by John Brooker | Jan 13, 2012 | Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Gorilla # 13 If you treat staff as consumers rather than as human resources, might you effect change better…? “We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. “ Carl Jung Psychologist When you are faced with a change programme at work, would you rather be treated as a consumer or a human resource? I read somewhere that 80% of change programmes don’t achieve objectives, (if you know the source please let me know). Why might this happen? Could it be because so many change programmes treat those involved as resources to be controlled by using e.g. “bogus consultations”, “traffic light” project tracking, name and shame progress reports and “copy all” e-mails to managers who are slipping deadlines. It is little surprise that people revert to previous behaviours once the controls are released. Some years ago I took responsibility for a company change programme, to implement and document all processes. There were a few challenges because the company was not process oriented outside of computer operations, people were change fatigued after three company change programmes and the day job was keeping them busy! Had I accepted a poison chalice or a G & T on the patio? It depends how you frame the problem and reframing a problem in a different way is a powerful creative technique. “What if,” I mused, “we treat the staff as consumers rather than human resources? Would that make them more responsive?” So we did, and they were. We ran the change programme as a consumer campaign. We held optional consultation sessions (over a third...
