Ensuring Organizational Change Programs Fail - Don't Waste Time Talking to People

Someday, it may happen to you. A job assignment to implement "Goals 2010". Program management responsibility with high visibility, opportunity, and risk. A chance to make your mark. Unfortunately, you don't agree with the overall organizational change objectives. How can you kill Goals 2010 and save your career?

No worries. Simply apply the five principles that have been effective in large and small organizations, whether government, not-for-profit, or private enterprise. These principles have enabled countless program managers to be promoted while their programs crashed and burned.

Principle One: Set Unrealistic Deadlines
Principle Two: Never Admit Mistakes
Principle Three: Kill the Messenger
Principle Four: Don't Waste Time Talking to People
Principle Five: Continually Increase Scope

Principle Four: Don't Waste Time Talking to People

Effective application of Principles Two and Three should drastically reduce any meaningful two-way communication. For goodness sake, make sure that you don't initiate any such communication. After all, you're a busy executive and don't have time for such frivolities as town hall meetings, brown bag lunches, electronic suggestion boxes and the like.

Two-way communication is dangerous. Even with Principle Three in place, you risk hearing suggestions for improvement. Once they're out in the open, you may be forced to respond. And while proper application of Principle One will give you the "not enough time" excuse, some bright employee might come up with an idea that is simple, easy to implement, and won't slow things down (it might even speed them up!) This is to be avoided at all costs.

Some organizations have a culture of communicating directly to their employees. If you are in this unfortunate situation, you can always employ the following strategy to minimize effectiveness:

• Frequent e-mails. Send e-mails to the entire employee distribution list at the drop of a hat. Volume is important. Just make sure that "Goals 2010" appears in the subject line of each e-mail. After a few months of receiving several weekly e-mails, employees will start deleting them without opening. To avoid wasting time actually composing these e-mails, make a habit of forwarding any message that is remotely related to Goals 2010.

If you have faithfully implemented Principles One through Four, your program may have already died. If there is any life left, be sure to check my posting on Principle Five: Continually Increase Scope.