Hostess officially announced they are shutting their doors. There is a crisis looming in the software world. How will the coders we feed pizza, Twinkies, Coke and energy drinks survive? They will now have an unbalanced diet. What's a software Project Manager to do?. For that matter, what will we do while watching football, baseball, or have for that afternoon pick-me-up? I'm going to miss my Twinkie, Ding-Dong, and Ho-Ho's. I really do love frozen Ding-Dongs in the summer. Chocolate, cold and tasty, what's not to like? But it's true the Hostess company is calling it quits after roughly one hundred years of existence.
The recent changes in culinary tastes have been the final nails in a coffin housing a continental baking giant of our culture. All because they failed to meet the market demand. They failed largely, because they failed incrementally, in small ways, hardly noticeable to those in the company, much like the frog being boiled alive in a warm pot of water. It feels so good, until it's too late.
I have attached a link to the AP article by J. M. Hirsch, one of their food editors and I suggest you take a few minutes to be cajoled and entertained while being informed. But the issue here really isn't that I won't be able to get the gut-busting calorie-charged Twinkie, it's that a perfectly good company will go out of existence, throwing 18,500 folks out of jobs, all because, a few knuckle-headed owners, managers and labor leaders were blissful frogs in a warm pot of change. I'm not here to lay blame and any single set of feet, all have some responsibility to bear in this debacle.
Chaos in markets is a bear. It is messy, confusing, hard to think about and even can make your head hurt. But that is no excuse for those in the wheelhouse of Ownership to to quit thinking and just give in. This isn't something that just happened. Hostess brands have been steadily declining over the past five years, but looking at the brand and products released in the past few years, does nothing to inspire confidence. No real change in Hostess or Wonder white bread for the past 20 years. No image makeover to bring the hearty full grain goodness to Hostess brands, anywhere. The image of a highly processed food products company, never responding to the changing perceptions of new mothers and fathers concerned about gluten intake, high fructose corn products and industrial dyes being ingested by their little darlings.
Why no change? I'm not sure. I haven't been invited to look at the insides of Hostess, but by outward appearance they were stuck on digging a hole with a "Stupid Stick" as a friend of mine so eloquently puts it. They just kept on digging, without knowing why or when it was time to stop. They knew how to dig, it was comfortable, it had worked in the past, why not now? They hadn't noticed that the stuff they were digging in had changed from easy loam to hard rock. They continued to use shovels when they needed air hammers or a little blasting powder.
So if you find yourself digging and it seems you are working much harder than before, maybe it's time to put down the " Stupid Stick" you have in your hand, crawl out of your comfortable hole and look around. You might find you are digging in the wrong hole. You might find you will need new tools to dig your new hole. (That is if your business is digging holes.) The important thing is to interrupt what you are doing and look around, look hard and long and see if there is something you need to change, then leave the old behind and embrace the new and move ahead.
Do it together. No single person can survive in this mad, mad, mad world we live in today. One final reminder, 'Collaboration is the Glue of Success."
This is a continuing series of articles on the current change and chaos our business work world is experiencing. How we can navigate the treacherous waters and succeed when we are observant, open minded and innovative.
Showing posts with label chaos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chaos. Show all posts
11.14.2012
Chaos & Change - Part 5 -HR. Part of the problem...
I admit it. I have a permanent negative bias for HR departments. They should be part of the solution, but they aren't. They are controlling where they need to be open. They are obstructionists where they should be enabling. They are restrictive where they should be expansive.
This post is one of a continuing series on the factors I see contributing to the debilitating chaos and waste in our working lives, no matter if in the private, public or non-profit worlds. Waste is a terrible thing to endure. If our organizations are to be effective in the 21st century, pervasive change needs to occur. For the start of the series see "Part 1-Chaos and Failure are Brothers" and continue through the series. I think you will find something which hits home for you and your organization. At that point it is up to you to start affecting the change needed in your world-take responsibility, move ahead.
In a recent blog post by Mike Cook entitled, "Is SHRM Fiddling While HR Goes Down in Flames?" he asks some really good questions about the current mindset of HR departments.
The chaos they contribute to an organization adds to the "Stupid Index" (my interpretation) of their companies they are supposed to be serving. Instead of contributing, they are distracting and compartmentalizing the efforts of their constituents they are called to serve. If I sound like I'm on a ran, I guess I am. I loathe the continued waste on the scale HR groups usually contribute to a company, when they could be a strategic contributor, rather than a tactical obstacle. Apparently those who know this subject much better than I and have recently reported their findings which supports the real life experiences I've had with HR groups. Both the Boston Consulting group and McKinsey are respected companies who measure their findings and support their positions with hard research.
