Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [404]
Another issue that should be discussed here is the issue of fairness. The other party may have resisted our change all along because they have been trying to get more out of it for themselves. They might believe they deserve more because they have invested a lot in the past and feel they weren’t adequately compensated, suspect they will be asked to invest a lot in implementing the change, or might believe that others receive more. The issue of fair compensation for their efforts or fair distribution of the expected outcome from the change might be especially complicated if we are dealing with a group of people—the ones who expect to invest more in the implementation of the change and claim they deserve more based on their contribution, the ones in the middle who will advocate the equality principle, and the weak ones who expect to contribute the least and will claim they deserve more because of their special needs. The issue of what is fair and not fair is a muddy swamp. If we go there, we are much more likely to drown than float. What might help is to build peoples’ sense of ownership in the change. If they offer to help or they decide they would like to invest more, the issue of fairness may not come up.
Apart from promoting a sense of ownership, there is another big advantage to welcoming objections and evaluating them objectively. We have all implemented changes we were excited about just to find out later that they were “half baked” and did not yield all the desired results. If we truly listen, there is a good chance that other people might be on to something that we have missed—thus, they increase our chances of implementing a well-planned change and fully enjoying its results.
Bottom Line
Reading about this buy-in process might give the impression that persuading people is a complicated task that takes a lot of work. Well, sometimes it does, but let’s put things in perspective. Most everyday changes are local, small changes that require no more than a good open discussion. In this type of change, we usually encounter no more than three or four Layers. By being aware of them, the discussion tends to be more focused and the buy-in effort actually takes less work.
When we face a large-scale change, things are different. Here, we might need to invest a significant amount of time in preparing our presentation and planning how to conduct the buy-in discussion. When faced with these preparations, we might think that it is too much effort and decide to “wing it.” The perception of this effort being “too much” comes from comparing the time we need to prepare to the time it will take to “wing it.” But if we look at the big picture, what we should compare is the time it will take to prepare our analysis and discuss our arguments to the time, effort, and agony we will go through convincing the other side to say yes (and we may never even hear that blessed word!) if we don’t prepare. Try to recall a time when you have encountered resistance and how hard you worked to get the other party to collaborate. If only you had done a little more homework before you had leapt in ….
References
Goldratt, E. M. 1984. The Goal. Great Barrington, MA: North River Press.
Goldratt, E. M. 1996a. “My saga to improve production: Part 1,” APICS—The Performance Advantage. 6(7)(July): 32–35.
Goldratt, E. M. 1996b. “My saga to improve production: Part 2,” APICS—The Performance Advantage. 6(8)(August): 34–37.
Goldratt, E. M. 2003. “My saga to improve production.” In Production: The TOC Way. Revised Edition. Great Barrington, MA: North River Press.
Goldratt, E. M. 2009. The Choice. Great Barrington, MA: North River Press.
Pierce, J. L., Kostova, T., and Dirks, K. T. 2001. “Toward a theory of psychological ownership in organizations,” The Academy of Management Review, 26(2)(April): 298–310.
About the Author
Dr. Efrat Goldratt is an organizational psychologist who specializes in the Thinking Processes (TP) according to TOC. She has played an active role in the development of the