Existing processes are change-resistant for two reasons

Organizations naturally tend to optimize their processes in order to increase their efficiency (and profits, effectiveness, etc.). Unfortunately, these processes are very hard to change, because organizational boundaries tend to take the shape of the processes and because the processes actually work.

The first is that organizational boundaries are often drawn to facilitate the operation of present processes. Those boundaries can impede the creation of new processes that cut across those boundaries. …The second reason new process capabilities are hard to develop is that, in some cases, managers don’t want to throw the existing processes out—the methods work perfectly well in doing what they were designed to do. … Their very raison d’être is to cause the same thing to be done consistently, over and over again. Processes are meant not to change.^[1]

#change #management

See also:

• Disruptive innovation is antithetical to good management
• Institutions become committed to preserving the problem they were formed to solve
• Prime directive of institutions is self-preservation