How does organizational culture affect the implementation of a new information system?

 IMO and IME

1. First, culture is a set of shared VABEs. VABEs can be conscious or semi- or unconscious.

What are VABEs?

VABEs are Values, Assumptions, Beliefs, and Expectations about the way the world IS or SHOULD BE.  VABEs for short.  We all have hundreds ...

http://jajisee.blogspot.com/2020/03/what-are-vabes.html

2. I know of one organization that had operations worldwide and was trying to implement a new IT system. In one region, the implementation was being resisted with energy. The underlying VABEs might have included “Those foreign owners can’t tell us how to do things” and/or “I’m too old to learn this new-fangled computer stuff” and/or “we have a way that works just fine for us, so why should we change just because they want to?”

3. Successful change efforts (I’ve been involved in several) usually make it clear a) what’s the benefit of the new way over the old way, b) the steps we’ll take to get there (8 if you like Kotter, 7 if ExperiencePoint, 4 at USAA, 5 at GE, and there are many other models outlined in my books and on my website), c) how your individual efforts in this regard will help you and the company.

4. Other resistant VABEs would include “these computer systems come and go, let’s stick with what’s working.” “It takes too long to put data into the system.” “The test screens they show me don’t do what I need them to do.” “The world is becoming too impersonal and digitized.” “I might lose my job.” “If it isn’t broken, why fix it?” “This will reduce our F2F interactions and that’s bad.”

5. I wrote a case series about a large organization that was trying to implement a new information system. They didn’t know how many employees they had and they were paying invoices out of an alphabetized shoebox (I kid you not). The cultural resistance to implementing the new system was so intense they decided to outsource the IT department and let ‘professionals’ manage it. (Chicago Park District A-D)

6. One sees the challenges you are referring to in restaurants, doctor’s offices, and virtually any telephone interaction with a business. The menus, screens, linkages, personal health portals, telephone systems, scientific organizations (who need to document insights) etc. are proliferating and the aging population often finds these annoying, inconvenient, ineffective, bewildering and time consuming.

7. A wise IT change effort has IMO carefully observed and documented the processes that employees have been using and consulted with them (focus groups eg) on what they think would make things better. Rather than designing in a room somewhere without deeply understanding the processes and the VABEs that the employees have who are using those processes.

8. The COVID pandemic as exacerbated this issue no doubt, the burgeoning of distance work/learning, Zoom/Skype meetings, and the need to use more technology to ‘keep in touch.’ How many / what proportion of people are tired of Zoom meetings and would prefer to meet the old-fashioned way?

9. Remember that executives make design decisions and then put people into those designs and that collision produces an emerging culture which in turn produces results. Bad designs/systems can produce counter-intended results. Any group of employees who’ve experienced this will likely be skeptical of new IT systems. “Here we go again!”

How can I move Individual Contributors into management faster?

 Beware! Every executive (2,000+) I’ve worked with has seen a good technical Expert ruined by promotion into management. Beware and Be Aware of the four basic commonly occurring Career Concepts, Linears, Experts, Spirals, and Transitories. (Driver and Brousseau at USC identified these 4+ decades ago, yet amazingly so many manager/executives are clueless about them.

Each Career Concept has associated with it some core VABEs and a definition of ‘success.’ They are for

1. Linears: “I can get more done by organizing others” and “moving up.”
2. Experts: “If you want it done right, do it yourself” and “craftsmanship/artisanship.”
3. Spirals: “I’d rather give up power and status in order to keep learning” and “constant learning.”
4. Transitories: “I work to support my true passion in life” and “having enough to follow my true passion.”

Many firms are full of Experts: consulting, engineering, universities, construction, music, entertainment and more. It’s not that easy to search among all those Experts and find a few who are budding Linears. Don’t be too eager to promote Individual Contributors (from Dalton and Thompson’s work Four Stages of Professional Careers) into management before you assess their ability and desire to do so.

Society/the Media emphasize the Linear model. This is what appears in the WSJ and Fortune as the success we all want. Not true. Linears make the mistake of believing (VABE) that everyone is or should be like them. I had a client once to whom I’d introduced these concepts and the COO slammed his fist down on the table and said, “NO! If the janitor in this company doesn’t aspire to be the CEO we should fire his ass out of here! That’s the American Dream! You pick yourself up by your bootstraps and climb as high as you can!” That’s a mistaken, ego-centric view of management.

Organizations with high proportions of Linears are cut-throat, dog-eat-dog places where collaboration and cooperation suffer. Wise executives will consider the proper strategic MIX of career concepts for their industry and strategies. For example, if one is in a cyclical expand/contract industry, one could appropriately hire X% of Transitories (where X is the industry historical % of contraction and expansion) so that when the next contraction arrived they would know that the X% of Transitories would be happy to leave to pursue their passions (sailing around the world, climbing the Himalayas, whatever) for a while and then come back. I know of a nurse whose passion was seeing the world. She’d work for six months, save up, then hike/hitchhike for months till she ran out of money, then take another nursing (always in demand) job wherever she was.

