Ralph Dixon

Ralph, thank you for illuminating one of the perpetual problems that occur too often not to notice: resistance to change. Often we know what needs to be done: exercise for good health, eliminating sodium to lower blood pressure, limit social media exposure for a more meaningful life, utilizing great tools for better productivity. And yet we don’t do it. In an organization, a change is often perceived as a threat to the existing status quo. Being purely subjective and psychological, it can certainly serve as a barrier to any process improvement. Recall another class reading that talks about stopping the process completely, The health care company implemented radically different patient care process where doctors would work closely to nurses and, sometime, report to them as to “owners of the process.” One of the obstacles in implementation was doctors’ resistance. They perceived nurses as subordinates and someone below their rank. But I digress. I think changes can be successfully implemented in a nonthreatening manner if they are relatively small and gradual. Instead of starting with transformative initiatives, why not start with mastering a single alteration to the existing process. After the change becomes habitual, proceed to the next step and so forth. What I have described, of course, is not a universal guideline. Critical and urgent cases sometimes require significant and rapid organizational shifts. But in small projects, the strategy mentioned above can lead to substantial improvements.

Great post, Ralph! It is incredibly valuable learning about these processes and methodologies while being able to apply them in real-time to our day-to-day.

At my job, we’re currently in the process of redesigning our college’s website. After going through a full content audit, with help from our web developer, director, assistant director, content writer and interns, we were able to flush that audit out pretty thoroughly. While all the hands in the pot may seem like a lot, it actually became much clearer who would then become responsible for what once the audit was finished. That was achieved via a RACI chart.

I built one out for our team as we were discussing next steps in the redesign process, and everyone now has a clear direction of where they’re needed, or where they’ll simply be consulted. We are also transitioning into using Airtable, which can also be a really useful tool, especially when building out a RACI chart.

Ralph, I love this post so much, and it’s probably because I’ve thought about investing, robo-advisors and financial planning a lot this year. As Kellen noted, for a person who isn’t great at investing or just trying to learn the ropes, apps such as Acorns, RobinHood and Stash have all been a part of this disruption prior to the rise of robo-advisors. In fact, following the recession, I began noticing a number of online-only banks rise as well as saving account apps rise, too. So I think there’s a lot of disruption happening in the financial services space, and it’s all about how traditional banks and investors are willing to answer.

We recently transitioned our entire operation to the Salesforce platform. Our software and Salesforce engineering team used all the typical features while adding a native accounting app, custom order processing, purchasing automation. Except for non-linked email and Google Hangouts, we are on Salesforce all day. Before the transition, it took six hours a day to process orders. The team used a mix of code, Jitterbit, and EDI to cut the order processing time to 30 minutes a day. The employees who did the order processing were retrained to do customer service and logistics. The experience was a good one. Both are happy in their new roles and do not miss the mind-numbing manual entry of lot numbers and expiry dates.

You brought up a great point Ralph, AI doesn’t eliminate work but redistribute it. I very much can relate to your Concur example. We use it at our company as well and while there are great efficiencies for the accounting department, the work is put on the employee. Concur while useful in some ways is tedious and very cumbersome in most others, making booking travel time consuming. I don’t know anyone at work that enjoys the system nor had a great on boarding experience with the technology. So while Concur saves our company on costs, at the same time costs our company time and energy.