How to Save the World
People change slowly. They change because they have to, more often than because they want to. And they change their behaviours before they change their beliefs.
Nowhere is this more manifest than in business. And most large organizations have a large number of people, and so, like oil tankers, they change direction the slowest of all, and are the least agile and manoeuvrable.
Change gurus and consultants have, over the years, pushed three ways to bring about change in organizations.
The first way is by changing or imposing tools and technologies that enable, or strait-jacket, employees. A software program that requires you to complete credit check information on a new customer before you can open up a customer ID and sell to that customer is one example. New skills and competencies, both technical and ’soft’ skills like time management, can also be considered ‘tools’ of the trade. The difference between a skill and a competency is that a competency is an applied skill — the competency to innovate, for example, is an application of several skills, notably creative skills.
The second way is by changing or imposing work processes and methodologies. The new regulations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, for example, have imposed mandatory new processes on both managers and auditors of public corporations.
The third way is by changing the culture of the organization by using ‘internal marketing’, by leadership style, through performance management and through reward and recognition programs.
In the past generation, all three methods have been, and continue to be, used in most organizations, particularly the larger ones which are inherently harder to change….
…I would argue then that, particularly as it gets larger, the only way in which an organization can effectively differentiate itself or outperform its competition, is by helping its employees to work smarter. And the best ways to do that are to equip those employees with critical skills and competencies, and empower them to leverage those skills and competencies to give back to the organization creative solutions to its particular, and evolving problems. The power of many.
Please read the full article of Dave Pollard, it is excelent!