http://disqus.com/by/keithmcpherson/enFri, 24 Jul 2009 11:54:19 -0000http://maheshcr.com/blog/2008/11/25/the-7-signs-of-organizational-inertia/#comment-13275569<p>We are dealing with a publicly owned utility to do something that everyone agrees should be done. For two years now there have been many many meetings but only marginal progress. The issue is to apply energy savings technology to 70,000 utility owned street lights. The latest coments received about the business case for doing this are "this is a complicated issue" "we cannot solve it by making a list of the factors stopping the project because it is more complex than that" "we are a utility - power is free - so the business case to save energy is meaningless" But the real problem is that the utility has a significant revenue stream (about $150 / light / mth) and even though they dont make any profit at that price there are several people whose jobs depend on administering the revenue stream. Now several people in an organization of thousands should not stop the project right? Wrong! And here is the inertia problem. Career trajectories in the utility are defined by not making mistakes. There is a culture of fear that prevents change IN CASE A MISTAKE IS MADE. So a few people can raise all kinds of small things like "training will be a problem" "how can we be sure that this technology (that our engineers have tested and accepted for small numbers of lights) will work on large numbers of lights - maybe things will go wrong..." So the inertia issue is that career paths are determined by having no mud on your hands and so change cannot be made until ALL managers (and this can involve literally hundreds of people) agree, so that the risk of failure (no matter how small) is spread over a sufficiently large base to ensure NO ONE but NO ONE is held accountable. Thats it..</p>keithmcphersonFri, 24 Jul 2009 11:54:19 -0000