You need this to be painless; a small shift to realize a big gain. Or likely many small shifts… a bit to the left… a bit to the right… now back on center… to get to where you want you and this organization to go. Like a ship on autopilot. Wow, that does sound nice. Can you have it? Yes, actually you can.

But there is no way that people alone can manage it all. You know you need technology. And there, you’ve just dumped yourself into overwhelm all over again. You have learned from experience that implementing information systems is costly and painful. Oh, and then you have to involve IT and they are so busy!

And what your or other divisions have spent on technology so far may not have added the value expected.

I can tell you that one seeming failure is not the fault of the technology purchased or the buyers or sellers… it is that transactional systems were not built to add context (from/about people) or offer easy ad hoc reporting or even management reporting. So then lots of dollars were spent on “integrating systems” and getting to that data that seemed locked away. You really had to go to this effort to get to the data you wanted to see.

Now guess what, you are not quite done. And I realize I go against most of my peers when I advise that presentation layers – dashboards, scorecards, analytical tools – will NOT give you that holy grail of right information at the right time. Why? Remember, you’ve now reached into data, but it is transactional data. Peoples thoughts and actions then or expected in the future are not included.

So why not take a small step forward, this time not painful and not costly, to finally get to the end result you always wanted to see? What you can do right now is to collect the data you need to get the full picture.

You have the transactional data. Now get the data about people. Map it out to get the right fit and process, then systematize it. I’m going to put up some ideas, methods, templates and such to get you moving (if they are not up when you read this and you don’t want to check back, please contact me at lori@abrige.com with “GET COLLABORATIVE-ACTION HELP” so you can be assured to get directly to me).

Guess what, you do not have to reach into those burdensome transactions systems to get the data you need to take this small shift with the big WOW! about and for people. You will be collecting the data from quick, easy, intuitive and thoughtful “conversations” with your people.

Again, there’s no digging. No integration. No building or reinventing a data warehouse. You’ll be communicating what you want and receiving the information you need from those who need to act in order to get you what you want. If it sounds like a simple concept, something like managing by walking around, it is.

Consider how critical people are to the success of your organization, and that there is a way to get people in to your existing performance management and intelligence systems …easily.

I’ll be back with more soon.