DICE chart

check this:

http://dice.bcg.com/dice.html

this also may help:

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/unssc/unpan022087.pdf

The hard side of change management

When French novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” (the more things change, the more they stay the same) he could have been penning an epigram about change management. For over three decades, academics, managers, and consultants, realizing that transforming organizations is difficult, have dissected the subject. They’ve sung the praises of leaders who communicate vision and walk the talk in order to make change efforts succeed. They’ve sanctified the importance of changing organizational culture and employees’ attitudes. They’ve teased out the tensions between top-down transformation efforts and participatory approaches to change. And they’ve exhorted companies to launch campaigns that appeal to people’s hearts and minds. Still, studies show that in most organizations, two out of three transformation initiatives fail. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Managing change is tough, but part of the problem is that there is little agreement on what factors most influence transformation initiatives. Ask five executives to name the one factor critical for the success of these programs, and you’ll probably get five different answers. That’s because each manager looks at an initiative from his or her viewpoint and, based on personal experience, focuses on different success factors. The experts, too, offer different perspectives. A recent search on Amazon.com for books on “change and management” turned up 6,153 titles, each with a distinct take on the topic. Those ideas have a lot to offer, but taken together, they force companies to tackle many priorities simultaneously, which spreads resources and skills thin. Moreover, executives use different approaches in different parts of the organization, which compounds the turmoil that usually accompanies change.

In recent years, many change management gurus have focused on soft issues, such as culture, leadership, and motivation. Such elements are important for success, but managing these aspects alone isn’t sufficient to implement transformation projects. Soft factors don’t directly influence the outcomes of many change programs. For instance, visionary leadership is often vital for transformation projects, but not always. The same can be said about communication with employees. Moreover, it isn’t easy to change attitudes or relationships; they’re deeply ingrained in organizations and people. And although changes in, say, culture or motivation levels can be indirectly gauged through surveys and interviews, it’s tough to get reliable data on soft factors.

What’s missing, we believe, is a focus on the not-so-fashionable aspects of change management: the hard factors. These factors bear three distinct characteristics. First, companies are able to measure them in direct or indirect ways. Second, companies can easily communicate their importance, both within and outside organizations. Third, and perhaps most important, businesses are capable of influencing those elements quickly. Some of the hard factors that affect a transformation initiative are the time necessary to complete it, the number of people required to execute it, and the financial results that intended actions are expected to achieve. Our research shows that change projects fail to get off the ground when companies neglect the hard factors. That doesn’t mean that executives can ignore the soft elements; that would be a grave mistake. However, if companies don’t pay attention to the hard issues first, transformation programs will break down before the soft elements come into play.

That’s a lesson we learned when we identified the common denominators of change. In 1992, we started with the contrarian hypothesis that organizations handle transformations in remarkably similar ways. We researched projects in a number of industries and countries to identify those common elements. Our initial 225-company study revealed a consistent correlation between the outcomes (success or failure) of change programs and four hard factors: project duration, particularly the time between project reviews; performance integrity, or the capabilities of project teams; the commitment of both senior executives and the staff whom the change will affect the most; and the additional effort that employees must make to cope with the change. We called these variables the DICE factors because we could load them in favor of projects’ success.

We completed our study in 1994, and in the 11 years since then, the Boston Consulting Group has used those four factors to predict the outcomes, and guide the execution, of more than 1,000 change management initiatives worldwide. Not only has the correlation held, but no other factors (or combination of factors) have predicted outcomes as well.

The Four Key Factors

If you think about it, the different ways in which organizations combine the four factors create a continuum—from projects that are set up to succeed to those that are set up to fail. At one extreme, a short project led by a skilled, motivated, and cohesive team, championed by top management and implemented in a department that is receptive to the change and has to put in very little additional effort, is bound to succeed. At the other extreme, a long, drawn-out project executed by an inexpert, unenthusiastic, and disjointed team, without any top-level sponsors and targeted at a function that dislikes the change and has to do a lot of extra work, will fail. Businesses can easily identify change programs at either end of the spectrum, but most initiatives occupy the middle ground where the likelihood of success or failure is difficult to assess. Executives must study the four DICE factors carefully to figure out if their change programs will fly—or die.

Duration.

