The Ever Changing Organization: Creating the Capacity for Continuous Change, Learning, and Improvement

by Pieters; Gerald R

• ISBN13: 9781574442625
• ISBN10: 1574442627
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-08-26
• Publisher: CRC Press

Summary

If you are: overwhelmed by the amount of change and the difficulty in making it happen, finding failure - or limited success - with the implementation of changes, disappointed in the growth or financial performance of your organization, and are looking for a strategy for improving your organization's capacity for planned and proactive change, this book is for you. The world is continuing to change at a rapid pace, while most organizations are focused on maintaining stability and certainty. The price of this growing gap is the diversion of limited resources to reactive, fire-fighting behaviors and the inability to lead and be proactive. Allowing the gap to continue to grow is the formula for failure, this book gives you the formula for success. In The EverChanging Organization, the authors present a model of the EverChanging Organization(ECO). This is a systems model for understanding an organization's needed capacity for change in a range of change orientations from change averse to change seeking. The book includes diagnostic scales, tools for assessing need and status as an ECO, and a process for selecting and implementing change initiatives to achieve the needed capacity for change in timely and cost effective ways.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
Acknowledgements	xi
About the Authors	ix
Dedications	xxiii
Introduction to the Ever-Changing Organization	1	(34)
Leaders and the Ever-Changing Organization	1	(1)
A Snapshot Look at ECO Need and Status	2	(8)
Change Keeps Coming and We're Not Prepared	10	(3)
Organizational Orientation To Change	13	(4)
Change Averse	14	(1)
Change Resistant	14	(1)
Change Managing	15	(1)
Change Friendly	15	(1)
Change Seeking	16	(1)
Implications of Orientation to Change	16	(1)
Assumptions, Behaviors, Consequences, and Change Orientation	17	(4)
The ABC Model	18	(3)
The Ever-Changing Organization Model	21	(10)
Basis for the ECO Model	21	(1)
Organizations as Systems	22	(1)
Systems Model of the Ever-Changing Organization	23	(8)
Implementing the ECO Model	31	(4)
Environment	35	(26)
Environmental Uncertainty and Change	36	(2)
Organization and Environment	36	(1)
Current and Future Environments and Uncertainty	37	(1)
Environmental Factors Influencing Needed ECO Capability	38	(20)
Rate of Technological Change	39	(2)
Product/Service Life Cycles	41	(3)
Rate of Market Growth	44	(2)
Changing Customer Requirements and Expectations	46	(2)
Competitive Situation	48	(3)
Globalization of Businesses and Markets	51	(3)
Applications Base of Products or Services	54	(1)
Access to Information	55	(1)
Environmental Impact of Business	56	(2)
Acceleration and Compression of Time in High Uncertainty Environments	58	(1)
Implications of Uncertainty for ECO Needs	59	(2)
Stabilizing Base	61	(46)
Stabilization vs. Rigidity	62	(1)
People Need Stabilizing Forces	63	(1)
Shared Values	63	(5)
Starbucks	64	(1)
Ann Taylor	64	(1)
Making Shared Values Come Alive	65	(3)
Living Vision	68	(4)
What's In It for Me?	69	(1)
Creating a Living Vision	70	(1)
Documentum Corporation	71	(1)
Maintaining Positive Tension	72	(1)
Commitment to Change, Learning, and Improvement	72	(5)
Walking the Talk	73	(1)
Learning to Walk the Talk	73	(1)
ECO's Commitment to Change, Learning, and Improvement	74	(2)
Profiles of ECO Components	76	(1)
Clear Goals and Direction	77	(5)
S.M.A.R.T. Goals	77	(3)
Goal Alignment	80	(2)
Belief and Trust in People	82	(5)
Start with Positive Beliefs and Trust --- or Prove It First?	83	(3)
Belief and Trust and the Stabilizing Base	86	(1)
Stability of Employee Base	87	(5)
Excessive Stability	87	(1)
Too Much Instability	88	(2)
Employee Stability That Strengthens the Stabilizing Base	90	(1)
Managerial Transition Meetings	91	(1)
Flexibility of Systems, Structures, and Infrastructure	92	(5)
Inflexibility and the Cost of Energy to Change	93	(1)
Flexibility Is Stabilizing	94	(1)
Features Adding Flexibility	95	(2)
Access to Data and Information	97	(4)
Control of Access and Effects on Stabilization	97	(1)
Information and the Response to Change	98	(1)
Dramatic Effects from More Open Access	99	(1)
Technological Change and Availability of Information	100	(1)
Emphasis on Results and Process	101	(2)
Only Focusing on Results Doesn't Work	101	(2)
Both Results and Process, Not Either-Or	103	(1)
Balance	103	(3)
Time Orientation	104	(1)
Work and Personal Time	104	(1)
Stakeholder's Needs	105	(1)
Freedom and Control	105	(1)
Summary of Stabilizing Base	106	(1)
Managing FOR Change	107	(44)
Customer Focus	107	(5)
Customer--Supplier Partnerships	108	(1)
Feedback and Customer Satisfaction	109	(1)
Customer Linkages at Many Levels	110	(1)
Ease of Customer Access to Supplier Organization	111	(1)
Environmental Sensing	112	(4)
Technology Sensing	112	(1)
Competitive Sensing	113	(1)
Other External Sensing	113	(1)
Internal Sensing	114	(2)
Impetus for Change	116	(3)
Change as Everyone's Responsibility	117	(1)
