Reading is Fundamental

By Jeff Schoeneberg

Most career development happens on the job as a direct result of experiences from projects, coaching sessions, even observing someone else’s work performance. The manner in which one absorbs that experience is highly dependent on personal context – personal experiences, personal knowledge, and (perhaps most importantly) personal attitude. The greater the context one has, the more likely one is able to turn any experience into personal growth.

Continuous learning is a great way to expand context. It enhances knowledge and can provide a new lens through which to evaluate experiences. Many people enhance their development by reading books focusing on personal growth, business management, and technical skills. To that end, we have some book recommendations that we have found to be valuable in this regard.

Change Management:
Leading Change (John Kotter, Harvard Business Press) and The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (Peter Senge et al, Doubleday) are two books which, in combination, provide a great framework for understanding the mechanics and demands of change management. Kotter’s book provides an 8-step model for effective change, and also discusses common mistakes. It is a valuable guidebook for anyone trying to move their team from point A to point B. Ultimately, however, change is quite a bit messier than Kotter’s model suggests.

Senge (perhaps best known as the author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization) embraces the mess. He describes the many ways change efforts can lose momentum, detailing real-life experiences in sustaining organizational change. His assertion, “organizations have complex, well-developed immune systems, aimed at preserving the status quo” is well substantiated by his excellent book.

Leading Change is packaged neatly and is very digestible. The Dance of Change is something you’ll need to spend some time and effort in absorbing. Both are well worth the read.

Teamwork:
Over a period of 15 years or so, Frank LaFasto and Carl Larson interviewed more than 6,000 team members across a variety of industries to find out what conditions help or hinder team success. Their conclusions are published in When Teams Work Best : 6,000 Team Members and Leaders Tell What It Takes to Succeed (Sage Publications). LaFasto and Larson reveal the factors that distinguish effective team members, the dimensions of team leadership, and steps to effective problem solving for teams. This is a good read for all members of a team, not just team leaders.

Leadership:
Leadership and Spirit (Russ Moxley, Jossey-Bass and the Center for Creative Leadership) is a very different book than you’ll see on the business best seller list. It does not focus on driving business results, directly. There are no catchphrases or nifty allegories. The purpose of the book is to…well, I’ll just let the author tell you in his own words:

“By personality, preference, and temperament, I prefer data and truth that can be known through one or more of my senses. I am logical and rational. But slowly and over time, as I reflected on my own experience and paid attention to the experience of others, I have come to believe that there are truths that cannot be empirically proven, truths about effective leadership that we have too long ignored. One of those truths is that our practice of leadership either suffocates or elevates spirit.”

This is a powerful book.

We hope you make an effort to read these books and would enjoy your thoughts on them. And if you just can’t make it through Chapter 1 of a business book without falling asleep, never fret. Find the learning mechanism that works best for you. The important thing is to learn and have fun in the process.

Actions Speak Louder than Words: Understanding the Power of Symbolic Action

By Michelann Quimby

How companies communicate with their employees, explicitly and implicitly, is crucial to employee engagement. While employee engagement is considered a "soft" consideration in many workplaces, in a customer-service industry it is directly tied to financial considerations. So how do companies communicate with employees, when is it effective, and why or why not?

Symbolic Action and Dissonance
I frequent a couple of national coffee chains for my daily latte. One chain, let's call them "Green Coffee" has a good product, and excellent staff. No matter how long the line, I can get in and out in under ten minutes, and my embarrassingly complex order is always delivered correctly. The employees are relaxed and friendly, and they're diverse in age, race, and personality.

Occasionally, I frequent "Red Coffee". While I like the coffee better, the employees, who are less diverse, are disengaged. Sometimes they're friendly, sometimes not, and my order is frequently messed up (even when I'm the only customer). They generally seem more interested in talking to each other than to me.

Visiting the websites for the two companies, I notice an immediate difference on the employment page. While Red has the standard boilerplate about "putting people first" and competitive pay and benefits, Green has personal testimonials, documentation of fairly advanced training for the food service industry, and itemized available benefits including retirement and insurance for employees who work twenty hours a week or more.

From this I surmise that leadership at Green Coffee wants to present the impression that employees are valued. However, while many companies present themselves this way sometimes impressions and reality diverge. Organizations that talk a good game about employee appreciation and investment don't always demonstrate those values, where less flamboyant companies may have values that dictate good employee/organization relationships.

For example, I have a relative who works for a national retail chain that has its home office in the Southwest. The temperature in her store (on the west coast) is regulated from the home office, so it's often out of sync with the weather outside. If it's 95 degrees at headquarters and the AC is cranked way up, customers and employees may be freezing in the store on the west coast where it's only 75 degrees outside. Corporate does not allow store managers to adjust the temperature in their own stores. So while the company's website details extensive career development and benefits available to employees, the appearance of employee value does not align with how they are treated. The organization does not demonstrate trust in employees, so it is unlikely that the employees trust the organization.

