when to take action.  There are five major reasons that Change Drivers fail due to the business infrastructure.  Please look at these areas carefully because they will be some of the most difficult obstacles to overcome on your road to Leadership and Lean Practices!  They must be dealt with head-on and may require a change in your business culture, procedures, IT, and information dissemination, etc.  Look at how these areas will affect the possible outcome of your Change Process or Organizational Innovation Process.

Remember:  Failure is not an option!

Failure could mean the loss of your competitive edge, revenue losses, etc.  It must be avoided and the only way to avoid it is with an open, enlightened environment of collaborative personnel at all levels.

In today's 21st Century Organization knowledge is a valued commodity.  Knowledge is something you must retain and manage.  We will speak in more detail about knowledge management in future posts. Every organization has a vast amount of knowledge about their processes, products, and customers.  Keep that in mind as you look at the five most common reasons for failure for Change Drivers within the business infrastructure: (O'Sullivan, 2002)

1. Poor knowledge management (of people, processes, products, customers)
2. Poor organization of company infrastructure
3. Poor communication within the company in general
4. Poor empowerment of individuals to do the job
5. Poor leadership of the change and the company, division, unit, etc.

See also:
- Drivers for Organizational Innovation
- Causes of failure for Change Drivers within the Change Driver Process
- Example of a corporate Quality issue and suggested leadership approach

Causes of Failure within the Change Driver Process

On your road to Leadership and the implementation of Lean practices leading to the implementation of process changes there can be many bumps in the road.  The objective is to miss as many of these bumps or opportunities for failure as possible. Aside from the possible reasons for failure in the businesses' cultural infrastructure there are a number of reasons for the effort to fail due to causes within the process change itself.

Leading change is not a casual project - it can be costly in time, money, and even competitive advantage.  The desired business change must be carefully managed to result in a successful outcome. 

Remember: Failure is not an option!

In general, there are five common causes for failure.  These are obvious once you know them - but did you consider them before you jumped into your process changes?  Are you prepared to invest the necessary talent and time to ensure success and avoid the five things?

When you look at the five items below you will note their similarity to failures on any Project.  Think about large capital projects or the implementation of new management procedures, etc.  The five most common causes of failure within the Change Driver Process are:

1. Poor scope or goal definition for the process change
2. Poor definition of actions and their alignment to the stated goal(s)
3. Poor (or wrong) participation in the teams to accomplish the goal
4. Poor performance indicator monitoring of the results achieved
5. Poor communication of, and access to, the necessary information to accomplish the goal

See also:
- Drivers for Organizational Innovation
- Causes of failure for Change Drivers within the business infrastructure
- Example of a corporate Quality issue and suggested leadership approach

Change Drivers for Organizational Innovation

Every division, department, or organization in the 21st Century Company(TM) must undertake programs to maintain its competitive advantage or to meet other corporate objectives.  In today's business climate these programs may be focused on environmental stewardship, quality issues, costs, etc.  In general, there are 10 major Drivers of Change.  Of course, all of these items have been around for years - this is not something new!  These are not things that companies have never heard about.  I believe the main emphasis must be that these Drivers are constantly evaluated and a systematic approach be undertaken to ensure results are achieved when any one of them is undertaken.  A key skill to success is Project Management with Leadership skills.

Process change programs undertaken by companies can be distilled down into Ten Drivers of Change(TM):

1. Reduced environmental damage
2. Reducing energy usage
3. Conformance to government regulations
4. Developing new markets
5. Reduction in raw material usage
6. Improving manufacturing processes
7. Expanding a product line
8. Replacing products or services
9. Providing higher quality products and services
10. Minimizing labor costs

These ten can be sub-divided into many other more specific items.  There are others including financial areas, construction, etc.  However, these are the most often undertaken. 

With any program there are many opportunities to fail. You MUST understand the reasons many programs fail if you hope to succeed.  Some of the reasons may require significant cultural or process changes within your business if you hope to succeed at any of the listed Drivers above. Some of these reasons for failure will be presented in other blog posts.

