What Should Happen After an Employee Survey?

You’ve administered the employee survey across the business, interpreted results with comparisons to external benchmarks and historic trends, and presented findings with the executive team. You have given managers access to reports and you thanked employees for their input. What happens next? You know that good things won’t just happen because of the survey itself, but have you really set anything into action? Responsibility may have been cascaded to other managers, perhaps as part of balanced scorecards. The HR team probably provided training about the importance of employee engagement and communicated that the line and functional leaders have to “own” their data. Some managers might be planning to run focus groups, but often these are complaining sessions. Indeed, some managers will plot action in isolation from employees. Still other managers will rationalize their results or point the finger at vague concepts like culture or morale. All of these post-survey activities, intentions, and musings will likely be forgotten in a month or so when the next crisis emerges and “real work” draws management’s attention. If that happens, then the promise of organizational change will disappear into the file drawer along with the PowerPoint presentations and action plans until it is time to survey again. There has to be a better way. If the employee survey is to improve business results, what should happen? Here are three emerging best practices that may turn your current understanding of surveying on its head.

1. Focus on business outcomes instead of survey scores. With all the graphs, tables, and comparisons created to analyze survey results, what gets lost is the fact that there’s a business to run. No matter how many scores are below benchmark or how many concerns the employees raise, the actions that will endure long enough to spur behavioral change are the ones that are most associated with business opportunities and threats. Anything else will be cast aside eventually as a distraction. Some will argue that the survey calls for work-life balance committees or recognition programs or pay increases, but do other metrics suggest that these are adversely affecting business performance? Are you losing impactful talent in impactful roles, like the software engineers in R&D who are supposed to roll out a critical new product? If that’s the case, then some or all of these “gaps” should become goals. However, if no other metric validates what the employees say in the survey, then the need for action is low. (Note there still could be a need for reaction, such as explaining the circumstances and/or sharing the metrics that tell a different story.)

 Once the survey results have been analyzed with survey benchmarks and organization trending, put those data aside for a short while and bring out the strategic goals for the business. Then, ask “Are there scores and cuts of data from the employee survey that will provide me with the employees’ point of view for how we will achieve these goals?” For example, if releasing game-changing products is the way your business is going to differentiate itself, then what are the R&D employees saying about staffing, resources, and the link between goals and day-to-day work? What are the customer-facing employees saying about the relationship with customers, the ability to solve their problems, and the prevalence of a customer service attitude throughout the organization? Do these two groups have similar patterns of survey scores, or do they see the organization quite differently? Do prior sales numbers and customer feedback help explain the pattern of employee survey data?

 2. Focus on a targeted set of employees to affect the whole instead of using everyone to affect parts. The employee survey usually involves feedback from all parts of the organization, and analyses often start with the aggregated scores that represent everyone. This holistic approach can help diagnose the organizational health, but to accomplish a strategic change, you will need people who perform different roles to change in different, but coordinated ways. It is great to hear the president of the organization communicate a broad vision and goal for the organization, but rarely is there a process for coordinating how different functions will cooperate to achieve that outcome. Typically, functional heads will treat the employee survey as a reason to set function-specific goals, often pertaining to engagement levels and communication (perennial favorites). Yet, it would be better to prioritize a cross-functional action planning session before moving to siloed actions. In theory the functional heads should be able to accomplish this coordinated planning, but often people in the trenches have a better understanding of problems and some novel ideas about solutions. So let the functional heads develop coordinated goals designed to attain the holistic outcome, and then have a separate and targeted set of employees across levels and functions determine how to accomplish these coordinated goals. As general Patton once said, “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

 One paradox of organizational change is that leaders want to lead it while followers (the engaged ones) want to be involved with it, and yet change initiatives are rarely successful. A remedy to this situation is to assure that the leader works with the right team of employees. A surprisingly simple and effective technique is to have this team nominated by their peers, much like the arrangement between a democratic leader working with the representatives of the citizens. This nominated team need not be a permanent fixture, but it should be maintained long enough for members to understand root causes that need to be overcome and to create methods of achieving the goal. This team need not be the ones to implement the actions, but they should be working closely with those who are executing, and they should use their relationships with those who nominated them to explain how and why the actions are designed to take effect. Likewise, these relationships with other employees allow team members to get honest feedback about what is working and what is not. A peer-nominated team is designed to assemble respected, knowledgeable employees pertaining to the desired outcome—a team whom a leader can trust and collaborate with. Note that the coordinated actions that are most strategic need not affect all employees – sometimes changes among a small set of employees can impact the entire organization. Nevertheless, all employees can be involved in the nomination process, and all employees should be kept up to date on goals and progress.



