This is the sixth in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving? Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:
6. Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving?
This in-depth analysis shows the wide range of factors that go into developing the Thriving Organization. Our intent in being comprehensive is deliberate. We want leaders to select which questions are most appropriate to them.
Our reasoning is that there are no simple solutions or steps to follow. What we urge is open debate in leadership teams to reach a commitment to those few things which can make a difference between being ahead and just playing catch up.
Thriving or Surviving Questionnaire
There are 69 questions to select from divided into seven categories to help as you develop your plan for building a more vibrant and competitive organization.
Leadership in Thriving Organizations
Change Management in Thriving Organizations
Planning to Thrive
Agility to Thrive
Thriving People
Communicating to Thrive
Learning to Thrive
Action Points 5: Developing the Thriving Organization
Based on your answers to the questionnaire above, use the following questions to develop your plan for developing a more vibrant and competitive organization.
Leadership in Thriving Organizations
What is the one thing you can do to improve your leaders focus for your current change?
What is your strategy for building leadership capacity and competence in the longer term?
Change Management in Thriving Organizations
Which aspects of change management do you need to address now?
What are you going to do differently in managing change in the longer term?
Planning to Thrive
How can you improve planning for change for the next time?
Thriving People
In terms of the current change, what can you do to focus people on making this change successful?
What is your focus going to be in improving peoples change readiness and agility?
Communicating to Thrive
Where do you need to focus in terms of improving communication?
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If you would like to contact Nick, please fill out the form below:
Whether large or small, IT projects are complex change events. They need cross-functional collaboration between two or more departments or teams. Their success or failure reverberates throughout the organization and often impacts customers. Countless studies and papers on reasons for IT Project Failure cite two critical factors:
Customer requirements not being adequately defined
Customer requirements kept changing
Acceptance testing was slim to non-existent
These failure statistics are fully in line with the findings of the survey of 1072 business leaders and consultants summarized in my book Focusing Change to Win which I wrote with Kelly Nwosu.
How can that happen with professionals on both sides of the design effort? Weren’t they in the same meetings? What happened to the agreed requirements? testing regimens? and change request process?
Of course, they did all those things. What they didn’t realize is what they believed they understood of each other was at best misaligned. The IT professionals and the business professionals each assumed that the other understood the precise meaning with each communication; each assumed specific activities were part of the other person’s normal routine in a development project. So, projects failed to achieve the desired results due to::
Expectations not being made specific to the project or explicit to each other
Tasks not done as expected
Delivered Functionality did not meet expectations
Requirements weren’t met
If you are interested in having the authors speaking to your organizationfill out this form.
This seminar series features Nick’s new book Focusing Change to Win which he co-authored with Kelly Nwosu.
These sessions provides business leaders with insights into critical areas to help focus their businesses and align their people for competitive advantage. Each seminar helps you answer a fundamental question:
Seminar 1: How Clear Are You On The Why & What Of Change?
Seminar 2: Why Do Your People Resist Change?
Seminar 3: Why Do You Bother to Measuring Change?
Seminar 4: How Can You Implement Change & Gain Competitive Advantage?
Seminar 5: Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving?
Seminar 6: How Effectively Do You Really Communicate Change?
We take a deep-dive into a change issue that you face. You will come away with an understanding of where your expectations with key employees are aligned and not aligned, and how critical that alignment is for successful change. You will learn how to clarify and specify your own expectations as to well how you can check if they are understood. Each session helps executives assess their performance in terms of:
How well have you communicated your expectations to your people?
How well do you understand what your people expect of you?
What are the likely gaps between expectations and assumptions?
What are our options for planning and implementing success change competitively?
A tool, the Four Blocker Alignment Analysis, to identify misalignment
A method to help set the right expectations and get people on the same page
An understanding of how to align agreed expectations effectively
An example of an aligned expectation relevant to your situation
An improved chance for successful change in your organization
What preparation is needed?
For each participant organization we have preparation guides that ask people to consider issues related to the question being posed for each seminar.
Who should you bring?
Please select up to five key people to join you who are important to successful change in your organization, such as:
Which colleagues will help you answer the seminar question posed?
Whose opinion do you value to help look at the question posed from different perspectives?
Whose commitment will you need to make improvements in tackling change competitively?
What will be covered?
Each session focuses on real-life scenarios within the framework of the research findings and assessment tools developed. As we say:
“There is no role-play only real-play”
Seminar Format
Seminars are customized for clients and depending on their needs. They normally run from half-day to full-day. They can be run fact-to-face or web-based, although experience suggest face-to-face gets the best results
Maximum attendance is 20 participants! Costs start at $150 per person per half day excluding agreed preparation time, travel and accommodation.
Why are these seminars important?
Failed change means lost opportunity, competitive vulnerability, poor revenues, lost employees, increased cynicism and fear. Its residue is a hostile and toxic culture, where change resistance becomes the norm. The cost of a failed change can be staggering, from lowering morale to losing key customers due to poor quality.
Focusing to Win and the survey on which is based confirms other studies
Too many organizations are still trying to do things differently not do different things
Survey Contributors realize that working relationships are increasingly stressed in the drive for ever-faster responses to competitive threats and opportunities.
So, what are the meaningful differences between those that thrive on change and those that just survive?
Many contributors seem resigned to resistance being unavoidable yet recognize that trust in management is the onlyvariable that significantly reduces change resistance. They seem to have little focus on improving organizational alignment to achieve change success.
For others, whatever the blend of top down and bottom up led change, it is clear – be intentional. This is invaluable to avoid being misinterpreted and mistrusted. These contributors are clear and details how to lay the groundwork for successful change.
Each seminar takes an aspect of the problem based on over 6,000 comments to give participants an assessment framework for their organizations. These cover analyzing change impacts, setting-up the change Program with Metrics and on-going communication.
Globally there is a slow erosion of those binding forces for people to “go that extra mile”. The employee-employer psychological contract is degrading. The degree to which people identify with their job and consider job performance as important to their self-worth is slipping .In our recently published survey Focusing Change to Win identified the main culprits:
Poor Planning
Lack of Leadership
Inconsistent leadership
Poor Implementation
Lack of Adaptability
Lack of Communication
Lack of Control
More than ever, we need to repair, build and protect the trust people have in their employers.
In North America, our evidence from 8 expectation alignment projects ranging from Royal Bank of Canada through Nature Conservancy to Turner Construction shows a clear trend. Leaders consistently under-estimate the gap between what they expect of their managers and what people think is expected of them. Inall studies, leaders had 65%+ more expectations than their people were aware.
In the UK, managers need to do more if they want to earn employee trust , according to the latest survey into employee attitudes from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Trust in senior management is declining, particularly in the private sector, with
Only 25% employees willing to place a lot of trust in senior management to look after their interests and
Only 41% placing little or no trust in them to do so.