Each Career Concept adds value to the organization. Linears give ambition, drive, organization while Experts give craftsmanship, quality, productivity, Spirals give fresh ideas, innovation, creativity, and Transitories give flexibility.

No one is all one or the other, rather we all have a mix of Career Concepts. I’ve developed a rough self-assessment tool and posted it on my website in the Managing Careers section:

Managing Careers by Finding Fit

What’s the best way to make your next career decision? Many people make these decisions on a “try-and-see” mindset based on salary and gut feel.  The trial-and-error method can be very costly in terms of finances, time and career growth. These are big decisions, and there is a better way.  The core concept is that career success is a function of goodness-of-fit between who you are and the demands of the jobs you take.  Do you know who you are? How accurate is your gut feel? I learned to teach Self-Assessment and Career Development (SACD) from the award-winning developers of the course at the Harvard Business School. After writing the 2nd and 3rd editions of that book, I have assembled here the theory and the assessments that can guide you to making a data-based rational decision that is a better FIT for who you are.  This is a time-tested, proven process for making much better career decisions. Most students have told me that their Life Themes Lists haven’t changed in 30 years.  Think of your hand as your Life Themes List and a glove as the demands that a job will make on you.  If you fit the glove better, you will perform better. People vary widely in how much they are willing to invest in their career decisions.  So, there are three different levels of investment you can make in your future career decisions: Quick and easy (one day but less accurate and less comprehensive), Moderate (two weekends creates more data and more accuracy), and Thorough (a month of focused effort that produces a solid, data-based description of who you are) You decide how much data you want to generate and analyze. This system is fully available in my book FindingFit at Darden Business Publishing for $6.95.  The book is a 90 page PDF file with active links for about 20 self-assessment tools, a guided description of how to summarize that data into a list of Life Themes that you can use as a template for interviews, for screening employment options, and defining what you want in your career. OR you can purchase the PDF file here for $5.00. Choose the FindingFIT PayPal Button at the bottom, then click FindingFIT Download to download the file. You may have noticed several membership options on the Subscription page If you join the Career Managment Module you will have access to the FindingFIT book, online guidance through the FindingFIT process (see the modules below) plus the text of the 3rd edition of Self-Assessment and Career Development (SACD). Alternatively, you can also download the Career Option Workbook (COW) for free and navigate it on your own without the guidance of the FindingFit Workbook or the FindingFIT modules below. The Career Option Workbook is an Excel workbook with active links and 15+ self-assessment tools.  The COW is a single repository for your career management data and decision-making– and you may need some guidance to work through it. Our Program Philosophy explains the underlying assumptions about this process. Four Modules in the Career Manag

https://nadobimakoba.com/managing-careers/

Open the Career Option Workbook and find the Career Concepts (on-line, Qualtrics, free) instrument.

SO, beware of trying to move independent contributor’s as fast as you can to the next level. Find ways first of assessing every individual’s main career concept and utilizing their talents accordingly. Way too often, wonderful contributors have been ruined by promotion into management. That’s bad for the individual AND the company.

In one client workshop an engineer came up to me after class and asked “Why don’t Linears listen?” Tell me more. “I’ve only been here six months. I worked for our major competitor. Because I did a good job they kept putting me in high-potential leadership development programs. I kept saying I don’t want to be a manager, I just want to do a good job and go home. They didn’t listen, so I came here—and it’s only been six months and here I am again pushed into your leadership development program!!!”

Beware.

How do I know I'd be good at management? People tell me that.

 IMO IME

1. There are at least four major Career Concepts of which only one, Linears, are suited for leadership/management positions.
2. Over 2,000 executives in my seminars have seen Experts ruined by promotion into management. The transition from Expert or Spiral to Linear positions requires a fundamental VABE change from “if you want it done right do it yourself” to “you can get more done through others.”
3. There’s a Career Concept self-assessment tool on my website, Level Three Leadership
4. Career success is a function of goodness of fit between who you are (the hand) and the demands of the job/career (the glove). The odds are that an Expert or Spiral who takes a Linear job won’t do well.
5. The definitions of success and the core VABEs of each of the four major Career Concepts differ.  VABEs for Linears:  'I can get more done by organizing others.'  For Experts, 'If you want it done right do it yourself.'  For Spirals, 'I'm getting bored.  I need to find something new that will stimulate and challenge me.'  For Transitories, 'It's getting to be time to get away and follow my true passion for a while.'  
6. Definitions of success: Linears: Moving Up.  Experts: Craftsmanship.  Spirals: Learning.  Transitories: My trade allows me to enjoy my true passion in life.
7. Testing as a Linear is no guarantee of managerial success. Then one needs a robust, clear and inspiring CHARTER to motivate people beyond simple rewards and punishments. And a host of other skills.
8. If you truly enjoy creating inspiring purpose/mission, visions of what you want to create and convincing others of the power of your charter, then you might make a really good manager.

