Organizational Changes - why they are painful ?

Why changes don't happen easily in organizations, why are they painful?

Most common reasons, employees don't like it. As popular saying goes "Change is painful".

My understanding is different. Human being always like change, it makes them feel they are alive and that's why they change their furniture's and personal vehicles and on top of it they pay for it and they enjoy doing so.

So why does it not work in organizations?

First reason I think is - it is because the process “change” starts from Management and flows down to people/employees, so it's not their idea or thought that is being implemented. It's an idea of some manager sitting somewhere in an isolated area. Though the change might be strategically the best one - but people at each desk think differently about the management.

Second reason as per my knowledge is the "process" of change is painful. This can be best explained with typical case. Suppose in an organization a developer is writing his Java programs in a notepad and saving it into a source control application which is totally external (not integrated). He has been doing this from last couple of years, let’s say 7 years and it involves very simple steps. Most of the developers know how to use it and also troubleshoot. Apart from this there are good amount website and forums that talk about this current method of Java development setup. Now organization decided to bring in some Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to improve the productivity of the developers. And they decided to bring in some XYZ IDE. Management decided on this "XYZ IDE" as the comity involved in the decision making decided so. Now developers are asked to use this development environment.

All the assumptions or the predictability that developer had about the old process, over course of time are now invalid. He doesn’t know whom to approach, what to look for. Of course this is common thing with every thing that changes in life. What if that developer is given some training? - Even that will not work any magic. I would say people should be given with learning resources that can help them right when they want it. If this kind of help is not available I am sure the change is going to bring just frustration, no productivity, in fact negative productivity. Individual's productivity loss will further spread into his other job areas.

Here what I think should be done:

Involve as many people as possible while implementing change, make it their own. Involve them in brain storming, testing and evaluation processes. So that knowledge start building in the community before the change is brought.

Secondly I would suggest forming a mentor groups before bringing in change. The individuals affected by these changes should be aware of resources that can help them, when they need it. The resources could be the documentation, on-demand video or a co-worker sitting next to him

If someone commits mistakes, he should not be discouraged, by making it painful to fix it or worst case by a office wide memo publicizing his name. Such events will discourage individuals from exploring the "NEW" tools or techniques. Most of the inventions are brought to the world via accidents (while exploring), not by the dedicated R&D efforts, so exploration is good.

Dear Manager - Please Delegate

Some managers do not delegate work to their sub-ordinates, why?

Reasons:

1. Manager has no patience to teach his sub-ordinates on how to do some of the stuffs.
2. Manager simply doesn’t trust his sub-ordinates.
3. He thinks he will lose the control of the department, as he cannot keep up with – “what is happening?” kind of stuff
4. Some managers hesitate to delegate thinking that, what his subordinates will think of him – “he just dumps everything on us and browses eBay all after-noon”
5. Manager thinks the sub-ordinates are not intellectually capable of handling the work.

While manager is one who has capability, maturity, strong business sense and can play the role of a mentor. If this is what manager is then he should not be worried about any of the above.

As a manager you should trust your sub-ordinates and have full faith in them and depend on them, else your boss will ask you – What is your productivity, with 7-8 members under you? And you will have no answer.

Many a times, you will face situations where you think, its better you do it yourself instead of teaching your subordinate, just because you don’t have time and patience to deal with, you cannot slip away from taking the role of a “mentor”. You have to develop that quality of being patient and teach your sub-ordinates. Teaching and making your sub-ordinates more productive is the best time-investment that can count on.

You should keep tab on what is going on in your department to the extent of what is happening, it’s not necessary to understand how it being done. You simply cannot keep account of every piece that happens within the department. It’s like driving the car at its optimal speed, whenever there is some noise or you suspect some performance issue, you need to open the hood and check it out. As a manger you should be spending more time on thinking how to improve the effectiveness of the team rather than looking each individuals tasks and taking account of them.

Yes manager has to browse the world (not eBay) to gain knowledge and develop new thoughts or ideas. However do not forget your sub-ordinates (your team) have more ready ideas and thoughts that can directly affect your team’s effectiveness. So first listen to them and see if you can materialize them.

Read the above paragraphs above about your personnel development again. You have to give knowledge, capabilities and have to trust your team and that’s the way you can develop some level of independence within the team. Do not paralyze your team by making it dependent on you for every decision that you make for them, soon you will be the bottleneck and you will be in stress.