A process is only effective if it is accepted within the organization...
This sounds obvious, right? Unfortunately, in practice it is not as obvious as it seems. Too often, managers design processes on an island, only to miss the mark in gaining buy-in from colleagues.
The consequences? They can range from irritated colleagues to processes that are so screwed up that the costs of failure are incalculable.
In this blog we discuss the importance of acceptance within an organization for innovation, and how to get buy-in from all stakeholders.
We explained in a previous article how to smartly describe processes together using the Process Model Canvas. In it, we emphasized the importance of not designing and describing a process yourself on an island, and then "imposing" it on the colleagues who will carry it out.
No, you design and describe a process together with all stakeholders. Think of all the people involved in a process: from customers to employees, from managers to suppliers. They all have their own ideas, needs and expectations. Only by involving them in the design of the process can you create something that really works for all stakeholders.
But inclusion in the design process alone is not enough: once a process is designed and described, it must also be accepted and embraced by everyone in practice. And that is what we mean by acceptance rate: the degree to which people within an organization accept new ideas or changes to a process.
The degree of acceptance does not only revolve around the people executing the process, but also senior management and specialists from, for example, quality management, IT, HR, risk management and knowledge management.
When we talk about acceptance of a process, we can distinguish three groups:
Only when the majority within all three groups is behind a new process or idea, the acceptance level will be high enough to actually make the change.
Unfortunately we witness in many organizations that processes are only accepted by 1 or 2 of these groups.
Consider the following situation: the KAM manager designs a process to improve quality. Upper management is not engaged, because "that's what they hired the quality manager for, right?"
Then the process is "forced" on the performers, who are then blamed when it doesn't work. The quality management specialist has trouble getting buy-in from the doers, but continues to insist that the process be followed to the letter. Senior management pretends to ignore it.
The result: a high rejection rate and a low acceptance rate for the new process. Consequently, the process will not be effective.
In some cases, this even leads to the process being reverted to the old way of working because it simply didn't work.
To clarify the importance of the acceptance rate, we like to use the following formula within Comm'ant:
Effectiveness of a measure = Quality of the measure x Acceptance rate squared / divided by implementation time
How does this formula work? Let's start with the simple version first, namely what is also called Maier's Law.
1. E = K x A
Effectiveness of the process = Quality x Acceptance Rate
This sounds logical, right? For a new process or a change to an existing process to be effective, it must be of good quality and accepted by stakeholders.
But - there is more to it. Or rather, in practice it is worse than this simple formula suggests. Without acceptance, a process will not work, no matter how high the quality. So the formula changes to:
Effectiveness of the process = Quality x Acceptance rate squared
What we show with this is that a process or measure can be of such high quality, but the degree of acceptance weighs so heavily on the effectiveness that it can still fail.
This is often the case when a process or measure is imposed on employees without their input or involvement. In such cases we see a high degree of resistance and a low acceptance rate. The result is that the process or measure just doesn't work, no matter how good it is.
But there is another catch. In practice, it often takes longer to implement a process than we would like. And that also affects the effectiveness of a measure. So the "Comm'ant process effectiveness formula":
Effectiveness of process = Quality of process x Acceptance rate squared / divided by implementation time
The longer it takes to implement a process, the lower the effectiveness. This may be because slow implementation leads to a loss of momentum and motivation, for example. In addition, when implementing a process, it is important to be able to iterate quickly and improve as needed, which is more difficult with a slow implementation cycle.
Therefore, it is important to keep the implementation time as short as possible so that the effect of a process or measure is not diluted.
How do you ensure that a process or measure is accepted by all stakeholders? Here are a few tips:
The acceptance rate of a process is often an understudied issue, but it is essential to the success of the process. So pay attention to the buy-in of all three groups: the doers, the management and the specialists. Work together to design and describe a process using the Process Model Canvas (download the free template here!). And finally, make sure the process and agreements are made transparent to all stakeholders with a management system like Comm'ant.
De Nederlandse versie van dit blog tref je hier »