Archive for the ‘change management’ Category

For most organizations employee engagement is not just about the majority of employees but also about leadership teams.  This is the greatest challenge, because if you have a disengaged leadership team you have no chance of engaging employees.  The reasons why are clear:

1. Employees look towards their leaders for direction – if they are not interested no amount of leadership communication efforts will change that
2. You need to change process to change behaviour – unless you put in place systems and processes which force the behaviours of leaders to change, any attempt at change management will fail
3. What gets measured gets done – clearly if the systems are focussed on something other than the focus of your engagement strategy there is no incentive for the leadership team to change

What makes transformational leaders different?

We should all remember that change is hard, and it is scary for individuals, no matter what level of leadership.  The other point is that just because someone has made it to a leadership role that does not mean that they have the skills to engage their teams.  People generally learn from role models and whilst technically people might be brilliant at their role and achieve outstanding results they may not bring out the best in their teams.

Here a few ideas of how process can change behaviour and therefore achieve employee engagement at all levels:

1. Focus on the leadership team and put in place a process for them to engage their teams. In one organisation the leadership team was unsupported of a new software system that was going to be introduced, and all communication with staff was left to the IT area.  By making one simple change and requiring the business leaders to find out how the system will work and impact on their area they have the confidence to speak about it.  Then put in place a simple format and support them in designing a brief presentation on the system to their teams.  Like a sports team, one win and momentum and enthusiasm increases but you need to make sure that they feel “safe” about taking this step and don’t set them up to fail.
2. Build on this momentum by identifying business decisions that need to be made and hold the leadership team accountable.  Bottom line is that once they feel that they have ownership they will be more comfortable and confident talking about changes.  By letting all team members know what is happening, the focus the leadership team has on the changes and the decisions they are focussing on requires the leadership team to come on board.
3. Open communication channels so that team members feel confident to ask questions about changes and make sure you provide real answers.  So again put in place a new process whether this is a dedicated email address, formalised team briefing  process or regular change updates.  Most importantly it is not only two way communication but across communication talking with their peers and conveying the merits of change.

Without change in process there is no formalised reason why behaviours will or should change.  The only way employee engagement at all levels will be achieved is when something in the way they reach decisions, do their work or are measured changes and requires them to behave differently.  Leadership communication on its’ own will not achieve the level of employee engagement that brings about sustainable change.

Smart companies during this economic downturn are using this time to engage employees in coming up with innovative ideas to set them apart from competitors when times turn good again. One of the most effective ways to be innovative is to look at the quality of service – the customer experience. And for transformational leaders this offers the opportunity to directly engage employees in change.

The key here it to examine customer satisfaction feedback and determine exactly which attributes customers value the most – for the banking sector fro instance it may well be convenience, friendly and helpful employees and ambiance of the branch.  If this is the case then the focus is on how to think outside the square and offer convenience in banking over and above what competitors do, which may not be about hours but might be about location. Similarly with friendly and helpful employees – how well do you staff understand what the customer experience is like, have they tested it as a customer?  And with regard to ambiance, are employees encouraged to become involved in design and facilities and comment on those little things that they have noticed would improve the customer experience?

It goes without saying that if you want to create a service culture you need to engage employees in the design of that culture.  So how can you do this for the least cost but highest impact? One way is to form teams across divisions and levels, communities of interest that come up with innovative suggestions for improvements. Tap into employees’ collective knowledge about the customer experience, what they have noticed, what customers have complained about to them, some of the best research is not the survey that researches customer satisfaction but the comments made to employees during their actual encounters with the organization.  If you take this information, divide it up into segments, pilot, evaluate and implement and then reward employees for their contribution you are well on the way to creating a culture focussed on service and not just focussed on turning up to work and not contributing.

An organizational culture will only change when you set up systemic practices that support the change. So you need to ensure the following is in place for to achieve optimum outcomes:

1.   That managers and team leaders have specific accountabilities in encouraging new ideas from their teams and understand the concept of communities.

2.   That a process is developed on how to decide which ideas to improve the customer experience can be implemented as a pilot.

3.   The evaluation process is determined against business results and that successful ideas ARE implemented.

4.   Employees are rewarded for those innovative ideas that customers truly value - the reward system may not be about money – it might be about dinner with the Executive team – therefore again reinforcing the culture of having access to people who make the final decisions and that innovation in customer service is valued.

5.   Finally the communication strategy needs to focus on the success of the program and continually reinforce the positive impact on the customer experience and business outcomes.

So, something to think about, how are your strategies in employee engagement and change management encouraging employees to make a positive impact on the customer experience and create a service culture?

One of the things that continues to surprise me is that when times are bad organizations still spend money on employee engagement surveys.  A general look around the office or factory and tea room discussions would make it obvious to all that wanted to see it that employees are not so much engaged as they are worried about their job security.  This leads us to two major issues to consider during tough times, the first is how leaders inspire confidence and innovation in an organization that appears to be in freeze mode.  The second is what you should measure as an indicator of employee engagement.

