Then as you selected the finalists and went through more of a formal RFP process that entailed them taking data and mocking it up in their system…

TM: Yes. That’s when they quoted on the system, as well.

MM: So you had vendors quoting on how to automate your workflow, as opposed to simply how to install their code and then shoehorn existing current-state users to their system?

TM: Correct.

MM: As a function of having created the user manuals, did you then have the vendor basically rewrite or augment the manuals? Take us through that.

TM: Yes. We had additional meetings, after we chose the vendor. We had a meeting where they went through how they normally train. We said, “Well, that’s very nice. But here’s how we want you to train us.”

It was more focused, but just as intense. In other words, they had a certain number of days that they had allotted, to cover every feature. We said, “Well, we don’t want to cover every feature, because we’re never going to use these. So we want you to focus more intensely on these particular features here—based on the particular jobs that are out there.”

MM: You just introduced another little gem.

TM: Okay.

The 0.1 Percent Solution

MM: Typically, enterprise systems have 30,000 or 50,000 function points—where each function points represents basic unit of work of a software application. When organizations deploy enterprise systems, they may only activate 500 or 600 of these function points.

Moreover, a power user at any one point in the workflow or process may only use 80 to 100 of these function points. And, a typical user may only use 20 or 30 of function points.

Another way of saying that is that if you take the 500 to 700 function points, that’s less than one percent—actually, a tenth of one percent of the entire set of 50,000 function points of the application.

This disparity calls into question the inherent silliness of magic quadrants or waves from these various research firms. I mean who really cares about, “Completeness of vision” if user end up only using tenth of one percent of that so called complete vision.

And “Ability to execute” represents another bogus, hackneyed concept: If 49,000-plus function points remained unused, they represent more than just overhead or potential—unused function points just become sand in the gears of execution. Someone in the implementation and others in the maintenance process have to manage all this unused functionality. Argh!

So, Tom, by getting it right up front and in analog on-the-wall fashion, you and your team identified the needed 500 or so function points that would deliver economic value. You could then focus on the workflow and quality outputs instead of al the silliness of 49,000-plus unused function points.

MM: Now you’ve gotten to the root cause of why most change initiatives fail: distrust and the lack of transparency in overall process that reinforces distrust.

TM: Yes. And that’s why someone who has this change-management, psychological understanding and can facilitate is an important vehicle. He was able to identify those fears.

MM: Yes! Innovation leaders recognize the legitimate, fact-based, reference experiences that individuals project into the future, and assume will come about with a certain amount of cynical realism.

TM: Absolutely. ‘Cynical,’ is a very good word to use.

MM: Where “cynicism,” is simply the belief that the past will repeat itself.

TM: What’s past is prologue.

MM: Right. So effective change-management and innovation leadership must not start with the end-to-end visual depiction of the current big mess, project and executive leadership must address the deep-seated beliefs, “I don’t trust our workflow” and “I’m sure that I trust others to tell the real truth about what’s really going on around here.” The innovation-leadership process then entails building new trust in the proposed system.

TM: Building trust and—as this person used to always say—eliminating fears: It’s kind of the same thing, but… Fear-based activity is rampant during these processes.

Seeds of Failure Sown in Executing Well

MM: This gets to another underlying issue that you’ve set up beautifully, here.

After a while, most successful businesses become what I call, “execution systems.” From the annual strategic plan, most firms at the senior levels have well-defined goals, roles and responsibilities; everyone then supposedly “executes against plan.” There’s nothing wrong with that: companies must find and keep customers. However, in a larger context, executing against plan results in everyone keeping their heads down and getting their particular jobs done. Only, there’s no mental space to innovation, little or no freedom to change things for the better.

You could say that change and the special class of change—innovation—becomes sand in the gears of execution; that fundamentally most companies have constituted themselves as “change-resistant execution systems.”

TM: Not on purpose, I don’t think.

MM: That’s right. Not on purpose. But everyone got so focused and busy trying to survive, grow sales, and maintain profitability—all excecutional mindsets—that baby that got tossed out with the bathwater. We traded growth and security for our ability to change and adapt—we traded away our ability to innovate as a matter of daily habit.

We’re at the point now where the world continues to change so rapidly—because technologies and innovations change fundamentally how we find and serve customers—we now must bring into our execution system a new set of muscles: innovation leadership muscles.

Today everyone in an execution system knows—for the most part—to whom they contribute information or results in the workflow. Most everyone knows what outputs they owe to whom, and who owes me. What qualifies as good inputs and outputs.

TM: Right.

MM: But in the context of change, there’s no accountability. There isn’t any role clarity around “who owes what, delivered how, by what criteria of satisfaction or quality.”

I say the lack of accountability in the change context surfaces as the root cause of change resistance. No one knows what to produce, for whom, in a change context.

That was what was so brilliant about your end-to-end visual depiction of the catalog development and publishing process.

You made it clear exactly who does what for whom in the current state. The map also supported fact-based discussions, “In the future, interim or automated ideal, “Who should owes what to whom?”

You got everyone to agree, “Yes. That would actually work for me.” That really defines the art of futureproofing: getting everyone to accept a new set of accountabilities rooted in the holist improvement of the business as well as the improvement of individual productivity. Brilliant!

TM: Yes.

MM: So part of addressing fear-based behavior was replacing it with optimistic, forward-looking, pictures and images and experiences—as grounded by this visual depiction of the interim workflow, as well as the optimized workflow.

TM: Yes.