Facilitating responsible solutions
| Summer 2001 | Vol. 11 No. 3 |
Click here if you want to see Past Issues of the AXIS Advisory .
Copyright 2001 AXIS Performance Advisors. If you use this in any way, please cite the source.
by Darcy Hitchcock
We've all heard the veiled criticism: "program of the month," "management by magazine." Employees in organizations are weary of all the initiatives which have come and gone. This jadedness makes it even more difficult to get them to commit to something new, no matter how necessary. What's going on here and what can an organization do to ready the ground for change?
I can't speak for other cultures, but in the United States, we have an "event" focus. This is probably best recognized in the media. A natural disaster, an election, or a murder all draw attention. Talk shows invite people to speak because their book was just released, as if they had nothing of value to contribute before the book was published. But there is little understanding of or attention to the underlying causes and ripples these events set into motion. It is as if our brains are cameras instead of video camcorders. We only see the snapshot, not the whole story. What happened to precipitate the event and what happens as a result of it are out of focus, if seen at all.
The same phenomenon can be seen in organizations. Total quality management (TQM), reengineering, and self-directed work teams are all seen as discrete programs or events that came and went. Click goes the shutter. People who were in the workplace in the 1950's-60's may remember employee involvement, participative management, and quality of worklife teams. Click, click, click. So when the focus turns away from a particular initiative, say total quality management, many employees think that the effort failed. When it's time to move onto something new, "Here comes another one," they moan, rolling their eyes. "BOHICA." (If you're not familiar with this acronym, ask your employees; I don't care to explain it.)
The most troubling effect of this snapshot culture is how it disempowers and numbs us. News clips of starving people or wars do not inform us of how we can help solve the problem or avoid a similar fate. In organizations, blindness to the relationships between initiatives leaves people feeling out of control, done-to, with no way to transfer learning, competencies, or personal identity from one to the next. In the absence of any sense of control, we eventually turn off, closing our minds and hearts.
What a video camera would show is the relationships between these efforts. The fact that we don't much talk about TQM anymore is actually proof of it's success! My family used to assume when we took in our Buick for repairs that it would come back with the same problem plus a couple more. My father once drove home a new car that had none of the lug nuts tight! Many companies used not to care much what their customers wanted (Ford's comment about "any color as long as it's black"). Rework and waste were just how business was done. All these things are unthinkable now. Cars come with 100,000 mile warranties, most companies routinely survey customers, and some manufacturers are achieving zero waste to landfill. The same transformation is true for teams, empowerment, and self-direction. You'd have to be hard-pressed nowadays to find a manager who thinks it's okay to be autocratic, focusing on kicking butt and taking names. They know they have to involve people to gain their insights and commitment.
Remember the four stages of learning:
Organizations also go through these same stages. A program becomes a "program" at the second stage, when an organization discovers there's something it doesn't know that it needs to learn, and the program holds your hand through the third. By the fourth stage, unconscious competence, you don't need the crutch of a program and you're on to the next initiative. We don't hear much emphasis on empowerment and TQM any more because they are now habits. They aren't passé; they're now integrated into our daily life.
How can you help employees see the connections, see the whole movie instead of just disjointed snapshots? We have a couple suggestions.
First, tell a good story. I am convinced that the human brain is wired for stories. Someone can tell you a little of the plot and suddenly you remember the whole novel. Stories draw people in, allowing them to identify themselves with the characters and learn vicariously. We remember and retell them, even embellish them. So approach your next change effort as a novelist would. Who is the protagonist and antagonist? What is the conflict? What is the setting and plot? What will make the employees eager to see what happens in the next chapter? What is the life lesson the characters must learn to transcend the challenges? What makes the journey worth taking? How might the novel end? Tell stories about others who have tried to follow this same path; not just lifeless case studies of what they did but also what they thought and felt. Think about story archetypes: is your situation the Odd Couple Merger, David versus Goliath-Microsoft, D-Day assault on a new market, or Apollo 13 After-Disaster?
Since sustainability involves going where no industrialized man has gone before, it lends itself to epic journey story lines: Lewis and Clark, Exodus, Star Trek, and the Hobbitt.
