Just Trust Me: "Reliability Rocks"

Just trust me "Reliability Rocks"... if only it were that easy. How do you describe it if you have never seen it and lived it? How do you sell it to your team?
The first two steps of the change process according to the Prosci organization and their ADKAR model is creating awareness and desire. It can be very hard to complete these steps if you have never seen or lived in the world you are aspiring to reach. It is a bit like asking someone who has never seen a pineapple to tell others how good the rough spiny fruit is to eat. It is nearly impossible to describe and if you can it is doubtful you will be able to convey it with the passion and energy that is require to kick start desire in others for the new thing.

When I describe a facility that I have spent considerable time in that has the ability to plan for the whole maintenance staff to leave at three on a Friday for a facility fishing tournament most just can not fathom this reality within their reactive world of firefighting. About the only thing these reactive sites can plan and predict is that important equipment will break down on Friday afternoons and Saturday nights. That is their paradigm. It is the reality of their world. This new world is so foreign and so different it is just not a place they can understand, yet.

The best way to create the desire is to show people what it is like to live in the new state. A part of your organization may be able to do this by visiting another site that has made it further along the road to reliability but it is doubtfully that you can take everyone. For the balance of your facility you should define an area that will embody as many as possible of the characteristics of reliability. This is your pilot area. You select this area with a mind for demonstrating gains and successes in a visual way so as to create desire from the rest of the facility. You need to pick a progressive area that has both early adopters that will help pull the change forward but also folks that will sustain the new process and ensure long term success. 

This area is your pineapple. You can show it to the balance of the facility so that they can see what it looks like and allow them to visualize the fruits of the labor of change. The people that lead this pilot area to success can then become your gurus that propel the change forward in other parts of the facility and coach others to the success they have experienced based on what they have seen.