Create a Slippery Slope

Enterprise information initiatives, such as data governance, master data management, data quality, and business intelligence all face a common challenge—they require your organization to take on a significant and sustained change management effort.

Organizational change requires behavioral change.

Behavioral change requires more than just an executive management decree and a rational argument.  You need to unite the organization around a shared purpose, encourage collaboration, and elevate the change to a cause. 

Enterprise information initiatives, such as data governance, master data management, data quality, and business intelligence all face a common challenge—they require your organization to take on a significant and sustained change management effort.

Organizational change requires behavioral change.

Behavioral change requires more than just an executive management decree and a rational argument.  You need to unite the organization around a shared purpose, encourage collaboration, and elevate the change to a cause. 

Although some people within the organization will answer this call to action and become champions for the cause, many others will need more convincing.  As Guy Kawasaki advises, overcome this challenge by intentionally creating a slippery slope:

“Provide a safe first step.  Don’t put up any big hurdles in the beginning of the process.
The path to adopting a cause needs a slippery slope.”

Therefore, to get your enterprise information initiative off to a good start, make it easy for people to adopt the cause.

Create a slippery slope.