Originally published May 2007
If you see every uncertainty as a risk and believe that because today was like yesterday tomorrow will probably be the same...you are likely to be a fan of homeostasis: "the inherent tendency in an organism toward maintenance of physiological and psychological stability".
In any steady-state (or, better, apparently steady-state) organisation the critical mass of people tend towards homeostasis, and so, therefore, does the organisation. They'd prefer tomorrow to be like today; the organisation is oriented such that, all things being equal, tomorrow will be like today.
Things - like interim managers, or business transformation teams, or new administrations, or laws, or customer demand that dares to express itself outside of the convenient channels that make up the steady-state - that threaten to disturb this stability are experienced as invasive. They are unwelcome and people's instinct is to repel.
Of course, in many cases these threats are accompanied or even preceded by Communications Programmes, or announced in Cascaded Team Briefings and so on. In such cases, people know that they are supposed to go along with them and even feel cheerful about it. Often, balancing the threat of the change against the risks consequential upon outright rebellion, people (at all levels of seniority) nod their heads. But as Dale Carnegie rather famously wrote in How to win friends and influence people - "Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still."
In this situation, Reasons are good. Reasons not to comply might mean you get exempted, overlooked, passed by - and the joy of homeostasis can persist another day!
So we hear lots of reasons. They fall into a number of categories:
Of course we agree with what you're doing, but we're a bit busy/too important to get involved - give us a shout when you're done and we'll see if we can fit something in
Great idea, but of course for [insert obscure but compelling technical clause] reasons it can't work here
We still haven't recovered from the last thing you did to us
You're implying that we're not good at what we do, which is unkind, so you should stop
We don't have the capacity to improve anything - we're fully stretched just keeping going
Lovely though it would be to dwell on reasons 1-4 (all of which are currently being deployed with conviction within the current client), today's focus is on the last reason: the myth of no capacity.
This is a really interesting strand in the engagements we have with organisations, because it gathers a whole series of fantasies into a black hole of reasons not to change anything. It is an effective repellent in many cases because when (as often they do) the agents of change operate with the same conceptual frameworks as those widely held within the organisation, the agents of change cannot challenge the argument because they see exactly what the change resisters see.
Let's disaggregate the beliefs implicit in "we don't have the capacity to improve".
our resources are fully stretched
productivity is as high as it could ever be
our processes are optimised
we have carefully incentivised our suppliers and customers to interface with us in ways that make the least possible call on resources
our operations emit information about their performance just as a car sends information to its dashboard, and we use that information to make decisions, so we know when adjustments should be made because the demand we service has changed
we commission/engage the resources we use in the most cost-effective way, using flexible employment contracts, agile working, appropriate ICT and automation of workflow
we have trained our staff well and built a culture in which people enjoy their accountability for success and like to take responsibility for problem-solving
we organise customer, supplier and peer feedback on a regular basis; digest it; and act on it
we have considered business cases for further investment in technology and/or process improvement and found that they did not generate satisfactory payback
Of course, there will be circumstances in which all of these things are indeed true. (Usually just after a change project.) But I'm sure you get the point; most of the time, it isn't hard to show that the "no capacity" assertion is hollow.
Another important point: most people who make the "no capacity" argument aren't actually ticking this list off in their head. They have other things in there: fantasies. The crux of these is as follows:
my staffing establishment and budget define my capacity. I spend my budget and my posts are filled most of the time, THEREFORE I operate at full stretch. THEREFORE I have no capacity etc etc
The earlier bullet points are sufficient to undo this line of thought, but the point is that beliefs in Establishments, Budgets, Members, The Government etc are all pretty unhelpful things. All these are abstractions.
What is real?
Costs
People spending some time productively and other time unproductively
Complicated processes that trap resources in unproductive activity, generate queues, require re-work and involve excessive handovers
Demand
Inputs and outcomes
These concepts help: believing in them equips you to affect the operation you are responsible for. Beliefs, on the other hand, in the abstracts of Budgets, Establishments etc equip you only to ask for more resource.
Sound familiar?
Last word: have another look at the list of beliefs that would have to be true for it to be the case that there genuinely was no improvement capacity in an operation. Turn them on their head and you have the tests which will tell you whether there is, in fact, such capacity.
In other words, if a business case can be made for an investment of some kind that generates a more efficient operation so that the costs of the change project are paid back and the operation is a) better and b) cheaper - you have the capacity to run a change project. (Yes, even if your Establishment is full and your Budget is fully committed!)
Simply, you go to the decision-making body within your organisation where "capex" and "opex" decisions are made - in local government, either a departmental or corporate management team - and set out the business case. Any Director or Finance Director with a brain will lend you the money if the case stacks up.