Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Roots Of Interpersonal Conflict: Poor Process Turns Good People Into Enemies

T
he scene still sticks in my mind.  I was working with a company that had field and headquarters groups locked in what seemed like intractable conflict.  I was individually interviewing members of each group in a small, windowless conference room.  When it was their turn, I asked each one what the nature of the conflict was and what they thought was causing it.  I took careful notes.
After relating some predictable complaints about never having enough time or information, one interviewee, a young home office staffer, had the courage to say what was really on her mind.
“Look, the problem is that Marian [one of the field people] isn’t very nice,” said the honest soul.  “She’s a lot older than us, she doesn’t understand the database we use, doesn’t learn no matter how many time s we tell her, and she thinks we are all too young and inexperienced.  Basically, she looks down on us.”
“Really?”  I said.  “If there was someone else in the field besides Marian, you wouldn’t have the problems you mentioned?  It’s all about her?”
“Mostly, yes,” was the reply.

Was It All About Marian?

Eventually, I got a chance to have a heart-to-heart talk with Marian.  She was a veteran salesperson, who worked fairly independently, had an earlier career as a high school teacher, and was a very determined woman.
“I’m dealing with people who don’t understand the pressures I’m under, what my priorities are and what I need to do my job. They are typical inward-looking home office wonders.  This time around, they’re pretty green and concerned with making no mistakes from their end.  They point fingers at me all the time for asking them to fix problems I think they should fix.  Of course, they say it isn’t their job.  They have created a database that is impossible to work with.  They’re ridiculous.”
Perfect, I thought after I had heard from almost everyone.  Two groups who didn’t like each other.  In fact, they blamed each other for all sorts of problems.  What a delicious opportunity to give both sides a lesson in human reactions to organizational flaws.
I knew from experience that the trigger to interpersonal conflict like this is often the word “blame”.  “I blame him for making us miss our deadline.”  “He’s to blame because he just doesn’t care.”  “Who can work with people like that?   Blame them, not me.”  When I hear blame, I know the path to the solution with a high degree of certainty.

Follow The Blame

When individuals start blaming others, it is a sure sign that, most likely, there is something wrong, not with the people, but with the performance system they are working in.  Why? You have to begin by believing that most people, given the right tools and resources, direction and clarity, will do--and really want to do--a good job.  Remember the kind of best intentions they had on their first day of work? Almost everyone starts there.
In fact, think back on an interpersonal conflict you might have experienced with a an employee or one you observed as a co-worker.  Notice that most people—with a small number of obvious exceptions—don’t come to work with built-in conflicts with others, ready to be unleashed on their co-workers or bosses.  No, instead, the system creates disappointment for the worker that leads to the performance shortfall that results in blame.  So, the trajectory that results in people being blamed or in co-workers developing unproductive behaviors and attitudes usually starts when a well-intentioned worker finds the system he or she is working is has a built in frustration or flaw and that flaw is not immediately fixable.
For example, imagine an eager new employee who is being asked to perform a particular task, say, testing chemicals in a production process.  Things go fine as long as the testing process is exactly like the one the manager demonstrated.  However, when the manager goes to a two-day conference and the production process changes, the testing procedure soon presents challenges that go beyond the new employee’s inchoate level of skill.  When the manager returns to find many batches incorrectly rejected, the new employee gets—worst case—chewed out for making so many mistakes.  “I thought you knew how to do this.”  “I wasn’t sure about how to do the procedure with the new chemical.”  “You should have looked it up.”  “Where?”  “In the manual. What’s the matter with you?” “What manual?”