3. Focus on accomplishments instead of activities. Progressive organizations monitor progress on action plans to sustain change efforts long after the survey was administered. This is a great concept, but sometimes the process leads to “checking the box” rather than continuously focusing on improvement. Managers, most of whom have a shortage of time and resources, typically design one and only one action to achieve a goal, and they are typically held accountable for accomplishing that action rather than achieving the goal. Even when managers are held accountable for reaching the goal, it is usually based on a survey metric (e.g., raising the survey scores by 5 percentage points). Thus, if a manager makes an attempt but does not move the needle, there is evidence of effort and the unreached goal is not seen as the crucial work. This situation would change drastically if the goals were business oriented with a monetary value (e.g., reducing the number of product updates within three months of a new release in order to save $700,000 in staff hours and customer returns). In this scenario there would be multiple action plans executed until the goal was reached, and failure would be difficult to excuse.



Expecting multiple action plans may seem like additional work, but when the focus is on business metrics, the plans should be seen as necessary and existing work that is laid out as a series of experimental actions designed to attain a desired outcome with the least amount of resources invested. One very successful pharmaceutical sales leader worked with employees to create actions according to three timeframes. Initially, plans described 3 minute actions, which required no budget or coordination, but just agreement to make the easy “low hanging fruit” changes. Because these changes were likely to be superficial, they were followed up by 3 month actions, which required more coordination and time to execute. The idea was to use the 3 minute actions as a means to communicate commitment to solving the business problem and to build support for the 3 month actions. If the goal is still not achieved, then plans may require 3 year actions, which are more systemic and far-reaching across functions and levels in the organization. Throughout the entire process, employees are kept informed of successes and failures, lessons learned and remaining questions. This “experiment until it works” approach, involving leaders and nominated employees, demonstrates a relentless focus on achieving the goal that was raised by employees through the survey. Continuous post-survey actions build a high performing organization that produces business results, and the employee involvement creates engagement as a byproduct. Leaders, employees, and the survey director all notch wins on their belts.




This content is protected by the 1976 Copyright Protection Act of the United States of America. The proper citation for this blog is as follows: Mastrangelo, P. M. (date posted). Title of Post. The First Domino, available at http://the-first-domino.blogspot.com. This post is not intended to represent any person or organization other than Paul M. Mastrangelo.

Beyond Gladwell's "Maven-Salesman-Connector" Model: Personalities that Start Change

This post is an excerpt from my chapter "Creating Infectious Change in Global Organizations: Applying Psychology to Large-Scale Planned Interventions" from the 2010 book Going Global: Practical Applications and Recommendations for HR and OD Professionals in the Global Workplace, Edited by K. Lundby & J. A. Jolton (Eds.), New York: Jossey-Bass.  This excerpt can be downloaded here.


Evidence Based Psychological Theories of Behavioral Change


Psychological research shows that individuals change their own behavior in predictable ways, suggesting that social environments can be designed to promote behavioral change. The most basic “learning” and “motivational” theories are well known and follow the same basic pattern. First, individuals attain feedback that alerts them to wants and needs. They may look inwardly to realize that they are dissatisfied with their current state, but often this evaluation has a social context. Next, individuals decide to act on one or more of these wants and needs. There is a general tendency to satisfy basic needs (physiological, safety) before addressing more complex needs (social, esteem, or actualization: Maslow, 1987). Finally, individuals take action and behave in a manner that is intended to satisfy their wants and needs. The actual action is selected because it has worked before (classical conditioning, operant conditioning), it has worked for someone else before (vicarious learning, modeling), or it seems like it should work (expectancy, VIE). However, evidence based psychological theories of behavioral change go beyond this foundation, and there are four well supported theories that can be used to change organizations. Each is described below, and the last section of this chapter combines elements from these theories to suggest practical techniques for creating infectious organizational change.


