A Turn Around Story About Top Down Change
by Miki SaxonA post by Elliot Ross led me to a story that, as the author says, should provide a cautionary tale for all managers.
It’s the story of a company that set out to change its way of doing business from the top down—not a good approach these days with either customers or employees.
Written by Jon Nitto, President of The RetroTechs Inc., it’s a blunt, honest account of how not to change the way your company does business.
Because it wasn’t just the business approach that changed, it was a giant cultural shift that was devised by a few executives and presented to the stakeholders as a done deal under the banner of ‘this is good for you’.
Granted you’ve heard stories of similar things happening in all sizes of companies every day, but Nitto’s honesty and clear hindsight as to what they did vs. what they should have done is a valuable lesson no matter what you’re trying to change.
The big take always are that
- top down doesn’t save time or money, even when it’s with the best intentions;
- involve all stakeholders from the beginning; and
- until the changes are understood they won’t be embraced.
Read the story; compare it to how you do change; adjust; repeat as needed.
Image credit: Image credit: stephmcg on flickr
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Interesting read…
August 8th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Hi Aleksandar, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks for stopping by.