Buzzword Alert
by Janet Lapp, PhD

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"Business Transformation"
"Organizational Agility"
"Knowledge Management"
"Value Engineering"

Is your company using any of these terms? Well, that's good news and bad news. The good news: they are keeping up with trends and there will be more attention paid to people. Bad news? Soon there'll be a new herd of consultants stampeding across your trammeled psyche. Why? The general failure and chaos of re-engineering efforts. Levi Strauss & Co. stopped its $850 million re-engineering effort too late; chaos erupted when management demanded that 4,000 white-collar workers reapply for their own jobs.

I wasn't smart enough about people. I was reflecting my engineering background and was insufficiently appreciative of the human dimensions.
I've learned that's critical.
Michael Hammer; author; Reengineering the Corporation:
A Manifesto for Business Revolution

Consultants will be peddling: Knowledge Management, which includes enterprise software that links workers together, intranet technology, and some growth strategies; Organizational Agility, the ability to respond rapidly to demand changes; Business Transformation, Hammer's new blend of re-engineering, strategy and culture change; and Value Engineering, which focuses on growth and revenues.

Caution: These are all important steps to creating positive change in a company. There is a need to change culture and behavior more quickly, to manage knowledge, to become more agile, and to focus on people. But companies continue to squeeze out layers of management and press front-line employees to carry broader responsibilities. People lack the training or education to survive in the organization that the gurus envision, management is minimal and tasks are complex. Do not rely on any single technique as the solution to business problems. You know what to do already. You certainly don't need to spend more money on consultants. Ask the people who do the work how to facilitate the change and what they need. Then give them the training to do it.

Be Everywhere

What do Starbucks, Dell Computer, Home Depot , and Charles Schwab have in common? They're ubiquitous. They all took ordinary products -- coffee, computers, hardware, and securities -- and found ways to reach consumers everywhere, constantly.

A new channel is one of the top sources of competitive advantage, and these days if you miss it, you miss major market share. Kraft, P&G, and Nestle sat back and watched Starbucks stealing their coffee market share, doing nothing. Now, you'll find Starbucks everywhere -- in ice cream freezers, (Starbucks-Dreyer's ice cream is the best-selling coffee ice cream in the country), on United Air Lines flights, in Barnes & Noble and with Pepsi in the marketing of Frappuccino.

Starbucks is not a trend.
We're a lifestyle.
Schultz

Most current innovation comes from upstarts because the giants get stuck by internal culture clashes. Avon scrubbed a plan to direct-market after its own door-to-door salespersons complained that the new channel would cut down their income. Hallmark faces opposition from its namesake stores as it tries to go direct. The worst off? Companies that deny the need to switch to a new channel. Wang failed to recognize the importance of doing business with the network of retail computer dealers.

Don't just build a better mousetrap. Build a better path to the cheese. List all current information channels available and brainstorm ways you can use them. Then try them out.

Keep Your Morale Up!!

A company that experiences a layoff staggers from the loss of talent, knowledge and morale for months, even years. People may be fighting 'survivors guilt,' loss of co-workers, the burden of additional responsibility, and the fear of not being able to cope with increased demands. A worker might feel guilt if he is not cut, but a coworker was. Employees may mourn the loss or death of the company as they knew it. Right Associates found 74% of employees had lower morale, feared future cutbacks and distrusted management after major changes, especially after downsizing.

Many functions simply cannot continue without all the necessary players. It still takes four musicians and four instruments to play a quartet. The productivity of nurses, teachers and social workers is diminishing because so many important pieces of their work are missing.

Although morale is a composite of many factors such a good management and good systems, here's what some companies are doing to help:

Gulfstream is considering taking some employees for rides (yours truly considered applying for a job), Silicon Graphics gives spirit awards, a vacation in Hawaii and a place on the management advisory board, Lotus forms a 'soul' committee to improve morale, United Technologies hires Burn-out Cops who watch out for frazzled employees, Southwest holds contests, Dallas-based Miller & Associates asks employees to complete life-purpose assignments with satisfying life events rather than give performance reviews -- this helps folks balance and increases effectiveness. KPMG delivers mints. Going slightly too far, Indus has developed an electronic reporting system to record the pulse of every employee on a 10-point scale, an indication of how relaxed or frazzled they are.

Two simple moves you can make now:

1. Allow all employees to own a least one small project of their own, which they can follow through from start to completion.
   
   
2. Those cartoons, pictures, and objects around desks don't distract, they enhance. Create a personal space around each desk, and allow staff to fill them with their favorite objects. For hoteling companies with no fixed desk space, keep staff's personal objects in bins and place on desks just before staff are due to check in.