See also:
- Causes of failure within the Change Driver Process
- Causes of failure for Change Drivers within the business infrastructure
- Example of a corporate Quality issue and suggested leadership approach

The 10 Customer Facing Characteristics of 21st Century Businesses

The 10 Customer Facing Characteristics of 21st Century Businesses*

1. Highly trained work force - focused on continuous learning to quickly respond to customer needs
2. Knowledgeable sales people who understand the customer's business
3. Lean manufacturing programs to produce high quality products at competitive prices
4. Leaders focused on leading, coaching, and praising to ensure a customer-centric business
5. Managers focused on ensuring the business goals are met so customer expectations can be met
6. Employees empowered to make informed decisions that lead to customer satisfaction
7. Vision, Mission, Objectives, and Goals aligned to meet customer requirements
8. An enlightened, diverse work environment with personnel representing all generations to better understand the wide variety of customer types and expectations.
9. Business principals based on sustainable qualities that meet all stakeholder expectations equally to ensure the business is there to serve it's customers, not the expectations of outside investors looking for short term gains.
10. Long term thinking led by senior management that maintains a close relationship with key customer personnel.

Throughout this blog are ideas and tools to help you become more competitive, cost effective, and focused. Please post your comments and ideas - and please subscribe to receive the latest posts and so that I will know there is interest in additional posts.  Thanks for your support.
* Trade Mark of Hibbard Associates LLC

Where do I Start? THIRD of Series

What do I NEED to consider? Kind of a basic question with lots of possible answers.  You need to know what you need to know to accomplish whatever task you have defined that you want to complete.  Therefore at each stage of your journey to your organization's Vision you will have to obtain the necessary skills and knowledge to accomplish the task.  You may wish to learn the knowledge for yourself, buy the knowledge, or utilize the knowledge your team has.  Normally it will be a combination of all three.

The knowledge, skills, and tools needed to realize your Vision will be a composite of past experience, current skills, and future learning events.  Take an assessment of your own skills, your team's skills, tools you own or can acquire to determine your "knowledge state" and compare those with what is thought to be needed.

Some of the basic 'need-to-know' are shown below and can be found on various posts on this blog.  Check out the page tabs for quick links to them.

NEED TO KNOW:

1. Your personal style - are you a Manager or a Leader?
2. What task(s) are to be accomplished.
3. Key business strategy factors.
4. What you do not know.
5. Why am I doing this?
6. Who knows what, in your organization.
7. Who can help.
8. Do you plan to go it alone or with consultants.
9. What's in it for me.
10. Can we afford it.
11. What knowledge needs to be purchased.
12. What tools to consider.
13. Is the organization and leadership committed.
14. How do you enlist support.
15. Where to obtain the knowledge and tools needed.

See also:

Where do I Start?  FIRST
Where do I Start?  SECOND

Competitive Advantages - What? How? Knowing?

Sharpen your pencils - everyone has one or more competitive advantages.  Businesses, departments, private organizations and any host of other entities have (or should have) some competitive advantage.  If you do not have one or any you better come up with some!  You generally need more than one.  You must be constantly looking for your 'killer-app'.  Even if you are in a commodity market you want to have some differentiator(s).

What are some differentiators?

1. We have all live (verses dead or robo) phone operators.
2. Six distribution centers across the country verses three for the competition.
3. Triple redundancy for power supplies at our co-lo facility verses two.
4. All personnel are Microsoft certified in each of our service offerings.
5. We serve only fresh beef, produce, etc.
6. Our factory is in full compliance with Six Sigma standards.
7. We are ISO certified.
8. Each of our doctors has done post-graduate work at the Mayo Clinic.
9. We offer the product in ten colors.
10. Each of our recruiters is focused on a specific industry and skill set.
11. My hand-to-eye coordination rate is in the top one hundredths percent in the world.
12. Our food servers have more than 30 hours of customer service training.
13. etc.

How do I determine what mine or our competitive advantages are?

You could start with a SWOT analysis.  A focus team and BRAINSTORMING session will be very useful.  You should have a cross-functional team if you are looking at a business area, product, delivery, etc.  Look to have at least sales, marketing, production, quality, training, service, and even financial on the team.  It can be amazing what types of advantages can be discovered and then exploited as a result of these team efforts.

Knowing your real competitive advantages is critical?

Things like more sales personnel may or may not be an advantage, for example.  True competitive advantages must be sought out on an on-going basis.  Once you know your advantages you must take action to make them tangible to your clients and customers. In other words you must act upon them.  Build on your strengths.  Build products or services based on these advantages - in that way your competitors are at a disadvantage. It is always good to keep in mind that your competition has competitive advantages too - how do you circumvent them?