Culture Change via Team Based Management: Client Case Highlight

Just last month I spent a week with a client I’ve been consulting with for about three years now. Typical of many of our clients and most organizations, they are wrestling with a few key issues:

• How to hold people accountable, ensure that employees are all “pulling their share”.?
• How to run effective and productive meetings?
• How to define and address poor performance?
• How to function as a high performance team?
• How to confront disruptive behaviors?
• How to select and hire the best people?
• How to make performance appraisals meaningful?
• How to stabilize processes and increase performance?

What is rather atypical and not like many organizations is WHO within this client is wrestling with the above sticky issues. You see, the folks who are tackling and managing the issues in this case are the hourly production workers. Read More

Client Case & Highlight
Recently we had an opportunity to build a planned change consulting project for one of our clients. The impetus for this project was a major change in organizational structure accompanied by a high level leadership transition. It’s important to capitalize upon the windows for change these opportunities present.

The incoming leader astutely wanted to avoid the common “ash n trash” trap incoming leaders can fall into. “Ash n trash” is when the new leader focuses on finding fault with, criticizing and attending to the weaknesses of their new organization in an effort to build a case for change. The kind of burning platform that hurts. Focusing on weaknesses, problems and gaps has a way leading to people feeling exposed, dumb and defensive. Not a great way to build bridges toward a successful future.

Given the overall situation and the requirement for this process to be a more positive and building process, we developed an approach to strategic change using an Appreciative Inquiry approach to transformation.  This approach is based on positive psychology, no CRITICISMS, no PROBLEMS, no GAPs, it's a process of finding your strategic organizational strengths and amplifying them.  This is a great approach for helping new leaders learn about as well as set a positive tone for transforming their new organization.

The other really nice thing about an approach based on AI (click on the link above to better appreciate this) is that the process is viral, negating many of the difficult and typical failure modes and forms of resistance inherent in traditional approaches to change.  

One of the opportunities that emerged for the client from this process was a focus on Creativity & Innovation, a strategic capability that they had possessed, had lost touch with and committed to amplify. I’ll use the specific focus area of Creativity and Innovation to help make the process overview described below a little more concrete.

Below is a summary of some of the key steps and elements from this process. Phase I, II and III are most closely associated with AI and how we "got there". Phase IV and V are the phases that pertain to specific project implementations including increased Creativity & Innovation throughout the enterprise.  

Phase 1. Finding the Strategic Leverage.  Senior leaders were actively engaged in this phase and conducted carefully structured Appreciative Inquiry interviews with their staff, customers and other key stakeholders.  From this initial work the senior leaders identified four strategic capabilities to address, one of which was Creativity & Innovation.

Phase II. Tapping into Passion & Possibilities.  This is the viral part of the process. The staff who were interviewed by senior leaders (as well as others, about 25-30 people) then received some brief training and went on to conduct a handful (5) of structured interviews themselves.  We created a database to capture and compile the contents of the interviews to make it easy to extract intelligence. Effective and consistently constructed interviews are the key here. The client created a “portal”, a virtual space where all interviews could be shared and read by every employee in the organization. This second round of interviews took place over the course of a month. I can’t stress how powerful these client driven interviews are, how they raise awareness and start to shift thinking.

Phase III. Summit.  All interviewers, interviewees and other key stakeholders (150+ people) came together in an interactive summit. At the summit the interviews were shared and dissected in an effort to learn from and apply their collective wisdom for change.  Key areas for change were identified and Strategic Deployment Teams were chartered and launched. One of these teams was focused on Creativity & Innovation.

Phase IV. Impact Session(s).  Strategic Deployment Teams go through a JumpStart launch process to accelerate their impact.  Each Impact session is constructed of three elements- Concepts Lab in their area of strategic deployment (i.e. creativity and innovation), Opportunity / Strategy definition and Goal Setting , Project Selection, Scope & Chartering.  The creativity and innovation Impact Session is designed to bring about change through an integrated set of strategies.  These strategies are organized in the following "buckets";
• Climate & Leadership for Innovation. 
• Technology & Enabling Systems
• Education & Awareness
• Application and deployment of tools & capabilities.

