I have a good friend who refuses to go to the doctor for a check up. For all he knows he may have some horrible affliction but he refuses to even acknowledge the possibility that he may be sick. His philosophy is simple…”If I knew I was sick, I would have to do something about it….not knowing means I don’t have to take action…everything is status quo.” I wish I could say that my friend was alone in this philosophy but that is far from the truth. I have visited many companies who have exactly the same outlook on their processes.
I was recently at a large financial firm talking about how Process Intelligence could give them tremendous insight into their internal processes even if the process was not being orchestrated by a BPMS system. I explained how with PI he could sniff out what is actually happening within their business by extracting and automatically correlating discrete event and system interactions. I explained how they could look for which part of the process could be optimized, and which parts were doing just fine. We even spoke about PI’s ability to understand and dissect how groups within their organization could operate more efficiently by understanding group dynamics. At the end of the discussion, the VP in charge of the group looked me square in the eye and said “I don’t think I want to know where I can improve because then I will have to do something about it.” Just like my friend, he seemed unwilling (or afraid) to pull back the covers and peek inside what actually happening. It is sometimes easier to just live with blinders on so that life and work can operate as “status quo.”
I look at these types of individuals and just have to shake my head in disbelief. I find it sad that they prefer to live in the dark instead of actually taking accountability and responsibility for making things better. I have personally seen how PI can help completely transform a business by making its running processes transparent and accessible. Yes…it is sometimes scary to shine a light into the void for fear of finding a monster within…but it worth the risk. Often times it only takes small tweaks to a process to show amazing results.
So what about you? Do you want to uncover the truth about how your business is running, or do you want to put on your blinders and live “status quo”? If you are brave enough to want to see the truth then I encourage you to contact one of our Software AG representatives immediately for you own exploratory demo. Don’t wait too long because monsters grow even if you don’t look at them.
