Leading Workplace Change™

…build on what is already working within your organization

Economic instability is still with us.  And, we keep hearing it is going to take awhile to work ourselves out of this financial crisis of the new global age.  Are there culture best practices that allow some companies to make it through hard economic time more easily than others?

Yes, recently deceased management guru Peter Drucker, recommended in 1991 that leaders build on their existing culture to make change happen.  He gave examples about how Japan and Germany re-built their societies after the Second World War through rewarding new habits based on traditional national values.

Today, it is still the most reliable and quickest way to tinker with and re-direct an organizational culture.  An important heads-up for leaders before they start tinkering is to first understand the lay-of-the-land today – what are their organization’s current beliefs and values…and what new habits are needed to move forward into the future.

Now comes Drucker’s best kept secret of culture change – DO NOT REINVENT THE WHEEL – seek out individuals or groups within your organization that already exhibit these desired new habits and ask them how they do it.

Next, shift recognitions, rewards and consequences in support of the new desired habits.  And finally, here comes the hardest part.  

Leaders need to practice the new habits themselves – be willing to make mistakes and tinker some more – until the formula is found that helps their organization move through the hard economic times and into the future!

Voila – best practices for tinkering with culture in five easy to read paragraphs!

Tags: Values Inform Culture by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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…shared values are key to developing next generationof business leaders

Have you heard about the MBA Oath?  It was put together by a group of graduating Harvard Business School students in late May.  The Oath is a voluntary code of conduct created to bind together business school graduates with a set of shared values – values to guide their day-to-day actions and decisions as future managers and leaders.  It is part of a growing movement within the business school community to re-direct business management back to being  a profession with social, personal and organizational stewardship responsibilities.

The opening lines of the MBA Oath clarify its underlying purpose.

As a manager, my purpose is to serve the greater good by bringing people and resources together to create value that no single individual can create alone. Therefore I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term.

The MBA Oath is not as naive as you might think.  Other professional schools such as medical, require students upon graduation to take an updated Hippocratic Oath which focuses on the social as well as the clinical responsibilities of practicing physicians.  In most states in the U.S., law school graduates need to pass a professional responsibility exam, MPRE as part of their state-based bar exam to become an attorney-at-law.  Thus it seems reasonable to think of establishing professional standards, based on a set of shared managerial values for MBA students.

 We all know by experience that an MBA Oath on its own cannot guarantee consistent organizational leadership for the greater good, any more than the ethical standards and rules currently in place for physicians and attorneys can for their professions.  But, the potential is there to start setting expectations among graduating students to think of themselves as joining the profession of business management with ensuing obligations and benefits.  The profession can then use the strength of peer pressure and disciplinary action to enforce organizational stewardship standards rather than wait for regulatory or shareholder retaliatory actions.

These professional standards also have the promise of effecting the workplace cultures of the organizations MBA graduates will someday lead and the business world that we live and work in every day.  The culture of organizations are most strongly influenced by the personal beliefs and training of their founders and long-term leaders.  The behaviors they model and reward are one of the primary culture creating mechanisms of corporate culture.

So what better place to start to re-direct business management back into a profession than in the classrooms and within the formal practices of business school graduation ceremonies – “let’s all stand to repeat the MBA Oath!”

Tags: Values Inform Culture by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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What can organizational executives learn from President Obama about leading a change effort? If you listen between the lines when the President speaks or read the recent New York Times   article called “Redefining Capitalism After the Fall,”  you can learn much. He is talking no less than about how to help our country re-think the fundamental drivers of our current economic system – consumer-driven capitalism! Now if you think your change goals are big and overwhelming, just step back and consider what the President is trying to achieve.

…We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity — a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest, where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad…

It appears that the President like many leaders in a time of crisis is charting two courses simultaneously. He is acting tactically to address short-term economic and social challenges while at the same thinking strategically about shifting economic values and structures to drive sustainable prosperity in the future. This two-pronged attack to solving a problem is classic leadership work. And, whether you agree with Mr. Obama’s ideas or not, we can use his efforts to provide examples of best practices for change management.

