The Day Job and the Change Job

Yesterday The Times reported

"Taxpayers will foot the bill for a further £2 billion on a failed NHS IT project even though the Government has already pulled the plug on it."

It is reported that it is such a huge contractual mess that there is now no way out of it.

Now, we are told. the reform of the NHS is under way. The cost of the change process is now estimated at £3.4 billion. It is staggering, breathtaking - and appalling.

Any business management that is just managing to survive the present economic storm is learning what those that are already prospering and growing (sometimes at their expense) know. They are learning that you have to combine your Day Job (running the business - delivering service, products, customer satisfaction) with the Change Job (reducing waste, improving performance, re-structuring, introducing new technologies, operating smarter- etc.). They cannot afford to sit around and splash out big bucks for someone else to do it for them. They cannot afford to hire extra staff to "give themselves the time" (ah diddums) to do the Change Job. They have their hands on and in it up to their elbows - and their minds on making it better.

One of our clients put it perfectly "I expect the people to run the business, and my managers to improve it"

Until the Public sector learns this lesson, nothing will change.

We know how to enable this to happen. It is so frustrating to see no sign whatsoever that anyone in Government or Public Sector leadership recognises the need to build the Change Job into the Day Job.

Exceeding Expectations is brought to you by Steve Goodman and Tony Ericson partners in Achievement Coaching Internationalwhere we help businesses to learn different thinking to enabledifferent actions that deliver thedifferentresults that Make a Big Difference.. It is one of our "Excellence Quartet" of blogs promoting the cause of Excellence as the key to prosperity. We publish regular articles using a recent business/financial topic to highlight different perspectives and conclusions to those obtained by conventional thinking and techniques. You can read the other three blogs at"Business Bloop Award", "You're having a laugh ... seriously?"and "Capitalism or ... Common Sense".