But how do we help our people adjust, and do a competent job, when we are asking them to simultaneously work with new people, new technology, new vocabularies, new outcomes, and new job descriptions – and aren't teaching them how to juggle all of that while maintaining their daily job requirements?

Whatever you are doing right now to ride the storm of what's happening in our national economic business environment, it most likely involves Change.

Problem is, while your companies are using strategies and tactics to steer new initiatives, you are changing far more than the way things are done: all of your change initiatives involve people.

People Issues Ignored At A Cost

So much of business has focused on the 'doing'. Even when 'change agents' reside within a company or are hired in from outside, they focus on the 'change initiative,' not the human issues that seem, surreptitiously, to enter into the equation.

I just spoke with an editor of a well-known CRM e-zine. All of the articles she's published over the past years have been based on the technology, or the output, or the implementation procedures. None have been based on the critical alignment of People Factors that are necessary for a successful implementation.

In 2000, Nike Inc.'s Q3 earnings dropped $100 million ($100 MILLION IN ONE QUARTER) because their management, their technology provider and the internal technical department couldn't communicate. The techies needed the management to make some decisions. The management left decisions to the techies and the vendor. The vendor communicated directly with management to get the software implemented, and circumvented the technical people. So, the result was not only a whopping financial loss of revenue, but bad press, bad blood, distrust, a tumbling stock price, and harmed shareholders. Not to mention a failed initiative that took months, if not years, to recover from.

The problem? Lack of communication. What type of communication? The ability to help teams and stakeholders, partners and staff, managers and users and techies, make collaborative decisions.

The Doing VS. The Being

We all generally get the 'doing' just fine: we know how to introduce strategic initiatives, how to begin the implementation process, how to offer our people 'change management' programs so the new systems (or whatever) are up on time and do what they are supposed to do.

But how do we help our people adjust, and do a competent job, when we are asking them to simultaneously work with new people, new technology, new vocabularies, new outcomes, and new job descriptions – and aren't teaching them how to juggle all of that while maintaining their daily job requirements?

Problem is, while your companies are using strategies and tactics to steer new initiatives, you are changing far more than the way things are done: all of your change initiatives involve people.

People Issues Ignored At A Cost

So much of business has focused on the 'doing'. Even when 'change agents' reside within a company or are hired in from outside, they focus on the 'change initiative,' not the human issues that seem, surreptitiously, to enter into the equation.

I just spoke with an editor of a well-known CRM e-zine. All of the articles she's published over the past years have been based on the technology, or the output, or the implementation procedures. None have been based on the critical alignment of People Factors that are necessary for a successful implementation.

In 2000, Nike Inc.'s Q3 earnings dropped $100 million ($100 MILLION IN ONE QUARTER) because their management, their technology provider and the internal technical department couldn't communicate. The techies needed the management to make some decisions. The management left decisions to the techies and the vendor. The vendor communicated directly with management to get the software implemented, and circumvented the technical people. So, the result was not only a whopping financial loss of revenue, but bad press, bad blood, distrust, a tumbling stock price, and harmed shareholders. Not to mention a failed initiative that took months, if not years, to recover from.

The problem? Lack of communication. What type of communication? The ability to help teams and stakeholders, partners and staff, managers and users and techies, make collaborative decisions.

The Doing VS. The Being

We all generally get the 'doing' just fine: we know how to introduce strategic initiatives, how to begin the implementation process, how to offer our people 'change management' programs so the new systems (or whatever) are up on time and do what they are supposed to do.

But how do we help our people adjust, and do a competent job, when we are asking them to simultaneously work with new people, new technology, new vocabularies, new outcomes, and new job descriptions – and aren't teaching them how to juggle all of that while maintaining their daily job requirements?

In 2000, Nike Inc.'s Q3 earnings dropped $100 million ($100 MILLION IN ONE QUARTER) because their management, their technology provider and the internal technical department couldn't communicate. The techies needed the management to make some decisions. The management left decisions to the techies and the vendor. The vendor communicated directly with management to get the software implemented, and circumvented the technical people. So, the result was not only a whopping financial loss of revenue, but bad press, bad blood, distrust, a tumbling stock price, and harmed shareholders. Not to mention a failed initiative that took months, if not years, to recover from.

The problem? Lack of communication. What type of communication? The ability to help teams and stakeholders, partners and staff, managers and users and techies, make collaborative decisions.

The Doing VS. The Being

We all generally get the 'doing' just fine: we know how to introduce strategic initiatives, how to begin the implementation process, how to offer our people 'change management' programs so the new systems (or whatever) are up on time and do what they are supposed to do.

But how do we help our people adjust, and do a competent job, when we are asking them to simultaneously work with new people, new technology, new vocabularies, new outcomes, and new job descriptions – and aren't teaching them how to juggle all of that while maintaining their daily job requirements?

The problem? Lack of communication. What type of communication? The ability to help teams and stakeholders, partners and staff, managers and users and techies, make collaborative decisions.

The Doing VS. The Being

We all generally get the 'doing' just fine: we know how to introduce strategic initiatives, how to begin the implementation process, how to offer our people 'change management' programs so the new systems (or whatever) are up on time and do what they are supposed to do.

But how do we help our people adjust, and do a competent job, when we are asking them to simultaneously work with new people, new technology, new vocabularies, new outcomes, and new job descriptions – and aren't teaching them how to juggle all of that while maintaining their daily job requirements?

But how do we help our people adjust, and do a competent job, when we are asking them to simultaneously work with new people, new technology, new vocabularies, new outcomes, and new job descriptions – and aren't teaching them how to juggle all of that while maintaining their daily job requirements? How are we helping them work when their jobs depend on the collaboration of several collegial support functions to succeed? Indeed, they may go about attempting to execute their new activities and not even recognize that they aren't communicating or collaborating as effectively as they need to.

In business today, collaborative decision-making skills are not taught as part of change implementation. If we are not doing so because we assume our people have these skills, we assume incorrectly.

When we don't take the time to teach our people these skills, we are putting them under stress. Not to mention failing to get the maximum output possible.

Speaking Different Languages

When we think of people merely as objects that convey our initiatives, we forget that people work in systems that are unique. Each group, each job description has a unique set of attributes that not only is different from other groups or teams, but is quite idiosyncratic. They each are so self-contained that the only common language they speak, for the most part, is the language of social interaction. It's similar to the language spoken in London: It sounds like the American English I am familiar with here in the States, but the nuances are different, the slang and referents are different, the built-in assumptions are different.

When I owned a company in London, I remember wanting to send one of the technical staff to a training program.

"I'd love to have you take this course," I gaily offered one day.

"Oh!" she said in horror. "I couldn't do THAT." "Why not? You'd learn a lot, and I think you'd really enjoy it." "I would not enjoy that at all! I am not good enough." "Not good enough to take a course? That's the reason to take it, so you can learn the material." "There are easier ways to learn. I could read a book, for example." "I don't understand. What is the problem here?" "I am not qualified to take it. Maybe next year."

I was stumped. I asked one of her colleagues, who understood her position, and actually seemed annoyed with me. It took hours before someone explained to me that 'taking a course' in London meant 'teaching a course' rather than attending as a participant.

Now, I had lived in