How to get the Klingons on your side

publication date: Oct 15, 2007

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author/source: Dushen Naidoo (October 2007)

People who cause blockages to vitally important changes in organisations by clinging on to outmoded ways of doings things can actually be a source of important insights - and you might even turn them into allies.

Part I – “It’s Life Jim…”

In the immortal TV series Star Trek, the Klingons were often fearsome adversaries of Captain James Kirk, his crew and the Federation. But on occasion, and especially during crucial times, they could be useful allies.

Today, another type of Klingon – people who cling on to old, outmoded ways of doing things when new ways are needed – can dramatically slow the successful progress of an organisation, or even stop that progress completely. Corporate Klingons need careful handling if they are not going to cause your organisation serious damage.

But, just like the Klingons in Star Trek, the Klingons of the business world can often be successfully wooed and turned into robust allies. And even better, there is often also a great deal you can learn from them.

Why do so many initiatives to implement changes at organisations – initiatives that may appear to make perfect, even utterly obvious sense – run into problems? Why do the most promising initiatives so often either fail to be implemented at all, or wind up being implemented in a half-hearted way that fails to bring the organisation anything remotely resembling the benefits it should be getting from it?

Why do people who want to make the change so often end up feeling frustrated and convinced that their energies have been diluted by indifference and inertia within the organisation?
In today’s enormously competitive markets, designing the right kind of change initiative, and implementing it in an undiluted way that allows the organisation to reap the full benefits of the initiative is essential for maximising competitive edge. It may also be a prerequisite for sheer survival.

What exactly goes wrong, and why, when an organisation doesn’t manage to harvest as many benefits as expected from positive change?

We talk of change in business, but what we really mean is improvement. And in practice, what we usually mean by improvement is actually process improvement: that is, any organisational initiative causing a significant improvement in the way a deliverable is produced for a customer, whether an external or internal one.

It’s true that some important kinds of change – such as the launch of a major new product or service, or a move into a completely new business – may not initially involve process improvement. But in practice, process is almost always going to be a major part of the improvement.

The need for an improvement will arise, in corporate life as in the life of an individual, because something serious is felt to be wrong. What exactly will be wrong is inevitably going to vary from one organisation to another, but typically it will be a perceived problem in one or more of the following areas:
•    competitiveness
•    customer service
•    employee morale
•    financial management
•    logistics
•    profitability
•    sourcing crucial resources.
•    strategic planning
•    technology

Typically, the existence of a problem will be signalled by a clear sense that the organisation is failing in one or more of these areas, with stakeholders (such as shareholders) putting additional pressure on the organisation to solve the problem.

In practice, the question of who actually perceives the problem is of great importance. By looking at this question, we are starting to move into Klingon territory.

Human beings tend to be creatures of habit, or even of inertia. In a corporate environment there is all too often a feeling that advocating new ideas can be risky. People worry, by no means always unreasonably, that sticking their neck out could lead to it being cut off. In corporate life, the border between being seen as possessing brilliant business insight, and being dangerously unconventional and eccentric, may be alarmingly narrow.

This observation provides a vital clue as to why implementing improvement within an organisation is all too often a demoralising matter. What frequently happens in any improvement process is that a disheartening polarisation soon materialises between:
•    those who enthusiastically advocate the improvement
•    Klingons who cling on to old ways of doing things and who therefore resist the change.

In situations where there is no resistance to change, it is usually inevitable that the improvement will be implemented quickly and in full, but in practice experience tends to show that such situations are rare. Instead, polarisation is a much more likely outcome. For this reason, it’s vitally important and instructive to look at both sides of this polarisation and the dynamics affecting each side.

Enthusiastic advocates of the improvement

Would-be advocates of the improvement may be employees (such as project sponsors or project managers) or external consultants. How much a particular advocate will have at stake in the bid to implement the improvement will vary from one advocate to another.

Employees may have their corporate credibility to lose, a potential promotion, or even the danger of being fired if they get things wrong. An employee advocate may for this reason be more willing to compromise when encountering obstacles, but not necessarily only out of fear. Such advocates are also likely to be more aware of the political dynamics within the organisation.

Consultants may have a large part of their remuneration at stake: increasingly clients are tending to favour shared-risk and shared-reward deals. On the other hand, consultants are more likely to be independent of internal corporate pressures, often because they may not be particularly aware of them. Consultants sell themselves on this independence/objectivity, which  lets them venture into potentially exciting areas where employees restrained by timidity may be unwilling to venture.

Consultants sometimes also have another built-in advantage: it may be easier for them to stick to their guns and have the courage of their convictions, because the worst that can happen to them if the relationship with the organisation sours is that they’ll lose a client, which is much better than losing their job.

Dushen Naidoo is a consultant at Decision Focus, a professional services consultancy that specialises in rapidly delivering performance improvement through process. Decision Focus was founded in 1995 and has carried out significant projects for a wide range of organisations across the private and public sectors. Email: DNaidoo@DecisionFocus.co.uk www.decisionfocus.co.uk