Planting Emotional Seeds

And so it goes. Now, the new employee goes home with a notch or two less enthusiasm for the job.  “My boss should have told me.”  The manager thinks she will have to keep a close watch on the new employee because, well, he has slipped up. Both sides have the seeds planted for a blame-filled future.  Add a few more incidents where the new employee doesn’t perform and blames the manager, and the manager becomes frustrated with the once-engaged employee, and you have a perfect storm of interpersonal conflict.  No longer eager, the hurt employee could—depending on that person—snipe behind the manager’s back, look for excuses, cut corners.  You know what happens next.  The animosity grows and pretty soon people really are starting to hurt each other.  All of this unfolding because the boss didn’t tell the new person where the manual was!

Performance System Failure

What fails when performance doesn’t meet expectations is the performance system that surrounds the employee.  Blame that for not working, not the people.  The good news is that the performance system can be fixed, sometimes very easily, without much cost or effort.
I always start the fixing phase by getting the antagonists in the same room.  The ground rules are that we are looking for what has failed, and our premise is that it isn’t the people.  Then, I ask them to name the kinds of processes that link them together, and I list these on a flip chart.  In the case of the home office-field situation, there was a sales process, a reporting process, and some information exchange processes.  We start with a single process and go through it step by step.  What happens first, then what, what do you do next.  At each step along the way, I probe to see what might have failed. It is usually one of the following:
  • The tools (forms, systems, manuals) are not working effectively, are out of date or unavailable/inaccessible.
·       People aren’t sure of the process—it hasn’t been mutually defined.  Or, the process leaves out important steps.  People are working with an inadequate procedure.
·       There is a skill deficiency—a person hasn’t been taught properly or isn’t current. They haven’t been trained or educated to proficiency in the skill.  Or, they haven’t done the skill in a long time.
·       The resources in the environment are insufficient—unrealistic time or budget, inadequate facilities, poor lighting, uncomfortable and insensitive human factors (no privacy, ambiance)
·       There are often no consequences for near-miss, off-standard performance. People learn to perform to a sub-standard, rather than the high standard required. The person doesn’t receive clear feedback that would improve, correct and raise performance. People aren’t involved in discussions about how to achieve higher results.
·       Expectations for performance—standards and quality—have not been communicated to the performer by anyone, particularly the manager, and they don’t get regular feedback on their performance—corrective as well as rewards. The performer doesn’t know what good looks like.
A flaw in any one of these components of the performance system can cause both the outcomes and the work process to fail.  In my experience, the sources of problems that come up most frequently as the cause of interpersonal conflicts are—way down at the root cause level--inadequately defined processes and poor tools provided.

Blame Poor Process and Tools

This becomes crystal clear when you ask both parties involved in a conflict if they are getting what they need to do their work at each step in the process.  For example, one party is not getting information they need because the form being used by the other person providing the information asks for too much data, most of which isn’t available in a timely manner.  So, the person filling out the form waits until the information is complete, then sends the form.  The person who needs the information is angry because it is late, blaming the provider.
If instead of this reaction, both parties could take an objective look at what is happening, they would see the problem was the work form.  The answer is simple: re-design the form, make it two-parts with urgent information coming first and the late-breaking information second.  When the source of the conflict becomes apparent, and both parties are involved in fixing it, the conflict is over.
What can you take away from this short discourse on interpersonal conflict?
·       Conflict between people is very often rooted in a flawed performance system which links their work together.
·       Blame is a sure sign the system is broken.  Usually, most of the time, people aren’t the cause.  However, it seems to be human nature to blame people first. Beware.
·       Blame escalates into performance problems of all kinds. The result is disgruntled workers and, eventually, customer-service issues.  Interpersonal conflict may go well beyond the initial cause and lead to person to person enmity.  Objectively finding the true root cause may be difficult if it’s gone that far.
·       The solutions to interpersonal conflict come through the process of closely reviewing procedures.  Can each party articulate what has to be done?  Does the process make sense? Do they have the tools and skills to do it well?  Do they know what is expected? Does sub-performance pass as adequate?
Bottom line: It is a leader’s job to know this. People who work together to resolve their issues with each other in this way wind up changing their perceptions of and attitudes about each other.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Delegation--The Second Skill: Not My Monkey

As regular visitors to singularitymanagerzine.blogspot.com have come to know, there is research that suggests that feedback is the single most important skill for a manager to master and practice.  The benefits are many:  clarity, performance improvement, a sense of openness, fairness, motivation.  From our work with many managers over the past year, we have come to value the second most important manager skill.  It has to do with getting rid of monkeys.

