A common message that continues to emerge from the various journeys to sustainable excellence is the notion of changing the system, which in turn, changes the thinking and behavior of the organization members. If leaders are persistent and continue to reinforce this change it will eventually result in sustainable culture change. All too often leaders will initiate a new process and then move on to other initiatives without seeing the first initiative through. Sustainable transformation requires follow through and tenacity.
The power of changing the system v. focusing on fixing people is not a new idea. Deming and others have suggested that the system is the main cause of behavior in organizations and that management is the only group that can change the system. One of the presenters proposed that organizations should "act their way into a new way of thinking v. thinking your way into a new way of acting." To change action requires leaders to redesign the system.
Unfortunately, all too often organizations approach system change with an engineering mindset v. a human mindset and then wonder why their new system didn't achieve the desired results. Organization systems are, at their core, human systems! Consequently creating sustainable organization change requires a broad systems thinking approach.
As Rulon Stacy, the CEO of Poudre Valley Health System put it, "I expect employees to provide the best patient service and it isn't fair if I don't first meet the employees' needs." The challenge in developing sustainable business strategies is to design a system that facilitates employees in providing the best products and services to both internal and external customers.
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