The best change programs are simple and applied ruthlessly

Yourself or your organization needs a drastic change? How can you do that?

Too many change gurus and consultants will engineer and recommend large, complex programs. Yes of course, you need to re-engineer processes, communicate, engage with people.

My take: any change effort is 0.1% decision, 10-20% engineering, 80-90% implementation.

Don’t exhaust yourself at the engineering stage. Spend less time designing the perfect change program. Focus on the one thing that needs to change, and design a very simple incentive system to get yourself or your organization moving in the right direction. Remember the elephant and the rider. You want to be emotionally engaging, capitalize on the elephant’s hot buttons to get it moving, and easy.

Then, however, be extremely disciplined and consistent in applying the new, simple system. It is simple, easy to communicate. Repeat, repeat, repeat; communicate, communicate, communicate; act consistently, act consistently, act consistently.

Remember: don’t consume all your energy devising the change. Keep it simple, and emotionally engaging. Keep your energy for the implementation stage. And there, be ruthless in your discipline and how you apply it throughout the organization.

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