We received a call from a far-flung reader with a monkey problem. He had three direct reports who were managers themselves.  Each had some heavy new responsibilities that had been spread around to remaining managers after a series of lay-offs.  Turns out, they were not shy about getting him involved with their work. “Can you please review this before I send it out?” was a typical request. “I’ve got a problem. Here’s what happens” was another. Pretty soon, their work became his work, and his time was not his own.

What is happening here is a classic back and forth game of who has responsibility.  The subordinate puts the “monkey”—the responsibility-- on the manager when he/she asks for a review or when the boss is asked to solve a problem.  When a manger picks up the monkey from a direct report, he or she is literally working for the subordinate.  The manager’s time is being taken up by a subordinate’s work.  Something is wrong with this picture

That Awful Buzzword

 William Oncke, Jr., and Donald Wass wrote a landmark article for the Harvard Business Review that should be tacked on every manager’s cubicle wall. “Who’s Got The Monkey?” (HBR, November-December 1974) is a tale of delegation gone wrong.  

The idea of delegation is to give responsibility to direct reports without having that responsibility come back to the manager.  That’s the essence of empowerment, that awful buzz word.  Taking on that responsibility may take some learning on the part of the subordinate, even some risk taking and hand holding.  But that’s where the responsibility has to stay.  Of course, the manager is still there for advice and help with the proviso that the monkey stays on the direct report’s back.  Such is the nature of effective delegation.

Distortions in Delegation

 Obviously, when people are new to work responsibilities, they are going to need some level of direction and guidance.  You’d think that would be a given, but there seems to be a range of approaches to how that is done in the real world of work. 

For example, we know some managers who embrace a “sink or swim” approach; definitely no monkeys here.  Part of their rationale is that new people need to struggle with the organizational way of doing things, and, in the process, create a network as well as some independence.  The problem with that is time to proficiency can be long, errors can get baked into a new person’s approach, the delegatee can become frustrated and may become a performance problem later on.  Besides, the final results of sink or swim will probably conflict with the boss’ expectations. 

Another delegation model is related to sink or swim:  “Bring me a rock, I will tell you when you’ve got the right one”.  That means the manager asks the new person to “try it” without specifying what success looks like.  What comes back is an approximation of what was wanted, the task winds up being done several times.  The boss’ rationale may be because he/she doesn’t know him/herself what is wanted or hasn’t been mindful enough to articulate the kind of outcome needed.  Or, he/she is just too busy, or it isn’t a priority, or he/she assumes that everyone should know how to do this, etc.

Of course, when the opposite approach to these hands-off methods is used, the delegatee unconsciously shifts the task to the boss because of insecurity, lack of confidence, or fear, and the boss winds up doing most it.  This is the monkey transfer problem.  When it’s all over, the boss thinks “I should have done this myself to begin with”.  So, the boss loses confidence in delegation as a management tool, and the new person has learned to become dependent--a "leaning learner".  Eventually, the boss goes home later and later, wondering why he/she is doing someone else’s job.


Be Monkey-Free, But Still Effective As A Delegator


Our work with managers has revealed four basic considerations in delegating well. Try these to keep the monkeys off your back.

Pick the right task to delegate.  If the task has vague objectives, uncertain
process, the need to work with an adversarial group, and a relatively high risk of failure, pass on delegation. Or at least, be prepared to become highly involved.

Provide the delegatee with just the right amount of direction.  An inexperienced person needs more guidance than a veteran. In addition to knowing the objective, tell the neophyte what to do and how to do it.  If you did that to a person who is experienced in a particular task, it would come across as micro managing.  Very Dilbert.

