In the face of snafus - What?

I am sometimes asked by senior execs, “how is it possible for you and your colleagues to produce breakthroughs in organizations? Especially organizations like ours – after all we are a blue chip company, been around for years, respected by our peers, often praised by analysts and experts, copied by competitors...?”.

With a little looking is not hard to see how come. Especially when the looking is at waste - and waste being defined as any effort that does not produce specific measurable desired results and/or uses more time, effort and resources to do so.

Only this morning I had an illustration of just such an example of waste. A project with a client was completed and invoiced in January; requests for duplicate invoices later, email exchanges later, duplicate payments later, canceled checks later, and maybe in May the transaction will be completed. So much wasted and unproductive effort! What's more, it is all over the place, in even the so called, best in class organizations. By-the-way, I am clear in the example I have just used, we are not being picked out for special treatment. This was not a one off isolated instance of wasted effort/resources.

Which highlights the challenges for an insider committed to transforming his/her organization. Getting upset doesn’t work. Making people wrong doesn’t work. Complaining doesn’t work. Even fixing individual snafus doesn’t work because the system design is what gives rise to the snafus in the first place.

So what then? Resignation – either in the form of outright leaving, or the path most often chosen a “staying in place withdrawal” - withdrawing ones commitment, withholding oneself, settling for, putting up with, withdrawing effort, enthusiasm, caring, personal initiative...

Is there another possibility for a committed insider? I think so. The possibility though is not in simply reacting to snafus and being good at clean up, though that is a useful and often necessary skill. No, the committed insider needs to become skillful at generating new possibilities for themselves and for their colleagues.

With Margaret Mead's (the anthropologist) quote in mind, "Never doubt the power of a small group of committed people to change the world, in fact, nothing else ever has." how does a committed insider change/transform his or her organization?

Here are a few tips:

1. Your organization has some organizing principles and values; know them by heart, use them as a reference , like a compass: "Is this consistent with our principles?", "How is this consistent with...(some aspect of your organizing principles)?
2. Your organizations has practices that are designed to support the principles; live them, encourage others to live them, notice and acknowledge others who do...
3. If you see that a practice is missing institute it in your own working, share it with colleagues, disseminate it until it is part of "the way we do things around here".
4. Notice and praise behaviors that are consistent with principles, practices and values. Encourage others to notice.
5. Reallocate the things you spend your time talking about; more on what's working versus what's not working. More on what is consistent with principles, practices, values and desired behavior and less on complaining about what is not.
6. And when you do complain, complain so as to cause change - include a request, make a promise, so that future actions and outcomes are altered.
   

Never doubt the power of a small group of committed people...