Personality Domain Description

[Table 1. The Five Factor Model of Personality].


Individuals Are Predisposed to Play Different Roles During Organizational Change. In any given population there will be some individuals who are relatively more adaptive to change, some who are more anxious about change, some who are more influential in changing others, and some who are more likely to be influenced to change. Although more complex than Gladwell’s Maven-Salesman-Connector description, personality theory also suggests that employees have different roles to play in an organizational change initiative. Decades of empirical research have led to the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, which uses five broad domains to describe a person’s behavioral tendencies that distinguish the individual’s identity (see table 1). While each of these five domains can be broken down into subparts, generally personality boils down to a person’s degree of Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience. The FFM has not only been rigorously validated (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1987; Goldberg, 1990; Barrick & Mount, 1991), but it also has been found applicable across multiple societal cultures (Howard & Howard, 2001; Rolland, 2002). As a result the FFM provides an empirically supported set of profiles or roles that can be used to cast an infectious change.


Some individuals are prone to search for novel, unfamiliar experiences and would be classified as scoring high on the Openness to Experience domain. Because these individuals are biological recipients of more dopamine and dopamine receptors in their brains (Howard & Howard, 2001), they display more curiosity and exploration in their thoughts and behaviors. They are willing to change for the sake of change, and they tend to be bored in the absence of change. Thus, employees who are very open to experience are more likely to adopt newly prescribed behaviors. If these new behaviors are likely to create uncertain consequences for the employees, then the most perseverant individuals will likely be those who are relatively high on Emotional Stability, meaning that they tend to be calmer in stressful conditions. A recent study suggests that individuals who have low Emotional Stability have such a high need for certainty that they actually prefer definitive bad news rather than uncertain but possibly good news (Hirsh & Inzlicht, 2008). So, it would seem that only certain employees are prone to be the first to change their behavior to match a new standard, especially with uncertain consequences for making the change.


Making these few early adopters’ changes infectious, however, calls for two further circumstances to hold true. The first condition involves Extroversion. Some portion of these early adopters need to be extroverted enough to be perceived as influential (cf. Gladwell’s salesman role), and some portion of the individuals being influenced need to be extroverted enough to pass on the new behavior to others as being worthwhile (cf. Gladwell’s Connector role). Extroversion marks a person’s need for sensory stimulation, it is mostly expressed by the need to be with other people, and it is positively related to a drive to lead other people (Howard & Howard, 2001). It follows that the more extroverted the early adopters are, the more likely that they will be seen as charismatic leaders whose behavioral changes will be imitated. The same holds true for the “early imitators” who first follow the leader and replicate the behavioral change.


It is this distinction between the leader and the follower that highlights the second condition for infectious change. Those early adopters who are subsequently imitated are challenging the established behavioral norm and any social pressure that exists to maintain that norm. Likewise, many of those early imitators must also challenge the status quo. Yet, at some point in a successful intervention, change becomes the norm, meaning that subsequent imitators are not so much challenging others as they are accommodating others. Again, the FFM indicates that individuals have different predispositions for challenging or accommodating others. Individuals who score lower on Agreeableness scales tend to be more comfortable with conflict, more willing to express their own opinions, and more apt to stand out from the crowd. So, extroverted early adopters with below average agreeableness have the right profile to start a small counter-culture. Conversely, individuals who score high on Agreeableness scales tend to avoid conflict, let others “win,” and go with what the crowd wants. Combine these tendencies with high extroversion and high openness to experience, and you have the profile of those who can make that counter-culture more mainstream.


[Figure 1: Individual predispositions to organizational change roles.]