Plan your involvement. This is where you create some guidelines about what your role will be vis-à-vis the delegated task.  Progress reviews, access for advice and support, help in opening doors, etc., should all be spelled out.

Monkey rules.  Establish the ground rule that the person being delegated to has responsibility for execution, that you, the manager, are available as defined, and that monkeys are non-transferable.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Importance of Being Real: The Abilene Paradox

It is a scorching, dusty July day in Coleman, Texas. Four people are waiting out the heat, sipping lemonade in the shade of a farmhouse porch. At one point, someone suggests they drive to Abilene, 53 miles away, to have a bite in a cafeteria there.

The others think it’s a crazy idea, but they say nothing and go along. They drive all the way to Abilene in a non-air-conditioned car through a dust storm, have a mediocre meal and drive back to Coleman hours later, tired, hot and unhappy.

When they return home, they reveal that they didn’t want to go in the first place but did because they thought the others were eager for the drive.

Of course, this gap in communication was someone else’s fault.

Here we have the Abilene Paradox, a phenomenon of group dynamics first identified by Jerry Harvey of George Washington University in 1974. The paradox is that people go along with a bad decision, knowing full well that it was a bad decision in the first place. The result is the complete opposite of what was intended at the outset: half-baked support, uninspired ideas, and wasted time and money on results that fall short of expectations.

On The Road To Abilene

We’ve all experienced the Abilene Paradox, especially in decision-making meetings. We struggle to make a decision, come to an agreement only to find, in our heart of hearts, that we did so only because of what we assumed about the desires and opinions of others.

If you’ve said to yourself in those situations, “Who cares; it’ll be okay whatever we decide,” or “Guess I’ll go with the flow,” you are on your way to Abilene. We assume the others really do want to go to Abilene, even though we don’t, but we agree to go anyway. And, if each individual has the same misguided assumptions, then the action is something that no one wants. We agree as a group, but as individuals, we have regrets. One can say this is an absurd situation.

Why do people actually support things that go against what they desire? What happened to the outspoken individual with ideas to contribute and concepts to roll around in? A rare bird in groups.

According to Harvey, in group settings, expressing your real beliefs creates some degree of anxiety. Should you maintain your own integrity and self-worth by speaking your mind, or do you compromise your values and go with what you think is the consensus?

The anxiety comes from the magical belief that something disastrous will happen to you if you do reveal your real thoughts. “Oh, I’ll get fired if I do that. I’ll get labeled a maverick. I’ll look like a fool. I’ll be unlikable.” Since you believe those things will happen if you speak your true mind, you wind up not being honest about what you really think. These magical consequences provide an excuse for being quiet.

And what do those magical and negative consequences represent? Alienation, separation, ostracism; these are powerful, underlying fears, so powerful that we will act against our own interest to avoid the risk of not being “part” of something.  Of course, doing so winds you up in Abilene.

When Compromise Becomes Unhealthy, You Are Heading Down the Road

But isn’t compromise part of work life?  Don’t we go against our own interests when we agree to go along?  In her new book, The Compromise Trap, Elizabeth Doty draws a line between healthy compromise that is necessary for accomplishing goals and unhealthy compromises that betray beliefs and values.  When unhealthy compromises pile up, the conflict inside your head can cause stress and many trips to Abilene (as well as the very alienation, separation or ostracism you feared in the first place!)

Her approach is to recognize when you are pressured to play by rules that undermine your beliefs and/or common sense, and play a different game by being true to yourself, no matter how difficult the circumstances. The key to playing this different game is to question your assumptions.  Is this decision really in the group’s interest? Are others committed to this or just feeling pressed to go along? What are the costs to me if I go along, including the costs to my self-respect and others’ ability to trust me? And finally, will I really get fired, ostracized, or marginalized if I focus on helping the group reach its goals?

