As long as an ineffective, expired or even a bad process is resourced, it will continue.
Yet, few executives have the courage to pull the carpet from under an undesirable process. They sometimes fear the disruption that may be caused by a sudden substitution to a new process or by the all-out abandonment and removal of an existing process that is no longer serving a useful purpose. Since resources in companies are always scarce, time being the scarcest, a new process or program will be slowed or rendered impotent until the existing or obsolete is almost fully abandoned, if not completely abandoned.
Though there may be some degree of comfort to keeping the old one around for a while, it sends the wrong signals to the employee base. “The boss is not so sure the new one will work.” Mixed signals waste resources and cause anxiety.
Abandoning the old process or program serves multiple purposes.
- Resources can be redirected sufficiently to almost guarantee successful implementation of a new process or program.
- Just as important as resources is the psychological impact to employees from making change. There, too, a psychological void is created when comfortable, familiar, existing processes are pulled. Psychological voids are very strong motivators since human nature requires such voids be immediately filled to reduce anxieties.
If you need to implement a new process, program or strategy, then carefully consider the notion of using both hands to pull the carpet from under the old one.