When they find little or no change in HR departments over the past five years in meeting the changing market conditions of the organizations they supposedly serve, it supports the continuing mountain of evidence building that today's organizations are in dire need to shed old and ineffective action and thinking and replace it with more agile and responsive organizations. Permanent Change Management is needed, now.
My thanks to Mike for writing such a revealing and on point post. Hopefully, some CEOs and HR directors will awaken to the burning timbers around them, get the fire out and rebuild a new house which is really a responsive representative of their constituent stakeholders.
This is a continuing series of articles as a Connection about Chaos and Change Management in the workplace. Other ideas here include Lean, Agile and Management 2.0 management theory as applied to complex or wicked problems.
This post is one of a continuing series on the factors I see contributing to the debilitating chaos and waste in our working lives, no matter if in the private, public or non-profit worlds. Waste is a terrible thing to endure. If our organizations are to be effective in the 21st century, pervasive change needs to occur. For the start of the series see "Part 1-Chaos and Failure are Brothers" and continue through the series. I think you will find something which hits home for you and your organization. At that point it is up to you to start affecting the change needed in your world-take responsibility, move ahead.
In a recent blog post by Mike Cook entitled, "Is SHRM Fiddling While HR Goes Down in Flames?" he asks some really good questions about the current mindset of HR departments.
"In the course of my work I have many occasions to address local gatherings of HR professionals and am confounded by the lack of urgency I see towards the development of what seems to me the number one issue facing organizations, significantly improved capabilities in the acquisition, development and retention of the necessary talent for the business they are a part of."I agree wholeheartedly with Mike. What is going on with HR in general? Have they been asleep in their little cocoons for the last 5 years? Have they even seen the transformations taking place in their companies which reward exploration, innovation and multidisciplinary involvement? Apparently not. While their house is burning, they continue to fiddle the tunes of the 1990's and have seemingly missed the 21st century transformations since 2006.
The chaos they contribute to an organization adds to the "Stupid Index" (my interpretation) of their companies they are supposed to be serving. Instead of contributing, they are distracting and compartmentalizing the efforts of their constituents they are called to serve. If I sound like I'm on a ran, I guess I am. I loathe the continued waste on the scale HR groups usually contribute to a company, when they could be a strategic contributor, rather than a tactical obstacle. Apparently those who know this subject much better than I and have recently reported their findings which supports the real life experiences I've had with HR groups. Both the Boston Consulting group and McKinsey are respected companies who measure their findings and support their positions with hard research.
When they find little or no change in HR departments over the past five years in meeting the changing market conditions of the organizations they supposedly serve, it supports the continuing mountain of evidence building that today's organizations are in dire need to shed old and ineffective action and thinking and replace it with more agile and responsive organizations. Permanent Change Management is needed, now.
My thanks to Mike for writing such a revealing and on point post. Hopefully, some CEOs and HR directors will awaken to the burning timbers around them, get the fire out and rebuild a new house which is really a responsive representative of their constituent stakeholders.
This is a continuing series of articles as a Connection about Chaos and Change Management in the workplace. Other ideas here include Lean, Agile and Management 2.0 management theory as applied to complex or wicked problems.
10.23.2012
Chaos and Misdirection - Part 4 - A Classic Case of Missed Opprotunities
This is the forth part in a continuing series about missed business opportunities inside businesses which create points of failure and loss of value. In this article I highlight a trend inside companies where one part of the company should be engaged and responsible with a key component of the company's success and for any number of reasons they aren't. Use the links here to read parts one, two and three.
Chris Murphy, Editor for InformationWeek magazine has a recent blog post entitled, "Will CMOs Outspend CIOs?" For those of you not in the know, CMO is Chief Marketing Officer. Just another alphabet soup entry in the seemingly never-ending stream. The important take away from Chris' article is that Information Technology has largely taken to a bunker mentality and has stopped being the R&D arm needed for strategic decisions in a flexible corporate organization. Here is a classic case of created silos of operation hindering real growth and innovation in any organization. Here's what I think is the crucial take-away of Chris' article.
Chris Murphy, Editor for InformationWeek magazine has a recent blog post entitled, "Will CMOs Outspend CIOs?" For those of you not in the know, CMO is Chief Marketing Officer. Just another alphabet soup entry in the seemingly never-ending stream. The important take away from Chris' article is that Information Technology has largely taken to a bunker mentality and has stopped being the R&D arm needed for strategic decisions in a flexible corporate organization. Here is a classic case of created silos of operation hindering real growth and innovation in any organization. Here's what I think is the crucial take-away of Chris' article.