As a leader, he takes his role as “chief communicator” seriously and uses his position as a “bully pulpit” to guide people to think and act differently. He never misses a chance to:

• share his vision for the future and the potential benefits of change
• explain why we need to change by describing what is not working
• provide concrete behavioral examples of how to act differently to achieve the benefits

Thus a best practice for executives leading a change effort is to see themselves as the “chief communicator,” and to use their own “bully pulpit” to guide employees through change. Here is an example of a leader message within an organization that is successfully moving through change.

For us to thrive as a company, we need to grow – at the same time maintain the quality that our brand is known for. To do this we are raising the bar – less tolerant of mediocre performance – in the past being connected to the “right people” meant you never got fired – today we are setting expectations and measuring performance against goals. For some folks, this has been a cultural shock and for others a wake-up call…

Not every organizational leader has the speaking skills of Barack Obama, but crafting communication methods to match personal strengths is key – talking to people one-on-one may work better. Most importantly, the message needs to be constant and consistently include vision, benefits, what is not working and the required behaviors for the future.

Tags: Adapt or Die by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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Tomorrow, as you read all the brouhaha marking Barack Obama’s symbolic 100th day in office as President of the United States, you might want to keep the following ideas in the back of your mind.  These ideas are about what motivate people to change in today’s world and they come from behavioral scientists.  A recent Time Magazine article - ”How Obama is Using the Science of Change”  describes how these change ideas work.

The article outlines how the Administration is using them to set policy, structure speeches and create legislation to guide our country and the world through a difficult economic and social re-structuring.  But bottom line is that the change ideas focus on how to restore people’s confidence and sense of what are the new appropriate behaviors for success.

These ideas about what motivates people to change are both familiar and at the same time illuminating as you consider the actions of President Obama, his Administration and of his Presidential Campaign.  I simplified the article’s ideas into a set of six (6) best practices for behavioral change.

1. Easy Access to Good Information - helps people make better choices

2. Motivate by Making It Easy – no action to say “yes” works the best

3. Focus on Values for Long-term Success – helps people accept discomfort, overcome barriers and change

4. Just Say Everybody is Doing It – appeal to the need to “fit-in” to build new social norms

5. Shame and Competition Work – part of the “everybody’s doing it” message and the challenge of can someone do it better

6. Make Change Lucrative and if Necessary Mandatory – find the “what’s in it for me” angle or make it too expensive not to

So if you are responsible for leading change in your organization, your community, your family or for yourself, you might want to think about how to apply these ideas in your world.

PS – If you want to go to an original behavioral science source, the following website and blog from the authors of the book Nudge might be helpful.

Tags: Adapt or Die by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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My last post of 2008 ended with the hope that heroes and heroines will emerge in our organizations, in our society and within ourselves in the next year as we work to re-fashion our global age.  As we are now in 2009, my thinking becomes more practical.  What resources of character should we be mining in ourselves as we embark on our heroes’ quests?

It suddenly came to me that there might be an answer to that question in our culture data base.  In helping organizations identify their workplace culture, we regularly ask folks to identify the past and present heroes and heroines of their organizations.  These people’s names are not important, but what they are known for is.  You can trace the underlying drivers of a workplace culture by identifying patterns in how people within organizations respond to crises.  I looked through the data base to see if there were themes regarding the personal character of heroes/heroines across organizations and industries over the past 20 years. 

And yes, there were clearly characteristics common across organizations.  Heroes/ heroines were repeatedly described as -

• Tellers of Truth …consistently and in a timely manner
• Leaders of People …supporting others to greatness
• Holders of Historical Knowledge …sharing their technical expertise and experience
• Visionaries with Business Savvy …using their positive attitude to set goals and achieve them
• Bringers of Change Forward …providing constant direction as ‘turnaround’ experts

Rather straightforward and practical things that all of us can practice in living our heroes’ quests today and in the months ahead.

Tags: Uncategorized by Terri Kruzan
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In my last post I wrote about a public figure openly acknowledging a flaw in their thinking and how that capability is a powerful tool for leaders to model and reward in a time of change.  It allows for people to move forward quickly past paralysis and blaming to new ways of acting.  In thinking more, I realized there is an “underbelly” side to how some organizations respond to people taking responsibility for their mistakes that needs to be shared as well.

