Tip of the month, Inside Track, February 2011
Green light for change
GE is always to be admired for its ability to capture complex thinking into a simple and memorable learning tip. I offer here their twenty year old tip on how to persuade hard-nosed leaders to invest their efforts in the more difficult people aspects of change, rather than simply finding solutions to the easier technical problems.
They came up with a simple yet compelling change effectiveness equation: QxA=E.
This translates as the Effectiveness (E) of any initiative is equal to the product of the Quality (Q) of the technical strategy and the Acceptance (A) by people of that strategy. In other words, paying attention to the people side of the equation is as important to success as the technical side. It is interesting to note that they used a multiplicative relationship; if there is a zero for the Acceptance factor, the total effectiveness of the initiative will be zero, regardless of the strength of the technical strategy.
Use it, and you’ll find that people will be keener to learn about how they can use the more subtle yet more effective tools of organisational culture and leadership to engage people with change and achieve faster and more sustainable success.
