Speaking at the Consulting Psychologists mid-year convention, Dr Al Erisman (for 32 years Director of R&D for Information Technology at The Boeing Company) presented the intriguing concept of corporate immune systems. Operating much like our body’s immune system, the organizational immune system can sense an intruder, most often change of some type, and rally to reject it. Though Dr. Erisman addressed the phenomenon from a corporate perspective, it makes sense to me that it would apply at the team level as well. Dr. Erisman suggested that many efforts to implement new systems, including mergers) fail because the implementation phase did not account for the organizational immune system to kick in and reject the “foreign body.”
Writing in ethix magazine Dr. Erisman states that “immune systems in the body are good things, rejecting foreign intruders. The immune system of a business is also a good thing, enabling a measure of consistency and reliability. No one would want to drive a car where the auto maker tried every new idea that came along. Sometimes people reject a new way of doing something with good reason: they have insight, sometimes not well articulated, about potential negative consequences from the change.
On the other hand, this same immune system blocks changes that are important to the business. As with the body, special care must be taken to allow the change to be accepted. Projects that fail to account for the expected resistance from people affected by the project are almost certainly doomed to failure.”
Dr. Erisman went on to comment that in order for a beneficial change to take hold, it is often necessary to weaken the immune system. In terms of the body, think of organ transplants. In the case of businesses or teams it may take to form of careful introduction of the change (or new member). This may be an examination/explanation of why the change is happening, giving existing people affected a chance to openly address their fears or concerns, or gradually weakening the old system while nurturing the idea of a new one.
If you or your organization is considering significant change consulting with an expert in human behavior could go a long way to making the change a success.
Ethix is published by The Institute for Business, Technology & Ethics
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