Let’s deal with inspiring confidence and innovation in your organization.  Well this boils down to a change management strategy that focuses on getting employees actively involved at all levels in understanding the business and how their ideas can have a positive impact.  Here’s an example of what you could do. 

1. Take real business data and share it with groups of employees at all levels that deal with customers in specific sectors. 
2. Ask employees for ideas on improving or innovating just one aspect of your service offering or product line and test in a specific market segment on a small scale, say a sales territory or state. 
3. Then after testing those ideas for a six week period ask employees to examine the business results. 
4. Take those ideas that have shown a substantial improvement in sales and implement either state wide or nationally depending on your organization. 
5. Design a reward and recognition program around the impact of these ideas on the business outcomes and start to energise your workforce. 

 It really is that simple, treat employees with respect, stop telling them what to do instead listen to what they have to say, put some rigor around the framework for ideas and reward outstanding results.  This is how innovation happens and how you can energize an organization to respond quickly to changing market conditions. 

Another key is to ensure that whatever the management strategy you implement it has specific activities and responsibilities for management. Often we forget that managers are just as concerned during tough times about their job security, but their team members are looking at them for direction and support.  So when we design change strategies ensure that there are key responsibilities and clearly defined activities for all levels of the organization.  So practically what does this mean with our example above?  Well you would design specific activities such as;

1.            Leaders would identify the real business data and share it with their teams

2.            Leaders would be responsible for selecting which ideas would be selected for testing in a specific market and they would decide which test market

3.            Leaders would obtain the business results at the end of the six week test period and organise briefings with their teams

4.            The hierarchy of managers would then decide which tests produced the best result and decide which to implement and project plan that implementation

5.            Together with human resources the management team would decide on a reward and recognition program and share it with their teams.

So what about employee engagement surveys?  I say save your organization the tens of thousands of dollars they cost and invest your time in a well thought out change management strategy like that outlined above.  This will ensure a climate where communication is open, ideas are valued and actions are implemented.  All these steps are indicative of a workforce that is focussed, has purpose and feels a greater level of confidence about the future of their organization and therefore their role because they are actively involved in designing the future, not being told what do and when to do it.  If you just change the paradigm from budget cuts, budget cuts and budget cuts to opportunities, growth and involvement your organization’s business results will be your barometer of employee engagement, no survey required.

Leadership style during change is so important, you might tell people what is happening, but will it change their attitude and therefore change their behaviour?  In my experience which is across many sectors, industries, professional roles and all types of change programs I have to say no.  And this is the problem, when a CEO and senior executive team think “change” will happen because they have hired someone to communicate the changes taking place and then when there is no impact on the business or the outcomes they were looking for they are disappointed.

Information is important and provides the support that employees need to find out what is happening.  Think of it this way. Smokers buy a packet of cigarettes, the health warnings are featured on the packet and yet we see intelligent, literate people continue to smoke, packet after packet. The only time they truly become engaged in changing their attitude toward smoking and therefore behaviour is when they are in the doctors office and are personally facing a health risk. And then Aha! they finally get it.

So how do we use this analogy when we are tying to communicate change? Let’s look at this example.

An organization wants to communicate the financial results to employees and the usual approach is to post the employee annual report on the intranet. But this time they need to do something different, they want employees to understand why the company needs to improve and what shareholders base their decisions on. So they decided to run free lunchtime information sessions for their employees on how to invest in the share market and held them for one hour each week for four weeks. The topics progressed from understanding the share market, categories of companies listed etc till the final week they examined annual reports. So in this final session they were reviewing annual reports and came to the last one for the session and after reading through the data the question was asked of employees, so who would invest in this company, few put their hands up. And you guessed it, the company was their company and with a collective Aha! the employees finally got the message.

As in this instance, a large transformation program including HR, training and operational initiatives was developed to build on this.

So here is the important message for any change program.  Information is important, employees need to know what is happening, when, why, who, what and by whom.  However, equally as important when it comes to organizational change, employees need to be involved in the process to be truly engaged.  This is where change professionals need to focus on the “Aha moments” and engage employees in the process of change.

If there is one issue that is constantly raised by clients and workshop attendees it is what to do about senior managers that continue to block your attempts to engage employees in your organization.

There are many steps you can take to ensure that management understand the value of your employee engagement strategies and why they should be supported.  Very few managers have formal training in communicating with their employees and running team meetings, maybe somewhere along the way they were taught how to communicate one on one, but to a large team, particularly communicating complex messages about change it is unlikely. 

So just handing your management team a power point presentation or a script is not going to work.  And human nature being what it is, they will avoid delivering the message you have so carefully crafted or just mumble some general information about the team and the business without focussing on the real issue.  When implementing a transformation strategy it is vital that all employees have face to face communication with some level of management.  And this may be team members with team leaders, state managers with divisional heads, executive teams with their Company President or Chief Executive Officer.  Regardless, all levels of management have to be part of the face to face change communication strategy for it to be effective.

