Our convictions

Today, there is considerable skepticism among employees in many businesses and organizations. Depending on fashions and the management priorities of the day, people are constantly subjected to changes, which over-lap or even clash. There is also the never-ending need to meet profitability targets... cleading to attitudes of wariness, mistrust, passivity or excessive stress...

That being said, international competition is a reality as are budgetary constraints: constant performance improvement is thus a requirement for most organizations.
So, how can you insure that the necessary transformations are really implemented, that they go beyond window dressing and are genuinely adopted by the organization's employees?

At IECI, we are resolutely confident: with more than 30 years of experience to back us up, we know that by using the appropriate processes, you can successfully implement difficult or delicate changes in a manner which allows you to;
• create ownership of the changes by and for the employees concerned
• attain the targeted organizational performance.
thus insuring that the changes are fully integrated and withstand the passage of time.

We know this because we have developed and continue to develop know-how which is founded on a series of strong convictions.

Change is not obtained by decree, it is built.

There is a French expression which says: "You can pull on the leaves all you like, you're not going to make the tree any bigger..."
A company is a living organism. In such an organism it is not enough to just want change, it must be built. At IECI, day in day out, we experience that:
"the result is in the process."

When changes are difficult or delicate, a "copy-paste" approach is ineffective. The process needs to be specific, adapted to the situation at hand: we never use the same process twice over.
Together, we build a change process, which is best for you, which is adapted to your situation and to your specific challenges.

Change is built if it is meaningful.

"Change just for change, something will always come out of it"... Too many decision makers, with rapidly evolving careers, attempt to mark their passage in organizations by making many changes, almost out of principle. They often quickly leave afterwards without fully realizing all the damage they have done...

We are strongly opposed to this approach.

Changes that succeed are changes that make sense: those for which we understand why they have been initiated and where they are leading.

The first step in handling a difficult or delicate change initiative is to help the decision makers to clarify the real reasons why they wish to transform some element of their organization. The next is to wordsmith these reasons, insuring that the language used will be clear and understandable to those concerned.

These steps are indispensable... but nevertheless insufficient...

The change initiative will only succeed if, progressively, it makes sense to all: if everyone can, in one way or another, make it their own. This implies that, progressively, everyone can add their own objectives and their own meaning to the program. These are then added to the objectives and the meaning provided by Management through a process of enrichment.

We assist you in this process of building shared meaning. It entails giving all stakeholders the possibility to influence the content of the project on concrete issues of direct concern to them..

Change is built when it is followed through to the end.

Some people take pleasure in writing beautiful reports. Our pleasure is seeing your change initiatives really having an impact... and that they do so in a manner which is satisfying both to Management and all the different categories of personnel affected by the change.

"The devil is in the details"; seeing things through to end means identifying the obstacles, right down to the details, which might initially seem insignificant to you. It also means identifying hidden strengths you can leverage to obtain the desired results and concentrating on the essentials.

From a practical standpoint, and depending on the situation, this can require a detailed analysis of the potential consequences of the change and/or running pilot programs.
We focus on action, concrete action which mobilizes and provides results.

Change is built with the stakeholders.

We all know the specifics of our own jobs better than anyone else. From this, it naturally follows that the people who are going through a change program should have their word to say about the process and should be really listened to. In this manner the proposed changes will be based on both the realities of the situation and realities of the different players.

That being said, in matters of change management, all are not equal: we believe it is important to distinguish between the roles of proposition and decision.
You, the decision makers, have a major role: to promote new initiatives, to provide a framework for your teams to work with and to make decisions. If you want to be really convincing, don't involve yourselves in the details of the solutions. Have the wisdom to leave this realm to others.

You, the employees, your role is to come up with solutions and your ability to do this will be all the greater if:
• you fully understand the objectives that the organization is trying to attain
• you can propose what looks like the best solution for you, without having final decision making responsibility.

"Feigned participation is the enemy of participation":nothing is worse than expecting employees to propose what the decision maker has already decided he is going to do. In polite terms, that is called phony participation or manipulation.
It is also certainly generous, but ineffective, to associate everyone in an unstructured process of dialogue. You transform the organization into a permanent "forum". The ideas generated are almost never acted on and you end out creating even more frustration than if you had done nothing.
Lastly, if you only involve "yes men" or adversaries, it is also unlikely that you will get any worthwhile results.
This is why, at IECI, we constantly strive to understand what will mobilize the stakeholders. It is also why we place so much emphasis on building a change process which really corresponds to the specific realities of your organization.

Working with you on your transformation process, we put the right people in the right place to make it happen.

Change is built by bringing it all together.

"There is a social dimension in the technical" and vice versa.
How can you improve the social climate? Very often, by resolving the contradictions of a technical or organizational system.
Inversely, how can you improve the organization's performance, whether technical or economic? Very often it is by working on the social relations, the skills and the organization.
We also focus a lot of attention on the system of management. This "invisible technology" can orient performance in the desired direction: it can also generate very significant behavioral bias...

That being said, even if "everything is contained in everything", everything does not have the same level of importance. In a given situation, when the change is difficult or delicate, it is best to keep it simple and focus on the essentials. That will work out much better than trying to take on too much at the same time; it costs far less, is not nearly as exhausting and is far more efficient...
How can you keep it simple, mobilize the majority of the stakeholders and come up with realistic solutions? This is one of our key added values: our ability to identify the approach which is most likely to get you the desired results, the "red thread" you can pull on to take you all the way to your destination.

Understanding the work performed is at the heart of this process. We place great emphasis on understanding what is important in getting the job done, looking at this from many angles:
• work content
• difficulties encountered
• incidents
• the skills required
• interfaces
• etc...

This is how we simplify complexity and identify the essentials. Finally, we integrate all the dimensions of your change initiative and we concentrate actions on the areas where you will get the greatest leverage.
This is how, with you and thanks to you, we conduct the most complex transformations:

• in a very economical manner
• but with great ambition in terms of achieving results
for your organization, from an economic standpoint, and for your people, from a human standpoint.