Your operating model is perfectly designed to get the results that you're getting: So change it!

You've decided that your organisational performance needs to improve.

You've determined that you must make breakthroughs and have perhaps launched some form of transformation or other change program to help make the performance improvements that you desire.

The question is: Are you actually making any changes to your operating model?

The reason that I pose that question is that your current operating model is perfectly designed to get the results that you're getting. Whether you actively implemented the design, or it's simply evolved over many years, the outcomes that it delivers are how it's intended to perform, and so asking different results of it is a futile effort.

"The definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" ~ Anonymous (although often attributed to Albert Einstein).

What often happens is that the change / transformation program focusses on the desired results and invoking new expectations on its people, perhaps with a dash of 'culture principles' to ensure that the team members are clear on how they're intended to behave.

However, the environment and operating model remains unchanged, requiring immense conscious effort from all to generate any difference in results. This is short-lived, as the individuals and collective team members simply don't have the energy and stamina to maintain this change in outcomes for any extended period of time.

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Without a fundamental change in the operating model, and the environment within which people work, no fundamental change can be made to how the organisation operates, and the results that it achieves. This is a significant learning from the 'Psychology of Change' and the BTFA model teachings of David Bovis, M. npn and his partner Levent Türk (??Mr.BTFA??) .

"Behaviour (Action), is always dependant upon what people [brains] believe" ~ David Bovis.

Too many organisations believe that a slick marketing campaign, supported by a strong communications plan, can convince its people, prospective employees, shareholders and other stakeholders that the culture and working practices of the organisation have changed.

However, this is a belief labouring under the presumption that people aren't intelligent enough to observe the reality of leadership behaviours and hence come to their own conclusions.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said:

“What you do speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying”

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What true change requires is authentic leadership, and to avoid doubt, I don't mean a communication campaign talking about clichéd authentic leadership but, rather, activist, genuine leadership that lives and breaths the values that the organisation attests to wish to adopt and engender into its culture.

Combined with this is the need to undertake a meaningful redesign of the operating model, which will require a complete overhaul of the design of the Value Streams, organisational structure, roles and responsibilities, delegation of authority, Management control and reporting system, and behavioural norms that will support the value changes required.

If this sounds like a lot to do, it is!

Just as in our personal lives, whereby we might wish to lose weight, run a marathon, learn to play a musical instrument, etc, we'll have to prioritise, change our behaviours and habits, and invest significant time to make the change, so it is in an institutional context.

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However, don't despair, as there is a fantastic payoff for doing so:

1. The creation of true Leaders
2. Increased employee engagement
3. A better 'life in balance' for all (sometimes called work-life balance)
4. Superior business results

The really great news is that these results don't come at the end of the transformation program, but from day one. In fact, if done really well, there is no end, simply an ongoing and virtuous cycle of improvement, as the new operating system starts to reinforce the right behaviours and operating practices, and improved outcomes.

The moral of the story is that your current operating model really is designed perfectly for the results that you are attaining and so, if you want different results, you'll need to change to a new operating model!

Interested to learn more? Click on the following links to read the introductions or buy one of my books:

• Leading Lean by Living Lean: Changing how you lead, not who you are
• The Simplicity of Lean: Defeating Complexity, Delivering Excellence
• Leading with Lean: An experience-based guide to Leading a Lean Transformation

Feel free to visit?my Website at:?LeadingwithLean?and?my other?LinkedIn posts?may be found?at this?link.

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