In her book, Elizabeth shows numerous examples of professionals who questioned their assumptions and discovered the consequences of speaking up were not as bad as they first appeared, at least not in comparison to dust and heat of Abilene.

So, how do you know your team is on the road to Abilene? Here are some indicators:

Soft and ambiguous language. Is vagueness and opacity on the agenda versus clear and descriptive words? Vagueness leads to low comprehension that leads to uncertainty about how to react.  Collateralized Debt Obligations, anyone?

Missed opportunities. Do people come out of meetings saying something like, “What I really wanted to say was…?” We individually and privately have a completely different opinion than the one we expressed in the team.

No fun. Are meetings are formal, serious, procedural and somewhat intimidating? Is there any room at all for spontaneity of expression?

Authority plays. Beware the authority figure who subtlety deflects ideas, inserts his/her own preferences, and uses forceful language to press home points with no repartee from the group.

Looking for a scapegoat. We were all in on the crummy decision; we are all to blame. Under those circumstances, it’s not a good sign to be placing blame. That’s a sign you’ve been to and maybe are still in Abilene.

Low involvement. Are there people in the meeting who do not contribute? Why?

Low questioning and probing. What’s the ratio of question asking to contributing ideas?

Awareness of process. Do people realize they are producing agreements that no one really wants?

The point is that you need to step in with your true point of view, whatever it is. To get people to listen, be diplomatic, choose your words carefully and back up your thoughts with logic and data. People won’t listen to ideas being forced on them.

We Visit Abilene Too Often

Unfortunately, the Abilene Paradox plays itself out in real life situations where ersatz decision-making has severe consequences. One well-publicized example was the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Here is what a CIA officer wrote about the final stages of the decision-making process.

“It is hard to believe in retrospect that the president and his advisers felt the plans for a large-scale, complicated military operation that had been ongoing for more than a year could be reworked in four days and still offer a high likelihood of success. It is equally amazing that we in the agency agreed so readily.”

For more information about the Abilene Paradox, see The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations On Management by Jerry Harvey.  For more on unhealthy compromises, see The Compromise Trap by Elizabeth Doty.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

What Leaders Do: A Field Guide To Basic Leadership

Want to know what leaders do? Look it up on Amazon. Today there are 324,526 results that pop up. Where to start?

It seems that there are so many concepts about leadership that getting a grip on the central idea is a bit illusive. From “Lincoln and Leadership” to “Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun,” to “Good to Great”, everyone who wants to write a book on leadership has a different slant.

Yet, we all know what leadership is when we see it. When someone on your work team sees a new way of doing things and gets everyone to try it, that’s leadership. When a person fixes something that has been done wrong, is not quite right or has been broken for a long time, that’s leadership. Anytime someone stands up for a principle, that’s leadership. When someone makes a positive contribution and difference to an outcome, that’s leadership, too. Of course, leadership is also leading companies to new growth and sports teams to excellence. So, what is this we’re talking about?

After reviewing popular leadership models from many well-known sources, it is clear to us that people need a simple concept of what leadership is, something they can literally carry around in their heads, and, most important, apply to situations they face every day.

To fill that need, we’ve come up with what we call the Leadership Lens, and it describes actions that anyone can do to demonstrate leadership.

The Leadership Lens has three main parts.

1) Create The Fundamental Idea:

A leader’s role is to scan the environment, learn the “ground”, recognize opportunities, and from that, create a focused direction. The implication goes beyond the idea of a vision statement; a leader is the source of the vision, the set of eyes that is always looking for opportunities. Once that vision is clear in the leader’s mind, it has to be formulated in  a way that others can see it as well. It doesn’t matter whether you are a shift manager in a fast-food restaurant or an admiral of a vast fleet, your leadership action is to spot opportunities, create a purposeful direction and communicate that tangibly and clearly to the people working with you.

