Managing Organizational Change in Kazakhstan: In the rush to implement organizational changes, companies often don’t take the time to prepare their employees for change – and pay dearly.

In 2005 I had one of the most profound career experiences of my life. I was facilitating a Organizational Effectiveness project for a major California company in their Kazakhstan operation, and was holding a meeting on my second day on the job (on a side note, it was 120 degrees outside, and on its way getting hotter). In the conference room were about 20 or so employees of the company, from Europe, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and the US. There were also about 5 interpreters in the room to ensure everyone understood what was being said and to make themselves understood. Not only was I like a “deer in the headlights’ from being across the globe literally in another world, but it was daunting to consider how I was going to ensure that all of these diverse individuals were aligned and in support of the goals of the project. Well, I could not believe what unfolded.

The Future of Work

In 1994 I was travelling to several countries visiting various banking groups to analyze how they engaged their employees in Total Quality Management practices. I happened to be in New York visiting (then) Chase Manhattan Bank, and while doing some weekend touring visited St. Peter's Cathedral. I was just about to leave and I happened to walk through their small bookstore and a book caught me eye - The Re-Invention of Work by Matthew Fox. I read this book cover to cover on the plane flight home. This weekend (in the middle of a snowstorm in Tahoe), I'm reading a similar book, The Future of Work by Thomas Malone. Absolutely intriguing to anyone interested in Employee Engagement, Organizational Change, employee participation and related topics. Here's a quote that refers to how new communication technologies, especially social networking, is allowing workers to assume far greater levels of decision making  than ever before:

"For the first time in history, it is now becoming economically feasible to give huge numbers of workers the information (and I would add influence and power) they need to make more choices (and decisions) themselves. Today, many more people in business can have the kinds of freedom that used to be common only in small organizations. And that can be very good news for productivity and for quality of life. When people make their own decisions, rather than follow orders, they often work harder and show more dedication and more creativity." 

That is so on the mark, its amazing. The question I always ask is why do we still have so much command and control bureaucracy that stifles worker innovation in large corporations today. This is a remarkable book - go onto Amazon and buy it.  

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Excellent article on Employee Engagement

I strongly recommend that you read this article on Employee Engagement published by the Economist and sponsored by HayGroup: http://businessresearch.eiu.com/sites/businessresearch.eiu.com/files/LON%20-%20PL%20-%20Hay%20report_WEB.pdf

Herding Cats

Employees are our most important asset – Really?

This is a valuable read if you have not read it before. It’s titled “Human Change Management – Herding Cats” (link) by Mark Dawson and Mark Jones of PWC (I refer to them as “the Marks”). They tell an old but pertinent story – one that has been around for so long, but sadly is still as (or maybe more) pertinent today. Essentially too many companies give lip-service to this mantra but seldom back it up.  “The Marks” describe what is now an old and sad tale – while organizational change becomes the norm, most change efforts fail or under-deliver. And evidence continues to show that much of the reason is that companies simply do not place adequate effort or investment in changing hearts and minds of their people.

Organizations don’t adapt to change; their people do. Implementing the right technology infrastructure and streamlining the business processes that flow through it are essential ingredients for effective organizational change. These components are well studied, mechanized and reasonably standardized. Methodologies, measurements and best-practice guidelines are available to optimize their implementation. But the human element that needs to make use of these systems in order to supply the leadership, judgment, flexibility and innovation needed to achieve business success is the most critical ingredient – and least understood… Most companies say their most important assets are their people, but few behave as if this were true.

Executive Leaders are the Key to Successful Organizational Change! But middle managers are where the “rubber meets the road” to drive change!

Gartner Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, have frequently noted that the critical success factors for managing SAP (the German Software company) and other ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning software) implementations are people issues; behaviors, skills, actions – the “soft” side of managing ERP implementations, business process redesign, organizational restructuring and other strategic change initiatives …