Problems or Opportunities?	117	(1)
Incremental or Breakthrough Change?	118	(1)
Change Stemming from the Absence of Change	119	(1)
Change Planning and Management	119	(7)
Predictable Responses to Imposed Change	120	(2)
Change-Planning and Management Factors	122	(4)
Systems Model for Change and Alignment	126	(6)
The Management System Model	127	(3)
Selection of a Systems Model for Change	130	(1)
Use of Systems Models for Prevention	130	(2)
Change as a Business Strategy	132	(2)
Adaptive Leadership	134	(5)
Adaptation of Organization Direction or Strategy	134	(2)
Adaptability and Leadership Styles	136	(3)
Change Orientation of Policies, Procedures, and Controls	139	(5)
Restricting Change with Policies, Procedures and Controls	139	(3)
Policies, Procedures, and Controls that Build ECO Capability	142	(2)
Challenging Embedded Policies, Procedures, and Controls	144	(1)
Work Design	144	(3)
Managing Your Own Work	145	(1)
Autonomous or Semiautonomous Work Teams	146	(1)
Use of Change Agents	147	(3)
Managing FOR Change Summary	150	(1)
Continuous Improvement	151	(44)
Introduction	151	(3)
Roots of Continuous Improvement	152	(1)
Range of Continuous Improvement Models	153	(1)
CI Features and ECO Development	154	(1)
Direction and Goals for Continuous Improvement	154	(2)
Linking CI Direction to the Organization and Its Needs	155	(1)
Focusing the Direction for Continuous Improvement	155	(1)
Goal Selection at Lower Levels	156	(1)
Improvement Challenge	156	(4)
Challenge to All	157	(1)
Challenge is Ongoing and the Work Never Done	157	(2)
Benchmarking and Best Practices	159	(1)
Size of Improvements Expected	160	(2)
Incremental or Breakthrough Improvement?	160	(1)
How Big Is Big?	161	(1)
Common Language and Definitions	162	(4)
Meaning of Quality	163	(1)
Mixing Quality and Customer Delight	164	(1)
Quality Standards	165	(1)
Customer--Supplier Relationships	166	(4)
Horizontal Customer--Supplier Connections	166	(1)
Customer--Supplier Model	167	(2)
No Requirements, No Feedback, No Improvement	169	(1)
Prevention Orientation	170	(3)
Prevention vs. Inspection and Impact on Quality and Cost	170	(1)
The Limiting Effect of Inspection on ECO Capacity	171	(1)
Proactive and Reactive Prevention	172	(1)
Systematic Problem-Solving Processes	173	(5)
Problem Definition	174	(1)
Data and Fact Orientation	175	(1)
Tools Support	176	(2)
Process Improvement Methods	178	(7)
Process Mapping	178	(2)
Improvement Analysis	180	(2)
Implementation	182	(1)
Support Tools	182	(1)
Statistical Process Control Methods	183	(2)
Structures and Time for Continuous Improvement	185	(3)
Structures for Continuous Improvement	185	(2)
Time for Continuous Improvement	187	(1)
Other Resource Support	188	(1)
Strategies for Innovation and Creativity	188	(4)
Stimulating Creativity with CI Goals	189	(1)
Removing Fear of Failure	189	(1)
Tools to Stimulate Creative Thinking	190	(2)
Summary of Continuous Improvement as an ECO Component	192	(3)
Continuous Learning	195	(40)
Introduction	195	(1)
Investment in Continuous Learning	196	(4)
Spending for Training as an Expense	196	(1)
Spending for Training as an Investment	197	(3)
Life/Career-Long Learning Support	200	(5)
Redefining the Person--Organization Bond	200	(2)
Life/Career-Long Learning as the New Paradigm	202	(1)
Win-Win Nature of the New Paradigm	203	(1)
Learning Vehicles	204	(1)
Competency/Development Planning	205	(4)
Identifying Competencies Required for Specific Positions	205	(1)
Inventorying Individual Competencies	206	(1)
Development Planning To Fill Competency Gaps	206	(1)
Building the Organization's Competency Development Plan	207	(2)
Structured Developmental Relationships	209	(3)
Mentors and Proteges	209	(1)
Types of Structured Developmental Relationships	210	(1)
Mutually Beneficial Relationships	211	(1)
Learning Critiques	212	(6)
Types of Critique	213	(3)
Structured vs. Open Critiques	216	(2)
Identifyng Success and Failure Patterns	218	(5)
Applied Materials	218	(1)
The Minicase Method	219	(1)
Analysis of Forces Influencing Success or Failure	220	(1)
Identifying Patterns	220	(1)
Using Outcomes of the Minicase Method	221	(2)
Archiving and Accessing Organizational Memory	223	(3)
Lessons Learned	224	(1)
Using Advanced Technology	225	(1)
Identifying and Testing Assumptions	226	(4)
The Unmotivated Quality Technician	226	(2)
Getting at Underlying Assumptions	228	(1)
ABCs of Organizational Alignment	229	(1)
Learning How To Learn	230	(2)
Organizational Responsibility	230	(1)
Individual Responsibility	231	(1)
Summary of Continuous Learning as an ECO Component	232	(3)
Implementation	235	(20)
Deciding to Move to Implementation	235	(2)
Leadership of the Implementation Process	237	(1)
Getting Started	238	(11)
Preliminary Management Exploration	238	(1)
Selecting and Orienting a Diagnostic Team	239	(1)
Training the Diagnostic Team	240	(1)
Planning and Conducting Diagnosis	241	(1)
Preparing a Summary Report for Management	242	(7)
Management Retreat	249	(4)
Reviewing and Exploring Diagnostic Results	250	(1)
Deciding on ECO Development	250	(1)
Planning Start-Up and Management of ECO Process	251	(2)
Renewing the Process	253	(2)
References	255	(2)
Index	257