“If I Had a Hammer, I Would Hammer in the Morning, …”
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This quote is attributed to Mark Twain (and a few others, including Abraham Maslow). When I first heard the phrase, it was also quoted as a Japanese proverb and used as a descriptive attribute contrasting compliant behavior in a very homogeneous society with what was ascribed to Western cultures. I thought the point too absolute for a societal descriptor, but very appropriate for evaluating the implementation of programs in organizations.
Implementing change is hard and not for the faint of heart. Armchair quarterbacks abound within organizations and hired pundits are ever ready to find and pull on the threads of what is not working in an enterprise. Stories of success are powerful magnets for our attention, particularly when things around us need attention. When change is needed, deciding the direction to take is not the hardest challenge. Deciding what to focus on and how big the change needed is not insurmountable either. Picking an approach and toolkit to start with is actually easy these days since there is lots of help and advice available. The hardest part is avoiding the euphoria that comes with the seductive “hope” that the program will cure all and the need to make sure we have a good “get with the program” program in place. Zealotry is powerful and dangerous.
When our broad based implementation of a program becomes the hammer, too much of everything else that competes or challenges become nails. An unfortunate consequence of some efforts at transformation in organizations has been the emergence of a “get with it or get going” expectation for those engaged. Early success and impressive improvements will overwhelm most naysayers and often trivialize alternatives. When lots of stuff gets better wanting more is rational. It is seductive and the lure to become part of the wins is infectious, as good things should be.
Have you been there when “enforced optimism” shows up at the meeting? Be it on a goal, target, deadline, new product, or customer acquisition? Were you scared to raise an objection? Bad stuff at the moment, but the ensuing effect on the team and organization has just taken seed and may be played out for a long time. Years ago, a senior executive I regarded highly, Clark Cook at Florida Power and Light, said to me, “John, if we are not careful and vigilant, we can be today’s solution that becomes tomorrow’s problem.” Given that Clark had the benefit of a degree from the finest university in the US, Georgia Tech, the prophetic insight was not surprising. Be it an individual, a solution, or a program, when the world changes and new requirements emerge, the controls we put in place for today’s problems could very likely become constraints to the ones we face tomorrow.
Are any of these going on in our enterprises?
- Form begins to surpass substance. One format, one method, one process only for all our problems.
- PowerPoint hours grow
- Conformance to templates becomes a toll gate issue
- The sanctioned process becomes a “shell” to package the real solution (retrofitting becomes a skill)
- Delays increase because the “right” data is not available (it may never be available for items that are not nails)
- Big problems go elsewhere for help, or get solved quietly in the shadow organizations.
- The program resources are organized and managed as a group outside of the business. They become specialists available to help the business.
We cannot overstate the impact that yesterday’s solutions, controls and paradigms have had on the problems we face today. Be it reflected in Alan Greenspan’s mea culpa confession that he never thought that the self interest of financial organizations would fail to self regulate, or the faith in the “self correcting” behavior of markets, or that fiduciary due diligence equates to performance due diligence, we missed a few biggies, didn’t we? If we did miss some biggies, were we the architects of our blindness?
Has anybody seen my hammer?
