Guarding the Gates of Organizational Improvement
With so many change agents, change initiatives, and transformational changes, swarming the marketplace, clearly a lot is changing in business—or is it? In actuality, what makes organizational change a challenge is all that surrounds it, not the change itself. So let’s cover how change initiatives in organizations get stuck and what to do about it by addressing the ogres (obstacles) guarding the gates to organizational improvement.
The following five drooling and slimy ogres impede organizational improvement. Once you, fellow executive or CEO, know of and are aware of the ogres, you can improve your organization’s performance. You also know what awaits you.
Be honest with yourself as you read this article. See where and to what degree these ogres exist for you and your organization. Actively read the article and get personal value from it. If you find yourself getting defensive, just let it go and face the facts and reality. Be in the moment. Very Zen…
Ogre #1: Fear
People who have never been held accountable are scared of accountability. In most organizations, people are assigned accountability for activities or to oversee activities rather than being assigned accountability for results. Additionally, most people hold themselves accountable for activities not results.
When people are accountable for results, they have to deliver. If they do not, they are failing at their job, and there are consequences, real or perceived. Only a small percentage of people who comprise the workforce have this kind of accountability. For example, commissioned sales people; commissioned sales people cannot feed their families if they do not sell and attain their quotas.
I assert that people, business owners and managers included, resist accountability because they fear not being able to produce the desired results. They fear that they will fail, look bad and have to deal with the consequences. Fear of accountability causes real obstacles for an organization’s ability to improve performance.
Accountability causes terror. However on the other side of terror is freedom. If you are accountable you do not spend time blaming or justifying. You can focus and engage in creating results by looking at what steps you need to take to produce the desired result.
Ogre #2: Comfort
Above all, most people just want to be comfortable. People like things to stay the same, even the things they do not much care for (an astounding phenomenon). Now, imagine how it is at work. You get used to your job; you have a certain routine and you feel good about what you do. Then along comes somebody who says, “we are going to do things differently around here. We are going to ensure that everybody has measurable goals that they will be accountable to accomplish.” It is a double hit: This change agent threatens your world and your ability to succeed. Many people at work just wish to be left alone to do the job they know how to do.
Resistance to change comes from simply not wanting to adjust to something new. This resistance often blocks willingness to listen to why the change needs to happen. For many people, their first reaction to any change, big or small, is to be annoyed.
The way out of the box is to first understand that you are totally in the box. Being comfortable with a routine is a very human phenomenon. We resist being uncomfortable. The way out is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Again very Zen. We like it!
Ogre #3: Broken Promises
People do not keep their promises. Do you find yourself protesting, “I keep my promises!” Then you are typical and part of the majority who think that. We challenge you to spend a week recording all the promises you make, big and small, and see if, in fact, you keep them all. You do not have to say. “I promise” for it to be a promise; just say, “I will” or “okay” to a request. If you say you are going to do something it is a promise.
Most of us believe we are “good” people and we keep our promises. The problem is, as long as we believe we keep our promises, we do not recognize that we do not. And if we do not recognize that we do not keep our promises, then the chance of getting better at keeping promises and doing what we said we are going to do is slim and limited. Getting better at making and keeping our promises is essential to improving organizational performance.
Ogre#4: Language
The language of improving organization performance gets in the way. Almost all of the words associated with performance improvement have negative connotations. We already addressed accountability, which (to many people) means “somebody is going to beat me over the head if I do not do what I was told to do.” Even worse, for many people, the phrase “holding people accountable” means “we are not going to be able to easily get away with stuff.”
We do not need to change the actual words; rather, we need to redefine their context. The language of performance improvement needs to relate to accomplishing the organization’s vision, initiatives and goals. The opportunity is to shift the context of being a victim and powerless in an organization to one of being a partner and empowered in the organization. We assert that organizations like Southwest Airlines, Google, Apple and Zappos have done this.
Ogre #5: Drift
Organizational drift aids in avoiding discomfort and repeating history. Most people call it “culture,” but we call it “drift.” What is “drift”? Imagine that you are swimming in a river and stop to float; what direction your body will move in? The direction of the current of course! You will “drift” away. It is the same with organizations. They all have their own drift, which is “how things work around here.”
The tendency in organizations is to maintain the status quo; drift maintains the status quo. In most organizations drift is very strong. There is a “no change here” attitude. If you try to change things, it helps to know that this ogre will rear its ugly head and will eat you if it can. Now there is a visual.
Handle the drift as if you were trapped in a canoe grabbed by a rip tide and being pulled out to sea. Grab a paddle and then begin to paddle at an angle, not directly against the tide, so that eventually you can break free.
When dealing with the drift of an organization adopt a similar strategy. Honor the drift and at the same time introduce strong corporate initiatives that will allow the organization to lay new track and move in a new direction. Examples of these kinds of initiatives would be serious adoption of lean manufacturing, breakthrough business planning or adoption of the Keyne Method of dramatically improving organizational performance.
Five Ogres—now what?
When you take on improving organizational performance, you have to know that these drooling, slobbering ogres are at work. If you fail to do so, you will run into unanticipated resistance. Consider this example: A CEO who wants to improve organizational performance decides to run her decision by her leadership team. We can pretty much guarantee that will be the end of it.
Why? Because at least some people on her leadership team are going to nix the idea. These people have sway and credibility. They will say something that sounds intelligent, like, “Our way works. We have tried these kinds of change and improvement interventions before and they do not stick.” Or, “We have enough to do without getting into another initiative that supposedly improves performance but only worsens the situation because it is one more thing to do. I do not know about anybody else, but I, for one, do not have the time for this.”
If you, fellow executive and CEO, are aware that you will disturb the sleeping ogres, you must decide not to run the idea by your team first. At the very least, trust your intuition and be convinced that even in the face of resistance, this is the way forward. AS leader, you need the vision, intuition, courage and commitment to make the decision alone and to move forward. Then you can figure out how to get your team on board.
Improving and transforming the performance of your organization is not for the faint of heart. The type of organizational transformation that we are describing requires senior leaders that understand they are ultimately accountable for the success of the enterprise.
It is a terrific idea to empower your team and to involve them as much as you can in the decisions that you make. There are just some decisions that you cannot make by going to the team and discussing them. The decision to go forward with implementing real gut wrenching transformational organizational improvement is one of them. Responsibility, comfort, language, broken promises and drift—all of these ogres will stand in your way.
Angel # 1: Performance Improvement
There is good news. The age of performance improvement is upon us! Intelligent and systematic performance improvement plans are being created and implemented with real results. The signs are there. Three Laws of Performance by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Switch by the Heath brothers outline some of these ideas and possibilities.
In the past, when speaking to an executive and/or CEO about dramatically transforming organizational performance, one might just as well have been talking about space aliens. Now, organizational change gets people’s attention. More and more performance improvement and transformation systems are appearing.
We are reading the writing on the wall here—this age is upon us. This angel will trump the ogres every time! Mark my words. Knowing about the ogres gives you power in dealing with the Ogres. Being in the age of organizational change empowers. Organizational change game on…