Here are a few tips to consider when faced with this dilemma.

1.     How can you make it easier for managers to communicate? Provide a sheet of key messages, meeting outline and allow them to talk to the key points using their own natural style.

2.    Provide support – you can always volunteer someone from the communications team to be present at the meeting or have a communication champion to attend.  Their role is to take notes on any questions that are raised that can’t be answered then and there and to “fill in the gaps” should the manager fail to stay on message.

3.   Make sure that what you are asking them to communicate is clear, concise and not too long.  A 15 minute meeting is much easier to get agreement to than a 1 hour meeting.

4.  Provide each presenter with some tips on how to manage communicating and presenting to large groups – 5 key points – again don’t overwhelm them.

5.  Finally you may wish to brief the management team at their regular meeting about what is required.  It is highly unlikely that they will raise questions at the meeting so follow up with an email or phone call afterwards to ensure that they know what is required.

Most importantly, one of the key reasons management don’t communicate is because they don’t think that they are responsible for the change message, they think the communications team is.  Clarifying the difference between everyone’s role and your expectations of your management team and their responsibility in communicating change is essential at the outset so there is clarity about what is involved.  Face to face communication is uncomfortable for many people, just because someone is in a leadership position does not mean that they know what to do, they need coaching, they need simple clear messages, they need support and they need to understand how what they are requested to do fits into part of an overall change strategy.

There are two distinct ways transformational leadership can engage employees; one is to inform employees about what is happening in an organization, the other is to engage employees in the process of change.  In this article we are going to highlight 3 case studies that demonstrate clearly the different techniques and approaches to ensure that your leadership strategies bring about transformation in your organization.

Transformational Leadership Case Study 1: At this telecommunications manufacturing plant, the company decided to involve employees in the organizational changes that were taking place.  The company is involved in high technology and has approximately 1,900 employees.  After a senior management workshop it was decided that a customer service change programme be developed. 

One of the methods introduced was the round table concept.  The communications team organised for 18 people from a specific area to have a 90 minute meeting with senior managers.  However, the key to the success of these meetings was that the employees did most of the talking and the senior managers, most of the listening.  The organization planned to learn from these meetings what the barriers were to success and customer satisfaction.  Over a 10 week period, 50 round tables were scheduled.  At the completion of this exercise, approximately one third of the total of the organization’s workforce were involved in the round tables.  Participants in the round table programme were selected from every employment level with a balanced representation of gender and race.

Patterns in the issues that were raised began to emerge and senior management began to take notice of what were to become the main elements of the customer service change programme.  What was critical with this approach was that soon after the round table program of 10 weeks, employees began to actually see their suggestions adopted, and changes taking place.  To supplement the face to face meetings with managers, a bi-weekly newsletter was produced.  Each issue was 2 pages in length and included a dedicated space for employees to make suggestions to managers for improvement in customer service.

Transformational Leadership Case Study 2: This hospital wanted to cut costs and at the same time ensure that patients were not adversely impacted by the changes.  It was also a major provider of healthcare in a small community so it was essential that the reputation of high quality care was not reduced.

So they sought feedback using focus groups, telephone surveys and also contacting the carers.  Three key attributes in patient care came up as the main contributors to patient satisfaction.  The hospital staff concentrated on improving these 3 areas whilst still reducing costs. Cross functional teams were established with employees volunteering to take part.  An employee with strong project management skills was selected to lead each team.  A list of options to improve the experience of the patients was presented to management with details of costings and timeframes for implementation.  Agreement was reached on the changes and the senior management team ensured line managers were not blockers to the changes. 

Transformational Leadership Case Study 3: The main objective of this strategy was to educate staff in reading and understanding the company financial statements and how they directly related to the work that they were doing.  The other minor objective was the need for employees in other departments to understand how what they did impacted on the remainder of the organization and the bottom line.

Employees from all areas were encouraged to review the company books and financial statements.  An extension of this policy was to talk with all employees in groups and discuss what the figures meant, specifically how they related to the work that they were doing and then to the big picture of the organization’s profitability.  The strategy was more than an attempt to educate the workforce; rather it focussed on action plans when the budgets and finances were off course for their particular area.  The staff would then look at their operations and how they could do things differently to remedy the situation.  This method included training on understanding financial reports, which has the benefit not only of learning how to read the financial statements of the organization but also what action the team in each department could take to change the financial outcomes.  Copies of the financial statements were distributed to employees once there was recognition that they would understand what was being conveyed. By understanding and teaching employees the direct relationship between their work and the financial results of the organization they are more inclined to understand the message.

Finally the role of leaders during transformation is to ensure that all employees have understood the key message and that it means something to them.  Change Management is all about using a variety of methods and techniques to ensure that no matter how complex, long term or risky the message is, the desired outcome for the organization will be achieved. Employee engagement and transformational leadership are uniquely connected and by combining the two outstanding results can be achieved.