Companies make the mistake of worrying mostly about the time it will take to implement change programs. They assume that the longer an initiative carries on, the more likely it is to fail—the early impetus will peter out, windows of opportunity will close, objectives will be forgotten, key supporters will leave or lose their enthusiasm, and problems will accumulate. However, contrary to popular perception, our studies show that a long project that is reviewed frequently is more likely to succeed than a short project that isn’t reviewed frequently. Thus, the time between reviews is more critical for success than a project’s life span.

Companies should formally review transformation projects at least bimonthly since, in our experience, the probability that change initiatives will run into trouble rises exponentially when the time between reviews exceeds eight weeks. Whether reviews should be scheduled even more frequently depends on how long executives feel the project can carry on without going off track. Complex projects should be reviewed fortnightly; more familiar or straightforward initiatives can be assessed every six to eight weeks.

Scheduling milestones and assessing their impact are the best way by which executives can review the execution of projects, identify gaps, and spot new risks. The most effective milestones are those that describe major actions or achievements rather than day-to-day activities. They must enable senior executives and project sponsors to confirm that the project has made progress since the last review took place. Good milestones encompass a number of tasks that teams must complete. For example, describing a particular milestone as “Consultations with Stakeholders Completed” is more effective than “Consult Stakeholders” because it represents an achievement and shows that the project has made headway. Moreover, it suggests that several activities were completed—identifying stakeholders, assessing their needs, and talking to them about the project. When a milestone looks as though it won’t be reached on time, the project team must try to understand why, take corrective actions, and learn from the experience to prevent problems from recurring.

Review of such a milestone—what we refer to as a “learning milestone”—isn’t an impromptu assessment of the Monday-morning kind. It should be a formal occasion during which senior-management sponsors and the project team evaluate the latter’s performance on all the dimensions that have a bearing on success and failure. The team must provide a concise report of its progress, and members and sponsors must check if the team is on track to complete, or has finished all the tasks to deliver, the milestone. They should also determine whether achieving the milestone has had the desired effect on the company; discuss the problems the team faced in reaching the milestone; and determine how that accomplishment will affect the next phase of the project. Sponsors and team members must have the power to address weaknesses. When necessary, they should alter processes, agree to push for more or different resources, or suggest a new direction. At these meetings, senior executives must pay special attention to the dynamics within teams, changes in the organization’s perceptions about the initiative, and communications from the top.

Integrity

By performance integrity, we mean the extent to which companies can rely on teams of managers, supervisors, and staff to execute change projects successfully. In a perfect world, every team would be flawless, but no business has enough great people to ensure that. Besides, senior executives are often reluctant to allow star performers to join change efforts because regular work can suffer. But since the success of change programs depends on the quality of teams, companies must free up the best staff while making sure that day-to-day operations don’t falter. In companies that have succeeded in implementing change programs, we find that employees go the extra mile to ensure their day-to-day work gets done.

Since project teams handle a wide range of activities, resources, pressures, external stimuli, and unforeseen obstacles, they must be cohesive and well led. It’s not enough for senior executives to ask people at the watercooler if a project team is doing well; they must clarify members’ roles, commitments, and accountability. They must choose the team leader and, most important, work out the team’s composition.

Smart executive sponsors, we find, are very inclusive when picking teams. They identify talent by soliciting names from key colleagues, including human resource managers; by circulating criteria they have drawn up; and by looking for top performers in all functions. While they accept volunteers, they take care not to choose only supporters of the change initiative. Senior executives personally interview people so that they can construct the right portfolio of skills, knowledge, and social networks. They also decide if potential team members should commit all their time to the project; if not, they must ask them to allocate specific days or times of the day to the initiative. Top management makes public the parameters on which it will judge the team’s performance and how that evaluation fits into the company’s regular appraisal process. Once the project gets under way, sponsors must measure the cohesion of teams by administering confidential surveys to solicit members’ opinions.

Executives often make the mistake of assuming that because someone is a good, well-liked manager, he or she will also make a decent team leader. That sounds reasonable, but effective managers of the status quo aren’t necessarily good at changing organizations. Usually, good team leaders have problem-solving skills, are results oriented, are methodical in their approach but tolerate ambiguity, are organizationally savvy, are willing to accept responsibility for decisions, and while being highly motivated, don’t crave the limelight. A CEO who successfully led two major transformation projects in the past ten years used these six criteria to quiz senior executives about the caliber of nominees for project teams. The top management team rejected one in three candidates, on average, before finalizing the teams.

