I wish it was that simple

Great Idea!
Just up the road from the office is a Starbucks. It has recently been refurbished, and by the door a new recycling bin has appeared. Clearly marked are the specific holes for the cups (empty and upside down please), the plastic lids, the sleeves, any liquid, and other waste – I assume half eaten pieces of cake, napkins and so on.

Now this is a great idea, but as can be seen in the photograph, great ideas and the reality of execution don’t always align, even with the simplest of things!

Let’s go to where the work gets done

As an operational consultant, I have spent a lot of my career working with clients to define new ways of working, and then implementing them. Changing how people interact, how the work gets done. We come across the Starbucks bin problem all too often. Processes have been designed, new ways of working defined and agreed, yet people hang on to the old ways of doing things.

This is why 99% of any Proudfoot project is focused on going to where that work gets done, and working with the people who are there to define what should be done, and how. We don’t do this in the project office, or in the board room, but out on the ‘shop floor’. We then coach and support those impacted by the changes, through the change, helping them adjust until the new ways are simply the way we do things round here.

I recently read an opinion piece postulating that Change Management was dead. From the perspective of a single hit, agree what needs to be changed, change it and then move on, I agree.  Our clients tell us that over and above the delivery of an agreed outcome of a specific project, what we leave are up-skilled and empowered teams, teams that know how to drive change on a continuous basis.

We have been doing this for over 70 years, and believe that our approach of going to where the work gets done is as relevant now as when Alexander Proudfoot quit a strategy house in 1946 after getting frustrated with simply writing reports, and coming up with recommendations that were seldom implemented.

The other 1%

Oh, and the other 1%? Well we’ve got to get a coffee sometime!

 

Proudfoot designs, implements and accelerates operational transformation – realising tomorrow’s results today.

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