The 8 Values of Highly Productive Organisations

Dr Tim Baker FAHRI

The traditional ‘them and us’ employment relationship or ‘psychological contract’ is a relic of the last century.  Baby Boomers in particular would be familiar with the traditional employment relationship. Essentially is an unwritten contract where the managers do the thinking and the workers do the doing. This employment relationship has been in existence for over 200 years since the Industrial Revolution. It has worked well in the relatively stable and predictable marketplace of the last 100 years. However, it does not work in the current climate of accelerated change and uncertainty. Organisations whose workplace culture is still based on the traditional employment relationship are ill equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21^st century.

By way of reference, the traditional employment relationship is covered in Table 1 below.

Table 1 Traditional Mindset Model

The left-hand column signified eight shared values reinforcing the traditional psychological contract. In the middle column, the eight descriptors characterise the appropriate employee mindset for each core value. These attitudes form the proper response from employees for each core value of the traditional psychological contract. The right-hand column is the appropriate approach from organisational leaders for each value supporting the traditional psychological contract. In other words these descriptors constitute the organisation’s obligations to employees in the traditional employment relationship. Should any of these responses be violated by employees or employers, the traditional psychological contract would be violated.

The 8 values underpinning the traditional employment relationship have changes profoundly over the past 25 years. These values are now obsolete; they have been replaced by a new set of values diametrically opposite those in Table 1. Table 2 below illustrates the shift in mindsets from the old to the new.

Table 2 Changing Mindset Model

Specialisation in the workplace, once highly valued, has now been replaced by flexible deployment of skills. The focus was once on internal processes and procedures as the basis of providing consistency to the customer. Although this is still important, the shift in companies must be to focus on the customer and his or her needs and interests. This is a different concept from customer service. In other words, everything should be geared towards an organisation’s customers. A performance focus is now more important than focusing on carrying out the duties of a clearly defined job. Project-based work is now more important than functional-based work. It is increasingly significant and in the interests of employees and employers that work is meaningful and nurtures the human spirit, hence the emphasis on human spirit and work. Organisational commitment has now replaced a sense of loyalty between organisation and individual. Learning and development with its broader emphasis is now more important than a narrower focus on technical training. Open information systems are likely to assist employees to make quality decisions in their day-to-day work than closed information channels.

As a result of these shifting mindsets, Table 3 below is the New Mindset Model illustrating the new employment relationship

Table 3 New Mindset Model

As The New Mindset Model illustrates, the employee benefits are linked to employability, developments of new skills, greater job satisfaction, and more autonomy to make decisions. These advantages are consistent with the changing needs of employees in the 21^st Century. So employees who have these mindsets are likely to want to work in an organisation that fosters these values. From the organisational perspective, the model shows the benefits to the organisation as having greater flexibility, responsiveness and manoeuvrability in the marketplace. These advantages are consistent with the current needs of organisations. As a result, employers who foster these values are likely to attract and retain employees that have similar mindsets. So these eight values can be conceptualised as the glue that binds the changing employee and employer paradigm.

HR professionals should aim to align their organisational culture to match the New Mindset Model.

This is an extract from Dr Tim Baker’s latest book: “The 8 Values of Highly Productive Companies: Creating Wealth from a New Employment Relationship”. More information about the book can be viewed at www.winnersatwork.com.au Dr Tim Baker is an international consultant and managing director of WINNERS AT WORK which specialises in assisting organisations to develop productive workplace cultures.

“The problem is that it is usually the other way round - Manage the change NOT lead the people”, says Dr Tim Baker

Nearly every book or article you pick up about change talks incessantly about the process of change and very little about leading the people affected by the change. And in particular these well meaning books and articles rarely mention the range of emotions we all cope with every time we incur a change in our lives. Leaders could do well to putting a little thought into how they can properly address the emotion needs of their team members. Some prior thought and planning will most likely lead to impeccable timing and sufficient resources. It ‘bumps up the odds’ of implementing something different in your workplace with a minimum of disruption; it is far less likely to be problematic.

Of course this neglect in the popular management literature on the emotional dimension of change is overcompensated for in management tips on dealing with people’s resistance. I have seen chapters entitled: “Overcoming Resistance” or worse still - “Neutralise Resistance”. The emotion of resistance is well understood by everybody, but it is only one of several emotional states a person passes through in a changing set of circumstances in their lives. By not dealing properly with these other emotions, a leader is escalating the potential for the nasty, inevitable and unfortunately consequences of resistance materialising. As Peter Senge so aptly put it, “People don’t resist change. They resist being changed!”