Phase IV. Hoshin / Catch-ball Project Deployment.  Hoshin / catch-ball principles are used to align and manage the execution and impact of projects. The cycle time for this overall effort, including verification of results in one year.

I welcome your comments, insights and experiences about change and transformation. If you would like more information on how to design an approach for your organization or team, please push the Contact Me button.

Directive Leadership

“Hey, can you please help me find…
Ever been lost or directionally challenged? When is the last time you asked someone for directions? By the time we ask for directions we have admitted that we don’t have the ability, knowledge or experience to get where we want to go (low ability). I don’t know about you, but when I’m asking for directions I’m also typically dealing with some icky affect: anxious, apprehensive, stressed, etc. I am certainly NOT feeling confident, or assured (low willingness).

At the time of our asking for directions we are having a pristine Follower Readiness Level 1(R1) experience. What we need at that moment is someone familiar with the area and willing to help.

Help, what does help look like to the person having an R1 moment? The table below may provide some insight into the boundary conditions for how to "help" through directive leadership. You can click here to Read More about Directive Leadership.

Delegation: The Lies We Tell & Semantics

Delegation is a consistent focal point for leaders who want to improve their effectiveness. It’s how things get done. Effective delegation requires leaders to first test their thinking and mental model for delegation before they test or develop their skills.

The Lies We Tell & Semantics
When it comes to delegation, most of us are liars. Not the diabolical kind, just the kind that lie to ourselves about why we can’t or shouldn’t delegate. Here are some lies we may need to push into the light and call them what they are:
• “In the time it takes me to explain this to the person, I could have done it three times.”(D)
• “I’m the only one who’s intimate enough with the (task/issues/process, etc.) to pull this off.” (I)
• “The other person is busy enough, I don’t want to burden them and it’s a simple enough thing for me to do.”(S)
• “If I want it done right, I have to do it myself.” (C)

Leaders also have to come to grips with the semantics of what “delegate” means to them. To delegate is of course a verb: to give a task or assignment to another person to carry out. Leaders, for the most part, are prone to action and tend to understand the verb meaning of delegate.

Delegate is also a noun. As such, delegation is a leadership decision to select or appoint someone who will act or decide on your behalf. This definition is less “action” focused and more “other” focused. In this way delegation assumes a high degree of performer maturity; someone who is both highly capable and psychologically willing. These are not the performers to give SLJ’s (simple little jobs) to. Delegation is for your “A” players, your emissaries, your delegates.

The figure below outlines the three essential elements required to achieve this type of empowered delegation. These are: Delegation of the TASK, Cultivation of Delegate OWNERSHIP and management of ENABLERS.



Typically leaders only really “see” and therefore attend to one or two of these elements. As a result, many leaders tend develop a delegation “blind-spot”.

For the article on delegation, complete with more typical failure modes as well as the strategies to overcome them, please click here: Delegation-LSSD.

The leadership transition marks the beginning of a critical time and is often associated with significant change. Organizations expend valuable resources to find, hire and relocate leaders. Concurrent with this, organizations often have high performance expectations and complex dynamics that new leaders must address. New leaders are often asked to either correct/improve performance, strategically grow the business and or address cultural and normative issues— a tall order!

If you are a new leader, or will become one soon, we suggest you use your "new leader status" to your advantage. Capitalize upon this unique window in time to review, understand and re-clarify; work unit mission, IPO's / organizational structure, project status, performance measures/trends & scorekeeping process, cultural / normative "rules" and the implications of future challenges on performance.

These can be great topics for you to inquire into and or have structured group discussions about. If you suspect more than minor changes in these areas then try to think first about a transparent / collaborative process for raising awareness, building and implementing the case for change. Making the above discoveries early should also position you to work proactively to request needed resources and negotiate expectations with your boss.

Your new leader status also legitimizes a refocus on relationships, teamwork / teambuilding, revisiting membership and leadership expectations and focus on employee performance and development.

Whenever you transition as a leader you know that from a change management perspective, everyone is EXPECTING some change. This is both the blessing and the curse of the first nine months.

What do you think is an essential step or issue new leaders must address? What other activities do we know need to occur and what are common challenges associated with the transition period?