To create the psychological equivalent of a domino effect, one needs some assertive individuals to push on others, but one also needs compliant individuals who will fall into place. While individuals are not always consistent with their personality in all situations, personality does represent individuals’ default tendencies. As illustrated in Figure 1, I posit that an employee’s role in an organizational change initiative can be predicted through the eight possible combinations of dichotomous scores on Openness to Experience, Extroversion, and Agreeableness. By first harnessing the power of Instigators to publicly change their behavior to influence their social networks and then relying on Ambassadors to make this behavioral change widely acceptable, an infectious change movement can spread from the Open-Minded Swing Voters and the Disenfranchised to the more accommodating Guardian groups. While popular personality assessments (e.g., NEO-PI-R, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) could be used to identify Instigators and Ambassadors, I will discuss in the last section of this chapter how a peer-nominated team will allow these influential early adopters to rise to their necessary position for a successful intervention. Given the cross-cultural validity of the FFM (Howard & Howard, 2001; Rolland, 2002), there is no reason to believe that these profiles would be any less useful outside of the US.

Please support the editors/authors of these related books:

"Creating Infectious Change in Global Organizations: Applying Psychology to Large-Scale Planned Interventions" from the 2010 book Going Global: Practical Applications and Recommendations for HR and OD Professionals in the Global Workplace, Edited by K. Lundby & J. A. Jolton (Eds.), New York: Jossey-Bass. 

Gladwell, M. (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference. New York: Back Bay Books.

 
This content is protected by the 1976 Copyright Protection Act of the United States of America. The proper citation for this blog is as follows: Mastrangelo, P. M. (date posted). Title of Post. The First Domino, available at http://the-first-domino.blogspot.com. This post is not intended to represent any person or organization other than Paul M. Mastrangelo.

What JFK and George Carlin Teach Us about Change

Just because two people use the same exact word, do not assume that they mean the same exact thing. As a consultant I find myself interrupting discussions fairly often by saying something like “Wait a minute. When you say ____, I think you mean ____. Is that what you mean when you use that term?” It’s amazing how well this technique brings misunderstanding to light. Not only does this question help clarify the term at hand, it also makes the participants of the meeting aware of the diversity in the room. We begin to talk about different points of view, and we ask more questions of each other when a new idea emerges. We go on guard against ambiguity and fine tune our topic until there is a specificity that we believe will be equally well understood by others who are not present in the current meeting. As a result we use language that is much more precise than when we first sat down.

Specificity is particularly important when defining a change initiative's desired outcome – the unambiguous criteria for success. One of the best examples of communicating a specific desired outcome is President Kennedy’s 1961 speech to a joint session of congress, where he launched the space race with the Soviet Union:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. – John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

Kennedy used but 31 words to specify his bold criteria for success. In a world yet to know home computers, cell phones, microwave ovens, handheld calculators, space shuttles, or even American astronauts, the audacity of his goal for a manned lunar landing and safe return within 9 years’ time is incomprehensible to most of us now in the 21st century. It’s almost laughable. It took a year of internal debate before NASA even finalized how such a journey should be accomplished. The money spent to advance science and technology to meet this goal was about $23 billion, which is more like $230 billion in today’s economy. This endeavor, now commonly called the biggest technological achievement in the history of the human race, captured the attention and imagination of a generation. There was never a popular song written about the space shuttle or the Hubble telescope or the international space station, but we will always have our Rocket Man and Major Tom to remember the race to the moon. A generation lost in space, indeed.

It all started with a 31 word desired outcome. Ironically, this concise statement was part of a 5,800 word speech that outlined a variety of new initiatives and goals for the United States, and from my reading no goal was articulated so precisely as the moon mission. My guess is that Kennedy wanted the congress (and the country) to commit to nothing less than this dramatic outcome because he knew that obstacles might lead to cuts and scale backs. He wanted a big splash - well, splash down - to restore the world's confidence in democracy even as communism was becoming more prevalent. Look at this excerpt from the same speech:

I believe we should go to the moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of the Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year. This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, material and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel.

Note that this part of the speech does not demand that citizens and the congress blindly commit, but that they consider whether they will commit. Going to the moon was not a change mandate, but a change request. As we know the country did commit, and the outcome was achieved on July 20, 1969—when Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin walked on the moon while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit—through July 24, 1969 when the three astronauts safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Mission accomplished. One might argue that the costs were too high or that the value provided did not merit the investment, but no one can deny that we achieved the desired outcome. You need to have that same level of specificity, the clearly understood definition of success, when you are planning to change a group, organization, or community.

