Thursday, March 10, 2011

Complacency 2

“Wake up, Curmudge! It’s too early for your afternoon nap.”

“I’m not napping, Jaded Julie. I’m concentrating on our colleagues’ one-page papers and trying to extract lessons that are worthy of being shouted from the roof of the hospital’s parking structure. As in last week’s posting we are sharing with our readers portions of our guest authors’ interpretations of John Kotter’s quotation, ‘Never underestimate the magnitude of the forces that reinforce complacency and that help maintain the status quo.’ Now it’s Rick’s turn. He focuses on the threat of complacency following a critical period in the life of an organization.”

“Kotter lists nine sources of complacency, but I want to briefly describe two that are intertwined. They are, ‘Absence of a major and visible crisis,’ and ‘Too much happy talk from senior management.’ I recall the story that our CEO told our Lean class, ‘Several years ago the threat facing the organization wasn’t how to take the next step in our growth as an organization, but rather how to avoid taking our last step as an organization.’ Wow! That really grabbed our attention. At that point, there was most definitely a major and visible crisis, and senior management certainly wasn’t bragging about the bright future of Affinity. There were tough decisions that were made and hard work that was done and Affinity is now in a stronger position. However, now that the existential danger is lessened, a new threat, complacency, may be present out there in the organization. We need to praise all the hard work and success that everyone made to get us to our current position. But by doing so, do we risk negating the sense of urgency within the organization that is needed to make the next step? The threat is that we might rest on our laurels because the danger of the organization’s collapsing appears to be no longer imminent.”

“The other part of our newer colleagues’ assignment was to explain how they would use Lean to manage their staff in challenging the status quo. In brief, they have been asked to present a problem with complacency—as they have done above—and then propose appropriate countermeasures. Since Rick just described his problem, let’s read how he will tackle it.”

“The challenge facing the organization is to make sure that we don’t lose our sense of urgency. We need to develop Lean leaders that have the self-motivation and internal urgency to be the best. With those qualities, they will retain our focus on the corporate vision.”

“I believe what he is saying is that middle managers’ dedication to Lean must be visceral.”

“My knowledge of anatomy is pretty sketchy, Julie, but I suspect that in this context, visceral is the same as hard-wired.”

“I believe we all agree with Justin, who feels that the most effective way to challenge staff in implementing change is to create a high sense of urgency.”

“To effectively change the status quo, you must start to change culture, which is typically is very difficult to accomplish. Escalating the sense of urgency counterattacks complacency in individuals who are not resistant to change. This escalated sense of urgency pushes individuals to the edge of their comfort zone and reiterates the need for change. The sense of urgency should also make it difficult for employees to revert back to their old habits, either by eliminating the possibility or by encouraging a need of abandonment.”

“Ieva maintains a sense of urgency not by injecting Lean into an existing system but by totally changing the system. In this case, the change is from traditional primary care to the Medical Home model.”

“In my role as a Lean coach, I have committed to bring this sense of urgency to life by teaching and helping our staff look at our processes with new eyes. I specifically have been blessed to work with our Medical Home sites in implementation of a new care delivery model. While it is easier to spot changes that need to take place at the new sites, I continuously challenge our existing Medical Home sites to look at the new and improved processes and evaluate and adjust as needed. We do not always figure out the best way first—there is always improvement to be had.”

“We haven’t quoted Jerry in this posting yet, but I believe he has a viable countermeasure for incorrigible resisters to change.”

“There are mindsets in organizations that are rooted so deeply that they are nearly impossible to change unless they are eliminated through a transformation, total renewal of mind, or in some cases radical surgery.”

“It sounds as if sometimes people just have to be asked to ‘get off the bus.’ That seems pretty harsh.”

“Congratulations, Curmudge. For once you used a five-dollar word, ‘harsh,’ when you might have used a ten-dollar word, ‘draconian.’ But tell me Curmudge, are we going to post our guest authors’ writings on complacency and change leadership without putting in our own two cents?”

“We have been there and done that three years ago, Jaded Julie. I hope you haven’t forgotten our postings on Change Leadership for Middle Managers.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon

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