Does change need to be difficult and take a long time? (I)

Mão amiga fez-me chegar ás mãos um livro muito interessante, que confesso, já há algum tempo namorava: “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management de Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert I. Sutton)”.

Atirei-me de cabeça e mergulhei logo no capítulo 7: “Change or die”.

Este subtítulo capta a atenção de qualquer um “Do you have enough power to make the change happen? If not, you might forget about it” – uma afirmação super actual, perante as manifestações do dia de ontem.

Outro subtítulo sedutor “Does change need to be difficult and take a long time?”, alguém devia copiar esta parte do livro e fazê-la chegar aos gestores de organizações em apuros.

“Change happens when:
1. People are dissatisfied with the status quo (people need to be unhappy with the current state of affairs. If unhappiness with the status quo isn’t there, create it).

2. The direction they need to go is clear (at least much of the time) and they stay focused on that direction (relentlessly communicate what the change is, why it is necessary, and what people ought to be doing right now with as much clarity as possible. If you aren’t saying, writing, and modelling the same message over and over again, it probably isn’t going to stick).”

Façam de conta que eu sou muito burro, e expliquem-me tudo, tintin por tintin, se calhar fazendo mesmo um desenho (que eu sou muito visual). Se fizermos isto, onde vamos chegar?

3. “There is confidence conveyed to others – more accurately overconfidence – that it will succeed (so long as it is punctuated by reflective self-doubt and updating as new information rolls in (express excessive faith that the change will succeed and be worth the pain, time, and money in the end. Creating a self-fulfilling prophecy is one of the most powerful things you can do to increase the odds of success, regardless of the success rate experienced elsewhere. To avoid the dangers of operating on blind faith, however, confident actions need to be punctuated by episodes where people openly discuss their doubts and uncertainties and update to incorporate new facts into what the organization does).

4. They accept that change is a messy process marked by episodes of confusion and anxiety that people must endure (accept that there will always be error, setbacks, miscommunication, frayed nerves, and frightening rumours when a person or organization tries to do something new, no matter how well the change is planned and implemented. Treat glitches as a normal part of the change process, learn from them, assume that everyone has the best intentions, and focus on how to fix the problem instead of whom to blame. Point at solutions instead of at each other).”

Realmente este subtítulo é super importante, super actual “Does change need to be difficult and take a long time?”, sobretudo quando deparamos com organizações que demoram 2 anos a implementar um sistema de gestão para serem certificadas, ou para implementar um sistema de gestão da estratégia com recurso ao balanced scorecard.

Em muitos casos o problema está no PDCA!