In John's reply to Vana, hes says:
>If the newbies are
>infectious enough (read charismatic, apostolic, evangelical) and teach by
>example, you'll start the change rolling.
John's reply is correct, but there is a bigger piece. Talk of top level
support for changes has become so common that it's almost a cliche, but
it's still essential. For good reason, Deming would not even talk to a
company unless he started with the CEO level.
In my experience as an internal and external change agent, I have found
that the most frequent reason for failed initiatives such as Vana's is
that management has not bought into the change, and is not walking the
talk.
Of course, presence of clear top level sponsorship alone will not
guarantee success of any initiative, but its absence will almost certainly
guarantee failure.
Jay Spitulnik
AED, Inc.
600 Unicorn Park Drive
Woburn, MA 01801
617-932-9090 (phone)
617-932-9077 (fax)
jspitulnik@aedinc.com
--Jay Spitulnik <jspitulnik@aedinc.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>