By : S.Suren
Convincing the OBVIOUS
How often have you found yourself as a consultant, in a position where your customer is not willing to accept the changes you recommend, simply because he/she have got used to an old process and don’t wont to change it ?
I am sure you have all come across this issue. The normal argument the client would use would be to justify that the old process has been working fine; he/she would call up on old facts about how well the company has been doing in its 100 – 150 years in business and the increasing market share.
One very interesting comeback line for this is what I came across when reading an article by Dr.Alan Weiss (http://www.summitconsulting.com), where he asks the customer, what stops them from thinking that their market share can’t be more than what it is.
For those of you who have come across the “The Management GURU - Tom Peters” writings, I am sure you would know this.
This is one of the strategies he proposed to practice “Thriving on CHAOS”. This is very apparent in the IT world, especially when implementing a new system to replace another system that has been in existence for a long long time.
It is likely that the end users are not sure what they would be dealing with, it is now when we as consultants need to positively educate them on the benefits for them and teaching them to LOVE the Change.
There are more than a many practical ways of doing this, but the simple most effective way, would just be to get them involved in as much as possible in the change over process (referred to by TP as “Leading by Empowering People”), giving them the feeling of ownership and making them feel as an important element in the entire process.
At the same time, make sure that as a consultant you do not lose control of the situation, this would simply mean that the overall objective of improving the business process and efficiency maybe going of track to achieving something that is already been done in a totally new different way.
Rgds
Suren
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