Nonetheless, the thread must be pulled tight until we have a complete understanding of the symptoms. The shop foremen are not very “moti- vated” and keep out of the day-to-day running, which management notes regretfully and impotently. But by reviewing the concepts which have been proposed, it can be seen that these actors, who are supposed to be in a hierarchical situation, in fact have no resources but, to the contrary, a number of not insignificant constraints; in particular the abundance of procedures which deprive them of any possibility of deci- sion and the fact that the maintenance staff do not report to them but to an engineer outside the workshop.
Like all intelligent actors, they adapt their problem that needs solving to the context in which they find themselves – in which they have been placed– and simply try to live in peace. In doing this, they transform one of their constraints into a resource – which, in the sometimes comical managerial language of business schools, is known as “managing an opportunity” – and hide behind regulations in order to avoid being forced to take action. One can understand that they have a strategy of withdrawal, in the same way that production workers seek to have the best possible relationship with theirmaintenance workers, at the same time as denouncing their arbitrariness in general. The latter, as is the case for all actors possessing a major resource, content themselves with using this with a view to preserving their autonomywhich, as we will note in passing, in experience is the most widespread problem that needs resolving in organizations. They therefore play on the repair times of the machines – second symptom – in order to protect themselves against untimely requests for their intervention which might disturb their work, over the pace of which they intend to maintain control. As one of them says: “No journey without a destination.”
And so we learn that, in this small system, which was neither wanted nor created by anybody in particular but has developed over time into its current existence, the breakdown is the major resource of the domi- nant actor who, because he is intelligent, uses it and thus inflates the length of time that he is involved on the machines. We have moved on from the symptoms to the problems, using a method of reasoning From Symptom to Problem 151
which, for reasons of practicality and transmissibility, we have formu- lated in the shape of tools that are easy to use. But at the same time, the reasoning which was used, and the results that were obtained in this way, make it possible to revisit the problematic of change, by once again focusing on realism. For the technical perception, which legitimizes the reduction in breakdowns, is finally that, aesthetically, non-breakdown is better than breakdown. As a young MBA student said to us one day, par- ticularly shocked after reading this case study, “This organisation has got to be changed because it cannot please as it is.”
That may be true, but it goes without saying that, for as long as the company is in a monopoly situation, there is no real reason for touch- ing anything at all, to the extent that the extra cost of regulation by breakdown is externalizedonto a third party, that is, the customer. On the other hand, adaptation to the new context, which forms the transi- tion to a market economy, cannot take place through a simple change in structures or attitudes. It will presuppose – it has presupposed – a completely new deal of cards, that is, the fundamental transformation of the methods of functioning. And the analysis which was made helps to gain a better understanding of the issues. It is the strategyof the dif- ferent actors which must be changed, putting them into another con- text which they will probably find not easy to accept, at least with regard to the maintenance staff.
This will presuppose that one does not try to plan everything or con- front everything all at the same time. It is going to be necessary to fix pri- orities, and what has gone before makes it possible to glimpse how to conduct the reasoning which is going to fix them. At the same time, it is evident that changing strategies presupposes a different context, that is, an emphasis on the resources and constraints of the different actors involved. These are the leverage effects. Here we will see that the method- ological framework, which we have just reviewed and summarized, is only very slightly contingent on the context which it allows us to study.
It is a method of reasoning which focuses on the why of action, which emphasizes the importance of the context, no matter what its nature. The same can be said for the levers, with one important shade of difference – that the natureof the levers used, their actual content, is itself contingent.
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The Process: From Problem to Priorities
Knowing whether it is necessary to fix priorities, or instead to decide on what is most appropriate to try in order to cover the overall problems identified, is currently being debated among the specialists on change.
We have already noted that Schein considers that, from the moment of collecting information, one has already started on the process itself and that therefore there is no such thing as phases, except at a very super- ficial level, in which the action plan takes the place of real action.
Similarly, there are many who criticize the idea of a succession of sites, in the name of the required simultaneity of action, which must help to prevent the creation, between different parts of the organization, of variances which would later be relatively difficult bring back together.1 No doubt they are right, if only because of the systemic dimension of organizations.
Intuitively, the majority of managers who have responsibility for major changes have adopted this viewpoint, and have always tried to have all events under control by building programmes that are intended to forecast right down to the smallest detail in terms of what might happen and what aspects must be dealt with in close-up or from a distance. This tendency makes itself particularly felt during merger processes which witness the creation of a multitude of “steering com- mittees”, each one in charge of a specific area concerned more or less directly with the merger. Such an approach is understandable in this case since there are only a few of the different parts of an organization which are not concerned, and above all because, in such circumstances, we see the appearance of legitimate anxieties on people’s future prospects and employment, which need to be dealt with without too much delay.