Essentially, new research suggests that many employees are losing faith in their management yet it seems leaders have don’t connect this condition with losing ground competitively. Continue reading →
Since change management came into fashion, a litany of failure has left its mark and our respondent’s echo what many have gone through in the last 8 years. It seems through their eyes, resistance has to be viewed as a “brown field” site. Gone is the naiveté of “a job for life” and an enduring contract between leaders and other stakeholders. Now, change is synonymous with downsizing, doing more for less, etc. For these respondents, they paint a picture of failed change, broken trust, fractured communication and poor leadership. We summarize their comments into the following:
Cultural Toxicity of Failed Change
“If people don’t trust you, what change do you stand?”
“People can’t be bothered”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Not knowing the purpose of it all” – a litany of communication failure
The avalanche of data at ever increasing speeds creates greater corporate ADHD. The result is decision making suffers from “24×7 news cycle”thinking where now is better than later. Competitively, it means increased market stress and rapid cycles of wicked problem solving. So, what can we learn about remaining competitive?
It’s 20 years since I produced my Masters Thesis on managing change for competitive success based on Pettigrew & Whipp’s research of the later 80s and 90s. Since that time, strategic planning was reborn in the 1990s. New approaches for strategy focused on growth through mergers/acquisitions and joint ventures, generation of innovative ideas through decentralized strategic efforts within the company, emergent strategy, and the leveraging of core competencies to create strategic intent. By the start of this century the focus shifted to strategic and organizational innovation, including reconciling size with flexibility and responsiveness. New alliances mean cooperative strategies, complexity, changes in commitments of corporate social responsibility, etc. Today’s strategic planning and execution requires new models of leadership, less formal structures, and more commitment to self-direction.
Unfortunately, both strategic planning and implementation’s effectiveness leaves a lot to be desired with 60% of all change initiatives failing. Sydney Finkelstein summarizes areas of most strategic planning failure: launching new ventures, promoting innovation and change, managing mergers and acquisitions and responding to new environmental pressures. So in this era of dramatic change, global alliances, and a variety of environmental pressures, the potential for failure is very real.
This blog looks at what leaders need to consider to avoid being another survey statistic.
On both sides of the Atlantic, the employment compact is fracturing along the lines of manufacturing outsourcing, poor change communication and inconsistent leadership. The bottom-line is that “doing more with less”sounds macho in closeted executive strategy sessions. The reality is that those who get the work done feel the stress of over-work and unabated insecurity is eroding trust in their leaders.
How close are we getting to the “old lie”?
Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.( Translation: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”
Wilfred Owen – Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is great to work your butt off and then a get a pink slip
North Americans grow more cynical of being asked “go the extra mile” with even fewer resources. As a result, change resistance is increasingly more complex and individualistic.
This fracturing eats away at competitiveness. The leadership challenge then is to repair, build and protect the trust people have in their leaders and other functions.
In North America, over the last ten years I have conducted expectation alignment projects in very different organizations like Royal Bank of Canada, Qwest Telecommunications and Turner Construction. In every project, leaders consistently under-estimated the gaps between:
What they expect of their people and what the people actually think is expected of them.
What they think people expect of them and their people actually expect of their leaders
In all projects, leaders had 65%+ more expectations than their people were aware. As you read on you will see that my findings are disturbingly endorsed on both sides of the Atlantic.
Developing successful partnerships can only be accomplished if there is a strong and shared sense of vision. It is the cornerstone, and launching point for successful partnering efforts.
Visioning in a partnership if different form other uses of the word. It is much more than a defined set of shared goals and aspirations. It exists to offer a tangible guidance system which provides direction to both parties and helps them carry out their larger goals. Such a system enables partnerships to overcome obstacles and achieve results. When they lack vision they tend to drift around, or fall apart.
This model is a tool for summarizing the planning process before negotiations commencing and plotting progress towards agreement during the negotiation. Basic assumptions are that:
Every negotiating issue is quantifiable in terms of money even where a purely subjective judgement is used as to an issues worth.
All negotiations take place over time and that there are deadlines for both parties to reach agreement.
Both negotiating parties are looking for compromise to a lesser or greater degree, i.e. a process of coming to agreement over allocating scarce resources.
Both parties are maximizing e.g. buyers want the lowest price and sellers want to sell at the highest price possible.
At this point we can build a model using the example of a buyer and seller.
A frequent and often crucial situation in management today is one in which one person is seeking to persuade another to accept proposals for change. This situation commonly occurs when a subordinate presents a case to his or her boss.
Unfortunately, people usually spend a great deal more time and effort in collecting supporting facts and figures than in planning for the face-to-face interaction on which the success of the whole exercise usually depends. Careful consideration of interactive strategy at the planning stage can both assist in the selection of effective arguments and result in more persuasive interactions.
Feature Dumping
This discussion of the issues involved concentrates on persuasion in the boss-subordinate context; but the principles considered apply equally well to any situation in which one person is seeking to gain the co-operation or the consent of another.
This is the forth in a leadership series – Complexity the New Norm. This series is looks how we implement successful change that fulfills people and avoids human casualties.
Our question is, how do we create working relationships that are rewarding? (Rewarding not just productive). Why?
It’s only by energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else that companies can thrive.
Genuinely aligned, empowered and collaborative people will outperform the competition every time.
This month I consider probably one of the most difficult areas is sales, especially complex sales.
What makes sales complex?
Classically, “Many to Many” Think of it like a bow tie. On the left side you have the selling organization and on the right Complex Sales. Typical characteristics:
So, more people across the company need to communicate with customers and prospects before, during and after the sale. This increases complexity and the difficulty of “Keeping Everyone On The Same Page”
This is the third in a leadership series – Complexity the New Norm.This series is looks how we implement
Seeing the Wood for the Treessuccessful change that fulfills people and avoids human casualties.Last time, I asked how we create working relationships that are rewarding. (Rewarding not just productive). Our position is that it’s only by energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else that organizations can survive and thrive.Genuinely aligned, empowered and collaborative people will outperform the competition every time.Many surveys show executives say that their people aren’t ready to handle this “new norm” So, what’s getting in the way?When the urgent drives out the important, many leaders ignore what their “guts” are telling them, even when they sense people aren’t on the same page. They’ve sensed it before and seen the results. Yet, complexity and urgency mask how things accumulate, misalign and make each change more difficult.You know that feeling yourself. We’ve all worked in dysfunctional work places. You pick up on people’s differences (often unstated in team meetings) and how they use their experience to justify their positions. They are oblivious of others views. Worse still they believe that their views are shared by everyone.If leaders are aware of these things, why don’t they do something?I think it’s like how people put up with physical pain and stress – take the pain killers and go on. And I am not implying they’re weak but their strength to persevere can be a two-edged sword. Here’s some examples of what leaders ignore and don’t realize their effect:It’s expecting things to be done and repeatedly being disappointed.It is the lump in your stomach when they are handed yet another impossible deadline.It’s feeling that they have to be a mind reader to figure out what is expected.It’s that welling anger they get when important decisions fall apart (because there really wasn’t any buy-in).These are all misalignments. People not being on the same page. It’s costly, pervasive and accumulates.Now, add increasing complexity and we need to say – we can’t go on like this anymore. The busyness of complexity masks misalignments especially when wicked problems get into the mix.You’ve mentioned wicked problem solving before….But why is it so important in leading in complexity?Wicked Problem Solving
Horst Rittel coined the term Wicked Problems as he found traditional approaches to design and planning were not effective. It’s how we solve benign or simple problems.