What Do You Mean by Change?

I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed. – George Carlin

Unfortunately, “change” is a term that most of us use in a very sloppy fashion. Often we do not include an object of the change, as in phrases like “change is hard.” Changing what is hard? It was not so difficult to change from telephones with dials to ones with buttons. It was not so painful to move from manual transmissions to automatic transmissions in cars. Are people kicking and screaming about tablet computers, which have neither an external keyboard nor a DVD drive? Clearly some changes are decidedly easy for us to adapt to.

Maybe you have heard the phrase “we have to change to survive.” Change what? If you are talking about bodily adaptations to viruses, then I guess this is a true statement. However, my neighbors who do not have cable or satellite TV seem to be getting along okay. Actually, one still has dial-up internet service, meaning they must use their phone line to receive emails or access the web—the horror! I had to remind my computer engineering friends that when new operating systems and software are released, my 10 year old computer still turns on and runs the old applications I purchased. The Amish people in the US and the African tribes isolated from present day society prove that it is possible for people to survive while actively trying not to change. Clearly some changes are not as necessary as we are led to believe. You have to be careful to specify what it is that you intend to change.

Even when we do speak of changing something, we are often vague or conceptual. Maybe we discuss “changing people’s attitudes” or “changing the culture.” One problem here is that it is difficult to judge when attitudes or cultures have changed or have changed enough. There can easily be disagreements about how to measure the change. Worse than this, using abstract terms allows different individuals to make different interpretations and, therefore, triggers a collapse in goal alignment. Individuals start shooting at diverse targets, and even though each member might feel like he or she is supporting the effort, the reality is that the coordination is breaking down.

So, when you endeavor to "create change" in a group large or small, take some time to consider the specifics:

• What is the behavior or status that you want to change? Can it be visualized consistently by others?
• What is the clear definition of success? How would another leader know if your goal was achieved?
• What outcomes might approximate your desired outcome, but should be deemed unacceptable?
• What is the target date for completion? Is that date challenging, but acceptable to others?
• Did you create time for dialog about accepting the goal? Did you publically list obstacles and politics that will need to be overcome?
• Did you schedule time in your process for individuals to determine how they should contribute to the collective goal? How will this stage start, be revised, and be completed?

Perhaps not immediately, but eventually, others will need to see how their change in behavior links to the ultimate outcome that you are seeking to attain. If you use fuzzy language to define desired outcomes, you will end up with the same result that George Carlin did – nothing changed. Get it right, and the moon is yours.



This content is protected by the 1976 Copyright Protection Act of the United States of America. The proper citation for this blog is as follows: Mastrangelo, P. M. (date posted). Title of Post. The First Domino, available at http://the-first-domino.blogspot.com. This post is not intended to represent any person or organization other than Paul M. Mastrangelo.

The Myth of Generational Differences: Forget What Seems Intuitive

As we approach winter, it seems appropriate to review some questions that we hear this time of year:

1. Why does it get cold in the winter?
2. Why do we get sleepy after a turkey dinner?
3. Why do we keep poinsettia plants out of reach of small children?

Most of us honestly believe that we know the answers to these questions, but in reality we know the popular, yet incorrect answers. In other words, we often cling to false information simply because it is prevalent. Consider the commonly heard responses to these questions versus the actual correct answers:

1. Why does it get cold in the winter?

• Common, but Wrong Answer: The Earth moves away from the Sun.
    
• Correct Answer: The back and forth tilt of the Earth puts one hemisphere closer to the Sun (i.e., summer), while the other hemisphere is further away from the Sun (i.e., winter). If you remind people that Australia has its summer while the US and Europe have its winter, they might come around to the correct answer.

2. Why do we get sleepy after a turkey dinner?

• Common, but Wrong Answer: Tryptophan in the turkey makes us sleepy.
• Correct Answer: Turkey is usually served with starchy carbohydrates (e.g., mashed potatos, stuffing, pumpkin pie) that we often overeat, causing insulin resistance. As a result, we do not get all the energy from the food we ate, and we feel tired. As fun as it is to use a big word from chemistry, there is not enough tryptophan in turkey to cause this reaction.

