One of the questions that the participants in the Organizational Development Congress most shared with us had to do with the variable Change. Another interesting aspect that was the reason for much debate is related to “what need is there to visualize a preferred future scenario when the current one is satisfactory” and an area of open discussion has had to do with “why adversity is so important”.
In the eyes of the vast majority of participants, Argentina in general was in a stage where someone has come to define it as a "resurgence" and with a high growth potential as a result of the prospect of expanding markets.
Now, in the minds of many Argentines we have at our disposal a global market that multiplies our current local market several times, and particular attention was paid to the possibilities of our neighboring country Brazil. The rulers in the different countries of Latin America - possibly driven to a great extent by what was happening in the most economically developed countries - decided to participate in the globalization process that entailed access to an unlimited market.
What happens is that perhaps they have not been able to distinguish between those who originally promoted the measure and the reasons that they had that sometimes may or may not coincide with those of those countries - less developed - that joined later. What happened some 2,000 years ago? We think it is good to take this into account, although the implications are now in place.
Two millennia ago the Roman Emperor Augustus considered his intention to capture other markets "outside his borders" as distinct from the (local) politics of another Roman emperor, in this case Hadrian.
The latter preferred to close the borders of Rome. Augustus was strongly tempted by the Sabine women, the women of others, which of course was achievable.
But sometimes the price of them has to do with "losing your own." With globalization a similar phenomenon occurs; we are tempted by a huge global market sometimes without taking into account what can happen to our own market.
In this short Conference we find more business people and entrepreneurs in proportion to the total number of participants compared to those who attended the Congress, so we are going to make an effort to ground some concepts to explore their applicability in the hands of businessmen.
In principle we want to clarify that what is happening in terms of change, is only the tip of the ball and it would be good if we take this assessment into account. Technological, commercial and financial globalization represents a powerful mechanism that has to produce great transformations and far beyond the one we are experiencing, of course.
Possibly we are only experiencing the beginning of a change that usually occurs with very low manifestations that are not always fully perceived, something similar to what happens with the imperceptible and small waves on the beach but that give rise to very large waves in the breaker. Companies can accommodate the small waves of the beach quite well since they have greater facilities to accommodate but it is not so easy to do it with the waves of the breaker. Those who have seen the movie "El Naúfrago" can give proof of it. Charles R. Darwin ("Origin of Species" - 1859) has emphasized for many years that when the exchange rate is drastically modified, the usual mechanisms that people have at their disposal in terms of accommodation,adaptation and assimilation may become insufficient.
To understand what the experts in the field of Business Improvement and Organizational Development say we must introduce ourselves a little more in the understanding of this phenomenon so relevant for the survival and growth of companies, which turns out to be change.
In a simple way we can say that change represents a process by which we distance ourselves from the status quo; We move away from a current scenario where we may - or may not - feel relatively comfortable - towards a new scenario that we visualize as more positive or preferred. It implies the imperative need to modify our vision, redefine our mission and alter the objectives and processes.
All this can be "thought and said" by leaders with the capacity to question what is happening, but what happens is that leaders need someone to implement and "do" things differently from what they are doing up to now. This large number of people who must now change not only their attitudes but also their behaviors, generally feel very comfortable in what we call the "comfort zone." Until now, and due to everything they have been learning and paying a price for it as they perceive it, they have learned a “better and more effective way of doing things”.
Moreover, they have been "teachers" in that this better and more effective way of doing things is also compatible "with their interests and convenience." How does the management of the company or organization traditionally deal with this type of phenomenon?
Very simple: they take managers under the conception that managers have to be able to articulate the "ideas" that leaders have in their heads (metaphorically since it is actually in their minds) and these managers have to get people to " do ”things according to plan from the top. Some consultants and experts in Business Improvement and Organizational development called this “Best Practice” with the name of “Alignment”.
Now, all of you or at least the vast majority of you as entrepreneurs and business owners have managers or supervisors or managers at the intermediate levels of your companies. Could you tell me how successful your managers, supervisors and managers are in getting things done the way you want or have planned?
And notice that here we are talking about getting things done "on a repetitive basis" based on what you as leaders have planned to do.