Gather data
Analyze data
Formulate Solution
Implement Solution
This apparently very reasonable approach starts faltering when you:
1. Don’t understand the problem until you have developed a solution.
You can’t search for information without having some sense of what a solution looks. Rittel said:
“One cannot first understand, then solve.”
And what ‘the Problem’ is depends on who you ask – different stakeholders have different views about what the problem is and what constitutes an acceptable solution.
2. Don’t have a nice neat ending.
If there is no defined ‘Problem’, there can’t be a definitive ‘Solution.’ So you can’t solve the problem with the ‘correct’ solution. Herb Simon, called this ‘satisficing’ — stopping when you have a solution that is ‘good enough’
Solutions are simply ‘better,’ ‘worse,’ ‘good enough,’ or ‘not good enough.’ How “good” they are will vary widely and depend on different stakeholder values and goals.
4. Can’t draw on past experience
There are so many factors and conditions that no two wicked problems are alike.
Here are a few examples of wicked problems:
Whether to route the highway through our city or around it?
What should our mission statement be?
What features should be in our new product?
How should we respond to a competitors new…fill in the blank?
The point is managing complex and wicked problems shifts the center of gravity toward peoples’ relationships and interactions. It shifts from relying on expertise and pride in accumulating knowledge to learning with and from fellow learners, honestly disclosing doubts and admitting ignorance.
I am thinking leaders who are listening will be saying: OK, I get, it but where do I start?
As I said last time, complexity and misalignment is best handled by those directly involved. So, leadership should be devolved to the lowest level. This means expectations you have of your leaders need to be clear, agreed and tracked. There are several alignment areas that senior people need to address with lower level leaders, which I will cover in later programs. But, I will start with a key competence that leaders need improve in their teams and activities. It’s a bastion against the confusion that comes from poorly managed complexity
Leading Learning
Leaders have to shed their prejudices and bad experiences of learning at school, – like cramming or memorizing, and that learning by doing is good enough. Many leaders will have to unlearn, and then learn about Leading Learning. There are five criteria you should expect your leaders to evidence in their learning expectations: Are they …..
Planned?
Action-Focused?
Constructive?
Social?
Time-Bounded?
Using these criteria, leader expectations need to specify what they expect of their people and draw out what their people expect in return.
What do you see as the main areas for leaders to think about when it comes to leading learning?
Here are four things to reflect on about your organization. Ask yourself:
How do we really match-up when it comes to leading learning?
Learning team-based sense-making process.
1. Learning is team-based sense-making process.
What expectations do you have of your people to develop shared knowledge from similar situations?
Why?
Shared situations builds shared sensing, which builds common frames of reference.
Shared situations builds shared learning and reduces the exclusivity of individual experience
Can you find expectations that say it’s OK for people to express feelings of being puzzled or being misunderstood:
Why?
Such expressed feelings are often the tender shoots of learning and if subject to making people feel stupid will stunt learning before it has even got going.
Sharing puzzlement develops learner ownership because there’s “gas in their tank” to do something about it.
You don’t know how many others have the same feelings until they are expressed.
Getting people on the same page only happens when people’s feelings are transparent to others. It takes the guesswork of where people are coming from. It reduces assumptions about people’s intention, motivation and agenda
2. Learning is a socially negotiated
Leader expectations need to specify that making sense of problems and their solutions needs to be negotiated with the intention of reaching understanding, resolving differences and producing an agreed course of action.
Why?
What’s agreed is far more likely to stick
Stakeholder and team member interests of are more likely to be respected and served
Better alignment leads to growing trust and openness which leads to people being less guarded
3. Learning is multi-level sense-making
Leaders, especially senior leaders, need to ensure that their expectations of learning are expressed to all levels both vertically and horizontally across the organization. The belief that knowledge is only in one person’s head went out with the craftsman and his apprentice. Knowledge and reasoning need to be used for collective sense-making.
Why?
It’s the social process that bonds people together. As we engage with others we influence and are influenced by our working community their beliefs and values.
This type of participation is how we absorb and grow a healthy culture.
This is how we grow as individuals and develop rewarding relationships
It’s crucial that leaders understand that activity constrains and defines the learning that can occur, so the last point
4. Learning is a product of activities, systems and processes
Learning through Activities
The blend of people, their experiences, values and beliefs are not reducible to individual actions in complex situations. So, leader’s expectations need to shift from the individual to the team.
Why?
It’s not about you; it’s about us – “Leave your ego at the door!”
Information isn’t any good if it is not shared, in ways that others can understand
If you don’t interact with others your chances of building trust, respect and other relational glue is remote
If I am a leader or business owner listening to this today I might be saying that’s all very well but I have a business to run. What advice would you give them?
Do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got! – Not!
1. Hire people who evidence lifelong learning – if people aren’t curious they are not for you.
2. Make sure you pay people for doing different things not just doing what we have always done – cos if you don’t you will get what you’ve always gotten.
3. Ensure you make sure all people know learning is a priority and it’s not something left to chance or the competition
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, Senior Partner, PDS Group LTD
In my last blog I introduced my new leadership series – Complexity the New Normal.
It’s time we had a debate about how we develop rewarding working relationships today. (Rewarding not just productive). It is the competitive core – energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else.
The ultimate standard for such rewarding relationships is a leader’s ability to sustain superior results over an extended period. The debate should focus three
The Gordian Knot
questions:
What does it mean to lead?
What does it mean to follow?
When do you choose one from another?
Why is this debate needed for us to climb out of this recession?
People have lost trust. Many business leaders, too many unfortunately, are seen as self-serving and subservient to shareholders.
What happened? “Org Chart Thinking” increasingly doesn’t work. Knowledge workers respond to learning not “command & control”. Plus, young people don’t want to wait in line to lead. Most important, people are searching for genuine satisfaction and meaning. For example, “restoring people to full life and health.” Medtronic.
