Last week’s discussion on “End to End Process Integration & the GPO” generated a lot of discussion around successfully driving enterprise-wide change.

It made me think.

I recall when I participated in sabotage of an enterprise-wide change program, with an associated global software rollout.

My secret is out.

But I wasn’t always a troublemaker . . . .

I was younger then 😉

To be fair, the proposed transformational change was poorly thought out and primarily revolved around the implementation of a system that the external “change agents” believed would result in positive process performance and outcomes.  

Leadership had “drunk the Kool Aid” and failed to engaged stakeholders and subject matter experts around the world, who reacted, as I did, in a classic “Face Palm” moment.

There had been no exploration or discussion around the current process, what it should be, expectations, the current inhibitors to achievement and their root causes or indeed the habits & behaviours we were trying to inculcate. No attention to WIIFM.

A classic “Dunning Kruger” experience.

Anyway, lesson learned, it resolved itself but not without a lot of wasted time, money and focus.

This was the corporate “immune system” in action.

In my experiences before, during and since in helping drive productive change (and advise against unproductive change – think “law of unintended consequences”) it fascinates me how similar the enterprise organisation is to the human body, and specifically the role of this “organisational immune system”.

The main job of the human immune system is to fight harmful substances, germs and other nastiness that enter the body through the skin, digestive system or wherever, and thus keep the body functioning.

Interestingly, the immune system also keeps a record of every germ (microbe) it has ever defeated so it can recognise and destroy the microbe quickly if it enters the body again. Machine Learning anyone?

We have some powerful tools in our immune system – Phagocytes (white blood cells), Antibodies (B-cells), Inflammation, T-Cells, Epithelial surfaces and this amazing cell “Memory”. 

Makes you think about the components of our own organisation’s immune system, how to understand it, and work with it.

So, what went wrong in the example above?

• No case for action other than a very high level aspiration.
• Attempt to implement a “HOW” without any consultation to articulate the “WHY” and “WHAT”.
• A lmismatch between performance expectations & measures / KPIs and the impact of the proposed approach on them.
• No attempt at winning “Hearts and Minds” of the stakeholders and process communities affected around the world.
• No engagement of operational leaders in understanding the real challenges, root causes and potential opportunities, approaches or solutions.
• .
• .

You get the picture.

The immune system is incredibly powerful.

It can be a helpful mental model to help think through the rationale for “resistance to change” and get ahead of it, work with it.

The resistance is usually quite logical if you dig deep enough.

Dig deep early.

Thanks for reading . . .