Page 261 - The Handbook for Quality Management a Complete Guide to Operational Excellence

248 C o n t i n u o u s I m p r o v e m e n t e f f e c t i v e C h a n g e M a n a g e m e n t 249

Mechanisms Used by Change Agents

The change agents help accomplish the above goals in a variety of ways.
Education and training are important means of changing individual
percep tions and behaviors. In this discussion, a distinction is made
between training and education. Training refers to instruction and prac-
tice designed to teach a person how to perform some task. Training focuses
on concrete tasks that need to be done. Training will be an integral aspect
of instituting any process-level change.
Education refers to instruction in how to think. Education focuses on
integrating abstract concepts into one’s knowledge of the world. Edu-
cated people will view the world differently after being educated than
they did before. This is an essential part of the process of change.
As part of the change initiative, an effective change agent will organize
an assessment of the organization to identify its strengths and weaknesses.
Change is usually undertaken to either reduce areas of weakness, or exploit
areas of strength. The assessment guides the training and education. Knowing
one’s specific strengths and weaknesses is useful in mapping the process
for change.

Building Buy-in
Most organizations still have a hierarchical, command-and-control organi-
zational structure, sometimes called “smoke stacks” or “silos.” The func-
tional specialists in charge of each smoke stack tend to focus on optimiz ing
their own functional area, often to the detriment of the organization as a
whole. In addition, the hierarchy gives these managers a monopoly on the
authority to act on matters related to their functional specialty. The com-
bined effect is both a desire to resist change and the authority to resist
change, which often creates insurmountable roadblocks to quality improve-
ment projects.
It is important to realize that organizational rules are, by their nature, a
bar rier to change. The formal rules take the form of written standard oper-
ating procedures (SOPs). The very purpose of SOPs is to standardize
behavior. The quality profession has historically overemphasized formal
documentation, and it continues to do so by advocating such approaches
as ISO 9000 and ISO 14000. Formal rules are often responses to past prob-
lems, and they often continue to exist long after the reason for their exis-
tence has passed. In an organization that is serious about its written rules,
even senior leaders find themselves helpless to act without submitting to a
burdensome rule-changing process. The true power in such an organiza-
tion is the bureaucracy that controls the procedures. If the organization
falls into the trap of creating written rules for too many things, it can find
itself moribund in a fast-changing external environment. This is a recipe
for disaster.

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