Commitment

Companies must boost the commitment of two different groups of people if they want change projects to take root: They must get visible backing from the most influential executives (what we call C1), who are not necessarily those with the top titles. And they must take into account the enthusiasm—or often, lack thereof—of the people who must deal with the new systems, processes, or ways of working (C2).

Top-level commitment is vital to engendering commitment from those at the coal face. If employees don’t see that the company’s leadership is backing a project, they’re unlikely to change. No amount of top-level support is too much. In 1999, when we were working with the CEO of a consumer products company, he told us that he was doing much more than necessary to display his support for a nettlesome project. When we talked to line managers, they said that the CEO had extended very little backing for the project. They felt that if he wanted the project to succeed, he would have to support it more visibly! A rule of thumb: When you feel that you are talking up a change initiative at least three times more than you need to, your managers will feel that you are backing the transformation.

Sometimes, senior executives are reluctant to back initiatives. That’s understandable; they’re often bringing about changes that may negatively affect employees’ jobs and lives. However, if senior executives do not communicate the need for change, and what it means for employees, they endanger their projects’ success. In one financial services firm, top management’s commitment to a program that would improve cycle times, reduce errors, and slash costs was low because it entailed layoffs. Senior executives found it gut-wrenching to talk about layoffs in an organization that had prided itself on being a place where good people could find lifetime employment. However, the CEO realized that he needed to tackle the thorny issues around the layoffs to get the project implemented on schedule. He tapped a senior company veteran to organize a series of speeches and meetings in order to provide consistent explanations for the layoffs, the timing, the consequences for job security, and so on. He also appointed a well-respected general manager to lead the change program. Those actions reassured employees that the organization would tackle the layoffs in a professional and humane fashion.

Companies often underestimate the role that managers and staff play in transformation efforts. By communicating with them too late or inconsistently, senior executives end up alienating the people who are most affected by the changes. It’s surprising how often something senior executives believe is a good thing is seen by staff as a bad thing, or a message that senior executives think is perfectly clear is misunderstood. That usually happens when senior executives articulate subtly different versions of critical messages. For instance, in one company that applied the DICE framework, scores for a project showed a low degree of staff commitment. It turned out that these employees had become confused, even distrustful, because one senior manager had said, “Layoffs will not occur,” while another had said, “They are not expected to occur.”

Organizations also underestimate their ability to build staff support. A simple effort to reach out to employees can turn them into champions of new ideas. For example, in the 1990s, a major American energy producer was unable to get the support of mid-level managers, supervisors, and workers for a productivity improvement program. After trying several times, the company’s senior executives decided to hold a series of one-on-one conversations with mid-level managers in a last-ditch effort to win them over. The conversations focused on the program’s objectives, its impact on employees, and why the organization might not be able to survive without the changes. Partly because of the straight talk, the initiative gained some momentum. This allowed a project team to demonstrate a series of quick wins, which gave the initiative a new lease on life.

Effort 

When companies launch transformation efforts, they frequently don’t realize, or know how to deal with the fact, that employees are already busy with their day-to-day responsibilities. According to staffing tables, people in many businesses work 80-plus-hour weeks. If, on top of existing responsibilities, line managers and staff have to deal with changes to their work or to the systems they use, they will resist.

Project teams must calculate how much work employees will have to do beyond their existing responsibilities to change over to new processes. Ideally, no one’s workload should increase more than 10%. Go beyond that, and the initiative will probably run into trouble. Resources will become overstretched and compromise either the change program or normal operations. Employee morale will fall, and conflict may arise between teams and line staff. To minimize the dangers, project managers should use a simple metric like the percentage increase in effort the employees who must cope with the new ways feel they must contribute. They should also check if the additional effort they have demanded comes on top of heavy workloads and if employees are likely to resist the project because it will demand more of their scarce time.

Companies must decide whether to take away some of the regular work of employees who will play key roles in the transformation project. Companies can start by ridding these employees of discretionary or nonessential responsibilities. In addition, firms should review all the other projects in the operating plan and assess which ones are critical for the change effort. At one company, the project steering committee delayed or restructured 120 out of 250 subprojects so that some line managers could focus on top-priority projects. Another way to relieve pressure is for the company to bring in temporary workers, like retired managers, to carry out routine activities or to outsource current processes until the changeover is complete. Handing off routine work or delaying projects is costly and time-consuming, so companies need to think through such issues before kicking off transformation efforts.

