Carrots and sticks

A couple weeks ago, a reader wrote in to ask me about document control. Specifically, he asked me:

Question: How do you standardize document file structures in an office where there are many different and competing structures currently in place? And how do you accomplish this in a work culture which is highly resistant to change?

Background: [My company] is behind the times when it comes to using organizational software like SharePoint, Microsoft OneNote, etc. Instead, we have opted for the tried and true method where "each person comes up with what works for him"; and we have repeated this model several hundred times. As a result, our file structure is an absolute mess and is heavily reliant on personal experience. 

Secondly, like in many similar companies, we have filing cabinets full of paper copies. These are often reports from projects completed in 1985, and client studies that were delivered in 1997. Most of them are obsolete, but nobody knows which are and which aren't. So it's easier to keep them there "just in case". 

What ends up happening is that employees becomes very familiar with a small section of the file structure (their own) but are completely lost anywhere else. Usually this means they have to email someone asking, "Do you know where File X is?" Over and over.

So how do we deal with this? The value of uniform organization is clear: less time wasted tracking down files, greater transparency when we get audited (frequently), easier knowledge transfer between employees and new hires, etc. I don't see any clear solution, except to have someone send out a memo describing the new file paths they want (which people might or might not follow).

Here's what I told him.

Excellent question! The short answer is that it's not easy. And it involves both carrots and sticks.

The sticks have to come first. Someone in authority has to announce "Here is the new folder structure for all your records, and every department will adopt it as of the first of next month. There will be unannounced audits to check if you are really doing it." Then follow through with the unannounced audits, and some kind of disincentive for people or departments found out of compliance.

But this will get only superficial compliance. People will do just enough not to get punished, and no more. Or rather, a few innovative and early-adopter types will take one afternoon to reorganize all their files in the new way. Some others will copy five files into the new format and then store the 500 files they have traditionally maintained into a single folder called "Other," which is where they will do all their real work. (The five files they copied—not moved—will never be edited nor maintained, but will sit in the new structure as Potemkin files in the hopes that it's enough to save their owners from punishment.) And then there will be people who waffle inconsistently in between these two extremes.

The carrots take longer. But what will happen … slowly, maybe over years … is that the people who have adopted the new format find they are more efficient. Everyone starts to get used to the new layout (slowly, incrementally) and so after a while even the dyed-in-the-wool opponents will start putting new files in the approved folder structure, even while keeping their archives a trackless warren. Then one day you will hear one of the staunch opponents of the new system looking for a file he "just knows" is around here somewhere. After he has searched in vain for half an hour he will exclaim with exasperation, "Things would be so much easier around here if people would just follow the darned process!" At that point you know that you have crested the hill, and you are on the downward slope on the other side.

But it takes a lot of frustration to get there.

Incidentally, if this describes your organization, the effort to get it straightened up will always be worth it. Good luck!