I have had a series of interesting calls over the past few weeks that seem to be following a similar pattern. Most of these calls have been from high-level executives from regional and national building-service firms. They all have come to the realization that they are trying to manage chaos. This is not a new problem. I have talked to a number of contractors over the years who have been dealing with this same problem.

The key to this issue is standardization. It is a quality that is absent from many cleaning operations. It can be nearly impossible to manage when there is no standard operating procedure, no standard training, no standard tools and no standard method of cleaning. Creating and implementing these protocols can be an absolute nightmare, so here’s my advice on smoothing the process.

In most cases, these businesses ask me to come and assess their operations. I always resist this. This is simply because most organizations already know they have a problem. There’s absolutely no point in visiting these operations and telling them something they already know. It’s always better to start working on the solution. The solution is to completely re-engineer the operation by starting from the top and working down.

This is different from what any of my callers want to do. They want to start in the middle and work down. They want to be innocent bystanders who stand on the sideline, insist that change be made and act as cheerleaders while essentially not getting their hands dirty. I try to tell people not to expect a middle-on-down strategy to work. You can’t invent a better world in your organization. It just doesn’t happen.

People inside an organization usually have tunnel vision. They see the organization in terms of how they fit in an organization and are averse to taking risks. In fact, insiders will usually steer clear of risk because they feel like it may threaten their job. There’s also politics. Employees in organizations have 20/20 vision and perfect hearing when they are trying to get the message beneath the message. Change in an organization means politics, but not everyone wants to play. It’s why a global change from within an organization is difficult to manage.

An example of this is the McDonald’s corporation. The McDonald brothers’ little burger restaurant evolved into an international company and eventually, into the largest food service provider in the world. It was an outsider named Ray Kroc who came in and saw what McDonald’s was doing and what it wasn’t doing, and almost ruthlessly created a company that went far beyond the vision or the capability of the McDonalds brothers. They were just happy running a little burger restaurant in their hometown.

The cold hard fact is: organizational change is something that does not come easy. It’s something that is hard fought and much harder won. By committing yourself to change and standardizing you operating procedures, you can reduce the chaos in your operation.




POSTED ON: 8/1/2004