Making sense of creativity

Introduction:

Creativity is about the quality of originality that leads to new ways of seeing and new ideas. It is a thinking process associated with imagination, invention and innovation. However, creativity is not just about an idea that is new and different: for and idea to be truly creative it must also be appropriate and useful. 

A number of commentators have found it convenient to distinguish between creative people, creative processes, creative places and creative products. 

People: 

Considerable energy and research has gone into trying to work out the characteristics of creative individuals. Three broad types of individuals have been identified: creative people, innovators and entrepreneurs. Creative people are usually seen as people who generate ideas, innovators and those who take an idea and develop it into something real ( such as products or service or business process) and entrepreneurs as those who take the product to market or implement the process and make it a commercial success. Entrepreneurs in large organisations are referred to as intrapreneurs. 

Studies of creative people show characteristics such as independent thinking, not being affected by peer pressure, good verbal communication skills, imagination and reasonable but not outstanding level of intelligence. Creative people are said to be better at asking the right questions. They also appear comfortable with risk-taking and are open to new ideas. 

Place:

These days a good deal of management thinking argues that the society we live in and the organisational climate, culture and structure have a major impact on creative output. The suggestion is that creative ideas flow where new ideas and challenges are welcomed and where people are encouraged to play rather than controlled and threatened. It follows then that organisations that want to promote creativity might need to look at creating a flatter organisational structure (removing levels of hierarchy) in an attempt to reduce bureaucracy and speed up the creative processes.

Process: 

The creative thinking process is traditionally linked to imaginative thinking which is expansive and divergent in nature (such as brainstorming and lateral thinking) as opposed to evaluative thinking which is convergent in character. Divergent thinking helps people to generate a large number and variety of ideas and approach problems from different angles. The emphasis here is on quantity where an 'anything goes' attitude is encouraged. Convergent thinking on the other hand, is needed to narrow down the output from the divergent phase. The focus here is on quality- making one or two selections from a huge number of possibilities. In practice, the creative process requires a framework which allows for alternating phases between divergent and convergent thinking. 

Product: 

Creative products may arise from a radical breakthrough or a series of small incremental steps. Management methods in the west have emphasised radical breakthroughs, while Japan has built much of its success on small incremental steps. The task of the manager is to encourage and coordinate multi-disciplinary teams working on product development and drive these processes along.  

Employee reward strategies

The function and purpose of employee pay from the company's point of view:

The first function, is to attract someone to do the job. There is a demand for labour in the part the company and the wage is how the company pulls the employees in. The second function would be to motivate employees, because the company thinks that employees like money so the companies pay the employees to fill the job and to motivate the workers.

Different reward system:

There are two basic types of reward system. One's reward system based on time, with payment by the hour. The other method is payment according to effort, or on output or performance. We can call this an incentive pay scheme. In this case, people have a basic rate of pay and then the rest of the pay is tied to how much they do.

The advantages and disadvantages of these reward system: 

There are different advantages and disadvantages. There is a cost involved in paying people by time as you have to try to insure that people work by supervising them. But the advantage of payment by time is that it's simple and also you don't have to think of what to tie the payment to. This brings me to the disadvantages it the payment according to output.You have to find a measure of output that produces the desired results for the company.
You can twist to suit your own personal benefit. The advantage of payment by output is that you get more effort, The disadvantage is that you tend to get a sort of gaining of the system if you like, that's inevitable.

Vocabulary

The nouns below are all synonyms to describe earning, but they have slightly different meanings. look up the meaning in a dictionary before the class.

1- Pay
2- reward
3- salary
4- wage
5- remuneration
6- income

Reading 1

The trends that will change Asia

1- Urbanisation and a growing elderly population are clear global trends. These two demographic swings are also apparent across most Asian countries, along with the polarisation between the new middle class and the poor. 

2- Projections indicate that more than 500,000,000 Asians will move to cities in the next 25 years-almost 2,000,000 people per month. This movement is placing a huge strain on already inadequate transport, electricity, water and sanitation system. 

3- Improved health care is resulting in the elderly living longer. The increase in the elderly population is particularly significant in Japan, where more than 20% of the population is over 65.

4- In Japan, unlike many other markets including much of the West, Japanese pensioners have economic security and considerable buying power. They also command a great deal of respect from society. 

5- This growing demographic group presents unique physical and emotional needs and requires different product design, packaging, marketing and retail distribution. Over the next ten years this group will trigger a surge in products that focus on the elderly, from preserving health and wellness to spicier foods to stimulate aged palates. But these Japanese senior citizens of the future will also be spending money on their grand and great grandchildren, creating a market for premium children's products.

