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Could Large System Intervention be a Savior?- Part 2


In the last article, we discussed the situation of acquisition of Alstom by GE and analyzed the reasons for its failure.
Here we will continue with our discussion by analyzing possible models of Large System Intervention in the context of the above-mentioned acquisition.

 But before we delve into the hypothetical analysis, It would be interesting to have a look at the intervention that was led by Jack Welch (most prominent Ex-CEO of GE) in the early 1980s.

After a period of corporate restructuring, retaining businesses which will be profitable and letting go of unproductive ones, Welch understood that the slash and burn technique won't be enough.
"Work-out" was created by Welch’s insistence where the Front line sales who were the drivers of change would be empowered to make decisions and their bosses will align themselves to it. 

Work-out was launched in large-scale setoff with the help of few facilitators, HR folks and top management. The process was such that hourly and salaried employees from different teams would come together for a meeting for 3-5 days to identify issues and come up with possible solutions.
Even though top management didn't participate in the process, actions were taken on each and every identified issue.
What started as an event, turned into a process. Later, vendors and customers were also involved in the process. Work out turned out to be critical for creating the kind of culture needed for continuous improvement.

The example shows that GE has never shied away from a challenging situation, although the leadership has played a major role in the shaping up of processes and business.

Moving on to hypothetical solutions for the situation at GE Power currently, we will be looking at two models of Large System Intervention i.e. Participative Design and Open Spaces.

Search Conferences/Participative Design
In contrast to future search, search conferences assume that organizations must actively adapt to their environments. It is assumed that there is a known environment in which an organization exists. Often this environment is characterized as very turbulent and unpredictable and must (can only) be managed via democratic processes. Organizations need to first clearly define their environment (via the search conference); then they must learn how to organize democratically (via the participative design workshop) to develop active adaptation processes.

In the current situation, since it’s a clash of the culture of two different countries, the organization will first have to decide which components of which culture they wish to retain. After the decision, they will develop an action plan for adoption.

Open Spaces
The open space technology assumes that change occurs when human energy is focused and unleashed. To accomplish this an open forum is created where individuals are invited to share their ideas and opinions provided they are willing to take responsibility for them. They do this by becoming advocates for their position and inviting others to join them in the discussion by introducing themselves to all participants and explaining why they believe in what they do. These advocates then manage the process by convening to a specified location where they take responsibility to organize and discuss their issues with other interested participants. If energy and interest exist for an advocate's position, other participants will join and together they will accomplish whatever they want to do. What results from such meetings may be specific action plans, the initiation of a new interest group, simply talking for the sake of it and venting emotions or building rapport, etc. The open space technology is unique in that it demands the least amount of restriction on who or how many participants are present and how they interact. People come to these interventions because they choose to and they advocate their ideas in a manner that all participants can hear openly, develop advocacy and support, and exert influence on the whole system.

This is similar to what Welch did in 1988 to drive productivity and create a culture of continuous learning.

Similarly, this initiative can be driven by top management, HR team and a fleet of outside facilitators who would enable and empower employees to come up with their problems and build solutions to it.

Feel free to suggest more methods to the discussion thread.



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