2) Sets, Imposes and Aligns Operating Values, Practices, Principles:

A leader is the tone-setter and rule-maker of an organization. As we know from organizational climate research, management creates a feeling of what it is like to work in the organization based on the rules and practices the leader puts in place. This feeling of climate is a key to motivation. A leader figuratively puts the operating manual of the organization in place or changes what is already there to something more productive.
W. Morrell and S. Capparell’s study of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, Shackelton’s Way, depicts a leader who created a work environment where all crew members, regardless of role, had to perform menial tasks and, at the same time, where all were expected to be positive, cheerful and cooperative with each other. At the same time, a service supervisor will “run” his or her team with explicit expectations; it won’t be long
before maintenance techs learn what kind of behavior isn’t tolerated and what is rewarded. Even on a team with peers, a team member can enforce what’s “right” by setting an example and refusing to participate in the “wrong” behavior. That kind of behavior sends a message to everyone on the team.

The key here is that these operating practices and principles must be clear and consistently applied across the organization. When reinforced by management behavior, these practices and principles form the organizational climate. When that climate “feels good”, engagement and motivation drive performance up.

3) Demonstrate An Emotional Edge:

Every leader creates an emotional reaction in his or her followers, based on the level of commitment and dedication he or she overtly displays. The leader can demonstrate high moral values, boundless energy, steady and calm resolve, affection for employees or courage; there isn’t a right way to demonstrate an emotional edge.

What counts is how the leader shows up as a person, exposing his or her commitment, beliefs and energy. When a leader captures his or her employee’s or team mates’ attention and respect, their motivation will follow. The idea of emotional edge is completely subjective; it is one of those factors that you know when you see it. Who could not feel moved by Rudi Guiliani’s sense of command and compassion on September 11? Who could not feel impressed and excited by Steve Jobs’ announcement of another innovation? Even a night shift manager in an assembly plant can demonstrate dedication to quality by personally thanking his each one of his/her workers for a good night’s work.

These three elements and the more specific behaviors which further describe them, taken together, represent an easy to remember and describe model of what leadership is all about.

The Leadership Lens has three parts: Leaders have a Main Idea; they have rules and consciously create a work climate based on those rules; and they are “present”, showing up a people who are committed to outcomes. Our model is “portable” so people could carry it around with them in their memories and recall it
when they are faced with challenges.

Next time you watch someone who you think is a leader, look through that Leadership Lens to see what actions define them. Despite all those many theories and models, leadership can actually be seen all around, every day. You just have to know what to look for.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Five Pitfalls of Action Learning

While the Action Learning methodology  presents significant opportunities for a truly memorable experience, it can also be remembered as painful to all those involved.  Having observed and  coached a number of teams involved in Action Learning, we have  noticed several themes emerge to which sponsors, planners and participants need to pay specific attention.

Wrong team size

An Action Learning team can be too big or too small.  Like Goldilocks,  designers must determine what size of team is just right.  A seven to  nine member team that engages in a challenging project runs the risk of  having up to a third or more of the team riding on the efforts of others  over the course of the experience.  This is the reality of a large team  being asked to squeeze in a large project while facing a full calendar in their regular work.

A team of three to four members might be overwhelmed by the volume  of work required for a quality outcome on a large project.  If planners  think that more rather than fewer team members are needed to produce successful deliverables on a large project, then that should be a signal  that the project itself is probably too big for this purpose.  On the other  hand, if the project looks as if it might be relatively manageable for  three to four team members, then planners should question what the  real effort and project outcome is going to be.  As we will see below,  projects tend to get bigger, expanding scope as the team discovers  aspects of the problem they have been asked to address.

An ideal minimum starting point for an Action Learning team is five  members.  This number can be expanded to seven or eight, depending  on the initial description of the project deliverables.  Once again, if the  project appears to require more effort and therefore more people, it is  probably the wrong scope.

