DECIDING DOESN’T GET IT DONE

Too many consulting projects result in cosmetic change: the thinking and rhetoric about the change are perfect, but the experience of people does not match the promise. Much of the cynicism about consultants is that we collude with strategies that begin with great fanfare and end with a world where the promises of change have made no difference to people’s day-to-day work lives. Much of our collusion with cosmetic change is our belief that new behavior can be defined, modeled, induced, driven, purchased, and measured into existence. Many of the ways consultants try to change institutions actually serve as a defense against change.

One of the obstacles to change (I use change and implementation to mean essentially the same thing) is rooted in our belief in executive decisiveness. In our adoration of leaders and stubborn belief in individualism, we think that when the boss’s mind is made up, action will follow. This is rarely the case. No single person runs a business, no one person makes or delivers a product, and no one general ever fought a war.