H
|
ow
do leading firms manage change? They’re strategic says Professor Robert
Macintosh of Glasgow University. If two words sums up the Professor’s idea, its got to be crucial
insights. Or plainly expressed, firms with strategists that reason productively
diagnose the right problem. There is no question that managers need help to
understand issues from multiple perspectives. Especially if emphasis is made on
the need to diagnose the right problem. For instance, on the introduction of
the Dyson as a bag-less vacuum cleaner which changed the nature of that
industry. Many of the incumbent firms began to struggle to compete, losing both
market share and money. It was clear that the problem was being defined
differently by different groups within well-know vacuum cleaner firms. Those in
marketing and product development felt sure that consumers wanted a more
powerful machine because the power rating of the motor implied greater suction
and greater suction meant higher cleaning efficiency. The design engineers didn’t see the problem
in the same way at all.
“they
[the marketing people] keep asking for more power. We’re building cleaners with bigger and
bigger motors but that just means that the machines get more expensive and
heavier. Worse still, my team is now
designing systems to dissipate some of the suction produced because if it was
all directed at the carpet the machine would suck so hard you wouldn’t be able
to push it along.”
Senior Design
Engineer
For
the engineers, the problem was one of improving product reliability and
reducing the costs of production by standardizing components and streamlining
assembly processes. The senior
management of the firm were however, thinking at a different level of
abstraction and were concerned about the cost base of their operations. This led to a decision to close UK-based
factories and move production to eastern Europe where wage costs were
lower. Each group had framed the problem
in its own terms. Everyone saw the same
symptoms, lower revenues and declining market share, but each group diagnosed different
causal mechanisms and therefore arrived at divergent conclusions on how best to
move forward. Could all this change if managers are equipped with tools that
enable them think critically. Perhaps, an
enquiry-action learning approach could help enhance performance. But
first, firms have to set out a course today, and dynamically prepare on how
they might set out to explore these tomorrow.
(Snippet from the book “Managing Change: Enquiry and Action by Robert Macintosh
and Nic Beech”, Cambridge University Press).