Too long until completion

The intense interest and effort of work at the beginning of a project  soon diffuses when the routines of meeting, doing research and making  decisions about how to proceed take over the calendars of team 
members.  Team members generally feel challenged at the beginning of  the effort, willing to engage intellectually with the topic as a problem to  solve.  However, even with clear interim deadlines and progress  milestones, ennui and project fatigue can creep into the team’s  experience.  After all, the subject matter is probably not related to what most team members are doing every day; in fact, the topics being  addressed may be of marginal interest to some members.  After  conducting research and discussing insights, the very act of producing  a report with recommendations—the expected outcome of most Action  Learning projects—eventually becomes an editing, word-smithing,  production process, not the most exciting work for dynamic  executives.  Consequently, an Action Learning project can overstay its welcome.  

We suggest that a five-month deadline is definitely too long for a viable  Action Learning project.  We have seen teams struggle to maintain  interest for four months.  Once again, depending on the project, 10 weeks to 12 weeks is probably the right duration.

Charge too vague

An Action Learning team is usually asked to investigate a topic for  senior management in an organization.  For example, senior  management may be interested in how a product is being received or what to do about entering a new market.  Without a clear sense of what  the underlying questions that need to be answered are, a team can go  off in a thousand directions.  The root cause of this is that the sponsors of the project are not truly clear themselves about what they are  looking for.  This is natural and should be expected; they’re pursuing  something that is of interest, unsettling or not well understood, a strategic issue that needs clarity or insight they don’t currently have.   However, there is a difference between an inquiry that is best suited for  a consulting engagement and one being handled by an Action Learning team.

While teams we have worked with report that it is beneficial for them to struggle with the project outcome definition, too broad a charge may  mean they will provide an unfocused response to the sponsor.  We recommend that Action Learning planners brief sponsors about the type  of question that can best be managed by a small team working above  and beyond their normal work.  The project designers should spend some time bringing an additional level of clarity to vague inquiries while not, at the same time, handing the team a checklist assignment.

Too Much Work

Even if a question is clear, the team the right size, the deadlines appropriate, an Action Learning project can run into trouble because of the sheer volume of work needed to develop a recommendation.  Most, if not all, Action Learning projects require a fair amount of research—digging for data, compiling information from a number of sources or conducting original research.  When the team sets off to search for data, it can become a time sink, especially if the organization is not used  to opening its files.  For example, finding the right person to talk to,  getting through to that person’s manager for permission, explaining the project, gaining access to the right data and repeating that cycle for several different sources can be daunting.  One team we worked with  had the idea of conducting a survey.  The process of writing the survey items, having them approved through several layers of management, installing them on a website, getting respondents to rate it and getting the results literally took the entire time line of the project.  In addition, it is axiomatic that a project tends to get bigger in scope as more corners  of the problem are illuminated by data.  We have seen teams pursuing these new areas of interest without being sensitive to workload implications. At the very least, a team should be advised to keep their data inquiry within reason rather than inflicting themselves with the burden of a significant dive into the corporate or academic stores of information.  Once again, while there is definitely a learning point about accessing information in an organization, Action Learning team members also have day jobs that demand attention.

Too Distant From The Sponsor

Probably the biggest pitfall of all is a distant sponsor.  A sponsor is the member or members of management who works with the Action Learning team, providing it with the initial charge and receiving the final presentation.  A sponsor who is unprepared for the task can make the  Action Learning experience quite negative for the team.  In effect, the  sponsor has the ability to shape the project, from the clarity and  crispness of the topic to be addressed, to maintaining the right level of  expectations and attitude about the outcome.  To be a good sponsor,  the Action Learning planners have to work closely with them, recruiting the right executive, explaining the goals and process of Action Learning, clarifying the role of sponsor as mentor-teacher-advisor-client, and designing a process that links the sponsor, formally and informally, with the team’s progress.  Without that level of commitment and interactivity, a sponsor can arrive at the final presentation without 
understanding what has transpired over the course of the project, what changes have been made to the original charge, and what challenges the team was or wasn’t able to surmount.