Listen to the Radio Show of this BlogLike most consultants, we are often accused of borrowing the clients watch, tell them the time and then hand it back with a bill………So, given the threats to our economy, it’s a statement of the obvious. We live in turbulent times… only this time what follows is free.
I got to thinking what are the challenges of leadership in the times we are living in:
Some years ago I noted this quote:
“Business is now so complex and difficult, the survival of the firm is so hazardous, in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued existence depends on the day-to-day mobilization of everyone’s intelligence”
(Konosuke Matushita, founder of Matsushita Electric)
It struck a chord…to mobilize everyone’s intelligence… for regular listeners you will recognize a theme in our work at PDS…releasing and focusing people is still a crucial ingredient to survival and sustained success
So, my focus in this blog is theSeven Challenges of Leadership in Turbulence
OK. I know you well enough by now to know there’s a core to these challenges…
Spot on….it’s Bravery…
“Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.” Omar N Bradley
The first step “walk and talk – – – the same talk” constantly. Alignment between attitude, philosophy and actions is key! That consistency is hard to find, particularly since producing a payoff in changeis often more about emotion and intuition than it is about analysis and logic.
Where’s the bravery you ask?
Try making emotional and intuitive decisions which may or may not be born out by analysis and logic! Yet I like, Peter Senge’s viewpoint:
“high levels of mastery….leaders cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg and see with one eye”
It’s that outward calm of seeing a swan glide across the water, yet below the water line…furious paddling.. It’s about not losing your head those around you are running around like chickens with their heads cut off…..what are we going to do….
The bravery comes to challenge how your company operates, its implicit beliefs and philosophies (e.g., The unspoken creed…once in automotive always in automotive). Your culture can create its own distractions which interfere with what seems right, intuitive and obvious. Many times, discussing this tension is repressed so that “we don’t take our eye off-the-ball,” or so we don’t offend others. Consequently, leaders often focus on the seemingly “urgent” and let the critical issues slide. They take refuge in “safe” financial performance targets that can’t be easily disputed. These targets rarely support desired behaviors or intuitive outcomes.
Yet there are automotive dependent manufacturers in West Michigan that are wondering how to “keep it shiny side up!”
So in this fog of war, where do leaders look to survival?
If you look at successful companies, they have varied strategies, structures and systems. However, their leaders do have something in common. They share surprisingly consistent philosophies.
These successful leaders have moved away from over reliance on very formal ways of running their organizations (like articulating strategies, building structures and developing systems). They have moved toward using more organic ways of managing (like engaging people in defining a purpose, implementing through necessary and defined processes and developing people).
So what does this point out? It goes to the root of why so many change initiatives fail (60% +) even after overdosing on business re-engineering and other scientific management techniques. Many Leaders manage what is easy to manage (like managing numbers and not people). They’ve been trained in the scientific disciplines. They forget they are managing an “organism.” They dismiss the small and gradual steps associated with real change for grandiose strategies
So, let’s put this into perspective. Successful leaders recognize that an organization’s purpose is more important than short-term outcomes. Why? Outcomes change – the purpose does not! Their focus is on how they can create committed members of a purposeful organization. Putting purpose above outcomes, allowing new improved outcomes to take precedence and promoting different things to be done takes bravery.
Why is bravery so important?
It takes bravery for leaders and executives to address seven critical challenges. Without question, addressing them is about not acquiescing to “legacy tendencies” but about incorporating “what now works” into the development of “tomorrow’s legacies”! Bravery is about doing “different things,” not about making excuses as to why you can’t do different things.
Getting above the white noise of excuses is not for the faint hearted….getting up with clamor of resistances and fear
Where do we start with these challenges? Is there a sequence or are they inter-related?
1. Embedding Purpose
Where are you on the continuum from Undefined or Conceptual to Clearly articulated & translated?
So, you’ve written and articulated the corporate purpose! But, do the troops actually understand what this means to their everyday behavior and actions? So often the organization states its purpose without regard as to whether or not it has created any ownership in that purpose.
Essential Questions:
How will you gain widespread organizational support for your purpose?
How will you ensure new activities, actions and behaviors invigorate your purpose?
How will you ensure your expectations are aligned with what people assume is expected of them?
2: Removing Distractions
Where you on the continuum from Unidentified to Identified and Managed Distractions?
There are always distractions that deflect an organization from its “appointed” tasks. If these distractions go unidentified, they grow stronger. Distractions don’t just miraculously disappear. The longer they last the more they clog corporate arteries. Executives need to lead the “charge” in identifying and eliminating distractions.
Essential Questions:
How will you convince people to dismiss actions, operations and processes which stimulate doing old things?
How can you eliminate duplicate processes and reports that slow the organization down?
Who will oversee the distraction-elimination process; and, what authority will they have?
I can see how that would help but does this really get over the fog of war…that we face today?
Getting People on the Same Page
3: Aligning Organizational Expectations
Where are you on the continuum from Defused & Misaligned to Focused & Aligned Expectations?
Over and over again, employees say,
“I wish someone had told me exactly what was expected.”
Have you ever considered that others’ assumptions of “what is expected” might be counterproductive to your purpose or outcomes?
“Are people doing what you expect or what they think you expect?”
Essential Questions:
What are the key components that reveal your organization’s direction and success?
How will you translate these words into actions, competencies and behaviors that can be managed?
How will you measure the degree of alignment with your purpose, and what evidence of alignment are you looking for?
Doesn’t this demand more from a leader than just stating the facts?
Making clearer emotional connections
“Its alarming how one individual can undermine a change simply by being out of touch with intuition and empathy. One of the most overlooked, yet common ways, leaders fail albeit unintentionally, is not to express appropriately, candidly and consistently what they feel as well as what they think. This is known as unintentionally ambiguous behavior which gives gives mixed messages. Next to aggressive behavior ambiguous behavior can cause the most tension for sellers and buyers alike” (Adapted from Robert Cooper’s book, Executive EQ.)
4. Creating Differentiation
Where you on the continuum from Competitively Vulnerable to Differentiated & Own Your Niche?
If you feel like you’re the same in the marketplace, odds are that’s how the customer sees you. As a leader, you are responsible for creating a climate of differentiation.
Essential Questions:
How will you ensure that customer contact people and others connect with one another to develop differentiable approaches?
How will you measure the degree and profitability of differentiation?
How will you leverage differentiation to lead your market place?
I can see how these first four create a platform for success…but how do leaders get this to stick and not just be another “flash in the pan”?
5: Coaching Strategically
Raising the Bar
Where you on this continuum from Coaching being Isolated & sporadic to Cascaded & Consistent throughout you organization?
We know, we know …. your people coach! The real question is, do your people coach with the right intensity and frequency to replicate successful behaviors? Or, is coaching infrequent, informal and isolated?
Essential Questions:
What will you do as a leader to establish your coaching cascade? (Starting with you, of course)
What is the right intensity and frequency of coaching needed under present competitive conditions?