3. Why do we keep poinsettia plants out of reach of small children and pets?

• Common, but Wrong Answer: Poinsettias are poisonous.
• Correct Answer: The poinsettia plant was wrongfully accused of causing the death of a young child in 1919, and since that time the urban legend is that the plant is poisonous. More correctly, however, the plant is not edible, meaning that it is not digestible. So, if your child or pet were to devour a large amount of the plant, you would likely see some vomitting, but the plant would cause no harm.

Notice how the common, but wrong answers tend to be simpler to explain, easier to comprehend, and more memorable. They have the sense of logic, by which I mean that there is just enough intuitive knowledge mixed in to make the explanations seem plausible. Perhaps people even figured out the answers themselves, using incorrect, but plausible logic. It is difficult to give up what we discovered for ourselves, even when we later learn that we were wrong in our conclusions.

Okay, so what about the behavioral and attitudinal differences among employees from different generations? We see differences all the time among our coworkers. The Millennials or Generation Y (1980-2000) are different from Generation X (1965-1979), who are different from the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), who are different from the Traditionalists (born before 1964), right? Think of all the changes that have taken place across those generations! It's no wonder that each generation approaches work differently, right? Surely, all the books, articles, and hype cannot be wrong! (I can’t even type that with a straight face.)

The correct answer is that the generational differences have been overstated. Just like the enduring wrong answers to the other questions we discussed, the real facts about people across generations is more complicated than what many writers would have you believe. Let me address the concept of employee engagement and how it varies by generation. As many of you know, employee engagement is a person’s logical commitment to an employer as well as an emotional commitment and a willingness to do more than what is called for. I refer to these three components as the mind, the heart, and the hands. Engagement is usually measured through employee surveys, and I have been working with that type of data for over 10 years. Are there differences in engagement scores by generation? Yes, but consider two factors that "co-vary" with generation.

First, there is tenure. Employees who are new to an employer have the most positive survey scores, and then scores decline after 2 years with the employer. This is the “honeymoon effect” and it is pervasive in survey data. Paradoxically, turnover is highest among this same group of newcomers (much to the dismay of engagement researchers). Now, if you see this pattern in recent data, you say "Ah, the Gen X and Boomers are less engaged than the Gen Y, but those Gen Y employees are still more likely to leave the company!" Well, yes, but that would be because the Gen Ys are newer to the company. This pattern has been around for decades - long before the Gen Ys were around. What appears to be a generational difference is really a tenure difference.

Second, there is age itself. As employees grow older, they go through life stages (relationships, kids, house buying, school, empty nest...). An employee's mobility is greatest before dual-career issues, kids, and school districts anchor them down. Again, if you look at one data set, you would say "Ah, the Gen Y crowd is so much more willing to move for a job," because Gen Y happens to be at a stage that allows more mobility. In reality that pattern occurred 50 years ago, too, when the Traditionalists were much more willing to move than the previous generation (My dad in RI considered moves to Florida and Alaska after returning from WWII, but mom said no way!).

Sure, people from different generations experienced different environments (e.g., technology, wars), but the effects of these environmental differences is small compared to other variables. You will have a deeper and more accurate understanding of your employees if you analyze their behaviors and attitudes according to tenure, age, personality, education level, and job market… instead of generational cuts. Why do you not hear this more often? Simpler explanations are easier to pass along and to remember... and bad science (sadly) seems to sell better.

  

This content is protected by the 1976 Copyright Protection Act of the United States of America. The proper citation for this blog is as follows: Mastrangelo, P. M. (date posted). Title of Post. Bump on a Blog, available at http://paulmastrangelo.blogspot.com. This post is not intended to represent any person or organization other than Paul M. Mastrangelo.