This piece is designed to address the too often neglected ‘lead the people’ part of ‘managing the change’.

“The Four Emotional Stages of Change” model proposed by Sydney-based management consultant - Anne Riches - is fine starting point.  It is a good, simple and practical model for understanding how others deal emotionally with a change in their life. The diagram below illustrates her model:

You can see two dimensions in the model above - productivity and time. Productivity refers to the collective organisational output and time refers to the length of the change process. The arrow illustrates the movement of a group of people from start to conclusion of a change event. It also illustrates the rise and fall of productivity as the change is implemented. The objective is to minimise the inevitable drop is productivity and to shorten the time frame as much as possible.

I will discuss each of the four emotional states from the perspective of how best to identify and plan for these before undertaking a change campaign.

Denial

Denial is when people don’t hear what’s been said.  Let me use two life changing events to explain - one positive and one negative. Police have some unimaginably unpleasant jobs. But one of the worse would surely be to front up to parent’s homes and explain that their son or daughter was killed in a road accident. Imagine Mr and Mrs Smith answering the door on a cold winters’ night to be greeted with: “Mr and Mrs Smith, can we come in; I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you … “.   The first reaction is understandable: denial. “You must have the wrong house!” or “This must be a bad dream; when am I going to wake up” are no doubt typical first responses to these reluctant bearers of bad news. On the other hand imagine your phone ringing and the person on the other end says, “Congratulations you have won lotto!” No doubt you would come to your sensors soon, but in the meantime you will probably respond something like this, “Who is this? Is this a joke or a ‘gotcha call?”. You are momentarily in a state of denial in both cases.

So what should a leader do when faced with the reality that people will be in this space in the early stages (and some for quite a bit longer) of change. The leader’s first response to any change process is to produce meaningful information to those affected by the change. In particular, the information should be about how the change will directly and indirectly influence their work and themselves. This should be done using a range of medium.

Management Tips …

Accept that this stage in inevitable (like all the others). Be patient and communicate well and frequently from the perspective of those at the coal face.  Give time for people to get through their denial. Create opportunities for people to think about the change and how it will change the way they work. Let it sink in. Be hard on the change and soft on the people. In other words, let them know that the change is real and the leadership is committed to it but we are nevertheless open to accommodating people in the process. Sadly it is often the other way round; a leader may demonstrate some doubt about the change and be too demanding on the people going through the change. “What’s wrong with you, aren’t you a team player?” maybe the leader’s response to staff protests. These information strategies will allow the participants to slip into a state of resistance.

Resistance

When people resist something they believe it is real. That’s the good news. People will naturally defend the status quo. It’s natural. It’s ok.  Getting back to the police analogue, once reality has set in it is likely that Mr or Mrs Smith are going to get angry and want to blame someone or something. “What is the Council doing? They neglected that road knowing that it was dangerous.” Or “Why was the police focused on revenue raising and not patrolling that dangerous road”. What about the lotto example? Surely there would be nothing to resist once reality set in that it wasn’t a bogus call? Well for a moment you would be asking yourselves some questions in what is sure to become a life-changing situation: “Should I tell people or keep it to myself? Or “What’s my next step?” This a mild form of resistance that may not last too long, but it is still a valid emotional response.

So what should a leader do when faced with resistance in the workplace? Listen. Just create the opportunity for people to air their concerns in a genuine way. This isn’t a management trick. It should be a sincere effort to allow others to be heard.

Management Tips …

Try to get people who are resisting focusing on the future. Usually the way people resist is by defending the past. But the past is gone.  Acknowledge and empathise with their resistance. Don’t try to convert them, just listen. Not the transition between resistance and exploration. Those that are exploring the change maybe still angry but they are having a go.

Exploration

When the majority of people are trying to adjust to the change, their skill or coping levels are probably low. After Mr and Mrs Smith blame everyone and everything for the tragic accident, they will have to adopt a survival ’step-by-step’ approach. Mr Smith turns to Mrs Smith and says, “We’ll have to take this day-by-day. We can’t look any further into the future. One day at a time.” After resolving how to deal with winning lotto, you need to explore how we’ll spend the money. Should I make a list? We are searching for options during this emotional stage of exploration.

This is the opportunity for the manager to get out of his or her office and supporting their staff. People need coaching and training at this stage.