That is, under non-change, with established routines, with people who are assigned specific roles, with clearly described processes, with established products that are not modified and with a world of daily actions that are NOT modified, even so, you already you know that things are NOT being done according to how you as an entrepreneur have planned. What we are saying is that under the current scenario, with an organizational structure that has been in effect for years, with all the knowledge that organizational members have, with repetitive products that we have been manufacturing and marketing for years, even if we dedicate ourselves to reflect just a couple of seconds, we find that we are not doing everything in the best way. That is to say that what really exists now, in the face of non-change and tranquility, and a stable context,and without changes in the rules of the game from outside the company, all this does not guarantee that we are doing the best things. And how is this possible? You can look for many explanations and there is one of them that we do not want to miss and that has to do with the variable "time". Over time, everything, absolutely everything, can deteriorate in an almost natural way.
Let us take as an example of the different implications of the change what has to happen with this orange that I am placing on the desk at this moment. If I leave the orange still, without moving it, and for many days it will surely begin to rot in the part that comes into contact with the wood of this desk (something similar happens with the wood of the desk but it turns out that it is more imperceptible before our eyes). I can find a partial solution to this problem and it is something we do frequently when we put fruit on a container for a certain time. To prevent rotting from the bottom, we turn them over.
We put them in motion by changing their original position. This of course we can do for a certain time, and not indefinitely. We can say that we are in the presence of changes (of position only) that resemble what we can call transitional changes. Transitional changes are what most companies have been developing for many years in their attempts to adapt to new situations. But as we have seen with the simple example of the orange, the changes in its position are not enough to keep it in good condition for much longer. What can we do then? We can create a new scenario different from the current one.
Quite different since instead of placing the orange on the desk it turns out that we now introduce it into a room where there is a certain refrigerated environment at a temperature that we have anticipated as the most convenient, which is called a refrigerator. And we put our orange there.
This makes us extend the life of our orange far beyond the orange we had placed on this desk. And we can also extend the healthy existence of an orange even further by making use of what we have learned about freezing instead of refrigerating. That is why we no longer call these new designs by the name of refrigerator but by the name of conservator. And we can extend the life of this and many more oranges in this new furniture up to percentages greater than 1000 percent of the original situation. In all cases we have been moving the oranges, first changing the position of the same that was on the desk but then we have made use of other options making a major change.These major changes when they gain in intensity and complexity can be called transformational changes. And when our businesses can no longer operate simply because what we envisioned is altered by the forces of the context, then we must prepare to introduce transformational changes.
Now, what do people who are accustomed in a company to change their position to the orange every two or three days so that it does not rot when we tell them to put it in the refrigerator?
How do you think they have to respond to this "idea" that comes from the top of the organization? And what do you think about how managers should respond when you decide from the top to buy a refrigerator and freezer instead of having lots of people dedicate themselves to giving oranges some movement from time to time?
Here we must make special mention of the existence of a phenomenon that many times has gone unnoticed by many leaders and also by consultants. It is good that both those who deal with the daily problems of the company as well as those who should have a different perspective, take into account whether the company or organization is operating under the mechanism that we have called "downward consensus" or "upward"..
Eric Gaynor Butterfield has found evidence showing that many companies choose between these two main options, especially within Latin American cultures. It has been found that in consulting interventions where "promotions" of personnel are proposed, some of them prefer to remain in their usual positions (which are lower than those proposed). And when this type of phenomenon happens it is possible that we find a company with a downward consensus.
Specialists in new and better methodologies to implement changes, such as those who introduce improvements through new software, find themselves with an interesting dilemma in the face of the change or improvement proposal they make to senior management. After hearing the proposal, this senior management sends it to the person in charge of the sector or unit where the change would be possible to apply with the new technological tool. And this practice is often the one that precisely slows down and prevents change, since the implementation of a new system will not only change the lives of the personnel of that department but also and especially the manager himself.The manager is in his "comfort zone" and usually does not want to get new waves because he has already learned to deal with problems and has slowly transformed breaker waves into beach waves. Furthermore, many of them have dedicated themselves to eliminating those people who bring innovative ideas; In general, managers can create very special names for these creative people.
