In the media, I often read or hear about tax 'reform', education 'reform' or health care 'reform' etc. And whenever I see this I think that whoever is pushing this latest reform is confusing their intention or desired outcome with the process. Whatever they are doing isn't a reform unless it results in an improvement by some measure. Until then it is simply a change, no more, no less. And change in itself is not intrinsically valuable. Change always involves costs, so unless there is a counter-balancing benefit, it is actually bad.
This is equally true in business and in the public sector. Managers often think that there is something praiseworthy just in doing 'something'. A new manager commences and thinks they have to prove themselves so they make a lot of changes and then congratulate themselves on how 'proactive' and 'innovative' they are, regardless of the costs to the business or the paucity of benefits.
Somehow organisations always manage to fill their strategic plans with dozens if not hundreds of different actions (i.e. changes) regardless of the need for them. Activity replaces improvement as a measure of value-added.
However, I contend that the best manager is the one who achieves the best results with the minimum of change and whose major changes are the elimination of unnecessary activity. But such a manager would be unlikely to be rewarded by the organisation for which they work. No-one is likely to be impressed if there is no actual activity they can point to which as led to the results they are getting.
This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is often no measurement of the baseline costs and benefits, so if a manager makes a change there is nothing to compare it with to determine whether the change was beneficial or damaging. This means that managers with a propensity for changing things can often point to lots and lots of changes they have made, but would be hard put to demonstrate any actual benefits from those changes. But at least their own bosses are impressed by the flurry of activity.
I have said elsewhere that a prerequisite for excellence in any activity is stability.It is difficult to become a master of anything that is constantly changing, where part of the effort that you could be putting into doing is diverted into learning the latest changes. This doesn't rule out change completely. However what it does highlight is that change needs to be judicious, it needs to be well thought out, it needs to be properly implemented and finally if it doesn't yield the expected results it needs to be scrapped.
It is only when changes are made in this way that they are likely to result in improvements rather than just pointless activity.
