making-sense-of-change-management

The applicationsWe bought the system in June. It was pretty simple to use, and everyoneseemed in favour, so there should have been no issues. After two months, onlyGeorge and two other sales people were using the system and updating it regularly.This was out of a team of 12 of us. People just weren’t used to sharinginformation in this way, and as we were still measured on our individual salestargets, there was no incentive to help others by revealing our contacts.George got really frustrated, and accepted another job by the end of November.Sales executive in electronics companyPerhaps we need to forget about technology for the moment, and look atexisting information sharing habits and develop some goals for behaviourchange. But what are the rules governing information sharing behaviour?Davenport states the information facts of life:• Most of the information in organizations – and most of the informationpeople really care about – is not on computers.• Managers prefer to get information from people rather thancomputers; people add value to raw information by interpreting itand adding context.• The more complex and detailed an information managementapproach, the less likely it is to change anyone’s behaviour.• All information does not have to be common; an element of flexibilityand disorder is desirable.• The more a company knows and cares about its core business area, theless likely employees will be to agree on a common definition of it.• If information is power and money, people will not share it easily.• The willingness of individuals to use a specified information format isdirectly proportional to how much they have participated in definingit, or trust others who did.• To make the most of electronic communications, employees must firstlearn to communicate face to face.304