We all know that the pressure on organisations these days is significant. Those who lead organisations understand that if they fail to change or adapt they can easily become irrelevant.
So the case for change might seem pretty compelling. Surely working on another idea or change won’t be that much of an issue for people.
Here’s the thing. In many organisations what you find is that there are no shortage of initiatives that get started. The trouble often is that things get started get so far and fall by the wayside.
One change followed through is better than 10 incompletes.
Now you may well have a host of reasons for your incompletes and I clearly don’t know your organisation specifically.
Yet what I do know that the biggest constraint facing many people at work these days is a lack of time.
Sadly unlike a computer or your mobile phone you can’t buy an upgrade.
You have what you have.
Even when an organisation is looking to make change or improvement the day job still needs to be done.
Doing the business as usual stuff takes up a lot of time. Yes there may be scope to drop some things or improve the efficiency of how something is done.
But the bottom line is you are still only going to create a limited amount of time.
What that means that you are going to have to choose what your changes you invest resources in wisely.
Right now do you know what change initiatives you have in progress?
More importantly have you assessed which of these initiatives are going to create most value?
And if you have assessed value, are you making sure that resources are invested in the handful of initiatives that are going to make the biggest difference?
Or are you simply trying to do too much and achieving very little despite the best efforts of everyone?
If so it’s time for a reality check.
Duncan Brodie provides practical support to NHS organisations in the areas of leadership, team working and change.