10.10.2012
Why Projects Fail So Often?
I must give Marc J. Schiller some credit. His article
appearing in CIO Insight July 2012 "Why IT Stakeholder Management
Fails: Blame Mindset Mismatches" was one of the key drivers to rewrite
the content in more general terms and apply it to other domains.
The Stakeholder and Consultant / Designer / Problem
Solver:
Why Projects Fail So Often.
Fact: Stakeholders perceptions govern the
real possibility of any project's success.
Fact: A lot of time is spent managing the expectations and behaviors of stakeholders.
Fact: The absence or mishandling of stakeholders, their expectations and desires results in loss of credibility for project leadership.
What's a project leader to do?
Blame someone else, anybody else, stakeholders, team members, management, the contract ... anything, anyone.
change management.
So get over yourself. Remember why you got the engagement in the first place and only focus on what is going to produce benefit or value for your client.
Mindset Conflict #2: Results Always Trump Process
Complex problems are always tangled with processes. After all you wouldn't even be talking to this client if the issues were simple. Often these engagements have processes where Some of them don't work, others don't produce any real value or usable result and other processes aren't even included. What's a PM to do? Clients want you to take ownership of a project. Even when you spare them the gory details (Conflich #1), they still just want results without much, if any work from their group.
So how do you get results which will matter? How do you get the stakeholders out of their silos? Can they even tell you what you need to know to produce the results they think they want. The real issue here is who is going to own the results, you or the stakeholders? If the stakeholders are going to own the results, how do you get them engaged? The typical stakeholder response of , "I don't care how you do it, just make it happen." doesn't help, but creates a chasm of distrust and sets up everyone for a guaranteed failure.
Mindset Conflict #3: When you think the project is almost finished, the stakeholders are just waking up.
The project is in the home stretch. You kept everyone aware, informed and you think engaged. The new change is about to be rolled out. Systems will go live in a couple of days, The training seemed to be a success, and people are getting excited about your work. But you hear some scuttlebutt from some the trainers that something didn't seem to go so well with some of the modules. Your phone is ringing and a department head is asking you, "What were you thinking? You are telling my people they have to change the whole workflow of their day. This just won't work for us at all. What are you going to do about this?"
Fact: Stakeholders perceptions govern the
real possibility of any project's success.Fact: A lot of time is spent managing the expectations and behaviors of stakeholders.
Fact: The absence or mishandling of stakeholders, their expectations and desires results in loss of credibility for project leadership.
What's a project leader to do?
Blame someone else, anybody else, stakeholders, team members, management, the contract ... anything, anyone.
Failure: Is There A Conflict of the Minds?
Blaming others is a convenient response, but it seldom yields much benefit. Why not look at the problem from a different perspective? Just why do people think the way they do? iIt isn't that different people think incorrectly so much as they have a different perspective and that leads them to interpret what the see and hear differently than you do. So, it's no surprise the misunderstandings we all encounter are so prevalent and why so much time and space is taken up thinking about stakeholder management, or in other contexts,change management.
Mindset Conflict #1: "This is
My world and How You fit in."
So many times the
professional problem solver wants the object of their work to
understand something of their world and how it works. Unfortunately,
your client could care less. They don't want to understand who you are
and how you work, they want you to understand them and how they work.
Your challenges don't mean much to them, but their challenges are the
soup of confusion of their lives. They want the confusion to go away.
You are supposed to be there to make that happen. The last thing they
want is to have to learn something else, their brains are already
bursting. So get over yourself. Remember why you got the engagement in the first place and only focus on what is going to produce benefit or value for your client.
Mindset Conflict #2: Results Always Trump Process
Complex problems are always tangled with processes. After all you wouldn't even be talking to this client if the issues were simple. Often these engagements have processes where Some of them don't work, others don't produce any real value or usable result and other processes aren't even included. What's a PM to do? Clients want you to take ownership of a project. Even when you spare them the gory details (Conflich #1), they still just want results without much, if any work from their group.
So how do you get results which will matter? How do you get the stakeholders out of their silos? Can they even tell you what you need to know to produce the results they think they want. The real issue here is who is going to own the results, you or the stakeholders? If the stakeholders are going to own the results, how do you get them engaged? The typical stakeholder response of , "I don't care how you do it, just make it happen." doesn't help, but creates a chasm of distrust and sets up everyone for a guaranteed failure.
Mindset Conflict #3: When you think the project is almost finished, the stakeholders are just waking up.