Management Tips …

Leaders need to understand that not everyone enters this stage at the same time. There may well be some still resisting the change. The mistake a lot of leaders make during this phase is spent too much time with the ‘professional resistors’ and not enough time with the ‘pioneers’ who are exploring the change. Managers should seek the support for those who are mastering the change and put some pressure of the resistors to ‘come for the ride’. Those mastering the change will become committed to the change.

Commitment

Have you ever noticed that some of your most vocal advocates for the status quo become your champions of change later on?  They have entered the emotion stage of commitment. How could Mr and Mrs Smith gain any commitment from their loss of their child? 25 years later, Mrs Smith turns to Mr Smith on their balcony after a cup of tea and says, “What happened 25 years ago was tragic, but one thing it did do was bring us closer together. There is ‘always a silver lining to every cloud’.

People can get complacent at this stage of the change curve. Productivity is up and there is an overwhelming acceptance of the change. What more could I do as leader? Recognition and gratitude by the leader to their team would be appreciated and helpful. Leaders need to let their team know that they appreciate their efforts in implementing the change.

Management Tips …

It is a time to review and improve the process, learn lessons for the past, swap information. It might call for a brief celebration if it is a big systems change. A leader’s role now becomes a mentor and team builder. After all, it won’t be long before you and your team go down the ‘Tarzan swing’ again. ‘Life is a roller coaster ride’. How true it is.

Being good at mastering these emotional stages of change are the key to a leader’s success.  Timely and personalised information, an opportunity to protest, opportunities for skill acquisition and recognition are the appropriate responses for a leader implementing effective change.

Have you ever considered how very persuasive people influence others?

What are the factors that cause people to say yes?

According to Professor Robert Cialdini, regarded as the world’s leading authority on the subject of influence and persuasion and author of the classic - Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion, there are several traits of human nature that when used will most likely persuade others.

Four of these characteristics include reciprocation, commitment, consistency and social proof.

Always return a favour

The rule of reciprocation, found in every culture, is that we should repay anything given to us, whether it’s a gift, an invitation, a compliment, and so on. We feel obligated to individuals and organisations who give us something, even if it is small and even if we don’t want it.

For example, straightforward mailing by charity groups usually gets a response rate of less than 20 percent. But this jumps dramatically when the mailing includes a gift, such as stick on labels printed with the receiver’s own name and address.

Being consistent

Human beings like to be consistent. This creates a gold-mine for marketers. They are very aware of the internal pressures against changing our mind, and often take full advantage.

For example, when charity phone callers ask “How are you, Mrs. …? Nine times of 10 we give a positive response. Then when the caller asks us to give a donation to the unfortunate victims of some disaster or disease, we can’t very well suddenly turn mean and grumpy and refuse others who are in a bad way. To be consistent we feel compelled to offer a donation.

Social proof

The most famous case of social proof in relation to suicide was the ghastly Johnstown, Guyana incident in 1978, when 910 members of Jim Jones’s People Temple cult took their lives by drinking from vats of poisoned soft drink. How was it possible that so many died so willingly? Most of the cult members had been recruited from San Francisco and the isolation of being in a foreign country contributed to the natural human tendency to “do what others like us are doing”.

Not missing out

It is human nature to value something more when it is scarce. In fact, we are more motivated by the thought of loosing something than we are by gaining something of equal value in its place. Retailers know this, which is why they perpetually scream “stock won’t last” to make us fear not getting something we were not sure we wanted anyway.

Modern leadership is arguably about influencing and persuasion.

What are the implications here?

Leaders should treat their staff as their customers, providing them with opportunities to grow and develop and provide positive reinforcement (Always return a favour). Managers should modify the behaviour of their people by firstly getting their staff to agree that their behaviour needs to change (Being consistent). Through mentoring young employees by demonstrating appropriate workplace behaviours, the managers are “walking the talk” (Social proof). And finally, managers need to balance positive feedback on performance with constructive negative feedback and the implications of this for the employee and others (Not missing out).

Influencing is the lifeblood of the modern manager.

Shifting towards a performance-focussed work culture hinges on ditching traditional narrow job descriptions in favour of broader role descriptions linked to value-adding behaviour.

One of the drivers of individual success in the modern workplace is a paradigm shift from one of entitlement to one of adding value. In other words, employees who constructively contribute beyond the narrow confines of their job description are likely to be more valued by companies.

Job descriptions typically focus on a limited set of behaviours or characteristics required to proficiently perform a specific set of tasks. While there is a trend towards implementing competency models, job descriptions continue to be defined primarily by the “explicit features” of each job, most likely due to the need to create a legally defensible performance-appraisal system.

However, work performance is two-dimensional, composed both of work required by an organisation and by discretionary employee work behaviours.