One “underbelly” response usually occurs in organizations where the focus on achieving results or winning is taken to an extreme.  In these workplaces, missteps are not easily accepted or forgotten and people look for opportunities to take advantage of someone else’s slip-up for their own benefit.  The focus is usually on winning for oneself and not for the good of the company.  This quote exemplifies the impact on employee productivity and morale.

Those that slip-up want to pass responsibility on to others and not be part of the solution.  No one wants to take the blame.  People are afraid that someone else will take advantage of the mistake for their own benefit.  The system for rewards and recognition encourages individual “point scoring” over others rather than teamwork.

There is clearly a feel of internal competition in this workplace.  It would take courage or connections with the “right people” for someone to be willing to try something new. 

Consequently, the learning for leaders is first to be aware and assess the workplace culture you breathe everyday.  Are there any “underbelly” practices that may act as barriers to openly acknowledging and learning from mistakes?  How would you personally intercede to re-direct these undermining practices?  Follow the advice of Peter Drucker as outlined in one of my previous posts and look for pockets in the workplace where folks are regularly more open.  Ask them how they make it safe for people to try new ways of working and hold themselves accountable for both their successes and their missteps?

Finally, a primary role of leaders who want to mindfully re-direct their workplace culture, is to have a personal story crafted as to why they see a shift in behaviors is needed.  Be prepared to be called dull and boring as your job will be to repeat differing versions of the story many times over the weeks, months ahead as people muscle their way through new ways of working.

Tags: Uncategorized by Terri Kruzan
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…thinking differently is the first step to acting differently

My family likes to eat shrimp all year and not only in season, but I recently read an article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution (7/10/08) about “The Hidden Cost of Shrimp,” and I am ready to act differently. How I reacted to this article is a good example of one kind of push people usually need to change how they act.

The article outlines the pro’s and con’s between purchasing “wild-caught, farm-raised, U.S. or Asian shrimp.” The reporter, Meredith Ford gives the reader details about how shrimp gets to our fish markets and they are not pleasant - spread of disease, use of antibiotics & pesticides and destruction of ecosystems – all this info made me think differently about the shrimp I love to eat

But, the part of her article which affected me the most were her final thoughts – she recommends that we need to think about eating less shrimp; saving them for special occasions; and, to understand the greater cost to our planet than the price we pay per pound of shrimp!

Wow, this thought is coming from the Food & Drink section of a daily newspaper in the United States – asking us to think less rather than more. This pushes against the grain of our American cultural belief that we have unlimited natural resources. Essentially, she is asking us to think differently about the food we eat and our lives. 

Thinking differently is the first step towards acting differently.  

Tags: Being American by Terri Kruzan
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I was moved to start a blog due to recent experiences with long-term clients. I realized these clients were stuck – nothing new in change management consulting, especially if you focus on helping leaders adapt their organizational cultures! I finally realized that the difficulty was a few key members of the management teams were not making important decisions, holding the whole team back and mostly because they were unable to personally act differently.

Now, changing how you act is a difficult task for anyone, let alone folks who now realize that whatever they do as leaders will be watched like a hawk by all employees of their organization. As consultants’ we had done a good job in communicating the responsibility of leaders to model and reward how they wanted everyone to act if they wanted a shift in their workplace culture – maybe too good a job. Eventually, I realized these leaders were human and nervous about their abilities to change their day-to-day behaviors. I remembered the same feeling when I ran an organization 15 years ago and mandated that everyone use an electronic client update system and I personally still did not understand how Windows worked on my computer!

We initiated individual coaching processes in our client organizations, but it was not enough.  So, the idea of a blog came to me as a way to more privately support people to act differently through the use of personal and workplace stories. I knew in my bones the power to inspire when you tell stories in small groups and big presentations and it seemed worth trying this new blog technology to tell stories in a more intimate way.

Tags: Uncategorized by Terri Kruzan
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