I heard Dr. Dean Ornish talking about the success of totally transforming your diet vs. making small steps. His research shows that people who completely and radically change their diet to a healthy diet to prevent heart disease or reverse it are much more likely to sustain the changes than people who make incremental changes after heart surgery. I also read about a Bain & Co study showing that companies that totally transformed by throwing out their senior execs and brining in new people had compelely turned around in 2 years or less with and average of 250% increase in stock price.
The implications for organizational change seem to be that better to make large bold moves than smaller ones. They will shake things up and create lasting change rather than the incremental changes of a new training program here or a new product there.
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While the Ornish "total transformation" idea and the Bain & Co. study might imply that completely "whacking" senior management would have a more positive business impact than a more "moderate" implementation of change, I would say, like so many issues in life, at most one can say "it depends" -- or that the views expressed above may be only partially correct.
ReplyDeleteBased upon personal experience, I submit the following:
1. Many years ago I decided to quit smoking. In a sense, like Ornish, I decided NOT to take the gradual approach in eliminating tobacco from my life...rather, I decided to stop smoking COLD TURKEY and was 100% successful.
2. However, although during the same time period I had also recognized the need for me to make a commitment improve my overall diet, to have attempted to accomplish everything all at once would have resulted in failure.
3. Instead, I took the incremental approach with managing food intake and preparation, gradually eliminating all pork, shell fish, red meat, chicken, hydrogenated oils and more.
If I had tried to stop smoking and eliminate all meat and shellfish from my diet simultaneously, it would have been a train wreck. The probability is very high that none of my goals would have been achieved.
An analogy from medicine might be "what would be the best course of action to successfully treat an ailing patient."
Depending on the case, it may be most prudent to avoid the most radical or heroic treatment, for fear you may hurt or even kill that patient; on the other hand, in some instances, nothing short of the most extreme approach would be necessary in order to save and restore a given person to health most effectively, in the least amount of time.
When implementing organizational change initiatives, sometimes a bold move is the best prescription...in other instances, targeting the most dysfunctional areas and incrementally facilitating behavioral changes is the most effective therapy.
John
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