Instead of stating that they are creative and have innovative ideas, it is quite common for the manager to refer to them as people "who separate themselves from the rest and seem to be not good at teamwork." Therefore, the company continues to have people who - from time to time - keep switching to oranges.
How much do you know about change? How much do we know about behavior change? How much time and resources do the best universities spend teaching their certified professionals to deal effectively with change? Especially within Latin American cultures you don't see much of it.
Furthermore, it is possible that to pass an exam at the University one has to “spend more time on what the professor wants to hear as the correct answer” than on deepening the knowledge regarding other options and available approaches.
It is fascinating that in the best Universities in Latin America, sometimes what is learned at the Bachelor's and Master's level is further deepened at the doctorate level, further strengthening what has been learned in the master's degree. Not all doctoral programs at the best Universities dedicate efforts towards questioning what the Masters had previously learned. In many houses of higher studies, theses are much closer to being monographs than theses. There has been a fascinating phenomenon in some Universities where we find "theses" that do not refer to the basic hypotheses to be taken into account.
So let's not complain if people in the workplace are unwilling to change, since many years before working these same people have been exposed - quite possibly - to a more authoritarian learning pattern both within the workplace. of the family as well as education.
Transformational change is essential in these times where the alterations that occur from outside our bodies and from outside our companies are truly dramatic. The transitional changes that we have become accustomed to and were able to tolerate now are not enough. Stress begins to be perceived as small doses of electro-shocks, which initially have been mild and are gaining in intensity in some particular moments and situations (see: "Professional Suicide or Organizational Murder" by Dr. Donald W. Cole and Eric Gaynor Butterfield - 2003). Transformational change forces us to keep in mind every day that we must take into account changes in our Vision, in the definition of a new Mission,in setting new goals with a different direction, and with the need to create - and also kill - new products and services. But we cannot do this simply because we have it in our heads because we are at the top of the company; this has to be done by others in their daily actions. And that's where one of the dilemmas that all leaders experience daily begins.
An interesting and very useful perspective from the one we have mentioned above regarding stages of change is that proposed by Robert Golembiewski (“Ironies in organization Development”; New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990). Golembiewski points out the existence of different exchange rates, which in turn can generate different exchange rates. In the first place we have the change that is called "Alpha" where both the variables that intervene as well as the different measurements remain constant and on the other hand we have the change "Beta" that is characterized by the fact that both the variables and the measurements are modified. Finally we have the “Gamma” change where in addition to the “Beta” change we must add a paradigm shift that implies a greater dimensional leap.
How can we visualize the changes that are happening around our companies to be more aware of the need to change? All of you as entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs have surely been marketing products for many years so I can try to learn from this question:
How many of you market the same products from 10 to 15 years ago? How many of you still maintain the same design for your businesses and your companies? How many of you have kept unchanged how you were doing things? Of one thing we are sure: the companies in the past largely resembled a "dairy cow" that produced reasonably good milk on the order of about 23 liters per day. Like dairy cows, most companies had - and also lived - within a scenario of little or no change or transitional change. Of course we have had ups and downs but it was quite easy to readjust and confront the new situations. If the cow stopped producing 23 liters due to being sick, then we would bring a veterinarian and after a certain time,relatively short, we returned to the production of 23 liters per day until the cow entered its terminal phase.
But now it is not the same. A business may never be a dairy cow, not even from its very young inception. And you can dramatically in no time be in an almost Terminal situation. And the vet introduces himself as a consultant in introducing Business Improvement and Organizational Change. You now present yourself in a difficult situation, which does not resemble your previous history as an entrepreneur. Even in the previous scheme of transitional rather than transformational change in the worst case after many good years of "dairy cow" performance one could face the Terminal phase with optimism getting resources as a result of slaughtering that cow.Today you do not know if you really have a residual value that someone is willing to pay to take over your company (there are banks and companies that more recently have paid others to "go out of business").
What happens today and that puts the entrepreneur in a position to pay attention to transformational changes has to do with some of the conclusions reached by Alvin Toffler (“The creation of a new civilization”, Plaza & Jones, 1995).
Toffler suggests that the business world that wants to survive has to deal with the creation of more and more new products and services on a daily basis. And the entrepreneur does not usually have in his head that his company - which he views rather as small or medium - does not have "the resources to have an entire Research and Development department."
