Number 34: Spring 2006
How Can I Get Senior Management to See the Need for Change?
by Abe WalkingBear Sanchez
Editor's comment: Different generations are exposed to different influences. Frequently, younger managers may ask why senior management is not changing with the times. However, these younger managers will one day be senior management and will have to listen to their own junior managers.
A tough question; how would you answer it?
Following a presentation to an international group of business executives, a line formed of people who had questions; who wanted a little one on one time. Most questions dealt with the subject of my presentation, Credit as a Profit Center.
“John”, a thirty-something Japanese man asked, “Abe, how can I get senior management to see the need for change?” “John” who spoke perfect American English must have been educated in the U.S.
Earlier, I’d noticed “John” and an older man in his '60s waiting in line. The older man had seemed uncomfortable and had left the line.
We Are What We Know
In his book, The Society of Mind, Marvin Minsky writes that the human mind is a collection of many learned “agents” or programs; none of which individually define the mind.
“Common sense is not a simple thing, it is an immense society of hard earned practical knowledge; a multitude of rules, exceptions, dispositions and tendencies.”
Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind
“John” and his generation were born into a world where the label “Made in Japan” means high quality. Their parents and society were able to provide them with decent housing, ample food and educational opportunities. “John’s” senior managers lived through WWII and know first hand about hunger, desolation, misery and despair. They had lived through a time (the '50s and '60s) when “Made in Japan” meant cheap toys and junk products.
We are all programmed by what we know, by the world in which we find ourselves.
Fear, An Obstruction to Opportunity
Each generation of humans faces a new world, a new reality. His Holiness, the Dali Lama says that there are 6˝ billion of us on this planet, and there are 6˝ billion versions of reality. Once people have mastered their world they’re reluctant to change. This unwillingness to part with old ways is driven by fear of what change may bring. Any change in the way things are done must be seen as an improvement, as being of benefit.
Today’s world is one of fast shifting markets and of ever increasing knowledge and technology. Courage is required to seek out new ways and new opportunities.
Fear is Impractical
Fearful people make for poor managers; rather than seek out better ways they tend to expend energy defending the status quo, the old ways. We have only so much energy and time; if we use that energy, looking for reasons not to do something new, we’ll find them. If we acknowledge that change is constant, and if we invest our energy in seeking out new data upon which to base new thinking and actions we may fail; but failure isn’t bad, it’s where real growth happens.
Customers, the Best Source of Change
Solutions - before the answer must come the question. Often people get caught up in dealing with details and they create what the Toltec call “mitote”, the fog of the mind. They become too busy to think, to seek out new data upon which they can base new knowledge and change.
Business isn’t complicated, to succeed all that we have to do is meet or exceed the customer’s needs or desires. It falls not only to the sales people but to every area of business to constantly ask customers about their needs or desires, and how they can best be met.
Ask questions of customers and employees about improvement and then shut up and listen, really listen and they’ll tell you.
Summary
What did I say to “John” in response to his question? I told him that sometimes we have to wait for the older generation, for senior management to die, to move on before change can happen. And then I reminded “John” that if he lived long enough he would become “senior management” and that he had to remember that younger managers see the world differently.
Pool Version 2.0
© Abe WalkingBear Sanchez / Through the Loop Consulting Ltd 1998-2006