Second, make the story a logical sequel. People are in their own story now; they're used to playing certain kinds of roles. So make your story easy to step into. Explain how this is a logical extension of your past. Be explicit about how this new initiative relates to past programs. What did they learn in the last journey that will help them on this one? What do they value that they can they take with them? Ask what they'd like to leave behind. The unsavory legacy of reengineering is in part because the way it was implemented violated the decades-long trend toward greater empowerment. So make sure that you are building on your previous foundation, not ripping out the cornerstones of your success.
If you are implementing sustainability, all the quality tools will help you understand your work processes and help you identify waste. It will also make life cycle assessment less daunting. Your experience with teams and empowerment prepares employees to make viable business proposals and to work with people from across the organization. For example, a local remodeler talks about how their past empowerment and team efforts built an important platform for their current sustainability work, building an expectation that employees should participate in business decisions and have their ideas considered.
Third, draw a map. As the old saw goes, a picture tells a thousand words, so some novels put a map or a genealogy chart in the front to help the reader make sense of the relationships. So create a picture, a map of the journey. Any major initiative usually engages several fronts, often requiring people to learn new terms. I remember a chemical company superintendent spouting in exasperation, "Last week was statistical process control; this week it's diversity training; next week, we're doing teams. I thought we were doing total quality management!" While the plant manager had a clear understanding of how all these initiatives dovetailed and sequenced, his direct report obviously did not.
Your picture may show how the elements relate, the sequence of implementation, and/or the relationship to past initiatives. Without such a picture, you run the risk of people assuming each of these are a separate program, yielding complaints of program-of-the-day. Common (but trite) visuals include a three-legged stool, four cornerstones, or five points to a star. Get creative, and use symbolism that links to your story. A journey metaphor may imply a path past key destinations with competencies from your last initiative tucked in your backpack. Kayaking tributaries which lead into a major river can represent separate initiatives coming together to a common end or different paths to the same end.
So if your journey to sustainability is going to involve an emphasis on zero waste, green purchasing and fuel switching, draw a picture to show how all of these things contribute to the goal. The Natural Step framework can be a helpful organizing tool which also has the benefit of being a whole-systems approach.
Fourth, leave a tease for the next book. Movie makers that expect their first movie to spawn sequels leave a tease near the end to set the stage. Remember the embryos left in the mud in first Jurassic Park? You too will need to prepare your audience for the next blockbuster initiative, so openly speculate where this one may be taking your company.
Might sustainability lead you to switching from a product to service orientation? MacDonalds Sweden reportedly has wondered if there are burgers in their future. What is the purpose of the water bureau when people begin to collect rainwater instead of buying water from pipes?
Fifth, don't oversell the book. When I first started writing books, I wanted my novel to be THE novel, saying everything I wanted to say. Well, needless to say, it didn't even approach that ideal, much less get published! It was much easier to move forward and avoid writers block if I just told a story, allowing myself to write other stories later. Organizations can also get a form of writers block, where they can't move forward unless the effort is perfect. Embarrassed and frustrated that they aren't reaching the ideal (e.g., sustainable performance), some employees throw up their hands. So be explicit about what your new program will and won't do. Do not leave people with the impression that this will solve all your problems, guarantee financial success, preserve all jobs, etc. This is just your current story and the end is not predetermined. You will still need to manage the effort, balance stakeholder needs, and bring the rest of the world along.
Despite employee cynicism, change isn't going to stop. Initiatives will necessarily come and go. But if you help your employees understand the plot line, they are more likely to look forward to the next sequel. If your organization doesn't manage change well, it will become increasingly resistant to change, putting your organization at a competitive disadvantage. Adaptability is key to survival.
University of Oregon Workshop:
Sustainability for Business
(Sept 21-22 and 28-29; Two Fri. eves and two Saturdays.)
Sustainability will be the next competitive challenge for business. If you want know how to simultaneously meet economic, social and environmental needs, then join us for this University of Oregon (Beaverton office) seminar. Marsha Willard is the instructor. For more information, contact Marsha@axisperformance.com or :
Janet Cormack, University Of Oregon
18640 NW Walker Rd., Beaverton, OR 97006
(503) 725-2289
© Copyright AXIS Performance Advisors, Inc. All rights reserved.