On the other hand, it must not only have more products, but these same products must gain in variety, and finally it confronts something that it initially perceives as a daunting task: having to kill its own new products and their variety "before" it. do the competition. This didn't make much sense a couple of decades ago, but now it turns out to be indispensable, and successful entrepreneurs need to keep it in mind. For the successful businessman "from before" it was often perceived that "the secret of success… is the secret" (Mateo Vaccaro) but now he no longer knows if "his saying" is correct.
Peter Senge ("The Fifth Discipline"; Doubleday, 1990) lets us know that "successful" companies are characterized by the fact that the different organizational members make contributions and contributions to their organization; and this is only possible if we begin to operate in a very different way where we share information and knowledge within our companies (the "Best Practice" known as Knowledge Management is one of them). But now again we find that we may be willing to change, but:
Who really wants to drive change? And one more question, who really wants to be the Leader who wants to implement it? If currently managers perceive that they are within a comfort zone, why would they have to change and accompany the change? Also, to what extent should the consequences - and the rewards - change assuming the change has been positive? And who is willing to take responsibility for non-effective change and pay for the negative consequences of it?
In reality what we are seeing is that both we and others, when we perceive that we are within our "comfort zone", we are experiencing a particular phenomenon that I like to define in this way: "The illusion that we are doing well". We have already seen in Congress many of the fatal consequences that illusions have on people.
And this is where it begins to emerge in the heads of leaders who have the responsibility of taking their company forward, the search for an additional option when they realize that the need for change is transformational and goes beyond the personal resources they have. usually at your disposal. There is a lot of talk about what consultants do but people's perceptions do not always agree with what consultants do.
And even less with the processes they develop. And not to mention the consequences and results… which are finally paid in the vast majority by employers (after all, the consultant is used to receiving fees for their services, which are often stipulated based on the hours worked and not in the results achieved).
That IS what we really know about the consulting service, and that we can verify if it is true, is not a bad question to begin with.
We as entrepreneurs are convinced that change "from the outside" impacts us very hard "inside our bodies and within our company" especially in terms of consequences that we had not previously anticipated. And many of them with dysfunctional consequences.
In Congress we have seen the differences between a consultant with a particular professional expertise, which is where the majority of consultants who define themselves as such are usually positioned, and this may also include in some cases the consulting companies themselves. The dilemma here is that under this figure the consultant can actually end up doing a job as if he belonged to the same plant of the company and therefore would be contaminated to some extent by belonging to the same culture and thus be oriented to sustain the same perspective as the current one (of no change or transitional change, turning the orange on the desk from time to time.
Now that talent and knowledge that many times comes from excellent Diplomated Professions turns out to be necessary, but on the other hand it is not necessary to be able to promote Change in the company.
At the end of the day, if the leader himself who manages the resources within the company and who also has access to a system of rewards and punishments in relation to his own staff, he cannot do it alone, how could he possibly do it? a consultant who comes from outside the company and does not have these advantages?
The entrepreneur really continues to feel hurt about how his company is doing and the results he is now achieving so that he persists in having someone from the outside “see” them anyway. And now another important question arises: How does the entrepreneur appreciate what the consultant who comes from outside can achieve in terms of change? The owner is convinced that he is not achieving what is expected in terms of income, that his costs are growing in proportion, which results in a lower contribution margin,is faced with the dilemma of mechanizing and automating to a greater extent, but on the other hand, it does not have all the money at its disposal that is required to acquire the new technology and also to comply with the commitments that it must assume "with outgoing personnel" but Anyway, he persists "in learning from another about a new perspective" that now "is sitting in front of him." What causes you to ask the consultant to see if he is competent?
In short, you now have to have an additional skill; that of evaluating a consultant. And this is also a new task that he had come to face previously and therefore has no experience. As he remains convinced that he must introduce Business Improvements and achieve Organizational Development, after a couple of "cordial" introductory dialogues, he dares to ask the consultant what previous experiences he has had. It is very likely that the consultant has not had specific experience within the same industrial sector and if so, it is possible that said experience has been at another time not very close, which suggests - in the mind of the employer - that he has dealt with problems different. And now the entrepreneur finds himself with an additional dilemma that is added to what he lives within his own company.
