How to Make Sure Your Improvement Initiative Fails

As a performance improvement expert and organizational change specialist, I affirm that the following principles are ultimately reliable and guarantee the expected outcome:

1. Send an unexpected mass email to all or call an all-hands meeting to tell the entire company that “we are on a burning platform.”

2. Hire a consulting company and tell them what needs to be done. Of course, select the least expensive bidder: those cheap guys are usually more docile.

3. Do not talk much about the ongoing changes with employees. Limit your communication to the immediate reports and tell them to maintain confidentiality.

4. Do not tolerate dissent; nip it in the butt (maintain your preferred spelling) before it manifests, and replace unreliable subordinates with people who understand that loyalty trumps professionalism.

5. Ignore any improvement, especially if initiated by frontline employees. Better – declare a total victory soonest and ensure pay raise to your executive team (before the platform goes entirely under or blows up).

Why “the burning platform” trick is listed as number one? For a more detailed (and serious) explanation,  bookmark this place and come again next week.

In the meantime, please send in your suggestions if you know how to fail a change initiative better.

This is another entry in the Collectiver “How to … “ series. If you are reading this, you may want to visit: “7 Tips to Ensure Your Meetings Never End” or watch this short video: “Top 10 Ways To Make Best People Quit“