BPM in Action

Aside from its sterling reporting and analysis, one of my favorite features of The Economist is that it names columns about regions after figures important to that region’s history. So the column on what is now called the European Union (EU) is named Charlemagne, after “one of the continent’s great unifiers,” and the first crowned Holy Roman Emperor, according to the Economist.com Web site.

Always good to begin with a digression thinly disguised as background. But I…well, you know…

Anyway, the Nov. 17 edition of the Charlemagne column, “A dissertation on Romanian pork,” seemed to me directly relevant to the art and craft of business process management. In brief, it turns out that the animal-welfare requirements stipulated for EU membership fly in the face of long-held traditions among Romanian farmers. The farmers are allowed to kill pigs at home for personal consumption, as they have for some time – but only if they use an EU-specified animal-stunning device, something most of Romania’s millions of subsistence/family farmers can’t afford. (It’s also risky to combine electric stunning devices with the snow and wet ground common to Romania during winter, when the traditional ritual pig-killing takes place.)

Anyway, the Romanian farmers appealed for exemptions similar to those granted by the EU to Jewish and Muslim butchers, but were turned down, according to the column. The reason? That exemption applies only to religious rites, while the EU says the Romanian tradition is, well, “only” a tradition. Even though the pigs in question are traditionally killed around the end-of-winter feast of Saint Ignatius and Christmas holidays, which seem more religious than mere traditional associations to this admittedly distant observer.

Of course, this whole thing involving human beings, compromise is being sought. One possibility is having veterinarians screen the pigs for trichinosis and “throw in pig stunning free,” as The Economist so pithily put it. Meanwhile, at least some of the same farmers who are struggling to comply with the animal-welfare strictures are welcoming greater restrictions on potentially harmful pesticides. And so it goes.

The Take-Aways:
1. No process is ever developed, managed, revised, or retired in a vacuum.
2. No person or team is ever smart enough to predict the consequences of every such action completely accurately each and every time.
3. Unintended consequences are at least as difficult to plan for/around as they are to avoid.
4. Unintended consequences CAN be managed around, however, given clearly defined goals, clear consistent communications, and active inclusion of and participation by all affected stakeholders.

Please adjust your collaboration, communications, documentation, and/or process management tools and policies accordingly.

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So if you run more and larger data centers than almost anybody, and you have an IQ above ambient air temperature, you’d already be looking for ways to cut your energy costs. And if you were really, really clever, you might figure out that some of the things you’ve learned and/or developed, or are learning and/or developing, might have value beyond your corporate borders.

So if you were, say, Google, maybe you’d do all of this in a way that not only bought you cost savings, but brought you a great amount of good press, by positioning your company as a committed explorer and developer of green/alternative energy. Which is precisely what Google has done.

The great thing about many environmental challenges is that they present opportunities for corporations of many sizes and types to “do well by doing good.” That is to say, a company can “go green” in ways that not only try to help the environment, but generate and/or boost revenues as well. Which is precisely what Google has done.

According to the rapidly growing bushel basket of stories already posted online, Google, hot on the heels of the Climate Savers Initiative it announced with Intel in June, is investing bushel baskets of money in alternative energy. Google plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars, initially focused on geothermal, solar, and wind power, under the rubric “Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal,” or the charmless, clunky abbreviation “RE

Anyway, Google’s created a new R&D division, to be run by its Google.org philanthropic non-profit. And even if the initiative never produces anything usable by the world at large, it is a great example of the combination of good process, and process done well.

The Take-Aways:
1. If they don’t already exist at your organization, argue, lobby, and work for policies that encourage and support:
+ awareness of energy-related and other environmental issues, and addressing of those most beneficial, challenging, and/or potentially threatening, to the organization and its ecosystem;
+ identification and exploitation of opportunities to “do good” organizationally, especially if and when such efforts can also contribute to revenues and/or reputational enhancement; and
+ sharing and promotion of your organization’s most positive policies and initiatives, across and beyond the organization, and including the communities in which it lives and does business wherever appropriate.

(By the way, some IT-enabled tool or set of tools for process capture and management and collaboration might possibly aid and abet such efforts. I’m just saying.)

