Constant consensus building effort underway to create uber program office for change in the firm. you wouldn't think the idea was so hard to understand - but then i forget that not everyone who's in professional services is by necessity interested in process and project management. I can write that down, but it still confounds me, honestly. How could you not follow such a generalized and recognized format for managing delivery, expectations, and effort? don't clients expect to work this way?
But the point here is to talk about the different project offices across the firm that will need to coordinate their change management efforts. as various big boy partners tell each other and My Big Boss that yes yes yes we need to do this, I hear constant invocation of the air traffic controller analogy - the need to bring the planes in - the metaphor gets stretched beyond viability as the scope by necessity gets extended (planes landing assumes someone is authorizing flights to take off - on what basis? too many planes and not enough gates means some have to circle - who decides who gets to land? who decides how quickly? etc etc - you get the idea, and anyway i prefer the cattle drive (as it references the much more appropriate cat herding analogy, as well as the goat rodeo analogy, but I come from IT, they don't))- but I digress. But here are the two things that stun me in the midst of what seems to be quite rational observations of organizational needs.
1. The assumption that we can make this happen ourselves. In the words of recovery, if it was that easy to do, we would have already done it. Again, I have to assume that this is part of the partnership culture. The partnership means that serious positions of power, senior leadership of the Firm, has to be staffed by partners, and you can only become a partner by having kicked ass in client service. But that really doesn't make you any good at running, for example, HR. It really doesn't. Running HR (and IT, and marketing, and KM, and Finance, and everything else inside an organization that makes it run) takes a certain set of skills that you must learn, and practice, and grow into, and if you want to run an HR department that services 25,000 people it helps if you make HR your career, not something you are asked to do to move yourself forward in the power structure of the firm, or asked to do in the twilight of your career, as a public service to the Firm. Which explains why both our CKO (twilight) and our KM leader (up and comer) are KM neophytes. So we take good auditors, and make them sales people, and then if they are any good at that, we eventually make them run things like KM, or Six Sigma initiatives, or things called UCE (Unique Client Experience). which they may or may not be any good at. Because we can't hire anyone from outside the firm - maybe maybe maybe we might admit a partner from a competitor, only maybe - to actually RUN anything, because they don't have partner-ability. So we can't hire a consulting firm of ALL EX PARTNERS AND LEADERS FROM A COMPETITOR who led KM and LEARNING and IT and METHODOLOGY and managed to successfully integrate them, to help US integrate KM and learning and IT and methodology in our pratically identical partnership because........partners think that if you get enough partners in a room, you can figure it out. So according to the twilight king, I don't even need to hire an outside facilitator to lead a two day come to jesus session with 11 partner leaders of hr, methods, km, it, learning, comms, compliance, marketing, and sales, where we hammer out the master project plan milestones and dependencies and everyone leaves with 18 months of integrated marching orders. just get them in a room, we'll do it. we don't need any help. in the words of my 3 year old, "i can do it mysewf!"
2. The fact that our nominal head of strategy is not interested in taking over leadership of this initiative, and that no one disagrees with his assessment. because our head of strategy is a nothing. A NOTHING! a man who drives the effort to define, plan and coordinate the strategies of our significant business units. when told to put together a business plan for him, I was given the following instruction, and I quote; "oh, just put any old shit down - it doesn't matter."
I think I'll leave it at that.
more stunned moments to come, I'm sure.
But the point here is to talk about the different project offices across the firm that will need to coordinate their change management efforts. as various big boy partners tell each other and My Big Boss that yes yes yes we need to do this, I hear constant invocation of the air traffic controller analogy - the need to bring the planes in - the metaphor gets stretched beyond viability as the scope by necessity gets extended (planes landing assumes someone is authorizing flights to take off - on what basis? too many planes and not enough gates means some have to circle - who decides who gets to land? who decides how quickly? etc etc - you get the idea, and anyway i prefer the cattle drive (as it references the much more appropriate cat herding analogy, as well as the goat rodeo analogy, but I come from IT, they don't))- but I digress. But here are the two things that stun me in the midst of what seems to be quite rational observations of organizational needs.
1. The assumption that we can make this happen ourselves. In the words of recovery, if it was that easy to do, we would have already done it. Again, I have to assume that this is part of the partnership culture. The partnership means that serious positions of power, senior leadership of the Firm, has to be staffed by partners, and you can only become a partner by having kicked ass in client service. But that really doesn't make you any good at running, for example, HR. It really doesn't. Running HR (and IT, and marketing, and KM, and Finance, and everything else inside an organization that makes it run) takes a certain set of skills that you must learn, and practice, and grow into, and if you want to run an HR department that services 25,000 people it helps if you make HR your career, not something you are asked to do to move yourself forward in the power structure of the firm, or asked to do in the twilight of your career, as a public service to the Firm. Which explains why both our CKO (twilight) and our KM leader (up and comer) are KM neophytes. So we take good auditors, and make them sales people, and then if they are any good at that, we eventually make them run things like KM, or Six Sigma initiatives, or things called UCE (Unique Client Experience). which they may or may not be any good at. Because we can't hire anyone from outside the firm - maybe maybe maybe we might admit a partner from a competitor, only maybe - to actually RUN anything, because they don't have partner-ability. So we can't hire a consulting firm of ALL EX PARTNERS AND LEADERS FROM A COMPETITOR who led KM and LEARNING and IT and METHODOLOGY and managed to successfully integrate them, to help US integrate KM and learning and IT and methodology in our pratically identical partnership because........partners think that if you get enough partners in a room, you can figure it out. So according to the twilight king, I don't even need to hire an outside facilitator to lead a two day come to jesus session with 11 partner leaders of hr, methods, km, it, learning, comms, compliance, marketing, and sales, where we hammer out the master project plan milestones and dependencies and everyone leaves with 18 months of integrated marching orders. just get them in a room, we'll do it. we don't need any help. in the words of my 3 year old, "i can do it mysewf!"
2. The fact that our nominal head of strategy is not interested in taking over leadership of this initiative, and that no one disagrees with his assessment. because our head of strategy is a nothing. A NOTHING! a man who drives the effort to define, plan and coordinate the strategies of our significant business units. when told to put together a business plan for him, I was given the following instruction, and I quote; "oh, just put any old shit down - it doesn't matter."
I think I'll leave it at that.
more stunned moments to come, I'm sure.
posted by fend for yourself at 9:21 PM
1 Comments:
Honey, why are you still stunned? Is this to a different degree, because to me it sounds like more of the same, at least the recent same?
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