It is suggested that here we follow the path of whether a type of technical expertise is really necessary, which is the category in which the vast majority of consultants define themselves, or if they may be requiring an "Organizational Development Consultant". The latter's profession is Change itself, and therein lies the fundamental difference.
That is why a notable expert (Edgar Schein: "Process Consultation"; Addison-Wesley - 1969) suggests the existence of a range of two more options in addition to what he proposes under the name of process consulting.
The other options that are usually adopted by expert consultants are "Doctor-Patient" and "Purchase". And the non-beneficial consequences suggested by Edgar Schein have to do with the fact that the first one assumes to a greater extent that the Consultant is "genius" while in the organization the Client is rather "ignorant".
The second option assumes that a “Best Practice” or methodology to be implemented has been correctly chosen and that what is implemented “taking a book off the shelf” should be beneficial, which, of course, has as its title the name of the problem that - supposedly - has to be resolved.
This represents the main starting point to be able to implement a Transformational Change where the entrepreneur can see himself in the future accompanied by the personnel through the intermediate levels of the company. We do not want to go into specific details regarding the different approaches that the most expert consultants would follow, since they can access it by entering the section articles - Authors and experts… of the page www.theodinstitute.org
On the other hand, they can become very easily familiar with a large number of “Best Practices” that consultants have used in the last 50 years to introduce Business Improvements and Organizational Development ”, and this information can also be obtained from the aforementioned website.
By now, entrepreneurs are in a position to know what experts have been doing in making improvements in companies and organizations, but they do not know exactly how they do it. The methodology followed by consultants with the "Organizational Development Profession" can be found on the page www.monografias.com
But there is still a question that the employer must resolve. Commonly as entrepreneurs you are used to hiring and have very good ideas about how to assess their knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies before hiring and making them effective.
But now they have to appreciate to what extent the Consultant has the necessary competencies to carry out their work, and since it has to do with changing everything that has cost you a lot to build, you do not want to leave it in the hands of the consultant, without having some kind of evaluation. For this they can enter the website: www.gestiopolis.com where we mention the skills necessary for the development of their work.
And they can feel more confident about how the work is to be carried out if they inquire with the consultant about the stages or phases to be followed in the consulting work. On the page www.theodinstitute.org mention is made of the different stages that the consultant must take into account so that the change of improvements is not circumstantial but rather can be sustained over time. We want to emphasize that it is not common that the consultant-expert, unlike the consultant who has the "Organizational Development Profession", does not pay enough attention to the importance of the "Separation" phase.
During this stage the consultant or change agent prepares to abandon the change effort. This is one of the most critical stages of the entire process since the consultant must ensure that the improvements made have to be perpetuated without his presence. Of course this is possible when the knowledge and skills of the change consultant have been effectively transferred to the Company.
At this point, the employer is convinced that he is facing a complex problem, but fortunately he has learned that a complex problem cannot be treated in a simple way. And for this we have put on the page that we mention in this same paragraph, a lot of material in relation to topics that are directly linked to Change and Business Improvements such as: Teamwork, Leadership, Motivation, Selection and Installation of personnel, Commitment - Involvement, Decision making, Coaching, among others. In total, there are mentioned more than 5000 important contributions and contributions from notable experts in the field. One last step before going to the break.The expert consultants often mention that the results achieved with the change effort were not the same as those anticipated and anticipated due to the fact that people (in the company) "have resisted change."
For my part, I have learned that consultants are also very resistant to change and that those who carry out the task that I am doing at this moment do, being in front of this room and in front of you; I am referring to the so-called trainers - trainers - facilitators who sometimes tend to “keep some specific secrets and even screens of the PB”. That is why we do not assume that people resist change that simple.
People are particularly resistant to change when they do not have all the knowledge regarding the implications of that change. On the other hand we have not seen many expert consultants make use of all that we have learned in behavioral science, especially since Kurt Lewin and to date. So we have a beautiful future ahead of us taking into account “everything that is not being done”.
Enjoy the break because we have to dedicate ourselves to an interesting practical case that we are going to develop working in round tables with a number between 4 and 5 participants.
Thank you very much for sharing and for discussing.
