Organizational Hula Hooping: Gyrating Change

I once hula-hooped for 72 minutes as a kid — a record in my old neighborhood that I’m sure remains unbroken. Hula Hoops were the rage back then. Wham-O, which trademarked the name, reportedly sold more than 100 million of the plastic hoops in the U.S. in just over a year.

The Hula Hoop’s popularity came from its simplicity, availability, ease-of-learning, and competitiveness. The molded plastic ring cost $1.98 (equal to $14.88 today). If you didn’t have one, all your friends did, and a bit of kissing up could get you a loaner. For a 10-year old, the learning curve was about 10 minutes. Contests abounded: how long could you gyrate, how many hoops could you keep going at once, etc.

One more note: The Hula Hoop product created a new phenomenon but rotating a hoop around your body certainly was not new. The ancients did it and, today, you can see hula-hooping in stage acts and cheering contests. In other words, what was considered a fad had history and sustainability.

Now to the issue I want to raise. The Hula Hoop craze makes me think about business fads. Management jumps into them because the concepts seem simple, packaged programs from consultants are readily available, adoption doesn’t appear all that difficult, and, heck, all the competitors are into it.

Organizational experts Danny Miller and Jon Hartwick shared some fascinating insights into such fads in a 2002 Harvard Business Review article that I recently pulled out of my files. They pinpoint eight factors that seduce executives into signing up for big-bucks change programs and the subsequent failings of those programs. Here they are, paraphrased and interpreted by me.

1. Simple. Though easy for anyone to grasp and laced with memorable buzzwords and acronyms, the fad’s simplicity ultimately doesn’t synchronize well with the complexity of the organization,
2. Prescriptive. The implementation formula seems straight-forward but is open to personal and often problematic interpretation and application.
3. Falsely encouraging. Fads promise what management wants — more productive employees, more satisfied customers – but come up short on measureable criteria for success.
4. One-size-fits-all. Industries differ, competitors differ, and departments differ. Why would anyone think that one seemingly novel approach could be universally applied?
5. Easy to cut-and-paste. Parts of a fad sometimes can be easily bolted onto an organization’s ongoing operations but then the purported impact of the full program is not realized. Nothing much changes; the status quo trudges on.
6. In tune with the zeitgeist. The realization by a lagging organization that leadership skills, for example, are deficient opens the door for leadership development fads. But is the problem with the next generation of executives or the current group?
7. Novel, not radical. Does the fad challenge management’s thinking, assumptions, and values, or does it simply repackage and repurpose what won’t change?
8. Legitimized by gurus and disciples. Creators of fads become increasingly impeccable and untouchable as their band of quick-fix devotees grow.

Back to the hula hoop metaphor. Keep in your mind simplicity, availability, ease-of-learning, and competitiveness. When tempted by the latest-and-greatest, how can management decide if it has the legs that can get the organization running faster? The answer is actually simple: first, decide if the organization has the legs. I offer three questions for decision-makers to ponder.

1. Does your organization need a total body makeover program or simply some stretching exercises?
   As kids, my friends and I didn’t (couldn’t afford) two weeks at a sports camp. Our Hula Hoops provided entertainment and kept us skinny. That appealed to adults like our parents. However, they had a tougher time learning to hula-hoop because they were intimidated and too self-conscious. But when they realized that, if they could wiggle their hips while dancing, they certainly could keep the hoop moving and have some real fun.

   So, managers, build on what employees are doing naturally, give them confidence to do something different, let them have fun, and watch your organization quickly get into shape.

2. Does the top of the organization have the right attitude to convince the middle to get moving?
   Hula-hooping is 80% a mental exercise: believe that you can do it and you likely will. The same is true of organizations. Executives who are willing to learn and change by first enrolling themselves in a new-wave program are much more credible and persuasive to the rest of the body than if they had bought a packaged candy program for “the troops.”
3. If the organization regains some pudginess a year after the regimen of the initial program, can a routine of light workouts return the organization to fitness?
   Hula-hooping for more than an hour was a killer even when I was young. But thereafter – I mean a few days thereafter – I could do it again with much less pain. If I were to pick up a Hula Hoop today … no, forget that idea. My point is, you may want to sweat your organization into shape, but plan ahead for routines that will keep it trim.

Richard Skaare 05.14.09
Photo credit: Tony Fischer, Carpe Diem Photography (a.k.a. on Flickr: Tony the Misfit)

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