Organizational Change vs. Rocket Science: "When to Do" Is Harder than "What to Do"

I want you to read this blog carefully. Yet, if I were to demand that you read it twice, or if I were to force you to pay me $10 if you got a test question wrong – if I were to coerce you – then you would probably drop the article right away. “What a pompous jerk! I don’t have to do anything he says!” Leaders and change agents understand that coercion does not motivate people to follow. Yet, every waning change initiative that I see in my work with Fortune 500 companies is always met with (unintentionally) coercive communication. See if you recognize some of these phrases: “We have no choice. If we don’t change, then we will go under. This is just how it is now.” I say that these phrases are unintentionally coercive because they are meant to explain why change is needed, but they really come off as saying “you don’t have a choice but to do as I say.” And we wonder why we fail at the human side of organizational change, or why people resist change. We know what not to do, and then we do it anyway.

I came to this conclusion at the end of a day-long session with a group of HR managers where I shared my approach to organizational assessment and empirically based techniques for using this data as the catalyst for a collaborative change process. One manager politely said, in effect, “this approach is exactly like the change model that we already use.” So, I asked for examples of cross-level, cross-functional collaboration. I asked to look at the performance metrics and criteria that were used to evaluate the process. I asked to see the communications that were sent to employees describing the actions, missteps, and ultimate success of the project. Silence. They may have known what to do, but they didn’t do it. I did some thinking on my plane ride that evening. Perhaps as a consultant, I am too quick to teach what to do, and I am ignoring the part about when to do.

Many OD consultants have been warned through Peter Block’s and Edgar Schein’s books to resist taking on the role of the expert, who has all the answers and who will tell the client what to do. (This just in: We don’t have all the answers, and clients tend to enact what they have come to discover themselves.) Ah, but managers read different books, which espouse the virtues of decisiveness, confidence, charisma, and action. Leaders lead. They don’t ask people "would you please follow?" or stand up to say “I don’t know.” At least they don’t do these things by nature. Perhaps, however, there are some opportunities that call for more consultative behaviors than leadership behaviors. Let me rephrase that: There are some opportunities that call for more consultative behaviors than traditional leadership behaviors. The most effective company leader with whom I have worked led a cultural transformation by slowing down the decision making process, inviting collaboration from all levels of management through a permanent “Delta Team,” and using her authority to enact what that team decided to do. Okay, so not every decision came through this process, and not all employees were on the team, but improved organization-wide survey metrics and full attainment of revenue goals pointed to success after less than a year. Are there lessons here?

• All employees were asked to nominate a representative to the Delta Team.

• The team (including members who were not even management) was given full disclosure of all pertinent information for them to investigate root causes and steps forward.

• Actions were tried and tested until the outcome was achieved, and feedback from those who nominated the team brought the changes full circle, back to the people who were doing the changing.

Leading change by sharing leadership. Knowing when to resist the urge to take charge. Finding the opportunities to ask for change and then asking if the change worked. This ain’t rocket science. It’s harder than that—it’s recognizing when to do (and when not to do) what we already know. It is the art of being vigilant for opportunities and disciplined to acting accordingly.

To be honest, I won’t stop teaching the “what to do” part of my organizational change model, but I will begin soliciting more “in the moment” examples that help address opportunities to apply the model. I will also need to discuss what knee-jerk reactions need to be held in check at those moments in favor of a more planned, less natural reaction. Here are some prepackaged dialog starters:

1. In this situation you have an opportunity to spark a series of behaviors that will lead to the outcome you want. What are your options?

2. The easiest reaction would be ____, but that will not get you to where you want to go.

3. What are some ways to apply the elements of successful change?

• How can you set up a specific desired outcome with a clear definition of success, but not presume that you know the best way to achieve that outcome?
• How can you give employees freedom to act, but guide them almost subliminally to choosing the right course of action?
• How can you involve employees, especially those close to the matter at hand and those without high formal authority, to become part of the solution?
• How can you ensure that a novel approach will be given a chance to succeed, even in some small “laboratory” test within the organization?
• How can you use informal networks of communication to share ideas, provide honest feedback, and tell success stories?
• How can you document the process to show ROI and apply the same or similar process to the next opportunity?

 
This content is protected by the 1976 Copyright Protection Act of the United States of America. The proper citation for this blog is as follows: Mastrangelo, P. M. (date posted). Title of Post. Bump on a Blog, available at http://paulmastrangelo.blogspot.com. This post is not intended to represent any person or organization other than Paul M. Mastrangelo.