Hi List Lurkers,
Just a couple of quick quotes for anyone who is interested in pursuing
this dialogue:
"Reengineering is in trouble....'Reengineering the Corporation' has sold
nearly two million copies worldwide since it was published in 1993, an
astonishing success for a business book. But, it's your bottom line, not
(the author's), that ought to measure the success of any set of
management ideas. And by that measure, there's much more reingineering
to do.
'Reengineering the Corporation' was written to improve business
performance by showing managers how to revolutionize their key
operational processes - product development, for example, or order
fulfillment. And it has worked. I have the evidence of my own eyes and
ears, from visits to scores of companies that practice reengineering. I
have the testimony of more than 150 managers, gathered over 18 months'
worth of interview for this book. I have the evidence, too, of the first
thorough study of the effectives of the would-be revolution.....
There have been many equally dramatic success stories. On the whole,
however, even substantial reengineering payoffs appear to have fallen
well short of their potential. .... Although the jury is still out on 71
percent of the ongoing North American reengineering efforts in our
sample, overall, the study show, participants failed to attain these
benchmarks by as much as 30 percent.
This partial revolution is not the one (the authors) intended. If I've
learned anything in the last 18 months, it is that the revolution (the
authors) started has gone, at best, only halfway. I have also learned
that half a revolution is not better than none. It may, in fact, be
worse."
James Champy. Co-Author 'Reengineering the Corporation'
As written in Champy, J. Reengineering Management. HarperCollins.
London. 1995
And another one:
"In the second half of the 1980s, a handful of companies...embarked on
programs of business improvement that would transform American industry
beyond recognition. Faced with unrelenting global competition and ever
more powerful and demanding customers, these companies came to realize
that their old ways of operation - their long-standing methods for
developing, making, selling, and servicing products - were no longer
adequate. They also discovered that their existing tools for improving
operations were not making a dent in persistent problems of high cost,
poor quality, and bad service. In order to address these problems, these
companies had to take measures more radical than they had ever taken
before. Forced to choose between sure failure and radical change, they
opted for the latter. They began to reengineer. They ripped apart their
old ways of doing things and started over with clean sheets of paper.
The good news is that these extreme measures, born out of desperation,
succeeded far beyond anyone's expectations. These pioneering companies
and the many others who followed them achieved breathtaking improvements
in their performance. As word of their success spread, reengineering
became a mass phenomenon, a vast global business movement. Only the
willfully ignorant or with private agendas question the impact that
reengineering has had on businesses around the world.
However, some bad news followed this good news. In the aftermath of
reengineering, business leaders discovered that they no longer
understood how to manage their businesses. Reengineering had not just
modified their ways of working, it had transformed their organizations
to the point where they were scarcely recognizable."
Michael Hammer
Co-Author of Reengineering the Corporation
As written in Hammer, M. Beyond Reengineering. HarperCollins. New york.
1996
Both Champy and Hammer in my understanding see the revolution they
started as become bogged down like many other idealistic concepts. TQM,
TQC, MBO, MBWA, all of these have drifted away, just as BPR is in danger
of doing, not because they were wrong - in many cases they were exactly
what was needed - but because they have been implemented in a workplace
that continues to try and manage them using the very same processes that
got them into trouble in the first place.
On a suicidal bent, I think we must take a great deal of the blame for
this. Look at most curricula for management training and education and
we see learning that is still centre on concepts first kicked around at
the beginning of the century - Planning, Organising, Coordinating,
Motivating.....etc etc. All of the things that managers are expected to
do to others. Where are the subjects covering what a manager is supposed
to be doing first of all to him/herself and allowing the fallout to
impress and affect others?
How does the old saying go? "If you want to manage others you must first
manage yourself - only then will others follow!" Leadership training is
still about 'doing unto others (first)', just as management training
concentrates on concepts that are either unworkable or at best of
secondary importance to the average manager who is more concerned with
his/her own survival than with whether or not a business plan is well
written and adhered to.
While I'm not a fanatic about BPR per se, in fact my ideals come from a
different direction but aimed at providing the skills and knowledge to
allow the organisation to adopt its own BPR, I believe that it was never
designed to be run under old-fashioned management. It will never work,
in my opinion and experience, if it is not supported by changed values,
visions and attitudes. This is very scary for most managers I'll admit,
but those who can't/won't change are very likely the reason why the
organisation needs such processes in the first place.
If the prophets of BPR have serious doubts about the way in which their
words are being translated and applied then it is no wonder that the
spectators are also confused and less than enthusiastic about continuing
the ministry.
PHIL RUTHERFORD
Donald P. Austin wrote:
>
> Hi Rao,
>
> I appreciate the idea of focusing on actual process. However, I think we
> concentrate way too much on names, including better names. A rose by any
> other name is still a rose. (Shakespeare, paraphrased?) And, fortunately,
> or unfortunately, BPR by any other name is still BPR.
>
> >Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 15:00:40 +0800
> >From: "Kowtha,N Rao" <
fbarnk@NUS.EDU.SG>
>
> >Just a nagging suspicion! May be BPR would have succeeded if we never
> >called it BPR? And just called it change program or structural change or
> >process change, thus correctly aligning expectations and focusing on the
> >specific stuff that the firm needs to do?
>
> Don Austin, Ph.D.