Diagnosis
Establishing the true need for change and best implementation approachOverview
One of the most common reasons for business improvement failure is the lack of shared and complete understanding of the real issues that are inhibiting performance.
Unless a thorough, transparent and high involvement diagnosis of issues takes place, awareness and acceptance of the need for improvement is unlikely to become sufficiently developed.
Diagnosis ensures there is factual and social support for making a business improvement, before committing to design and delivery.
We specialise in working with internal change leaders and agents to conduct rapid, high involvement diagnosis of the business and readiness for improvement.
Diagnosis has often guided leaders in a new direction that utilises the energy and ideas of the wider organisation, rather than pursue an agenda that would have caused major disturbance and damage.
Diagnosis is such a small cost compared to the overall improvement effort. It is fast and gives huge value in terms of clarity, engagement as well as clarifying what not to do. Where we are asked to assist in a failing improvement effort, we almost always find a very poor quality, limited involvement diagnosis, or in some cases no diagnosis.
The Approach
First we agree the precise areas of diagnosis using Issue Diagnosis from The Method as a guide. Ideally we would partner with an internal agent(s). This enables us to transfer our skills in conducting effective diagnosis (i.e. creating a safe climate for people to speak the truth and deep listening) to the internal agent.
Our data collection is qualitative and analysed quantitatively to show where there is depth of feeling about issues, possible solutions and readiness. The diagnosis informs the overall approach and viability of the improvement.
Benefits
- A structured definition of the problems and missed opportunities associated with the current way of working is established.
- A shared perspective on issues across all Stakeholder Groups is developed.
- An indication of the areas that will require an improvement solution component are detailed.
- The likelihood of implementation success and benefits realisation is significantly increased.
Related case study
OrgZoo is an education, method and consulting support service for large organisations who must implement improvements. We focus primarily on defining, designing and delivering the behavioural modifications required from people to realise benefit from the improvement effort. Then we provide the practical tools to help leaders navigate the improvement journey.