What do employers want from their employees: knowledge or competence? I visited a client recently who told me they were re-orienting their training because they needed people who can do things, they distinguished between “know how and know what”. Know how is knowledge, often raw and not contexualised, classically this knowledge is gained in a …
Category archives: Decision Making
The failure dilemma for change management
The Dilemma What about the mythical 70% failure rate for change in organisations? This has been searched for quite dilligently in the literature by Mark Hughes; who concluded that although well reported by very respected reporters, there was very little substantial measurement data to support the reports. Hence it becomes an urban myth. The dilemma …
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Where projects end and change begins
Change adds value to projects In a recent Prosci article the author provides useful questions to elicit the value of doing people change on top of a delivery project. I also find that many people in the project world just don’t get the ‘change’ bit. A large multinational company I have talked to wants to …
Competence above knowledge
Educators give us knowledge, Employers want competence Most qualifications test our knowledge of a subject; indeed we use the word ‘read’ to introduce the subject we are studying at university. Yet most employers want to know what we can do, that is our competencies. Why is there such a miss-match and what can we do …
The strategy dilemma for change
Translating a guess into a plan The dilemma for change managers leading a strategic organisation change is translating the uncertainty of the strategic analysis and decisions into actionable plans to deliver benefits. The problem is that there is no right answer to the question “what should our strategy be?” The strategists have looked into the …
Design your change around decisions
Decisions first, organisation later Which do you think should come first: the definition of the task to be carried out or the team to do the task? So what happens when an organisation needs to change: the top manager re-organises his senior team to prepare for the change. This seems to be putting the cart …
Three Myths for Change
Applying strategic thinking to change In a recent blog posting on HBR Nick Tassler wrote about three myths he has found in strategic thinking. I thought these ideas have just as much relevance for Managing Change. These three myths help to focus on doing the right things to make a difference with the resources available …
Avoiding Blunders
Blunder: a spectacular change failure A book I have just finished reading contains some excellent ideas for avoiding a complete failure in a change. The book, The Blunders of our Governments by Prof. Anthony King and Sir Ivor Crewe describes a series of major blunders by our governments. In each case a government minister set …
Making Decicions Work
Before, During, After I have put up a number of posts about making decisions and especially the key role of decision making in Change Management; such as ‘Good enough decisions‘ and ‘making decisions at the right time‘. I have come across a quote, attributed to Scott McNealy a founder and CEO of Sun Microsystems, which …
New Year, New Behaviour
New ways of thinking The new year party is over and everyone turns to wonder what the new year will be like. And then you start to think about what are you going to do to make it better and different. Of course there are plenty of articles and blogs to suggest some ideas — …