Organizational Groundhog Day!

The person asking this month's question is from a large health care insurance provider. Her organization is in the process of restructuring to match changes in their consumer and provider markets. As part of the restructuring, thye are examining core processes. Our question submitter is one of the sponsors of the process improvement effort, and a leader of a task force responsible for benchmarking.

She feels like they are on the path to failure because all they do is “rehash old issue and nothing ever changes.” She wants to know how to stop repeating this Organizational Groundhog Day Syndrome.

Q: We are getting ready to do some process improvement as part of a major restructuring effort and we will be revamping a couple of our major processes. The problem is we have done this before (this is the second Process Improvement Team I have sponsored in the past 3 years) and each meeting just seems to be a repeat of the last time we tried this. We talk about the same things, re-write and re-vamp the process – using nothing but the best and most colorful charts! Old issues get rehashed and then nothing changes.

I'm frustrated because this is a very knowledgeable group – two of the people are recent MBA grads and we have read everything there is about process improvement. Yet, I feel like we are on the path to failure … again. I would be interested in any words of wisdom or suggestions you might have. But please don't tell me to read anything else!

A: Well I hope you at least read my response to your question!

In your email and our subsequent phone conversation, it was clear that you are very frustrated and feel like this process is the “same-ol'-same-ol'.” Your frustration is palpable and understandable. Given the condition of the economy and the dire needs of your business, failure is just not an option.

As we discussed, you are stuck in what I characterized as the, “Organizational Groundhog Day" game. The tag comes from the movie, “Groundhog Day,” in which the lead character keeps reliving the same day over and over – with the same results!

In your organization, you keep having the same discussion and repeatedly come to the same end result. As you indicated, the process is frustrating to all involved and a waste of time. Plus, continued failure will result in diminished interest or willingness to be on a process improvement team and overall morale will decrease at time when we all have enough to be on edge about! Your company simply cannot afford any more wasted efforts.

Two things we discussed seemed to apply:

1. The new processes the teams have devised appear to be threatening the power position of a couple of your key technical people who have a stake in the process as it is currently configured. When it breaks down – as it often does and causes a workload backup - they spring forward and charge in to provide the needed “fix” - heroes to the rescue!

As a result: the process not only remains unchanged but the people involved do not learn anything new. They continue to rely on the technical folks to ride in and save the day.

One piece missing to the puzzle seems to be the involvement of the key technical people in the process improvement effort. Until you address, “What's in it for me?” with the key people, they will continue to protect their roles in the current process.

Tapping a team of people knowledgeable in process improvement for this effort is a good idea. At a minimum, involving people who are benefiting/have a stake in the current process gives you first hand information on why the process has survived as long as it has. Remember, it is producing results – just not the ones you want.

2. Many of the people you discussed who are involved in implementing the continued “new” processes sound as if they see the implementation of a new way as futile, and maybe even threatening. They are acting according to how they perceive the situation. The future is occurring to them as impossible or risky, and they are acting accordingly.

A critical ingredient missing in this situation appears to be alignment. The key technical folks and the people involved in the implementation are not aligned around the same picture of the benefits and anticipated results. They do not see what is possible, only what is currently happening, and what has happened in the past, i.e. the failures of other “new” methods.

My suggestion is to conduct an “All Hands Meeting” – which you have used successfully in the past – to engage all of the participants in a conversation responding to two questions:

A. What do the current processes produce? (People know that the way things are being done now is not working.)

B. What will happen in the future if the current processes are continued? (This gives some meat to the often-used phrase, “If you continue to do what you've always done, you will continue to get what you've always gotten.)

This will bring out some of the pressures people are experiencing, questions, concerns, etc. and provide a new view of what is possible. Paint two pictures of the future: one of the future that will result if nothing changes and the other of a future that is possible when people are aligned and act differently.

As we discussed, this is a fairly simple, straightforward method - the elegance is in the simplicity. We have seen this method actually shift the way people see their work and themselves, and unleash energy and excitement about what is possible.

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