Kim Ridgway asks about some ways of changing an old, successful
organization where people don't feel the need to change (at least not in
large numbers. Apparently, however, a senior executive or two do, and Kim
is working with him/them (not clear from Kim's post). Kim notes that a
"skunk works" (a unit separate from the main company) might be able to do
business differently, for lots of reasons, and then wonders if seeding the
members of these skunk works throughout the larger organization might lead
to change in the way the larger organization does business.
Kim then writes...
>What I have been wrestling with is how to shape processes in both the
>"skunkworks" and the larger organization so that the "parent" can
>successfully learn from the "child." One idea I have toyed with is career
>paths that, after four or five years on the skunkworks team, would rotate
>those members back into the larger organization in leadership positions
>with the express purpose of perpetuating the new learning and new
>processes. There are obviously some huge challenges that accompany these
>ideas, but I would be most interested in your insights into this brief
>case study.
>
>Can a skunkworks physically and operationally separated from the older,
>larger organization succeed in teaching the old organization new behaviors
>and processes? What would you propose? Will team members scattered back
>into the old organization in their functional areas generate enough
>momentum to alter the older, well established culture? What ideas would
>you propose?
Here's what I would propose. First, give up the notion of changing the
larger successful organization. Instead, wall it off, isolate it. Next,
pursue your skunk works ideas; however, instead of rotating the skunk
works members back into the larger organization, use them to seed and grow
new businesses. Over time, you can gradually move people from the older
organization into the new ones -- where they will be faced with the
requirement to adapt instead of being in a position to resist change. In
short, you don't change an organization, you grow new ones.
The name for this strategy, by the way, is "environmental-adaptive" (in
less elegant terms, I call it "Dying on the vine," which is what you do
with organizations destined for demise -- you let them "die on the vine").
You can find more about this notion in a paper titled "Change Management
101: A Primer" which you can find at the URL below:
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
Regards,
Fred Nickols
Distance Consulting "Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
nickols@worldnet.att.net
(609) 490-0095
--Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>