In organizational re-design, there are changes to process, infrastructure and procedure. These are impersonal and structural in nature. They are also, by the way, the easiest things to modify when re-engineering an organization.

Just as important, but much more difficult to deal with, are behavioral changes. The best business process that has ever been designed will not work if the underlying user behaviors are not also changed.

The same is true in transactional processes such as sales. For example, you can design and build a totally green house, but can you change consumer behavior enough to get people to choose to live in it?

What this means is that we must value human behavior expertise as highly as we do technical expertise. The philosophy of “If we build it, they will come” only applies if you build something that the consumer or employee see as valuable.

The point is that you must listen to the “voice of the customer”. The customer can be an employee or someone who pays you for a product or service. It also represents a strategy of change management and innovation. That is, address human behavior issues before technology issues. The truth is that if you build it, they may not come.

Sometimes when we change human behavior first, the users themselves change the process in the direction you were trying to achieve. You may even find that change was not necessary or that your ideas for change were faulty.  This applies to all aspects of a capitalistic culture. Consumer demand drives technological innovation and cultural values drive cultural change.