Is there any career in which practice leads to perfection?

 IMO

1. ‘Perfection’ is an ideal—defined by someone. Who? Who says what ‘perfection’ is in any endeavor? In business ‘success’ is often defined as ‘in specification, ahead of schedule and under budget.’
2. Japanese artists would intentionally include an imperfection in their work out of respect for Mother Nature and the desire to avoid arrogance of having achieved anything ‘perfect.’
3. Christians are encouraged to ‘be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.’ And they debate what that means endlessly. Especially in the paradoxical concepts of sin/guilt and grace and the number (600+) of commandments in the Bible. The attempt to be ‘perfect’ can lead/has led to significant mental disorders. I’m including brain chemistry issues here (ie OCD and more).
4. Religions tout the importance of becoming ‘better’ if not ‘perfect.’ Some do tout a kind of perfection in ‘enlightenment,’ ‘salvation,’ etc. IME the collected regional answers to misunderstood problems led to the creation of the world’s scriptures, which contain mountains of mythological misinformation that billions continue to foist upon defenseless children. After laboring under that ‘system’ for 48 years, I determined to rethink. 20 years of data collection led to A Song of Humanity: a science-based alternative to the world’s scriptures, an attempt to provide a more accurate, data-based, global not regional lyrical description of where we came from that one could read to children.
5. Some gymnasts have achieved ‘perfect’ 10’s in competition. There is no ‘perfect’ score in golf or baseball or football although some teams have been undefeated.
6. What’s a ‘perfect’ spouse/partner? Parent? Child? Politician? Soldier? Athlete? Lawyer? Teacher?
7. Demings once noted that every organization is perfectly designed to produce the results it’s producing. A kind of reverse-engineering, Darwinian perspective. The ‘fittest’ survive in evolution, not necessarily the strongest, rather those who adapt the ‘best’ to their environments.
8. SO, I say ‘not likely.’ In fact, bad practice can actually ingrain bad habits and make improvement more elusive, much less some idealist image of perfection. (eg golf, piano, violin, etc.)

How does one keep people on track in meetings?

 IME

1. Agendas should be structured around QUESTIONS that need to be answered, NOT topics—which tend to reappear in meeting after meeting.
2. Circulate the agenda in advance along with any supporting information/data.
3. Record decisions made in the meeting (use a person assigned the role of keeping notes)
4. Ask “how does this help us answer this question?”
   
   
5. Use the MIT/Peter Senge 'dialogue' technique, asking people one at a time in order their thoughts on the question of the moment, no reactions allowed, then go around a second time to allow people to modify their views based on what others have said.  

Is there any career in which practice leads to perfection?

 IMO

1. ‘Perfection’ is an ideal—defined by someone. Who? Who says what ‘perfection’ is in any endeavor? In business ‘success’ is often defined as ‘in specification, ahead of schedule and under budget.’
2. Japanese artists would intentionally include an imperfection in their work out of respect for Mother Nature and the desire to avoid arrogance of having achieved anything ‘perfect.’
3. Christians are encouraged to ‘be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.’ And they debate what that means endlessly. Especially in the paradoxical concepts of sin/guilt and grace and the number (600+) of commandments in the Bible. The attempt to be ‘perfect’ can lead/has led to significant mental disorders. I’m including brain chemistry issues here (ie OCD and more).
4. Religions tout the importance of becoming ‘better’ if not ‘perfect.’ Some do tout a kind of perfection in ‘enlightenment,’ ‘salvation,’ etc. IME the collected regional answers to misunderstood problems led to the creation of the world’s scriptures, which contain mountains of mythological misinformation that billions continue to foist upon defenseless children. After laboring under that ‘system’ for 48 years, I determined to rethink. 20 years of data collection led to A Song of Humanity: a science-based alternative to the world’s scriptures, an attempt to provide a more accurate, data-based, global not regional lyrical description of where we came from that one could read to children.
5. Some gymnasts have achieved ‘perfect’ 10’s in competition. There is no ‘perfect’ score in golf or baseball or football although some teams have been undefeated.
6. What’s a ‘perfect’ spouse/partner? Parent? Child? Politician? Soldier? Athlete? Lawyer? Teacher?
7. Demings once noted that every organization is perfectly designed to produce the results it’s producing. A kind of reverse-engineering, Darwinian perspective. The ‘fittest’ survive in evolution, not necessarily the strongest, rather those who adapt the ‘best’ to their environments.
8. SO, I say ‘not likely.’ In fact, bad practice can actually ingrain bad habits and make improvement more elusive, much less some idealist image of perfection. (eg golf, piano, violin, etc.)
9. And Judith, you ask a LOT of questions. Are you a real person? Is your purpose in life to stimulate thought, or just to be …. ???