Those who run a management system will be familiar with management reviews. These reviews tend to conclude with our clients feeling the urge to change something…

That’s fairly natural and somewhat positive. It shows that your review is effective because it has updated your understanding of the organization, and you can implement improvement initiatives in response.

But what if nothing meaningful has changed to a certain aspect of your management system?

Well, nothing needs to change. Despite this, we see some of our clients feel that because a review is conducted, something should surely change.

A recent example comes from a building company we worked with. The audit showed that the company operated within a very healthy industry, with consistent supply chain and customer requirements, as well as a product and service has not required and likely will not require much innovation due to its popularity and novelty.

Companies like this are much more immune to external influences because of their stability. This was the case with the aforementioned building company who were immune from external influence due to the nature of the industry, and the product / service they provide is industry-leading with little competition. Their management review was simple: nothing about their context and interested parties needs to change.

No change? Psychologically this can feel… wrong. But where no change to your context and interested parties is most logical, it is much better to conclude your review as such than try to find things to change. You could end up trying to fix something that isn’t broken… and break it in the process! We’ve seen instances of this many times over the years and the damage it causes should not be underestimated.

An example of this is a company we worked with last year. After the management review, the general feeling was that nothing needed to change, but those conducting the review struggled to except that this could be true. As a result, they identified a new interested party, however this interested party had no specific effect on the organization; they were merely included for the sake of it. This meant that money was wasted on new measures to satisfy this interested party, and money was diverted away from where it really matters.

We raised this issue during a consultancy session a couple of months after they implemented this change. When quizzed on why they are implementing initiatives to satisfy this group, the answer was a slightly hesitant… ‘well… we just felt like we should change something.’ They agreed to undo the changes, and this allowed them to focus on more important areas of their company.

The Dangers of Forcing Change to your ISO Management System

Those with a background in psychology will recognize this as ‘action bias.’ Action bias is the tendency to choose action over inaction, despite the situation not requiring any change at all. Managers with action bias may feel compelled to make changes to areas of their management system simply because they prefer to feel like they are in control or making progress, even if the existing situation is actually stable or optimal. Desire to avoid the discomfort of inaction or uncertainty is the underlying motivation.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult as the person in charge to distinguish between instances where you favour action because it is actually needed and instances where you succumb to action bias. To help with this, we suggest a couple of things.

Firstly, try to remain as objective as you can when making such decisions as it removes any underlying emotive impulses to make change where it is not needed.

Secondly, and most importantly, discuss things effectively with your team. Get other people’s perspective and try to avoid groupthink.

From this you have an objective, well-rounded and balanced review to help you avoid any action bias. Now you can focus on what matters!