How will you know that coaching is effective?
6: Replicating Success
Where are you on this continuum fromUsing Lagging Indicators to Using Leading Indicators to replicate success?
The words, “best practice” seems to have permeated the corporate world. Your people undoubtedly have their own practices of choice, honed by years of personal experience. Often corporate rewards go to these people rather than to those who demonstrate the “best practices” that everyone can adopt and benefit from.
Essential Questions:
What will your real best practices look like?
How will you tie best practices to behaviors which can be evidenced and replicated without alienating the productive, “lone rangers?”
How will you use your “language of leaders” to make managing easier and more measurable?
7: Rewarding Change
Where you on this continuum fromHistorical & Slow to Related & Responsive when it comes to Rewarding Change?
If the recognition and reward systems of your company run on “legacy,” it will only encourage doing things differently, not “doing different things!” To change, you need to consistently reward the new behaviors, not the “reward legacies” of the past.
Essential Questions:
What proportion of people’s compensation should be tied to adopting the new behaviors?
How will you measure and reward those who support your purpose?
How will you “raise the bar” so that over time people demonstrate excellence in the new behaviors?
Where do you go from here?
Ensure that your “walk and talk” are consistent. This relates to your language, how you reward excellence, how you coach and how you react when things go wrong! Bravery means displaying an attitude of distinction.
Create a cascade of conversation and coaching that gets above the “white noise” of legacy…..that’s doing different things!
Align the expectations of the organization. Bravery is found in exposing misalignments and distractions for immediate correction.
Tip of this Blog
Look at your team/colleagues…whose up for a fight?
He that outlives this day
“He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors, And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’ Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’ Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words”
(William Shakespeare, Henry V part of his speech before the Battle of Agincourt)
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get TCA working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
By Contributing Blogger – Terry Merriman, PCO Associates
Implementing successful and sustainable change is tough, strategic change initiatives fail two-thirds of the time in North American business (Kotter, 1996, and McKinsey, 2009). How can your organization succeed? You can succeed by making change personal! Remember, performance is personal before it is organizational.
Isn’t this a truism, a matter of common business sense?
Since when was common sense common practice! It is common for many leaders to plan their change initiative, communicate it to their leadership team, tell the organization to watch for it, set some goals and measures, and incorporate the goals in their team and department objectives. Then, the change dies and the leadership team wonders why. The answer; the change was never translated into personal action!
If your people don’t embraced change and those in your value chain (including your customers and vendors) it will fail. Why? If your people do not understand the change initiative, buy into it, and integrate it into their daily activities, it will not work. Consequently, planned change and personal action don’t mesh as people are skeptical, don’t understand why, don’t see the need, and don’t know what’s in it for them.
So how do you make change personal?
Define, Communicate, Delegate and Track change related expectations. We usually get the organization’s side of change, define and communicate, pretty well. Where we fail is in putting the personal side of change, communicate, delegate, and track, into play.
Define the change in terms of broad categories of activity to which everyone in the organization can relate, and specific results that benefit the organization and its people.
Communicate the change initiative, and include the message that leadership will be expecting everyone to participate by defining specific expectations of each other necessary to carry out the change.
Communicate More, by focusing on individual working relationships by:
Get each leadership team member identify specific expectations of each other as to what they must do to successfully implement the change. Ensure the expectations are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time and budget bounded, Ethical and Recorded.
Have each leader discuss their expectations of the receiver expected to execute, and ensure each accepts accountability for each other’s expectation. This helps to create a productive relationship and integrate the change into the business at the leadership level.
Delegate by cascading the above process to each leader’s direct reports, peers, and business partners to those teams that are considered key players in the change initiative.
Ensure people delegate not only the responsibility and accountability but also the authority to execute each expectation. In this way people can develop ownership of those expectations other have of them. This step integrates the change throughout the organization as it becomes a part of each person’s work responsibilities and commitments.
Ensure each expectation’s originator is held responsible for assessing the receiver’s ability to meet their expectations and coach them to develop their competence.
Track each expectation’s results. This means each person holding accountable the person who agreed to meeting and reporting progress to an expectation’s completion. So, the Accountability Culture is born. The expectations approach challenges leaders and their direct reports to get personal first perspective and serves to foster improved communications between them.
The Expectations Approachmakes change personal by casacading accountability for implementing change throughout the organization in a way that helps people understand the reasons for and expected results from the change, and buy into it. We’ve found it one of the most effective ways of implementing successful and sustainable change in organizations. The side benefits of this approach are that it improves accountability throughout the organization, and encourages creation and development of productive relationships between people, leading to improved organizational performance.
Where has this approach been used succesfully?
This approach has been successfully employed in Fortune 500 companies and family owned businesses, from new selling strategies to management transitions (See Project Summaries) It has been shown to work in for-profit and non-profit organizations from large to small, and it also works in government organizations (it’s been used in the British Navy by its developer, John Machin).
“Change is Hard and Real Change is Real Hard!” If you want to be successful at change, you have to be prepared to tackle the hard part of change – making it personal.
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
This month’s topic looks at Competitive Differentiation in the Professional Services Sector. This sector typically includes accountants, lawyers, bankers and financial services, like planners etc. All these professionals offer very similar services due in part to regulations, certifications, disintermediation and the power of technology.
Go to any law firm’s web site like Varnum and Clark Hill, or large consulting firms and they look the same. They apparently have the same mouse trap.
Why did you choose your….attorney, accountant, financial planner etc?
So, how do professionals differentiate themselves?
On the basis of their expertise and their ability to develop Trusted Adviserstatus. David Meister asks: What benefits would you obtain if your clients trusted you more? For example, the more they will:
Treat you as you wish to be treated
Lower the level of stress in your interactions
Be comfortable and allow you to be comfortable
Involve you early on when their issues begin to form, rather than later (Open up)Share more information that helps you to help them, and improves the quality of the service you provide
Be inclined to accept and act on your recommendations
Bring you in on more advanced, complex, strategic issues ( Your are in the board room not waiting in the corridor awaiting instructions)
Refer you to their friends and business acquaintances
What characteristics would you look for in selecting your trusted adviser
Here are some of David Meister’s traits that Trusted Advisers have in common. Clients say they:
Make us feel comfortable and casual personally (but take the issues seriously)
Seem to understand us, effortlessly, and like us
Act like a person, not someone in a role
Are reliably on our side, and always seem to have our interests at heart
Don’t try to force things on us
Help us think things through (but emphasize that it’s our decision)
Criticize and correct us gently, lovingly
Don’t pull their punches: we can rely on them to tell us the truth
Are in it for the long haul (the relationship is more important than the current issue)
Give us reasoning (to help us think), not just their conclusions
Give us options, increase our understanding of those options, give us their recommendation and let us choose.
