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Organizational Change

ere are links to the previous issues of Point Lookout that touch on Organizational Change. Bookmark this page. Or browse this archive by date. Subscribe now.

Coming August 13: Conflicts of Interest in Reporting: Reporting is the process that informs us about how things are going in the organization and its efforts. Unfortunately, the people who do the reporting often have a conflict of interest that leads to misleading and unreliable reports. Available here and by RSS on August 13.
And on August 20: Stonewalling: Part I: Stonewalling is a tactic of obstruction used by those who wish to stall the forward progress of some effort. Whether the effort is a rival project, an investigation, or just the work of a colleague, the stonewaller hopes to gain advantage. What can you do about stonewalling? Available here and by RSS on August 20.

Other topics:

January 30, 2008

The True Costs of Cost-Cutting: The metaphor "trimming the fat" rests on the belief that some parts of the organization are expendable, and we can remove them with little impact on the remainder. Ah, if only things actually worked that way...

January 17, 2007

Definitions of Insanity: When leaders try to motivate organizational change, they often resort to clever sloganeering. One of the most commonly used slogans is a definition of insanity. Unfortunately, that definition doesn't pass the sanity test.

January 10, 2007

When Fear Takes Hold: Leading an organization through a rough patch, we sometimes devise solutions that are elegant, but counterintuitive or difficult to explain. Even when they would almost certainly work, a simpler fix might be more effective.

October 18, 2006

Piling Change Upon Change: Management Credibility: When leaders want to change organizational directions, processes or structures, some questions arise: How much change is too much change? Here's a look at one constraint: the risk to management credibility.

December 7, 2005

Comfortable Ignorance: When we suddenly realize that what we've believed is wrong, or that what we've been doing won't work, our fear and discomfort can cause us to persevere in our illusions. If we can get better at accepting reality and dealing with it, we can make faster progress toward real achievement.

November 23, 2005

Training Bounceback: Within a week after we've learned some new tool or technique, sometimes even less, we're back to doing things the old way. It's as if the training never even happened. Why? And what can we do to change this?

January 5, 2005

On Beginnings: A new year has begun, and I'm contemplating beginnings. Beginnings can inspire, and sometimes lead to letdown when our hopes or expectations aren't met. How can we handle beginnings more powerfully?

July 21, 2004

The Ties that Bind: Changing anything in an organization reveals how it's connected to its people, to its processes, to its facilities, and to the overall context. Usually, these connections reach out much further into the organization than we imagine.

March 10, 2004

Outsourcing Each Other's Kids: Outsourcing is now so widespread that it has achieved status as a full-fledged management fad. But many outsourcing decisions lack the justification that a full financial model provides. Here are some of the factors that such a model should include.

January 28, 2004

He's No Longer Here: Sometimes we adopt inappropriate technologies, or we deploy unworkable processes, largely because of the political power of their advocates, and despite widespread doubts about the wisdom of the moves. Strangely, though, the decisions often stick long after the advocates move on. Why? And what can we do about it?

August 27, 2003

Plenty of Blame to Go Around: You may have heard the phrase "plenty of blame to go around," or maybe you've even used it yourself. Although it sometimes does bring an end to immediate finger pointing, it also validates blame as a general approach. Here's how to end the blaming by looking ahead.

August 13, 2003

Beyond WIIFM: Probably the most widely used tactic of persuasion, "What's In It For Me," or WIIFM, can be toxic to an organization. There's a much healthier approach that provides a competitive advantage to organizations that use it.

June 11, 2003

Conventional Foolishness: Every specialization has a set of beliefs, often called "conventional wisdom." When these beliefs are so obvious that they're unquestioned and even unnoticed, there's an opportunity to leap ahead of the pack — by questioning the conventional wisdom.

February 26, 2003

Workplace Taboos and Change: In the workplace, some things can't be discussed — they are taboo. When we're aware of taboos, we can choose when to obey them, and when to be more flexible. When we're unaware of them, they can limit our ability to change.

November 20, 2002

Pick-Up Sticks and the Change Game: When we change organizational culture, we often stumble over unexpected obstacles. Sometimes the tangle can be so frustrating that we want to start the company over again. Here are some tips for managing large-scale cultural change.

March 20, 2002

Change How You Change: In the past two years, your life has probably changed. Do you commute over the same route you did two years ago? Same transportation? Same job? Same company? Same industry? Change is all around, and you're probably pretty skilled at it. You can become even more skilled if you change how you change.

September 19, 2001

Now We're in Chaos: Among models of Change, the Satir Change Model has been especially useful for me. It describes how people and systems respond to change, and handles well situations like the one that affected us all on September Eleventh.

August 8, 2001

Don't Rebuild the Chrysler Building: When we undertake change, we're usually surprised at the effort and cost required. Much of this effort and cost is necessary because of the nature of the processes we're changing. What can we do differently to make change easier in the future?

July 18, 2001

Look Before You Leap: When we execute complex organizational change, we sometimes create disasters. It's ironic that even in companies that test their products thoroughly, we rarely test organizational changes before we "roll them out." We need systematic methods for discovering problems before we execute change efforts. One approach that works well is the simulation.

January 24, 2001

Is It Really Resistance?: The term resistance, as used in the context of organizational change, describes our reluctance to abandon the status quo. But it's a loaded term, because it devalues that reluctance. When we approach change with this model of reluctance in mind, we sabotage our own efforts.

Contact Information

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