Organize the Business with R-pM to Eliminate Change Management Problems
Why do we have business change and change management problems
Every business must change to improve and grow. Business change is change to the business for management improvement, new solution or system implementation, a new organization structure, etc. Change management is the management of changes to the business. Why do we have business change and change management problems that have never been solved? If the business is organized, the business changes with each change to the business; business changes are not accumulated for business change and change management projects. The fundamental problem is that business itself has never been organized or managed. If we do not manage the business, how can we manage change to the business?
Enterprises today do not know what constitutes the business
We do not even have a good definition of the enterprise business to know if the business is organized or managed. The most generally-accepted definition of the business enterprise in dictionaries seems to be “the activity of providing goods and services”. According to this definition, we must organize and manage “the activity of providing goods and services”. What is business activity? Business activity utilizes human and other capital invested in the business in performance. Capital invested in the business is utilized in performance to provide goods and services. What are goods and services? Goods and services are economic output results produced by the business.
The business must be defined precisely in order to manage the business
Further analysis produces a precise definition of the enterprise business as; “investments in capital as solutions of worth utilized for costs and effectiveness of performance to produce value and quality in results”. The actual business consists of three components:
- Results, including goods and services, produced by business performance
- Capital in the investments in specific human and other solutions that are utilized in performance
- Performance, or business activity, in the utilization of capital as specific solutions to produce specific results
These components are the only three that define the enterprise business. But these three components are not organized and managed in today’s enterprise.
Business change is change to results produced and capital utilized in performance
Every business decision and business change involves results to produce and capital to utilize in performance to produce the result. Change management is a problem because we do not manage results produced as economic outputs from the business and we do not manage investments in capital as specific solutions utilized in performance to incur performance costs and create result value. Results and capital invested in solutions define the business. When the business is organized, the organization changes each time a new result is produced or a new capital solution is utilized.
Business change today does not change the business
Most enterprises and managers think that business change is change to the actual business. But, as we have discovered the business is not organized or managed. The enterprise is organized by laying an arbitrary organization structure over the business. This fatal error prevents the business from ever being managed. Enterprises are managed by laying strategies, corporate plans, processes, accounts, activities, systems, IT architectures, scorecards, and so on over the business. Business change and change management is not change to the business but change to the structures laid over the business.
Business transformation methods did not provide business change
Over the past fifteen years, many new business methods have come and gone, such as total quality management, business process and performance management, enterprise resource planning, and various methods of business re-organization. Even though the business organization problem is not understood, enterprises soon discover that they do not have a strong foundation for business change. It is a departure from the norm, they do not have the proper resources, management does not have the time, change objectives are not well defined or understood, etc. As business change and management improvement methods got more sophisticated, these problems became more acute. Enterprises end up with common business change problems. Management and staff resist the changes, many changes are never implemented or utilized properly, and it is difficult to see where they really benefit from change.
Consultants today cannot solve business change problems
The lack of a strong change foundation prompts enterprises to use business change consultants to implement the business change. Consultants can alleviate some problems, but they cannot provide the foundation for business change. Consultant implementation methodologies concentrate on solution implementation and performance improvement, which aggravate the problem of change. Consultant business change and management improvement projects created noticeable problems in user dissatisfaction and gaining benefit from implemented solutions. Recognizing the problem, the consultants developed a new line of “change management” services. The services do not recognize the fundamental problems in business organization and the original business change project. The services address the problems created by change and resistance to change in communications, behavior, outlook, and so on.
Many factors cause change management problems today
Even accepting that the business is not organized, enterprises and business change management consultants mismanage change due to several factors:
- The improper objective to implement change, rather than to benefit from change
- Implementing new solutions to incur costs, rather than implementing the utilization of the solution to gain benefits
- Change through re-organizations and upheaval, rather than as part of the business routine
- Change is managed by consultants with ad-hoc projects, indifferent management support, management improvement methodologies, limited user involvement, no management of the return, and other problems that make success so elusive
- Failure to manage capital, since most capital is “intangible” or administered to keep it operating, rather than managed for change, improvement, and utilization to produce benefit
- Failure to identify results to be improved to plan the benefit of change and measure the return on investment
- Creating resistance and change management problems by trying to improve user performance, rather than enabling users to produce new or improved results
- Ad-hoc business change projects rather than projects managed as a business to improve the enterprise business
These change management and management improvement problems will continue as long as we manage the enterprise with structures laid over the business instead of organizing the business to change continually with business change.
R-pM eliminates business change and change management problems
We can eliminate change management problems and the need for change management consulting by using Result-performance Management (R-pM). R-pM is a breakthrough to organize and manage the actual business and eliminate business change and change management problems
Result-performance Management organizes the business for 21st century management. The enterprise business is organized as a business structure with results across columns, capital solutions down rows, and performance in each cell, where a specific solution is deployed to produce a specific result. Results include product, order, service or project or assignment completed, or other output that can be counted. Capital includes all tangible and intangible assets organized as specific solutions. Human capital are personnel solutions utilized and capability solutions provided to produce results.
The business is organized and managed using one structure for the current business and another structure for the strategic business to organize strategic results and capital development required to provide solutions needed. Result goals show strategic value creation by period from the current to strategic business. The current and strategic business structures are used for all business organization and management to replace organization and management structures laid over the business today.
R-pM principles guide business change and change management
R-pM principles make fundamental changes to business change and change management.
- Organize the business and eliminate re-organization by changing automatically, as results produced change
- Assign direct responsibility for results and separate responsibility for performance of capital solutions, to manage the business from two perspectives for Result-performance Management
- Use the business structure for all organization and management so that all participate in the business context
- Define results of value to be improved and added through change and manage change to produce the value-added
- Structure performance capital by capability and assign professionals to manage the capital, the performance of the capital, and change to the capital
- Manage capital development to build capital worth, capital operation to make solutions available, and capital utilization to add value to results
- Manage change, solution by solution, as solutions are redeployed or as new solutions are deployed to produce results
- Organize change projects to provide roles for users responsible for new results and supporters responsible for new capital solutions
- Develop capital in specific solutions of known development costs and worth and related results to add new value
- Ensure management acceptance of change through accepted result goals and performance expectations
- Integrate capital solutions utilized in performance to produce a specific result
- Manage development and change as an enterprise and utilize consultants in partnership for successful change
- Take the mystery out of business change by utilizing the R-pM Toolkit for change management
R-pM can be employed as an application to manage business change in the current enterprise, and provide experience for using R-pM to organize and manage the complete business.
Use R-pM to organize your business to change with each business change
Utilize R-pM for your next business change to eliminate change management problems, and gain the flexibility for fast and well-managed business change to compete in the 21st century. Visit result-performance-management.com to access the R-pM community downloads “How to Manage Business Change” to take the mystery out of business change and “The R-pM Toolkit” to organize the business to change gradually with business change.