6- In most Asian countries, average household incomes are increasing significantly. This is particularly so in cities: urban households in China have over three tomes more disposal income that rural households, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China.

7- India, in particular, has experienced dramatic income growth for a large segment of the population in the last two decades. This prosperity has revolutionised consumer aspiration. 

8- At the same time as average income is rising, there is still a vast segment of Asians households that live in over low income, particularly in India but also in rural China too. This income disparity has implications for the the grocery industry, which needs to rise to the challenge of serving the needs of low-income consumers. To deliver this, our industry will need to work together and with governments and communities to develop  innovative products and services. 

p.s: 1- please have a copy of this article while you are coming to the class on Monday. 

2- please read it once and if there is any vocabulary that you don't know, find the meaning before the class.

see you on Monday,

professional life 2-lesson one

Future uncertainty

Theory: STEEP analysis

"Nothing can be certain except death and taxes"

Benjamin Franklin, scientist and one of the founding fathers of the USA

A STEEP analysis is a commonly used tool in business that companies and organizations use to make sense of their wider macro-environment. The theory is widely taught in business schools. 

A STEEP analysis is used to identify the external forces affecting how individual companies compete within their industry sector. These external forces within the wider macro-environment consist of Socio-cultural, Technologies, Economic, Environment and Political factors. 

Socio-cultural

This aspect focuses its attention on forces within society such as family, friends, colleagues, neighbours and the media. Social forces affect our attitudes, interests and opinions. These forces shape who we are as people, the way we behave and ultimately what we purchase. For example, in many countries in the world, people's attitudes are changing towards their diet and health. As a result, these countries are seeing an increase in the number of people joining fitness clubs and a massive growth in the demand of organic food.

Population changes also have a direct impact on organisations. Changed in the structure of the population will affect the supply and demand of goods and services within an economy. Falling birth rates will result in decreased demand and greater competition as the number of consumers fall in developed countries. Conversely, an increase in the global population is currently leading to calls for greater investment in food production. Due to food shortages African countries, such as Uganda, are now reconsidering their rejection of genetically modified foods. 

Technology factors

Technological advances have greatly changed the manner in which business operate. Technology has created a society which expects instant results. This technological revolution had increased the rate at which information is exchanged between stakeholders (customers, suppliers, employees, government, etc). A faster exchange of information can benefit business as the are able to react quickly to changes within their operating environment. However, an ability to react quickly also create extra pressure as business are expected to deliver on their promises within ever-decreasing timescales. Customers can now shop online 24 hours a day for their homes, work, or on the move from their phones. Technology will continue to evolve and impact on consumer habits and expectations. Organisations that ignore this fact face extinction. 

Economic factor

All businesses are affected by national and global economic factors. National and global interest rates and tax policies will be set around economic conditions. The climate of the economy direction how consumers, suppliers and competitors behave within society. For example, an economy in recession will have high unemployment, low spending power and low confidence. A successful organisation will respond to economic conditions and respond appropriately. In this global business world organisations are affected by economies throughout the world and not just the countries in which they are based or operate from. For example, cheaper labour in developing countries affects the competitiveness of products from developed countries.

Environmental factors

Companies and organisations are increasingly aware of the huge impact the natural environment can have on the other STEEP factors and on business in general. Factors include global warming and climate change, increase pollution levels, deforestation, etc. If, for example, there are adverse weather conditions in India, consumers throughout the world will pay more for tea at their local supermarket. Environmental factors are particularly important when it comes to the question of energy and the decreasing availability of natural resources such as oil, fresh water and minerals such as iron and uranium. 

Rapidly increasing competition for these resources is leasing to rising prices and in some cases to wars and large-scale social unrest. 

Political factors

Political factors can create advantages and opportunities for organisations. Conversely, they can place obligations and duties on organisations, Political factors include legislation such as the minimum wage, employment law and environmental legislation. An example of tough environmental laws in California, which became the first state in the USA to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxin from motor vehicles. Vehicles with high levels of emissions simply cannot be sold any longer in California  Regulations and laws are not just at a national or a local level but are increasingly coming from international bodies such as EU and the WTO (World Trade Organisation) on issues such as market regulations, trade agreements, import taxes, etc. Failure to conform to these legal obligations can lead to sanction such as fines, adverse publicity and imprisonment.