Turning Around an Organisation: What Gives You Access To The Wheel
Wednesday, June 6th, 2012
Free Leadership Article
Last year my wife had an issue with her car – it was running a bit rough. When she took it into the service agent they spent 30 minutes diagnosing the problem and 15 minutes getting it to run perfectly.
With many business turnaround scenarios I see many man-hours being spent tuning the business and making changes, often before the key issues and catalysts for change have been clearly identified. If we stayed with the vehicle metaphor we would be tuning it, changing the oil, adjusting the brakes (etc) rather than clearly identifying up front what needed to improve and what adjustments would deliver that improvement.
We were recently approached by an organisation that was 18 months into an organisational change programme. They were concerned by the lack of progress. One key factor we noticed was a lack of trust between key stakeholders. Now no matter how well intentioned the change programme was, until trust was established their change programme will be derailed.
They say change takes a long time but it is not changing that takes a long time. If you are in a position to drive significant business change or organisational turnaround, ensure there is some discipline in your approach to identifying what needs to change and how best that change can be achieved. This approach will quickly ensure your turnaround gains traction and ensure it is not wheel spinning.
Get in touch to discuss how you can successfully manage change in your organisation.
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