It seems the forces of nature are working against our ideas. I recall being frustrated as a child playing in the sandbox. I wanted to create a ramp of sand to race my cars down. No matter how much I pushed and patted the dry sand succumbed to some unseen force and did not hold the desired shape. In business we sometime experience the same frustration. It’s not gravity.

1. fmsreliability.com http://www.fmsreliability.com/education/3-ideas-overcome-organizational-inertia/
3 Ideas to Overcome Organizational Inertia
Fred
3 Ideas to Help Overcome Organizational Inertia
It seems the forces of nature are working against our ideas.
I recall being frustrated as a child playing in the sandbox. I wanted to create a ramp of sand to race my cars down.
No matter how much I pushed and patted the dry sand succumbed to some unseen force and did not hold the desired
shape.
In business we sometime experience the same frustration. It’s not gravity.
Instead we are facing organizational inertia.
Organizations Don’t Like Physics
Once a group of people setting into a routine way of accomplishing someting, it is not a simple matter to change the
process. You may have experienced this resistance.
LIke the physics concept of inertia (recall a body at rest tends to remain at rest…) people that are familar with a ‘way’
something currently happens, tend to want it to stay that way.
Just as with a physical object on the frictionless plane, no amount o cajoling, presentations, or commands will move
the object.
Unlike the disk on the plane, we are not allowed to strike our fellow workers with some force to change thier state
from resting to in motion. Generally frowned upon.
So, what can we do? We know change happens, we know our ideas have merit, we know there is value in making
improvements.
Improving a Reliability Program
In my experience when asked to conduct an reliability program assessment the host is really asking how to change
the organization and sometimes asking to change the culture.
Sure an assessment will result in recommendations for improvements. I have found that those recommendations, no

2. matter how compelling and obvious are of not value unless implemented.
That is where inertia comes back to play.
Overcoming Organization Inertia
Here are a couple of tips that may help you implement relaibility improvements while overcoming the organizational
inertia.
1. Work with key influencers
2. Make the current realility visible
3. Celebrate successes
Every organization is different and every situation warrants it’s own approach, yet these three tips may help you look
for opportunities to accelerate the implementation of your proposed changes.
Work with Key Influencers
Some people within an organization have the ability sway many others. Get them on board and it may provide the
credibility, support, and influence you need to move forward.
These people are the ones others look to for advice. They are to goto people for a range of topics, including reliability,
if you’re lucky. They may or may not be managers.
Start by understanding what motivates these key people. If they want the credit for the idea — give it to them. If they
want only what’s best for the company — show how improving reliability does so.
A couple one to one meetings will determine if you have their support or not.
Change in the organization is easier with their active support. As in the sandbox, adding a little water to bind the sand
together would have helped my build a ramp. In an organization there are those that provide the ‘binder’, used as part
of your project, you are well on the way to implementation.
Make the Current Reality Visible
I’ve found that many teams say they understand product reliability and that it is valuable to our customers, the
company, and shareholders. Yet, few can tell you the cost of unreliability.
Make the cost of failure visible.
No one really like to look at failures too closely, unless they are a failure analysts. Profit and sales volume is so much
more fun. Product failures, while we all know they happen, often would rather avoid acknowledging they actually do
occur.
Track down and publish internal the warranty per unit sold, total warranty spend. the compare these numbers to cost
of good sold and net profit. You may find the cost of failure in these terms to be useful for others to understand the
magnitude of opportunity reducing product failure represents.
Besides, to make good decisions we need the cost per failure type information to balance the other information also
provided in terms of money, i.e. production costs, material costs, sales per day, etc.
Coupled with a clear plan to reduce the cost of failures, it may just garner enough attention to gain acceptance of your
ideas.

3. Celebrate Successes
Someone somewhere in your organization is doing the right things already. Find them and help them gain the
recognition they need.
Tell stories about what they did and the difference it’s making. Highlight their work as an example of what can be done
in our organization.
As one or more people start to implement your ideas for reliability program improvement, work them to be successful.
Then celebrate with them and herald the success across the organization.
This is similar to the grass root method to organization change, with the added feature of fanning the flames of
success as you go.
Summary
In the sandbox year ago, I saw a friend use a bit water to change the material to something that worked a bit better.
That idea sparked finding a wooden board to use instead. I changed the material thus finding a much better solution.
As you work to improve your reliability program, keep in mind you are working with people. Like sand sometimes they
need to find support, sometimes they need to understand the goal, and sometimes they need a little pat to firm up
resolve.
Obviously change happens. We can encourage change to improve product reliability and share the benefits. There
will be plenty to go around.