Technology doesn't fail: habits do

It's a story that repeats itself: the company invests in a robust system, implements it, trains the team… and six months later half the operation is living in spreadsheets again. The easy conclusion is to blame the software. The real one is more uncomfortable: technology almost never fails on its own. It fails because habits didn't change.

The brain always wants to go back to what's comfortable

It's the same as when you start exercising. The first weeks are hard, your legs protest and your mind looks for any excuse to return to the old routine. In a company, the first difference between the new system and “how we used to do it” is enough for someone to go back to their usual file, for safety and comfort.

The classic sign: you ask for a report and they answer “yes, we have the system now, but look, I'd better pull it from here”. That “here” is a personal spreadsheet. And that's where the investment starts to die.

Change hurts, like going to the gym without the habit. But it's nothing out of this world: it's changing the way things are done.

Three signs the habit is beating the system

• Parallel reports. The official numbers come from the system, but decisions are made with personal files.
• “Trusted” information outside the system. Everyone keeps their own version of customers, prices or inventory on their computer.
• Garbage in the system. Incomplete or poorly entered data that makes nobody trust what the system says, and justifies going back to Excel.

Leadership draws the line

Habit isn't corrected with a manual; it's corrected with leadership. Senior leadership and middle managers have to give a clear directive: the company's information lives in one place.

This doesn't mean banning Excel. It means changing its role: it can be the way you view a report, but never the source of the information. The source is the central system: the only map the whole company shares. Having strategic information scattered across each employee's computer isn't flexibility: it's a risk.

Implementing is a human act

Behind every system there are people. An organization's problems are almost always problems between humans; so are the solutions. That's why a successful implementation looks more like a culture-change process than an IT project.

What works:

• Co-create instead of imposing. When the team takes part in deciding how it will work, it defends the decision. When it's imposed, it looks for ways around it. Even internal power dynamics change.
• Explain what each person gains. Less re-entry, less chasing data, being able to check their information from their phone. The benefit has to be personal, not just corporate.
• A visible sponsor. Someone in leadership who uses the system, asks for it and defends it in every meeting.

Trust in the guide

Resistance to change drops when there's trust in whoever leads it. It's the same on the mountain: nobody ropes up (ties onto the same rope as another climber) with someone they don't trust, no matter how many certifications they have. A good guide must be responsible when diagnosing, candid enough to say what you don't want to hear, and open to listening to how your people really work.

Without your people, there's no climb

People aren't just another resource: they're what makes everything else work. Losing a key person costs much more than their severance: you have to attract, hire, train and wait for results again. The most cited estimates speak of several months' salary for an operational role and up to a year or more for a strategic one.

Companies that retain talent have something in common: each person clearly knows what their goals are, how they're measured and where they can grow. That alignment is what turns leadership's strategy into results.

The KLIMMER view

At KLIMMER we don't measure an implementation's success by the day the system “goes live”, but by the day nobody misses their spreadsheet. That's why we work on processes and people at the same time as technology. A system nobody uses transforms nothing.