Are always honorable: they don’t gossip about others (we trust their values)
Help us put our issues in context, often through the use of metaphors, stories and anecdotes (they recognize that few problems are completely unique)
You said he listed “traits” as in a person’s character? So for example the adviser who is not honorable can’t be trained to be more honorable, right?
It’s a good point, in last month’s blog I made the distinction. Candidly, Meister’s list is mixture of Competencies and Traits. “So what?” you must be thinking,” I said, “Bottom line, you hire traits and develop competencies! Remember:
Competency : “The ability to do something successfully or efficiently.” ”Having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully:” Trait: “A characteristic or quality of a person.” (They are wired that way
For all intent and purposes professional advisers reading this should focus on what they can learn and develop to be competitive differentiated trusted advisers. But, here is the rub. Developing trust is not well defined. For example, research I did with Linda Marsh into Mortgage Loan Advisers we found that the customers trusted those who used more “Transitional Structuring” WHAT! (Some people call it sign posting). Like,
“We have now covered David’s Trusted Adviser traits and we are now looking at Adviser Competencies…
We and others have identified observable and trainable behaviors that impact those traits that David mentioned like making the client “feel comfortable”. Now, here’s the fundamental point about developing trusted adviser status:
How do you balance helping potential clients feel understood while ensuring they understand the issues and options available?
That’s difficult because if they don’t feel understood they aren’t really going to retain what they are told AND won’t likely see you as a trusted advisor. It takes me back to the most fundamental process of when people make a decision to change. They have to be sufficiently disturbed or concerned about their current condition that they look for a solution that enables them to resolve their negative condition. If Advisors, don’t know how to locate where a client is in this process and help them through at their pace any residual trust will be eroded.
What competencies have you and PDS identified to help develop competitive advisers?
In the world of Professional Services regulations dictate levels of certification – so the expertise playing field is level, for the new client looking for an adviser. So, we at PDS isolate “Competitive Competencies” which:
Make a disproportionate contribution to customer’s perceived value
Are “competitively unique” or superior
Are extendible: providing “gateways to tomorrow’s markets”
The Value of Effective Competencies
Greater objectivity – less biased by the manager’s interpretations of what happened but what actually happened
More Useful – less dependent on the manager’s judgment, more on the Adviser assessment (crucial if they are to learn)
More focus – less overwhelming as it encourages managers to match the feedback to the Adviser’s ability and their willingness to receive it
More quantifiable – greater understanding what of works and what doesn’t under defined conditions and allows people to compare themselves against a standard
More effective – less guess work about how outcomes are achieved. (How you Win and Lose)
It suggests that Advisers needs someone to coach them?
Yes, it is essential. All those firms we have worked with try to get people effective coaching to secure and retain clients from their competition, like, Ernst & Young, who I helped develop their Relationship Management Program, Watson Wyatt, Royal Bank of Canada, JP Morgan Chase
In your experience, what traps do advisory firms fall into?
To put our recent study in context, most professionals we work with love to do a great job. As one senior adviser said to me“I treat my clients as my children…”
But, being a trusted adviser today is not enough. We surveyed advisers to see how they were competitively differentiating themselves. In summary.
1. Most do not truly understand what a competitive Client strategy is.
2. People don’t understand the difference between Competitive Value Discovery and Differentiation.
3. They do not understand the difference between preparation and planning.
4. They do not understand the difference between offense and defense
5. Because any strategic plans were not common amongst the troops, the plan is not maintained or advanced.
Can you explain the difference between Competitive Value Discovery and Differentiation?
Competitive Value Discovery helps you increase value potential. The idea of finding value that Client’s had never thought of before is competitively differentiating. So, we can introduce clients to ideas they may never have thought of and help them see the competition as “not on the ball”. Whether it’s your client or you are trying to secure a new client, they always weigh your value against the competition. What we have more more control over is what they weigh, how they weigh it. Additionally, we need to plant what the competition plants in the client’s mind. Then, we have far better intel and a better sense of the client’s changing priorities to influence their Decision Guidelines both offensely and defensively – Competitive Differentiation.
“Given the same amount of intelligence… timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity” “The best form of defense is attack.” Karl von Clausewitz
What else did you find out?
1. Their language is predominately about reacting to clients’ needs with no language of competitiveness.
2. No sense of doing things in a relational way but with competitive intent.
3. They see the activity of competing as separate from looking after the client.
4. The idea of decision guidelines and working to putting value behind them is a language that is foreign to them.
5. They don’t have a competitively strategic context for their day to day client interactions.
6. Largely, they have a passive position without having a strategy to extend the services they offer outsourcing.
What did you say to them about these findings?
How much profit are you leaving on the table because you are not managing our relationships with competitive intent?
So why are you not purposely discovering client value that will allow us to “Differentiate the Firm?”
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
This the second in my series to help leaders assess their interactive skills. In my last blog I introduced the research based model that led to many useful insights into what the more effective communicators do in different settings and focused on what happens when meetings become imbalanced by getting stuck in too much Initiating, Reacting or Clarifying.
In this blog I want to get readers thinking about getting more productive meetings i.e. generating more commercially viable ideas to compete and improve.
What type of research was involved to develop these models?
I want to focus on two key Initiating Behaviors and their relationship to meeting success, namely
Proposing – putting forward ideas, suggestions courses of action
Building – sounds like a proposal, which extends or develops another person’s proposal
The difference between them is the Proposing is an independent idea and Building must be dependent on another person’s idea.
What I want readers to think about is the proportion of these two behaviors in their meetings at work, church etc. and how it influences meeting outcome.
So, I am assuming that you would need to consider both the quantity and quality of ideas put forward?
That’s an excellent point. The research looked at the sort of Initiating going on and could it be more effective.
The research was based on 23 working teams to see if there was a connection between effective performance and Initiating Behavior. The teams were mostly research and project teams. We established their levels of effectiveness against three criteria:
The number of ideas brought to management’s attention
The number of ideas accepted for implementation
The estimated commercial payoff
The results clearly showed that these three criteria were significantly related to the ratio of proposing and building behavior. The more building, the better the performance
Sounds like “Building is a good thing!”
Unfortunately, like so many simple conclusions it is only partly true.Studies of other groups that were efficient and effective used no building at all.
Why should it prove to be a strong predictor in some situations and not others?
It puzzled us until we started to look at how a group deals with ideas. Groups seemed to take two very different approaches by either focusing on Proposing or Building.
We first looked at groups that were very much higher in Proposing Behavior and used little if any Building. Here’s a typical sequence
First person puts forward the first idea (P1)
Others don’t like it and it gets rejected (DS)
On the next agenda item another idea is put forward and then countered by another person.(P2/P3)
The second and third ideas are considered and the group likes the third idea.(P3 +SP)
A change of topic and another idea is not fully accepted e.g. buy five machines gets reduced to 3 machines.(P4> p4)
So, What’s happening to how this group handles ideas?
