Apr
27
Written by:
host
4/27/2010 6:35 PM
A CEO is perhaps a little anxious about the resistance to his vision and strategy across the organisation. One of the core reasons why a lot of strategies don’t come to fruition is because of the resistance to the change that an implementation of the strategy would require. The prime source of this resistance comes from the People and the Culture developed in an organisation.
What is Culture? – Simplified
Culture is nothing but the perception/belief about What is right and What is wrong. If the beliefs are too strong and the people are not prepared to change their beliefs either then:
- the organisation is not ready for the change; OR
- the cultural belief is to learn only one function and guard that function closely;
Hence, it becomes absolutely paramount to assess (measure and check) the change resistance factor of an organisation before even imploring the idea of implementing the vision or the strategy.
How a CEO may assess Change Readiness?
A CEO should search and assess if his main source of worry comes from the following:
- Not enough autonomy given to the employees;
- Lack of transparency and not enough sharing of information;
- No culture of multi-skilling of functions;
- Introduction of layers to obtain false control;
- Lack of incentives for internal customers (employees) to make external customers happy;
- Structure is too rigid and can’t be changed;
- Work place design/layout can’t be changed and
- Technology can’t be upgraded.
In addition to these factors the CEO would naturally be worried about the following too:
- The gap in the elements which will set future targets;
- Too much fat in the company;
- Organisation is too slow to respond to customer expectations.
If the above mentioned factors are the main sources for anxiety then it can be safely said the organisation needs to think along the lines of Process Based Structures. Adopt best-fit solutions by designing best-fit processes and aligning the best fit people to own and run the processes.
In addition to pacify the anxiety factors, this structural change will not only create a liberated work environment but will also alter the culture of an organisation significantly to embrace changes and new ideas.