The project is in the home stretch. You kept everyone aware, informed and you think engaged. The new change is about to be rolled out. Systems will go live in a couple of days, The training seemed to be a success, and people are getting excited about your work. But you hear some scuttlebutt from some the trainers that something didn't seem to go so well with some of the modules. Your phone is ringing and a department head is asking you, "What were you thinking? You are telling my people they have to change the whole workflow of their day. This just won't work for us at all. What are you going to do about this?"
You know they signed
off at every major milestone, they even gave you great rating on your
training. What's wrong? How did this get so out of control?
All that certainly happened, but once again your perception and theirs didn't match. For the stakeholders, this was just a 'dry run' not the real thing. Something to look at. Finally, on the last days a few people wake up and understand what you are training them on isn't a probable solution, but THE SOLUTION. And in their eyes, it just isn't right, no not at all.
Up until the very end they were only paying attention with about 50 percent of their awareness. You thought they were really engaged, after all they did ask pretty good questions which you accommodated in the final product. What went wrong?
Meanwhile your production teams are getting ready to pop champagne corks. They met their budgets and timelines, it's time to celebrate. Another mismatched expectation. You are really between a rock and a hard place between the stakeholders and the work producers.
Does this sound familiar? Unfortunately, this is the reality for about 70 percent of change initiatives. Despite the best intentions, focused communication, thorough training and intended stakeholder management, the results are a disaster and your credibility, your champion's credibility and even the executive suite's credibility are all called into question. Recovery from these situations is almost impossible if this is an internal corporate effort. Someone's going to suffer the consequences, the only question is who will be the survivors?
In the next column, we will look at what you can do to address these three root issues of stakeholder management when seeking a big change.
This is a continuing series of articles as a Connection about Chaos and Change Management in the workplace. Other ideas here include change management, Brain Reprogramming, Agile and collaboration, neuroscience and Project Management as applied to complex or wicked problems.
All that certainly happened, but once again your perception and theirs didn't match. For the stakeholders, this was just a 'dry run' not the real thing. Something to look at. Finally, on the last days a few people wake up and understand what you are training them on isn't a probable solution, but THE SOLUTION. And in their eyes, it just isn't right, no not at all.
Up until the very end they were only paying attention with about 50 percent of their awareness. You thought they were really engaged, after all they did ask pretty good questions which you accommodated in the final product. What went wrong?
Meanwhile your production teams are getting ready to pop champagne corks. They met their budgets and timelines, it's time to celebrate. Another mismatched expectation. You are really between a rock and a hard place between the stakeholders and the work producers.
Does this sound familiar? Unfortunately, this is the reality for about 70 percent of change initiatives. Despite the best intentions, focused communication, thorough training and intended stakeholder management, the results are a disaster and your credibility, your champion's credibility and even the executive suite's credibility are all called into question. Recovery from these situations is almost impossible if this is an internal corporate effort. Someone's going to suffer the consequences, the only question is who will be the survivors?
In the next column, we will look at what you can do to address these three root issues of stakeholder management when seeking a big change.
This is a continuing series of articles as a Connection about Chaos and Change Management in the workplace. Other ideas here include change management, Brain Reprogramming, Agile and collaboration, neuroscience and Project Management as applied to complex or wicked problems.
8.16.2012
Chaos and Change are Brothers - Part 2
Recently a group of really bright folks, Dawn Naney, Clay Goser and Marcelo Azambuja posted a new document entitled "Accellerating the Adoption of Lean Thinking in the Construction Industry" which deals with the issue of adopting lean management theory within the construction industry. The following is part of the response I posted on the LinkedIn discussion group which Dawn posted. I thought after I wrote the response that it is just what I've been thinking about writing as Part 2 of this series, so here goes. I hope you enjoy the read. Of course you know Collaboration is the Glue for Success. If you haven't read Part 1 of this series then here's the link.
I would agree with the findings of the authors, but I contend there are a few of us in the business who have been talking about how to make the change stick and at the same time doing something about it. Up to this point we have been pretty quiet about it. (Yes gentle reader, I'll have much more to say here in this blog over the coming weeks.) The root issue revealed in the adoption curve that Gartner espouses, is the lack of efficient change management. When we stop
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The following is a reply I posted on Fierce Healthcare's discussion area. The site is one challenging healthcare folks to stay up with the latest developments in their fields. I came across Susan D, Hall's post in a LinkedIn Group and thought it interesting. While all of you know I'm a big supporter of better management and highly collaborative frameworks for companies, I thought it appropriate to clear the air about change initiatives and their chances to survive and make have some permanent change as a result. The following is my comment on Susan's blog post you can read here entitled, Lean leadership in healthcare: What does it take? Of course my comment there is posted here, but please read Susan's work as well.
Your Brains Work Best When They Can Turn from Failure to Success