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Understanding conventional wisdom and breaking through barriers because of It

IT and service desk leaders within your organization likely have processes set up to help them guide and lead their departments through some difficult decisions to navigate the challenges that they regularly face. Regular meetings, status calls, Excel-based trackers and other formal reporting processes may exist to alleviate such pains, but these strategies don't mean organizations or operating efficiently nor without our friction.

In many instances, such tactics appear foundational for ensuring a smooth-running department, team, and organization. Without these things, the whole thing might crumble. Projects might stop. Tickets may not get resolved. Users might go un-served. But that's not true and these tactics are not keeping the organization from perilously tipping over the edge. Such strategies, done because they've always been done, may be hurting the department, team, and organization.

Processes, beliefs, operating procedures, organizational routine, and many more aspects of departmental and organizational lives are based on such "how-we've-always-done-it wisdom that usually holds us back better than it moves us forward. The origin for doing such things the way we do them is usually unknown or unremembered. That matters little now, unless change is not part of the objective.

If change is in line, then the past matters little. If change is not in the works, then a real problem may be afoot. If not, now might be a good time to ask, “Why are we doing it this way?”

Asking about the past is not a disrespectful act. It's quite the opposite. Asking about the past and why things are done or why things are done a certain way helps leaders and their teams gain insight into improving an organization as a whole even on a departmental level.

When processes are running poorly, are stifled, innovation stale, reporting and ticket management fragile, Excel-based systems running the bulk of the data warehousing, things are likely to stay rudimentary. However, even with systems in place that allow for automation and greater visibility into workflows and user experience, doesn’t mean you've got to rush into change with your hair on fire.

Substantial change can start slowly, taking a meticulous approach.

Change for change's sake is not the goal and shouldn't be the desired outcome.

This does not mean implementing a “good idea fairy with hair on fire” approach where change is implemented for change’s sake. But carrying on thoughtful conversations with those in your organization can help to highlight where there may be that sloppy or self-interested thinking.

Granted, there are a few things to consider before diving into challenging the status quo. The way you ask your questions is important. So is understanding the organizational landscape.

Any change required or sought is a reflection of the current state of affairs brought on by past actions, responses and decisions.  Change requires self-discovery, which reminds me of the old adage:

Leader speaking to group: Who wants change?

Group members: All raise hands emphatically!

Leader to group: Who wants to change?

Group members: *sideways glances and hands lowered slowly*

Changing processes and systems from the old way to a different way can help identify sloppy, disingenuous tactics and obvious areas of improvement. In the helpdesk, for example, asking about why ticket management is tracked on disparate systems can be helpful to breaking down organizational silos. Likewise, lack of reporting across a department or organization can limit its ability to analyze data and accurately reflect the state of being.

All things considered, doing things the way they have always been done may be the easiest way forward, but it’s not necessarily (usually) the most profitable. Keep in mind, though, that challenging the conventional wisdom must lead to your ability to provide enough value to make the change worthwhile once the change is implemented. If the implemented change does nothing more than to serve the few then results are likely not worth the effort and harken back to the “ways things have always been thinking.”

Or are you risking alienating your co-workers over a small, non-mission-critical issue? To determine if the challenge to conventional wisdom is worthwhile, begin by asking your team what they feel can be improved and what they think can be better about it. If people have strong enough feelings about something, they likely have determined a few ways around or through the thing they have strong feelings about. During such an exercise, you should ask for specifics followed by a request for solutions not more problems. Not only do you identify solutions to significant problems, but you gain allies who oppose the problem and will rally around a solution.

If the problem is sincere enough to consider, you’ve identified something that requires change.

On the other hand, if a problem is identified but is not determined critical but won’t be let go by those bringing it up, the approach is slightly different. Defend with data and build support among others who also see the wisdom as a fallacy as you try to change it. These situations can cause contention. Be prepared to implement vetoes.

The rule of thumb here is to analyze the conventional wisdom under the scope of “that’s how we’ve always done it.” This may be an exercise in killing sacred cows, though often these are the very principles that must be done away with.

If you have concerns about shutting down a process, experiment with it. For example, stop offering the service to your users. Don’t discontinue it but stop offering it. If you’re producing some sort of Excel-based report that don’t gain any traction or doesn’t provide value, but you produce it because you’ve always done so, put it away. See if anyone ever asks for it. Or, if you produce fields in your ticketing reports that are only included because they always have been but provide no value, consider eliminating those data points altogether.

Once this sort of thinking starts to take root, opportunities for further innovation are likely to occur. Once conventional wisdom starts to get questioned, to speed along any future change by documenting the why for change when a new process is implemented. The documentation can be used to create a historical document that can later be referred to determine if the policy should stay in place or not.

Conventional wisdom can keep you from evolving, too, or the ways of doing things can your service team too busy firefighting, responding to requests as they arise, or even to keep track of essential information. If, upon your review of conventional wisdom, you determine that you need to implement solutions to improve operations along with your way of doing things, technology advantages abound.

Automation of repetitive tasks may be the most critical outcome. Automating recurring tasks can decrease service desk calls by more than 40% and reduce end-user down-time. Likewise, recurring tasks are the bane of every IT professional’s existence. They take up time, energy, and effort, and are costly. Password resets are just one example: Forrester estimates that the average cost of a single password reset is $70.

Another task that’s often overlooked based on the old away of doing things is employee onboarding and offboarding. When a new employee joins the organization, your IT department is tasked with making sure they have the IT hardware, software, and privileges they need to do their job.

And, when employees leave, IT needs to restrict their access and figure out which assets they were using and where they are now.

These processes can be automated and their processes upgraded seamlessly from previous file-and-form ways of doing business. An automated offboarding process also can terminate accounts and access when employees leave, and these processes cross over several departments and reducing conventional wisdom related to these tasks allow departments across the organization to come together and streamline.

Streamlining beyond conventional wisdom requires a few strategies for success, which also drive effective collaboration. The hard work has already been done because you’ve worked your way through the shackles of the old way of doing things. Getting to this point was the difficult part.

At this point, leading effective collaboration throughout the organization can benefits from the following steps:

• Include other departments as appropriate. Collaboration requires others for success and you’ve already proven the power of collaboration depends on involving others to identify solutions that alleviate problems. Solutions that contributing to the initiative. Good collaboration is a team sport!
• Be proactive, taking a focused approach drives engagement and results.
• Identify quick wins, collaborate for consensus, document reasons for change, and determine potential outcomes. Work in small increments and don’t rush things along. Collaborators will be
• Celebrate every success. Reinforce the benefits of collaboration by celebrating success.

Such strategies, done when you’ve broken through conventional wisdom can reduce can improve the entire organization. Processes, operating procedures, organizational routine can become a crutch upon which "how-we've-always-done-it wisdom” is built. Once broken through, these processes don’t have to hold back an organization as long as collaboration is central to defining organizational value and moving things forward.

Even if you only get past conventional wisdom in place for conventional wisdom’s sake.

If change is in line, then the past matters little. If change is not in the works, then a real problem may be afoot. If not, now might be a good time to ask, “Why are we doing it this way?”

By Luis Soares, managing director, TOPdesk UK

by Luis Soares, managing director, TOPdesk UK