Teaching the Elephant to Dance. - book reviews

Business Horizons, Sept-Oct, 1991 by Henry H. Beam

The reviewer, Henry H. Beam, is a professor of management at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.

Young elephants are trained not to move by being shackled with heavy chains to stakes deeply embedded in the ground. When the elephant is fully grown, it remembers its early training and won't try to break away even though it has only a small metal bracelet around its feet--untethered at that. Organizations, too, get set in their ways as they get older, held back by self-imposed bonds they have the power to break, but don't--such as "We've always done it this way."

Teaching the Elephant to Dance is about the difficult problem of getting organizations to change before they are forced to do so by a crisis threatening their survival. Keeping academic references to a minimum, Belasco has written a refreshingly enthusiastic book for practitioners--those who will actually be responsible for bringing about change in their organizations. Much of his approach and many of his examples are based on his own consulting and teaching experience, lending an air of authenticity to the book.

In the first chapter the author briefly reiterates the now familiar theme that in market after market U.S. corporations are "being outsold, out-hustled, and outproduced." Because of this, he argues that it is not only acceptable, it is essential to bring about change in our big organizations to prevent them from falling behind foreign competitors. His point made, the author immediately starts to describe his program for getting organizations to change and take advantage of opportunities.

The first five chapters set the stage for change with a discussion of such basic topics as getting ready, anticipating obstacles, and focusing resources. The book's most innovative concept is discussed in detail in Chapter 6, "Vision Makes the Difference." The author feels people work best when they work for a vision. And a vision isn't just a new name for the mission statement:

  Vision is the difference between
    short-term  hits," like
    asset sales and cutting R&D
    budgets, and long-term change.
    Vision translates paper strategies
    into a way of life. Vision
    empowers people to change. (p. 98)

Vision is what people at all levels in the organization can identify with. Lower-level employees might not know the firm's mission statement from its strategy, but they know its reputation and how others perceive it. They know when they work for a good organization, or one that is considered second- or even third-rate. We should all be able to remember times when we were proud of our efforts, felt we were doing something that counted, and didn't worry about how long it took to get the job done right. People work like that when they have a vision. Some organizations have succeeded in making visions practically synonymous with their names. The Marine Corps did it: once a Marine, always a Marine. So too has IBM, with incredible worldwide customer support. But all too many American corporations have lost their vision, and with it their drive to succeed.

Visions come from people, a point Belasco stresses in Chapter 9, People Are the Key." Nothing will happen to change any organization until the people in it decide they want to change. Results come when people develop a shared vision of how they want their organization to be perceived and are willing to work every day to maintain that vision. Sam Walton had a vision for Wal-mart. So did Ray Kroc for McDonald's. What is remarkable is that so many employees at all levels in both these organizations still share the founder's original vision.

One peril in using as many examples as the author does is that some of them don't stand the test of time. In Chapter 5, Campbell's Soup CEO Gordon McGovern is held up as an example of a CEO whose vision reinvigorated a sleepy company. Reorganized into 50 quasi-independent business units, Campbell's did develop hundreds of new products during the 1980s. But few of them were big successes and profits failed to meet targets. Under increasing pressure from the board for results, McGovern resigned in November 1989. Thus, having a vision is not enough. The vision must be suited to the organization, not imposed on it.

Assume you are excited about your new vision, you see it clearly, and you're motivated to change your organization. Why don't others feel the way you do? The author addresses this all-too-familiar problem in Chapter 11, "Empower Individual Change Agents." His prescription is to bring "the change process down to the gut level for each and every individual." He stresses that everyone in the organization has a "customer" and a "supplier" and, conversely, is a customer or a supplier for someone else. It may be the person at the next desk or in the next department, or it may be the boss or the secretary. It is this web of customer-supplier contracts that binds all the components of the organization together. The key to making the vision statement a part of daily activities is to constantly monitor pertinent performance measures of these contracts, such as service, quality, and productivity. The performance measures work best when they are established by the people involved, not imposed by management. In this way, everyone in the organization is helping to make change effective.