It sounds like ideas would not be fully considered before being either accepted or rejected?
That could be true if the ideas were complex and impactful. But your description is accurate, this group either filters or reduces the number of proposals – FILTER MEETING
Because of the low level of building, proposals are not develop by others. They are either accepted, rejected or reduced.
Too many people think that all meetings should focus on building on each others’ ideas. However, Filter meetings can be incredibly efficient and effective where management has too many ideas already and needs to pare down and get focus on doing something.
So, how do you judge when a filter meeting is not the right way to go in handling ideas?
Essentially it comes down to four negative impacts:
1. Ownership and the Win-Lose Problem
Defensive – clinging to own ideas and not listening
with politicking occurring before, during and after the meeting.
2. Lack of Integration
3. Lack of Commitment and Motivation
4. Problem of Self-Reinforcement – filtering gets ingrained into regular meetings.
In fact, in one case study a group was observed over six meetings. In meeting 1, there were 24 Proposals (PR’s) to 20 Building (BU’s) but by meeting 6, Proposals were up to 39 with no Building!
It illustrated for us why there are so many Filter meetings in commercial life and so few meetings with High Building Behaviors. Such meetings which are high on Building and low on Proposing deal with Initiating very differently. The Key is that several people contributed to the final idea by Building on one another’s proposal – so an idea was AMPLIFIED – Thus we use the term Amplifier Meeting
I think I would rather be in that sort of meeting, what did participants say differently from those in the Filter Meetings?
Well, the impact on participants is very different.
1. There’s a sense of excitement. In Filter meeting the range of possibilities is known before the meeting and the outcome if often predictable. Whereas in an Amplifier Meeting outcome are frequently unexpected and ideas are developed dynamically.
2. There is increased commitment to action. “It’s our idea!”
3. There is increased quality as ideas are more full bodied and thought through as they harness all the group’s resources.
How did they judge quality of ideas?
There was a panel of independent judge’s assessed the commercial viability of ideas. They found that in Amplifier Groups there were over twice as many high quality ideas as in the Filter Group.
Of course Amplifier meeting do take more time and a lack of structure
How do you get out of the Filter Rut and get an Amplifier Meeting going?
Well, what I do, which seems to work most of the time:
1. Choose an issue where nobody has fixed preconceptions
2. Give no advanced warning or agenda of the issue
3. Stop the Meeting after the first proposal
4. Encourage Building
5. Dealing with Criticism
6. Not moving on too soon
How do you know when you have a Filter vs. Amplifier Meeting?
It turns out that comes down to ratios of Proposing to Building Behaviors. When you find there are two proposals for each Build(2:1+ PR:BU) it identifies an Amplifier Meeting. Whereas when Proposals to Building Ratio is (4+:1 PR:BU) you have a Filter Meeting
In their research how frequently do the different meetings occur?
Out of 312 meetings observed:
78% Filter
4% Amplifier
18% Neither one or the other
Overall, we questioned the need for more Amplifier meetings. At a perceptual level, post meeting questionnaires revealed that:
Filter meetings were perceived as:
Efficient
Competitive
Organized
Amplifier Meetings were perceived as:
Creative
Exciting
Participative
Useful
Committed to meeting outcome
Better Quality of Decisions
So, How do you decide when to have a Filter or Amplifier Meeting?
Filter is on
A Filter Meeting is needed when you:
1. Need to reduce the many choices for action available
2. Have to work to tight time constraints
3. Do not need individual commitment for successful implementation
An Amplifier Meeting is needed when you:
1. Need to create solutions where no predetermined alternatives exist
2. Need individual Commitment for success
3. Need high quality solutions
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
During the last 6 months I have been coaching different professionals in how to reduce project costs and delays. This got me thinking about the last few blogs. The theme has been Aligning People for Change– coping with the economic turbulence we live in today. So, I got to thinking about practical tools that most leaders can use to “Talk Their Talk”. When there is a lot of uncertainty and turbulence leaders need to “up their game” by communicating better and more effectively.
This is the start of a series on developing leaders behavioral Skills. It is based on my 11 years with Huthwaite Research Group where we used research based models to develop groups and leaders effective communication skills including:
Developing effective solutions
Negotiating
Selling
Facilitating
In this Blog, I want to start with a core leadership skill – Developing Commercially Viable Ideas in Meetings
What type of research was involved to develop these models?
All these models and subsequent research projects are based on a large scale research project in the late 60’s
(Warr, P. B., Bird, M. and Rackham, N., The Evaluation of Management Training, Gower, 1970, Rackham, N. and Morgan, T., Behaviour Analysis in Training, McGraw-Hill, 1977. Rackham, N. et al., Developing Interactive Skills, Wellens, 1971.) to develop a truly descriptive and useful system for classifying
behavior. This long and tedious process considered many potential categories. The researchers finally concluded that a practical list of categories could be produced if the selected behaviors met 5 basics criteria. They were:
1. Measured accurately
2. Easy to understand
3. Distinct from other categories
4. Change how often it is used
5. Related to effective performance
What sort of things did they come up with?
Initiating
Initiating behaviors are proposals or suggestions to the group that call for action. After all, a discussion has got to start somewhere. New proposals and an addition to a proposal are both examples of initiating. There are two initiating behaviors: Proposing and Building.
Proposing brings forth a new suggestion, proposal, or course of action (e.g.“I suggest that we organize the project into five modules.”.
Buildingtakes the form of a proposal, but actually extends or further develops a proposal made by another person (e.g.“…and your plan would be even better if we added a scroll bar at the edge of the window.”)
Since initial proposals are often not the final solution, building is effective in producing an alternative or revised plan.
Reacting
The Blame Game
Reacting behaviors involve the affirmation of or objection to a person, his/her opinions, or an issue. There are three reacting behaviors: Supporting, Disagreeing, and Defending/Attacking.
Supporting is a behavior that makes a conscious and direct declaration of agreement with or supports for another person, or his/her concepts and opinions (e.g. “I like Sandra’s idea best “or “This sounds good”). Generally, this behavior builds cohesion and momentum.
Disagreeing is the direct objection to another person’s opinions or ideas. Disagreeing is an issue-oriented behavior (e.g. “Your third point is counter to regulation 10.3.3…”or “What you’re suggesting just won’t work as the impeller will overheat“). This behavior is normal in a discussion and needed to use the full resources of the group to get to an effective idea.
