3. Failing to "Connect the Dots".
     Ideas compete in business just as they do on the field of battle and in politics. Business journals are rich in competing management techniques to improve organizational performance. While there is no single "magic bullet", most techniques, such as RCM, TPM, TQM, VAM, and so on, are legitimate; they just need to be tuned to your organizational needs to be put to work. However, failing to integrate and reconcile potentially competing projects, particularly when these projects are all competing for the same, scarce, internal resources, can exhaust your organization, and result in none of the projects delivering its full promise. 
     Coordinating multiple, concurrent change projects is, ultimately, a leadership issue. Someone at a senior level within your organization must take responsibility for this role. It is more than just evaluating the benefits of anyone program, and ensuring that this represents a proper application of organizational resources. The challenge is to ensure program congruity. To do this, this senior executive must:
  • Understand each program - what it is trying to achieve, its impacts on each of the levers of change, the resources it will require, etc. 
  • Make choices - these could include integrating teams, discontinuing specific activities, or killing or postponing entire programs. 
  • Resolve overlaps or conflicts
  • Connect the dots - create a big picture for your audience, and communicate the big picture plainly and effectively.
     At one of our clients, a major Maintenance Improvement Program was being conducted at the same time as a Reliability Centered Maintenance initiative was being started. Simultaneously, development of operating and maintenance procedures to obtain quality accreditation under ISO9000 was under way. All of this was happening shortly after a significant workforce downsizing. Needless to say, while some good results were achieved out of all of these initiatives, none of the improvements were as great as had been predicted at the commencement of the change programs.
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