Local improvements are possible - but are they also conducive to the goal?

A company identifies one of its business areas as a "bottleneck." Instead of focusing all attention on maximizing improvements "on a small scale," the company aligns itself with the impacts "on a large scale" - opening up new opportunities for change. Within the organization, there are a good dozen business areas, one of which is our "bottleneck client." What changes can this business area make to sustainably increase its performance? This is actually the classic starting point for local optimization. However, many of the possible changes have immediate effects on adjacent business areas or require the involvement of other areas for implementation. This poses a dilemma: On the one hand, the business area feels positive momentum from initial improvements implemented, such as: "Yes, we can achieve more as desired" - and at the same time, there is the challenge of constructively responding to the impacts and interactions within a closely interconnected overall company. The locally possible changes expand into a global question: Are the effects of the changes conducive to the entire organization?

Creating Effective Spaces for Change

Therefore, the decision is made to expand the scope of the actors involved to secure the change process within the company. The next higher hierarchical level can be successfully engaged. In this case, conversations are introduced on a four-week cycle, primarily focused on strategy and corporate policy. This constructive space is important to effectively focus the attention of those involved on the desired future experiences: What challenges are present in the current situation, what proposed solutions are there, from which perspectives can and must we consider them? And: What of this is useful in terms of the strategic direction of the company? In a short time, the conversations establish themselves as the space where topics that have an impact beyond one's own area are deliberately brought in. Strengthened by this binding framework, in which relevant decisions are prepared, the business area can implement the agreed changes coherently and powerfully.

Conclusion

Until it crashes at the interfaces and nothing works within the organization: This is increasingly observed in companies focused on local optimization. Instead of improving performance, conflicts arise. Fortunately, something is changing in companies and the realization is maturing that the times of local optimization are coming to an end. The consistent focus on the "why," that is, the desired future and the question of the impacts, not only provides guidance and motivation for change. It also forms the unifying foundation on which the involved actors can interact and contribute to the most useful solutions for the overall system across all hierarchy levels. Instead of creating new places for blame when things don't work as desired, reflection units are used constructively, also to search for new, beneficial information. Changes in perspective open up the view of how important it is to think circularly and to inquire about exchanges and impacts. This allows potential conflicts of interest to be recognized early on. However, it doesn't work without sense-makers. - And this does not only refer to the overarching alignment with meaningful values and goals. Without meaningful individuals who secure decisions by taking (new) responsibility, the change process cannot effectively serve the overall system.