In 1929, the automotive industry was as hot as the Internet was in the 90's. The people who led the major companies then were as well known as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are today. One of them was Walter Chrysler, who wanted to build the tallest building in the world, to be named — of course — the Chrysler Building. He found himself in a race with The Bank of Manhattan Trust Company, and he won.

Willis Tower, Chicago, formerly the Sears Tower. Photographer: Carol M. Highsmith, courtesy U.S. Library of Congress.
The Chrysler Building, at a respectable height of 1,046 feet, won't stand forever. But nobody has ever deconstructed a skyscraper that tall, and we don't have any idea how to do it.
One thing is certain: the cost will be (ahem) sky-high. Since we've given so little thought to minimizing "deconstruction" cost, we now have an installed base of buildings that are stable and safe, but expensive to demolish.
So it is with organizational processes. We've designed them to effect management control — to ensure that people follow procedures and to enable management to control cost and quality. But they weren't designed for change, and that's one reason why change is so difficult.
How do organizational processes defend themselves against change? Here are three things to do to design processes that are easier to change.
- Break the performance connection
- We often tie performance evaluation to proficiency in organizational processes, which ties career advancement — and self-esteem — to a detailed knowledge of organizational processes. Once self-esteem is tied to the status quo, changing the status quo can create a threat to self-esteem. No wonder we have trouble.
- Tie performance to the ability to adapt to changing processes, rather than to skill in following processes of long standing. Reward flexibility, not compliance.
- Keep interfaces compact
- Most organizational processes
weren't designed for change,
and that's one reason
why change is so difficult - Processes have interfaces consisting of forms, contacts, documentation, and so on. To use a process, people interact with it through its interface. When the interface is complex and diffuse, and linked to many other processes, we have more difficulty changing the process.
- Make process interfaces compact. To avoid reconfiguring the rest of the company when you change a process, keep as much of the process as possible behind the interface.
- Eliminate gatekeepers
- A gatekeeper is someone whose signature you need. For example, most organizations require a supervisor's signature for certain purchases, or for time cards. Some gatekeepers exist because of legal requirements, but many are created for political reasons. Since being a gatekeeper is often a badge of status, gatekeepers tend to resist attempts the change the processes they gate-keep.
- Avoid creating new gatekeepers. Empower staff to simply sign the forms themselves.
Once you master these techniques, you can move on to a bigger project — to learning how not to rebuild the Empire State Building. Top
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For more information about the Chrysler Building, visit the PBS Web site.
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Related articles
More articles on Organizational Change:
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?
Deciding to Change: Choosing
- When organizations decide to change what they do, the change sometimes requires that they change how
they make decisions, too. That part of the change is sometimes overlooked, in part, because it affects
most the people who make decisions. What can we do about this?
How to Find Lessons to Learn
- When we conduct Lessons Learned sessions, how can we ensure that we find all the important lessons to
be learned? Here's one method.
Way Over Their Heads
- For organizations in crisis, some but not all their people understand the situation. Toxic conflict
can erupt between those who grasp the problem's severity and those who don't. Trying to resolve the
conflict by educating one's opponents rarely works. There are alternatives.
White Water Rafting as a Metaphor for Group Development
- Tuckman's model of small group development, best known as "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing,"
applies better to development of some groups than to others. We can use a metaphor to explore how the
model applies to Storming in task-oriented work groups.
See also Organizational Change and Organizational Change for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming May 14: Working with the Overconfident
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And on May 21: Mismanaging Project Managers
- Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don't grant those project managers control of needed resources. Nor do they hold project sponsors or other senior managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with project work. Here's a catalog of behaviors worth looking at. Available here and by RSS on May 21.
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