It's said that when an advisor or auditor enters an organization, they're already intervening, generating change. That's true, although it would be naive and pretentious to believe that this is solely due to the advisor/auditor's merit.
Indeed, the organization begins to change from the day of the first visit, not because the advisor is good or bad as such, but because the mere presence of the stranger challenges the participants, who suddenly begin to become aware of flaws and opportunities for improvement.
Opportunities for change are always present. The thing is, as human beings, we often need the help of others to see them. The Greek philosophers had already discovered this: What affects us is not what happens to us but how we interpret what happens to us. The presence of a foreign body alerts defense mechanisms and the senses are prepared to better understand what is happening.
Most opportunities for improvement have always been there, but our daily routine prevents us from seeing them. They've become part of the landscape, and we've lost the ability to be surprised by them. They no longer speak to us. They're silent to our ears and invisible to our eyes. The daily grind has dulled the novelty. Routine has made us lose the freshness of the early days. It happens to us in organizations and also in our own lives.
When the advisor/auditor arrives, it is as if the entire organism (=organization) suddenly goes on alert and then begins to perceive, with the help of the outside, what was there but could not be seen.
We looked without seeing. We wandered around the organization without understanding. On top of that, Murphy's Law applies again, and if something was going to go wrong, it surely will on the day of the audit or advisory visit...
The from where
As the audit or consultancy continues, another essential and not always transparent element emerges: the "from where" from which the organization or process to be improved is viewed.
An organization can be decoded with various reading keys. The codes we use to understand it will affect how we understand, judge, and act upon it.
To understand, we need paradigms, mental frameworks, and organizational models from which to interpret. Diagnosing is knowing, and knowing is interpreting. Conflicts and disagreements between human beings are exacerbated when these reading keys are not transparent. What I expect, desire, or believe about the functioning of the organization does not necessarily coincide with what the other expects, desires, or believes.
The keys always exist, even if I myself am unaware of them. The tragic thing is to believe that our perspectives are sterile, objective, or obvious, or worse, already understood and accepted by the other.
If, as a consultant/auditor, I remain silent about the perspective from which I will view the organization, my client will likely disagree, misunderstand, or fully comprehend the process, and resistance will soon arise. On the contrary, if we agree in advance on the yardstick by which we measure ourselves, the standard against which we compare ourselves, then, instead of resistance, we will have gained an invaluable ally in the task of managing change.
As a consequence of the above, the first act of honesty and professional seriousness is to make the diagnostic keys transparent. In the organizational sphere, these hermeneutic (interpretive) systems can be best practices (in the industrial sector in question) or so-called world-class management systems. They generally consist of a constellation of organizational principles that have proven effective and whose systematic adherence will result in improved organizational performance.
Recently, while talking to a colleague who wanted to share a case with me, he said: "It's funny, after explaining it to you, I understand it better." It's logical; Eastern culture also taught us that if I want to understand something, the best thing is to put it in my own words and teach it to others. The effort to explain it and for others to understand it forces us to expose (bring out) paradigms and points of view. Then understanding is better; what was previously hidden or obscured becomes transparent, and that knowledge drives transformation.
As Stephen Covey said: “Seeking to understand requires consideration; seeking to be understood requires courage.”
Eng. Raul A. Perez Verzini
TPM Instructor No. 723 – JIPM
Master in Organizational Development and Behavior