Avoidable Problems

Most of the pitfalls mentioned above are avoidable.  Avoiding them, however, is not without its own challenges.  Many designers of Action Learning experiences become enamored with the methodology, losing sight of its learning and development objectives.  Many senior executives view the experience as an opportunity for free consulting, getting the answers to questions they themselves have not been able to address. And finally, many participants view Action Learning as a stage for them to perform upon, viewing the opportunity as an audition for promotion, rather than as a chance to learn how the organization works at a deeper level.

We recommend that planners and designers of Action Learning experiences take to heart these cautions.  Done well, Action Learning can provide a refreshing and productive interlude for any level of  employee where they can refine their analytic and communication skills, develop new relationships with different levels of management and become invigorated by ideas and innovative thinking.  

Monday, February 1, 2010

Current Issue: More Surprises for the New Hire College Graduate

In Office Space, the zany comedy about work place 
culture and rebellion, Peter, the very twenty-something 
main character asks the next cubicle occupant, Milton, 
the office nebbish, to turn down his radio.  “I was told I 
could keep it on at a low volume,” stumbles Milton in flat 
rejection of common courtesy.  Peter just rolls his eyes 
and glances at the clock.  It’s only 9:15 am.

Indeed, to many college graduates, the culture of work 
is filled with many such unpleasant surprises.  Our 
recent survey of new hire graduates surfaced a number 
of frequently mentioned revelations.

For example, former students said they didn’t realize 
how much attention—and money—was devoted to 
dressing professionally and “looking good.”  The idea of 
working in a cubicle affected several respondents.  
“Environmentally disappointing,” was how some in this 
environmentally-sensitive group described their space.  
They also reported bosses weren’t as understanding as 
professors, and co-workers weren’t as friendly as 
classmates.  In fact, one person reported people at his 
job weren’t eager to help new people out.  The need to 
learn fast and learn a lot was part of the package, and it 
was expected that they would take the initiative to learn.  
“There’s no end at work.  When you achieve a result, 
you are given more work.  At least in school it ends,” 
was one comment.  Indeed, the engine never stops. No 
one was providing a lecture for them to capture 
knowledge; for many, it was a do-it-yourself learning 
experience.  The need to work in teams—effectively 
communicating with colleagues—required a new set of 
responses far different from school.  Of course, 
diplomatically listening to and playing office politics and 
mastering red tape were challenges of their new world.

Even more disappointing, many respondents said that 
work was “essentially meaningless,” boring, not 
challenging and not using any of the knowledge gained 
through years of study.  “Every day is pretty much the 
same.”

Finally, new workers found that the amount of income 
they received for their labor was an unpleasant 
disappointment.  After taxes, retirement plans, dues and 
health insurance, take home pay was reported as much 
less than expected.  Bills, living expenses and payments 
on student loans made that amount even smaller.  One 
person put it this way:  “I make significantly less than I 
thought I would with my degree.”  With loan payments 
looming, you can understand how that obligation makes 
these new workers look at work in a bitter-sweet way.  
Yes, there is a job that brings in a salary, but they are 
not making that much when all is said and done, and the 
background pressure is always there to make sure they 
don’t lose their paycheck because of student loans.

Of course, new workers also have a sense of freedom 
from papers, tests, homework and “no more school.”  
But you wonder what the amplified pressures of working, 
learning how to survive in a somewhat alien—and 
sometimes unfulfilling—work culture and living on much 
less than expected can do to even the most confident 
new worker.

It would be useful if someone told them that finding 
friends at work makes a huge difference in how 
engaged they feel at work.  Or, an avuncular manager 
might offer advice on finances, giving them some control 
over money.  Unfortunately, that happens only by 
chance. Why don’t we build it in to our onboarding 
processes?

Yes, people adjust over time, but it appears that 
expectations are frequently adjusted downwards.

And at what price?  Surely, there must be a better way 
to welcome the new folks aboard.