Over the holiday weekend I came a cross a LinkedIn discussion about the old maxim “If you can’t change the people . . . change the people.”  The discussion has quite a bit of activity – over 1100 comments.  Diverse views on getting people on-board with change programs or getting rid of the people.

I have long bought into the belief that the performance of any organization is 95% attributable to the system and only 5% the individual alone ( W. Edwards Deming).  Understanding variation and special/common causes helps with this thinking.   So to focus on the individual from the beginning is misguided.

It was A.P. Sloan that first taught us that decision-making is best separated from the work.  Leading to today’s organization where managers manage and workers work. 

Too many managers have so little understanding of the work they make decisions on.  This leaves workers with a bad taste for change.  No one likes change that makes things worse for them.  Coercion and rationalization are the only alternatives for these types of managers to convince workers.

As a systems thinker, I have found that change is best born from the work and not the manager.  Knowledge needs to be gained from the understanding of the work by managers and workers to make better decisions.  This is to allow change to be emergent from a joint understanding of the system.

By understanding the “what and why” of current performance organizations wipe out assumptions born from superstitous learning, anecdotal evidence and computer-generated reports.  This allows managers and workers to see the problems for themselves.

Changing people should be the last choice and not the first as the design and management of the work offers a greater opportunity to improve.  This requires different thinking than the top-down, command and control style deployed by organizations when making change.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Make the new decade a profitable and rewarding one, start a new path here.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about how to get started at tripp@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

Tripp Babbitt is a columist (Quality Digest and IQPC), speaker, and consultant to private and public service industry.