Teaching new ideas to an old org LO21386

kridgway (kridgway@neo.rr.com)
Sun, 25 Apr 1999 09:02:04 -0400

Greetings,

My name is Kim Ridgway. I want to pose a question to the group, but feel
obligated to give some basic background information before I do that. I
always will leave my questions intentionally broad and open since I have
seen some wonderful discussions result here when others have done the
same. Also, my own thoughts are pretty broad and vague right now and I
hope to sharpen those through discussions with you.

I work for a large ($2.5 billion in sales) company that is very old (100
years) that is trying to change how it does business in the future.
Today, while we have wonderful customer relationships, we really aren't
all that differentiated from our competitors. Senior managers in one of
our business segments wants to take a different approach to growing the
business and has asked me to work on these ideas with him. As a company,
we are successful, making money in the traditional lines and I would
suppose the majority of employees are quite content and happy with the way
things are - no urgency to change in their minds.

Research, experience and my basic instincts (which I try not to overlook
anymore) tell me that a small team of people (maybe ten) working in some
"skunkworks" physically separate from the larger company could
successfully develop new business lines more efficiently and effectively.
They could do this because they would have the freedom to develop team
processes, operating processes, reward and compensation systems which
would directly support their new business which would be very different
from the old organization. One of the challenges of this team would be to
develop new business products and services that would be then be
transferred into the larger organization to manage. Eventually the larger
organization needs to acquire some of the same characteristics of the new
team.

What I have been wrestling with is how to shape processes in both the
"skunkworks" and the larger organization so that the "parent" can
successfully learn from the "child." One idea I have toyed with is career
paths that, after four or five years on the skunkworks team, would rotate
those members back into the larger organization in leadership positions
with the express purpose of perpetuating the new learning and new
processes. There are obviously some huge challenges that accompany these
ideas, but I would be most interested in your insights into this brief
case study.

Can a skunkworks physically and operationally separated from the older,
larger organization succeed in teaching the old organization new behaviors
and processes? What would you propose? Will team members scattered back
into the old organization in their functional areas generate enough
momentum to alter the older, well established culture? What ideas would
you propose?

-- 

Kim A. Ridgway kridgway@neo.rr.com

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