Why is change inside a system so difficult? There have always been moments inside of an organization where everyone went along with a process that didn’t quite work as well as it could. Maybe there’s been mayhem at volunteer events because of disorganized paperwork and mismatched up schedules. Or a lead for a potential donor went cold during busy season at your nonprofit. Even when important things slip through the cracks, sometimes we find ourselves maintaining the same methods that are creating unfavorable outcomes.
Sometimes the reason things stay the same is because the changes we make are not deep enough to really bring about different results. It’s like having a leaky roof in a house and covering the hole with duct tape. Sure, that may resolve the immediate issue at hand for a short period of time, but the structural issues that generated the problem are still in place. Under pressure… there’s bound to be another leak. Band-aid solutions to problems that really have to more fundamental flaws, eventually lead to running into the same problem later. So how can you go from making Band-Aid renovations to true innovation inside of your organization?
Luke Williams shares insight into innovation by pointing to how disruptive a hypothesis is in this Fast Company piece. If you want to make sure that the changes you’re making get to the core of the issue, it may help to purposely turn the structure on its head. Williams suggests 3 steps to doing this:
1- Defining the situation – What is your problem area? What consistently yields outcomes that don’t meet your standards? Accurately identifying the problem is the first step to a solution. Drawing the parameters of the box you’re going to turn over and rebuild is important.
2- Define the cliches- What are your default processes? What does your team do automatically without questioning it? Finding the cliches is the most difficult part, after all these are the things that barely register as anything that could be changed.Researching how other organizations achieve the same tasks may give you some insight into the ideas that guide and define your own system.
3- Turn the cliche around- Now think about how to change the cliche, the thing that nobody thought to adjust because it was just how things were. Luke recommends doing this in one of 3 ways; by inverting the action and doing the opposite, scaling the process and changing how accessible it is, or using denial to completely drop elements of your cliche.
This is especially important when you’re thinking of implementing new technology systems in your organization. Salesforce can do a lot for the efficiency of an organization, but it’s only as good as the quality of the model it’s built on. Before you add a new software that supposed to help you do WHAT you do better, make sure you have done the work to make right adjustments to HOW you do what you do and your tech changes will go much further!