Job descriptions tend to encompass the work required, but rarely cover optional employee work activities, such as the continuous improvement of systems and processes, leadership and proactive team work. Managers must establish criteria to identify and reward such “value-adding” behaviours.

The first step in moving towards a performance-focussed culture is to change job descriptions to role descriptions for all employees. Role descriptions define the performance criteria of a job in the context of the business, and define the organisational role of the individual and link these with KPIs.

A “role” is a more generalised description that addresses end accountabilities and identifies the groups or areas that each position serves.

If you would like more information about moving from the narrow confines of job descriptions to broader more contextual role descriptions, please contact me on 0413 636 832.

“It is time to change our approach and throw out the old performance appraisal”, says Dr Tim Baker

When I mention the term ‘performance appraisal’ what thoughts come to mind? I’m not sure exactly what you thought, but I am pretty sure that the thoughts you had were not necessarily positive.

Whether you are a manager or employee, most people dread the thought of formally appraising or being appraised on their performance.

The problem with the traditional approach

The traditional performance appraisal is often a waste of time and can cause more harm than good.

Don’t get me wrong; I am not against performance feedback. In fact I believe it is one of the most important things a managers can do in his or her leadership role.

I just don’t think the way it is done is working particularly well.

The traditional performance appraisal is based on the military model; that is, the boss gives the subordinate a one-way monologue on what they are doing wrong and occasionally what the subordinate is doing right. The recipient is usually a passive and unenthusiastic receiver. It is a pointless and mostly painful exercise in its current form.

There are several things wrong with this militaristic approach:

• It is usually one way
• It is based on the power relationship between manager and employee
• It is done once or twice a year
• It is a formal process that stifles discussion
• It is rarely - if ever - followed up
• The focus of the ‘discussion’ is rarely about what constructive ways an employee’s strengths can be utilised and weaknesses overcome
• It takes time and is therefore an enormously costly exercise
• Nobody really enjoys the process

So how can it be done better and lead to genuine and sustainable performance improvements?

A fresh approach

My approach is called The 5 Conversations. It is based on five conversations between the manager and each of his or her staff over a six month period. Each of these five conversations need only last of 10 minutes.

They are spread out over six months. In other words, over the course of a year the manager is expected to have 10 conversations with each of his or her colleagues. Arguably this should be happening anyway as a means of building a professional rapport and understanding between managers and team members.

How does it work?

What do managers and their team members talk about in these five conversations?

Below is a table that illustrates the topics, contents and key questions.

The 5 Conversations Framework

The manager is then charged with the responsibility of scheduling and sitting down with each of their direct reports during the month and addressing each of the questions in the right-hand column related to the topic of conversation in the second column. This information should be recorded and passed back to HR as a central record of the issues arising across the organisation.

Climate review conversation

In January for example, data collected can be used to determine the climate across the organisation. This information can then be used as benchmarks to compare the climate twice a year.

Training and development conversation

Collectively the information recorded by the manager in their conversation on training and development can be used to create a comprehensive training needs analysis across the organisation. HR is then in a position to prioritise learning and development opportunities.

Innovation and continuous improvement conversation

Outcomes arising from the conversation around innovation and continuous improvement can be used as an opportunity to evaluate and implement ideas both within the department and across the organisation by management.

Improved performance conversation

This conversation focuses on strategies for improved performance provide the manager and team member with some clarity and understanding around feedback on performance aligned with their role description.

Career conversation

The career conversation provides an opportunity for employees to discuss their careers and ways in which their manager can assist them in their current role.

Preparation

The preparation for The 5 Conversations entails the employee and their manager preparing for each discussion. It should be employee-centred. In other words, unlike the traditional performance appraisal, the manager’s comments are guided by their employee’s contribution.

Advantages of this approach

There are many advantages that The 5 Conversations has over the traditional approach to appraising performance.

• It facilitates a process of an ongoing dialogue with all employees and their manager over the course of a year. Perhaps these issues are covered in the traditional appraisal, but by doing it this way, it becomes a regular ongoing discussion.
• It is a more relaxed approach which means that employees may be encouraged to be more open and direct about their developmental needs.
• It takes no more time than the traditional approach as each conversation should take approximately 10 minutes to complete.
• It provides HR with a wealth of information for planning and developing their approach and strategy on a continual basis.
• It is much more natural and enjoyable.

Performance management should be an ongoing dialogue between manager and their staff. The 5 Conversations facilitates this. I commend this approach to you for consideration.