Tunnell Consulting - Consultants to Management

Organizational Metamorphosis:
Freeing the Potential in a Company and Its Employees
by Bob Hill

Companies in the midst of a Total Quality Management implementation sometimes find themselves frustrated with the results, unclear about their direction, or confused about their methodology. On the other hand,

"Companies that successfully manage change will find, I believe, that they are unwittingly adhering to some or all of the principles underlying the natural dynamic of metamorphosis."

companies that solve these problems talk mysteriously about having learned to manage the chaos of constant change.

There is, as it turns out, a management system in the natural world that governs, sometimes in elegant fashion, this chaos of constant change. Within a natural ecosystem, like a wetland or a forest, thousands of different "production" processes are balanced and maintained simultaneously. The mysterious dynamic behind nature's management system is the process of metamorphosis. Companies that successfully manage change will find, I believe, that they are unwittingly adhering to some or all of the principles underlying metamorphosis. Companies seeking to do a better job at managing change may find it helpful to consider these principles.

Principles of Metamorphosis

Throughout the most dramatic change process, an essential defining element remains constant.

The future stage of an organism is present as potential even in its earliest form.

The stamp or identity of the whole is present in every part of an organism.

Every healthy organism goes through a maturation process (or life cycle) which will vary in length depending on the outer environment and inner characteristics.

How then do we apply these principles to organizational change? Here are ways I believe you can begin:

PRINCIPLE I: Identify and preserve the essential elements of identity.
Identify within a company, a facility, or a department the attributes that create its unique identity, a sense of self that is special. These attributes may be connected to a particular process, technology, or a relationship to a market or customer base. Start with the company as a whole, tracing it back to its origins if possible. Are there defining characteristics that have given it a special identity?

Especially within a TQM change process, teams, departments, and facilities will find it immensely helpful if they have a clear sense of what makes them unique. Since process and project teams are key "change agents," it is imperative that they feel connected to an essential identity that carries them from past to present to future.

PRINCIPLE II: Recognize and develop the future from the potential of the present.
The great sculptor Michelangelo was once asked where he got the inspiration for such sculptures as the Pieta. His answer could be instructive for those guiding the TQM change process. When he first approached a block of marble, he said he never brought to it a preconceived idea of what he would uncover. Rather, he looked for the figure "imprisoned in the stone," essentially working to release the potential form already present.

Similarly, the future of a company lives as potential within its employees. The job of the TQM manager or facilitator is to constantly look for that potential and work to liberate it from the walls of bureaucracy, outmoded management practices, or antiquated thinking that imprison it.

PRINCIPLE III: The identity of the whole is present in all its parts.
To the degree that every employee develops an understanding of the company's identity, its strengths, weaknesses, and especially its unique attributes, that company will be strong and confident in itself. Principle III represents the essence of a team culture, empowering each team member to speak with the voice of the team, and consider himself/herself a full-fledged member of the department, the facility, and the company.

Within an environment where the individual is expected to do more, decide more, and carry more responsibility, he must feel supported by the strength of the whole -- the team unit, supportive peers, management. The strength of the individual, indicative of our

"To the degree that every employee develops an understanding of the company's identity... that company will be strong and confident in itself."

American culture, thereby becomes the strength of the whole.

PRINCIPLE IV: Allow for a normal developmental cycle.
The development or maturation of teams is fairly well understood. The four stages most teams encounter correspond roughly to what each of us experienced in our own development. The first stage, "Forming," corresponds to childhood; "Storming," the second stage, to adolescence; "Norming," stage three, to young adulthood; and "Performing," the final stage, to mature adulthood. The length of the development cycle varies, but most teams will undergo this cycle in about 14 weeks.

What is less widely recognized is the development cycle most managers experience. These four stages are more clearly named: I -- Awareness, acquiring a knowledge of the process; II -- Testing, withholding judgement until results are in; III -- Adoption, confirming results and expanding the process; IV -- Institutionalization, making the process a way of life within the company. The length of the development cycle for an individual manager will depend upon how closely he/she works with developing teams. While we realize that teams, and even organizations, go through predictable stages of development, we often expect individuals to change overnight. They too should be allowed a normal adaptive cycle. It's only natural.

Conclusion
An organization's culture can be just as fragile as a natural ecosystem. In spite of this fragility, nature has found a way to absorb and manage massive amounts of change. If you look at a healthy ecosystem at any one moment in time, you will see what looks like arbitrary change or chaos. But, if you look at these changes over time, you will observe orderly patterns of growth, from past to present to future, managed by the delicate dynamic of metamorphosis.

Organizations that consider the principles of this dynamic can bring a sense of order and stability into what otherwise may seem to be directionless change, or even chaos.

Bob Hill is the president of Tunnell Consulting.

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