Burning Platform or Real Change?

The framework presented by Chip and Dan Heath in Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Needed poses a compelling challenge to the classical burning platform model.

Instead of a laundry list of measurable objectives that may quickly amount to information overload, you should communicate a clear and simple vision and you should script the first critical moves in order to motivate your people’s rational-self.

And instead of a crisis, you should inspire your people with positive feelings–such as hope, optimism and pride. Instead of raising the bar, you should lower the bar, so that your people’s emotional-self can overcome its dread and take the first steps on the change journey.

Before #

We are in a crisis. We are aggressed on the market. Our products have technical problems. Our competitors are delivering better value than us. And our customers have lost faith in us as a reliable partner.

We will launch our group’s transformation program consisting of seventy projects in order to positively affect more than thirty key performance indicators which are distributed in three families of objectives.

After #

Let’s focus on our customers and make sure that all of them are happy. Let each of us, in our day-to-day job, make sure that every day our customers are a bit more satisfied than the day before.

We can take pride in our history and in our know-how and we can trust that–if we give it our best shot–we will meet, and even exceed, our customers’ expectations.

Each of us will know that our day has been successful when we receive a thank-you email from a customer, print it and stick it to the wall in order to share the good news with the back-office.

Author: E. Dib #

Further Reading #

• Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Needed