One of the fundamental challenges facing leaders today is how to regularly transform the business through major change initiatives, with minimum disruption. Change is changing: it is becoming more frequent, radical and complex. Research suggests that 70% of projects fail to secure their anticipated benefits because organizations install new systems, processes or practices, but fail to implement the change fully–people are not sufficiently personally committed to the new ways of working to sustain them. Developing the internal capability for Change Management is an essential step in assuring the successful implementation of any change project. It is also a factor that will enable the organization to continue to optimize its performance in response to changing service demands and new strategic drivers. Continue reading
Modern Management Approaches
Mental Modes in Organizational Change
An important aspect of organizational culture is the mindset, influenced by the basic assumptions and core values underlying it. It is the same as in the case of individuals whose thinking and behavior is governed by certain values imbibed through their own life experiences. An organization, at any given point of time, tends to be in a particular psychological state or mental mode, which, in turn, influences its functions, activities, and processes. An organization’s psychological state arises out of its experiences in the business environment in which it operates, the basic assumptions it holds about the environment (markets, customers, technology, community) and itself (mission, strategy, capabilities/competencies), and its operative culture. “A mental mode is the peak of a particular existential/experiential Continue reading
Successful Change Management: Principles and Processes
Managing the changes in an organization requires a broad set of skills like political skills, analytical skills, people skills, system skills, and business skills. Having good analytical skills will make you a good change agent. You should evaluate the financial and political impacts of the changes that can take place. You should know that following a particular process at that instant would fetch you immediate financial effects and start that process so that the change process is noted by the management. The workflow has to be changed in such a manner to reflect the financial changes that are taking place. Operations and systems in the organization should be reconfigured in such a manner that you get the desired financial impact. Continue reading
Case Study of General Electric: Six Sigma Implementation
General Electric, one of the most successful companies implementing Six Sigma, has estimated benefits on the order of $10 billion during the first five years of  implementation. GE first began Six Sigma in 1995 after Motorola and Allied Signal blazed the Six Sigma trail. Since then, thousands of companies around the world have discovered the far reaching benefits of Six Sigma, including Japan’s Taiichi Ohno used as a model for the Toyota Production System (TPS), did not let him down during bad economic times. An Overview  of Six Sigma Motorola coined the term “Six Sigma” and created the original formulas in the 1980’s. The result was a culture of quality that permeated throughout Motorola and led to a period of Continue reading