.Defending/Attackingentails attacking a person directly or by acting defensively. This behavior is people-oriented, and involves value judgments and emotional overtones (i.e. “That’s stupid!”or“Don’t blame me; it’s not my fault. It’s John’s responsibility.”). Defending and Attacking will only bring unhappiness and plenty of tension to the group. There are better ways of handling a discussion. If you are being verbally attacked, try not to play into the instigator’s hands by shouting back. Instead try to speak rationally and direct the discussion to the issue at hand rather than playing the “Blame Game”.
Clarifying
Clarifying behaviors attempt to clarify an individual’s or group’s understanding of the issues. Exchanging information and summarizing are involved in clarification. There are four behaviors;
Testing Understanding,
Summarizing,
Seeking Information,
Giving Information.
Testing Understanding seeks to establish whether or not an earlier contribution has been understood by the individual. It differs from seeking information in that it is an attempt to ensure agreement or consensus of some kind, and refers to a prior question or issue (i.e. “Can I take it that we all now agree on our tasks assignments for this week?”).This behavior is similar to Summarizing, but takes the form of a question.
Summarizing restates the content of previous discussions or events in a compact form. This behavior can be useful to ensure that the entire group is up to date with events that have transpired (e.g. “So far we have agreed that John will finish module A, while Maria and I begin module B.”).This will insure that you and the rest of the group have a clear understanding…
Seeking Informationseeks facts, opinions, or clarification from another person pertaining to a proposal (i.e. “Can anyone tell me which page this is on?”and “What test routine will you use?”). This behavior ensures that you are up to date with the topic of discussion. If you have questions, ask them as soon as possible (i.e. don’t leave questions until the night before the project is due).
Giving Information offers facts, opinions or clarification to a proposal (e.g. “The new system is easier to operate.” and “I’m worried about missing the deadline.”). Feedback is always appreciated even if it is not always positive.
Process Behaviors
Process behaviors entail the obstruction of or opening up of the discussion process to group members. Bringing Inand Shutting Outare the two behaviors that constitute Process Behaviors.
Bringing In invites views or opinions from a member of the group who is not actively participating in the discussion (i.e. “Lee, what is your opinion on the layout of the User’s Manual?”). This behavior may introduce some refreshing new ideas from a shy or reserved team member.
Shutting Out excludes another person or reduces their opportunity to contribute. Interruption is the most common form of shutting out (e.g. “David, what do you think?”Eric replies: “I think…”— Eric has interrupted David and shut him out of the conversation). This behavior may seem harmless, but if it occurs too much it can be felt as disrespectful and can deny others the opportunity to contribute to the discussion.
How was this research used to in finding better ways to run meetings?
It turns out effective meetings showed that all three main behavior groups were present in a balanced way. They found that once a group became locked into using one or two of these major classes the results they produced were impaired. Here are some Case Studies
Meeting Case Studies
Here are some groups and their meetings that were either high or low in Initiating, Reacting or Clarifying?
High on Initiating
Too many ideas and ideas to handle
Lack of attention to detail – “up in the clouds” feeling
Group Case – Research team in Chemical Industry
Problem– On surface seemed very creative, innumerable ideas. Management asked for reducing severe dust problems in one of their plants. First meeting came up with 14 viable methods. As this was urgent they reported – Production Director said “OK,which one?” After 5 subsequent meetings they had not reached a decision and generated 6 new ideas!!!
High on Reacting
Becomes emotional
Misunderstandings become more frequent
People take sides – entrenched
Group Case: Shop Stewards in Manufacturing
Problem – Coping with changes in the economic climate. Management started taking a more consultative approach by letting people in advance of potential change. Previously they reacted to Management proposals e.g. wages, benefits etc. They couldn’t get out their traditional mold. They left Initiating to management and were low in clarifying which led to more misunderstandings and became more emotional.
High on Clarifying
Very time consuming
Obsession with minor details
Feels like “swimming in syrup”
Group Case – British Civil Servants
Problem – They became bogged down in the meaning of the meaning. Consequently, 90% behavior was clarifying. Their Initiating Behaviors was
so low that they became stuck in minor detail. This was
Booged Down
compounded by low levels of reacting behavior so no one knew who supported or disagreed with other group members.
That’s the high side of the problem, what happens when you get groups that are low on these three areas?
Low on Initiating
Backward looking
Lack of enthusiasm
Undue attention to detailed analysis
Group Case: Production Control Committee in the Engineering Industry.
Problem: Representatives from Production, QC, Maintenance, Industrial Engineering and Production Planning had jobs which overlapped so that when problems came up there were disputes as to who was blame.
“We seem to be very good at dissecting situations and finding who is to blame. Perhaps we should be spending some time finding ways to prevent things occurring in the first place”
Low on Reacting
Tendency for Repetition
People withhold important information
Awkward and forced
Group Case: Systems Analysts presenting proposals to a group of staff members
Problem: The Systems Analysts came up with lots of proposals for change i.e. High Initiating. As a result Staff became nervous about these proposals and heightened by their use of technical jargon. So they were high in Clarifying and did not make any commitments. The Analysts Reacting already low levels dropped and gave more detail i.e. they were classic Low Reactors so the confusion continued. This is typical of specialists meeting decision makers and most know the discomfort of presenting to decision makers
Low Clarifying
Meeting becomes disorganized
Hasty decisions are made
People cannot agree afterwards on what has been decided
Group: New York Advertising Agency
Problem: This active & dynamic group responded to a client brief with everyone talking at once. There were loads of ideas, plenty of excitement and enthusiasm i.e. extremely high Initiating Behaviors. Also, they were high in Reacting Behaviors with a chorus of approval or disapproval and consequently very low Clarifying Behaviors. So confusion reigned. At the end they were asked to write what had been agreed. There were no two versions that were the same. Later further research showed people leaving a meeting could have an average of 5 misunderstandings per person.
What can we learn from these case studies in terms of where we are in this recession?
Leaders know that meetings are inherently expensive and today there isn’t time to tolerate the sort of problems illustrated. Leaders need to hold themselves accountable to managing meetings so that;
1. Initiating, Reacting and Clarifying Behaviors must be present and balanced if meetings are to be successful.
2. They are alert to the impact of High or Low Reacting seriously impairs productivity
3. They recognize that different meetings have very different needs, so what works for problem diagnosis will not work for evaluating a production plan
4. Some Meetings need to be high on one of the three – although you need to be cautious of High Clarifying. Leaders have to question if a meeting is the most productive use of meeting where there is High – Information Exchange
In the rest of the series we will cover specific skills that help leaders achieve these goals
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
To Buy a Copy of Focusing Change To Win: 
thinking where 
How do you balance helping potential clients feel understood while ensuring they understand the issues and options available?
havior. This long and tedious process considered many potential categories. The researchers finally concluded that a practical list of categories could be produced if the selected behaviors met 5 basics criteria. They were:
Process behaviors entail the obstruction of or opening up of the discussion process to group members. 
The Crispian Advantage 