2. If such policies are in place where you work, find as many ways as you can to nurture and grow them across and throughout the organization – and count yourself very, very lucky, professionally and personally.

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So my long-time industry colleague James Gaskin, in a profoundly impressive piece of analyst double-bagging, manages to quote both me and another industry colleague of whom I’m a big fan, Andi Mann of Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). In a recent piece for security.ITworld.com, James discusses Andi’s idea of an organizational “culture of security,” and why inculcation of such a culture would likely benefit almost any organization. Wisely, I believe, James argues vigorously that such inculcation requires leadership from senior executives.

Mere days later, in an ITworld.com piece entitled “Process Versus Culture,” James graciously quotes yours truly, and laments the dark side of the fact that culture almost always changes – and therefore must almost always be changed – from the top down. “Bad ides, like waste products, flow downhill” is a phrase with some impressive visual imagery and staying power, and a useful summary of some of James’ salient points.

He quotes, or rather paraphrases, me as saying that culture beats process every time. Actually, as it was explained to me by a senior IT decision-maker at a large financial institution years ago, at many if not most organizations, “culture eats process for lunch every day.”

I’m not trying to pick on James, but to make what I think is a critical point as clearly as possible. It doesn’t matter one whit how great your processes are on paper or its electronic equivalent. Nor does it matter how flexible, robust, and/or scalable your IT-empowered process management solution(s) is/are. If process management efforts do not make room for and/or are not informed by acknowledgement of cultural issues, those efforts will fail.

Invariably. Always. Without question. (Not that I have any strong feelings about this or anything.)

I want to thank James publicly for encouraging my behavior, at least in this specific arena. I also want to take the opportunity to refer you to my earlier musings on the subject of culture and process in this space – specifically my April 6 outing, “Success with BPM: A 'CPR' Approach.” (“CPR” in this case stands for “culture, process, results;” you’ll actually have to read the blog entry for more details.) I then encourage you strongly to take just such an approach to everything you do that’s process-related at your organization – which is just about everything, really. Do let me know how it goes…I promise you, it won’t be boring.

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(Once again, sorry for the long darkness since my last entry. No excuses; I’m still swamped, but have almost bailed myself out …)

Issue the First: Within the past week or so, both Citigroup and Merrill Lynch have jettisoned their leaders. But perhaps even more interesting is that according to several published and broadcast reports, neither company has a strong candidate successor waiting in the wings.

If this isn’t evidence of failed or inadequate business processes, I’d be very surprised. Effective corporate leadership succession, as Bette Davis famously said about old age, “is no place for sissies.” With shareholders increasingly appearing to demand higher returns every quarter, month, or week, management time cycles are compressing significantly. This means leaders barely have time to effect meaningful change before they’re on the hot seat. Outsized challenges such as the sub-prime mortgage market meltdown only accelerate and exacerbate these challenges.

The lesson for BPM and IT decision-makers: select and begin mentoring your future leaders now, and put effective and well-documented processes into place for identifying and working with those people. With every enterprise almost entirely dependent upon IT to do business, let alone to thrive competitively, no company can afford to miss a beat or make a misstep where IT leadership is concerned. And with more and more experienced IT people retiring, this is definitely a non-trivial challenge.

Issue the Second: Yahoo! has apologized publicly for misleading Congress, and giving the Chinese government information that helped lead to the jailing of dissidents. The company claimed that it had no choice but to comply with orders to deliver to the Chinese government e-mail records and other information that led to the dissidents’ arrests.

Sigh.

The IT-enabled globalization genie is out of the bottle for sure, and ain’t getting back in any time soon. However, as country musician Aaron Tippin said in his first hit song, and as many have said before and since, “you’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” Yahoo! – and every other company doing business beyond the borders of the country in which it was started – must decide what its corporate values are, and live by and up to them, wherever it does business.

The lesson for BPM and IT decision-makers: ensure that values at your workplace and across your company are clearly articulated and consistently enforced. This will not only make recruiting and retention of key staff and leaders easier, it will make it easier for you and your colleagues to sleep well at night – barring unforeseen IT crises, of course...

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