Change Management News

Continuous Improvement = Success at Hyundai

rick maurer — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:59:13 +0000

NPR just ran a good segment on how Hyundai turned itself from the butt of jokes to a very successful company by continuous improvement and profound belief it th equality of its cars. NPR

The Naked Truth About Getting People’s Attention

rick maurer — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:42:04 +0000

When’s the last time you paid attention to the safety announcement on a flight? I can’t remember either.

Air New Zealand posted a safety video on YouTube and 3,305,548 people have viewed it so far.

This is the same safety announcement that all of us hear every week on flights. So why would so many people view this video? Simple: The airline employees giving the safety announcement are all naked. Their uniforms are painted onto their bodies. So, that information should be enough to get some of you to click on the video in anticipation, and others to click on with utter disgust. Either way, it gets you to watch.

Click here to view video

Their video got me thinking about corporate presentations. People file into a room as cramped as economy seats on a flight. And almost the instant that the lights dim and the first slide appears on the screen, the audience tunes out. Don’t believe me? Look around you at the next meeting you go to. (Or, perhaps you’re reading this during one of those deadly presentations right now.)

What Air New Zealand (and Southwest Air found by given flight attendants freedom to be creative when they present safety information) was that people pay attention to things that are novel, entertaining, and worth telling others about.

I am not suggesting naked executives. Believe me, I am definitely not suggesting that. But as we prepare our next presentations, imagine how Air New Zealand’s might handle it.

Does Termination Equal Getting Even?

rick maurer — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:20:17 +0000

I was quoted in Lin Grensing-Pophal’s online article Getting Even in Human Resource Executive Online. The foucs of the article Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that employees are increasingly reacting to their layoffs and terminations with varying degrees of revenge. HR leaders need to create processes and procedures that minimize that risk. I hope you’ll take a look.

Why People Fell for Bernie Madoff

rick maurer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:59:58 +0000

No, it wasn’t just greed. Michael Zhuang writes a short article How Madoff Did It in his investment newsletter titled . He draws on the work of social psychologist Robert Cialdini, author of Influence and Yes!) to show us why people fell for the Madoff Scheme. It’s worth reading.

I am a fan of Cialdini’s work on influence, and I his six categories can be helpful in making a case for a new idea. Zhuang shows how those same powerful psychological forces can be used to manipulate us.

Influencing Others

rick maurer — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:22:37 +0000

I just posted an interview with Patricia Husband, a librarian who was in a class I gave a few years ago. She sent me an e-mail telling me how she was using the ideas I presented. My curiosity (or perhaps my ego) compelled me to call her and set up an interview. Members of the free Change Management Open Source Project can hear this Podcast and access a lot of other free resources, including the e-book Introduction to Change without Migraines.

Power of Proactive Change Efforts

rick maurer — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:53:12 +0000

Changing a company is tough: only about 40% of transformation programs succeed, according to McKinsey research. But some change programs have a better chance than others: defensive transformations (those undertaken to stem trouble) have lower success rates than progressive ones (launched, for instance, to boost growth or to move from good to great performance). Trigger events matter, too. Some change programs are initiated proactively, while others are undertaken in reaction to external shocks, market pressure, or poor financial performance. Our research finds that most successful transformations are those that are both offensive and proactive — we call them “progressive” — which have a 47% success rate. Defensive transformations have a 34% rate of success.

Source: Creating Organizational Transformations: McKinsey Global Survey Results

by way of the Daily Stat, Harvard Business Publishing

Twitter to the Rescue (Really)

rick maurer — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:48:26 +0000

I am not a big fan of Twitter. To date, I hadn’t seen what all the fuss was about. And then news came out from Iran. The government blocked the Internet so that word could not get out about reactions to the elections. But they forgot about Twitter. People tweeted, telling the world about their reactions.

So, what does this have to do with change management, you might ask. You can try to keep things quiet, under wraps, etc. but people will find a way to let others know what’s up even in the most oppresive environments.

US Ownership of GM is a Huge Mistake

rick maurer — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:28:10 +0000

The US government should not be running GM. While the government can be capable of managing large programs effectively, running an auto company is not among them.

This is a good intention gone bad. While keeping General Motors afloat is a worthy goal, the plan won’t get us there.

You’ve got to ask yourself what’s really changed as a result of the bankruptcy. Same leaders at GM, but with one huge change: government guys now sit in the executive suite. This doesn’t give me confidence. While GM has made some good decisions and developed some successful products in recent years, overall they were in a death spiral. And this descent occurred while people who actually knew something about cars ran the company. Put bureaucrats in charge who have no experience running an auto company, and who may have a social agenda of wanting to get more fuel efficient cars on the roads, you get a recipe for a company that will not be able to respond quickly to the needs of the marketplace. GM has never been nimble, and governments (by design) are less-than-nimble.Strike one. And you can’t build cars based on an environmental philosophy with the hope that people will buy what you are selling. Sadly, that doesn’t work. (Once gas prices started dropping last year, consumers had a renewed interest in bigger cars. Governments should set standards and companies should decide how to best sell what they’ve got to sell given those standards. You can’t very well mix the two.Strike two.

As Yogi Berra, said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” Let’s hope that wiser heads prevail before strike three is called.

Tell me I’m wrong about all this, because I would love to be wrong on this one.

Values and Performance Part 4

rick maurer — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:41:55 +0000

I was asked by a client about the challenge of measuring values as part of performance management in federal government. You will see posts below where I list comments readers of my newsletter sent me.

Here is a response I just got to that question from Sandy McCarrie, Defence Conteact Management Agency.

The HR person was partially correct in regards to Performance Indicators.

Cooperation/Teamwork, communication, customer focus, leadership, are considered during evaluations as Contributing Factors, under the National Security Personnel System, (NSPS) which has replaced the General Schedule rating system for some government offices (some agencies/departments) are not under NSPS.

Under NSPS Performance Indicators are established for different groups of employees based on the level of difficulty of their positions. Contributing Factors can either plus up a rating by 1, reduce a rating by 1, or have 0 effect on the rating.

More information on the contributing factors mentioned above can be found at: http://www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps/docs/implementing_issuances/ContributingFactorsProfAnalytic.pdf

Performance indicators can be found at: http://www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps/docs/implementing_issuances/PerformanceIndicators.pdf

Values and Performance – Part 3

rick maurer — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:30:25 +0000

Here is a reply I received from Eric regarding my client’s question about rating values as part of a performance review process.

Given that the majority of inter-organizational “partnership” arrangements fail (over 60% in some citings), and that ‘interpersonal relationship problems” is often cited as a fundamental reason for leaving a job, then I’d really wonder at the notion what this particular supervisor is focusing on? True, the question as phrased, specifically cites Indicators. Indicators of what? Or, are these, or some of these, specific kinds of desirable behavior? If the supervisor feels OK at listing specific behaviors, then it might be matter of mis-communication. If the supervisor doesn’t want any of this ’stuff’ in the appraisal process, then it seems needful that someone take the supervisor aside for a friendly chat. Something seems to be upside down in this limited description.

To read the first two posts on this, scroll down the page a bit.