Green Coffee talks a good game, and the values they espouse seem to be active in the organization. Key indicators are the fact that they provide useful training and benefits for employees. In turn, employees seem engaged and relaxed, and provide the company with good customer relationships. These indicators are symbolic actions - ways organizations and employees act out their values, regardless of external PR or internal propaganda.

The other day when I was at Red Coffee the employee who took my order was discussing company policy with his co-worker. It seems company had issued a new list of employee edicts, including one where employees were only allowed to come in through the front door (the side door is far more convenient for cafe employees). Without knowing why the company issued this restriction, it was clear that the employee found it frustrating.

For me, this revelation made perfect sense. Regardless of what the employer said about their value for employees, their actions indicate (at least to this particular employee) that they don't trust them. If I were to translate this action into a statement, it would say, "I (the company) do not trust you (the employee) to make basic decisions about how to behave around customers, so I will dictate how you should behave." As an employee, I would feel that my individual value to the organization was negligible.

Is it a surprise that Red Coffee employees don't seem to take pride in their work? Company policies towards employees communicate far more about their value than employee value statements, or titles like "partner" or "team member".

I suspect Green Coffee's employees seem happy and engaged because there is little conflict between what the company says about how they treat employees and how they actually treat them. This translates very directly into satisfied repeat customers and revenue.

Putting it to Work
Do your company's values align with the policies in practice regarding employees? If you cite respect and honesty as core values, but monitor employees' every move, you're creating dissonance (conscious or unconscious discomfort with the contradiction between statements and actions) that affects the quality of work. If your stated values were instead consistency and quality, then close monitoring may be more appropriate. It is this dissonance between words and actions that can cause problems like employee disengagement, low productivity, and high turnover.

If your organization, like a coffee shop, relies on consistent, attentive customer service for its revenue stream, then this internal dissonance may also create discomfort for the customer. Imagine taking you kids to Disneyland and being ignored by grumpy, disengaged employees. The slogan "The Happiest Place on Earth" would become a parody, rather than a promise. Consider then that your employees represent the values you communicate to them to your customers.

Here are some suggestions to help you craft appropriate employee policies:

• Be Consistent
  If you have a company vision and values statement, check it against your employee policies and see if they contradict each other. If so, consider changing policies to reflect company values, or even revising your values statement if it is outdated or underdeveloped.
  
  
• Be Authentic
  If you haven't developed a values statement, spend some time considering what values your company demonstrates, and how they inform employee decisions. This will help you recognize if policy and values begin to diverge. Core values are a map of your company's DNA - they should inform how you treat customers and employees
  
  
• Think Ahead
  Consider the long term impact of short term decisions. When times are tight and cutbacks are necessary, don't be caught unaware when layoffs lower employee morale, productivity, and commitment. Remember the power of symbolic actions, and find ways to mitigate the negative impact of difficult decisions, or risk losing the benefit of short term gains to long-term problems.

Exciting News!

DiaMind partners Michelann, Karl, and Jeff will be presenting at the Organizational Development Network's annual Conference in October. Our session is on October 21st at 10:30am. We submitted our paper in the student competition and were one of only two teams selected to present. Session details:

Framing Change: A New Approach to Change Management Analysis
We analyze organizational change issues qualitatively and quantitatively using a case study of a Texas-based technology company that has experienced major changes in the last several years. This organization has had limited success in overcoming obstacles to achieving the company's full potential and has experienced a high turnover of top executives. Creating a methodology based on concepts of organizational frames as described by Bolman and Deal, we seek to understand why it has struggled to achieve its transformational goals. Our approach identifies structural, human resources, symbolic, and political obstacles to change. Study results show that internal organizational change can be understood at a systems level and managed more effectively when examined from multiple frames.

We are very honored to have been chosen and are looking forward to attending and meeting our colleagues from around the country.

The conference runs October 19-22 at the Renaissance Austin Hotel in Austin, Texas.

Organizational Politics: Using Your Power for Good

By Michelann Quimby

Can organizational politics be positive? Learn to evaluate your own use of political power, and find out how informal alliances can help build trust, foster leadership, and strengthen organizations.

Published in The Systems Thinker, February 2009. Click here to download.

Interested in learning more? DiamondMind offers workshops, coaching, and presentations on harnessing the power of political networks in your organization. Click here to learn more.

Welcome!

Welcome to the DiamondMind blog! We will be discussing issues related to organizational development, change management, informal power networks in organizations, rituals and symbolism in the work place, and many other interesting topics. Check back soon!