Month: December 2011

In a recent organization development course I was facilitating someone asked the question "How can you challenge a leader if you think he or she is making the wrong decision about an organizational change?"

I get a lot of questions like this and it seems to me that they are really about how to recognize and use your sources of power. Why do OD consultants need to think about their sources of power? There are two main reasons. First, because often OD consultants are of a lower level in the organization's hierarchy as it appears on the organization chart than the managers they are working with. Typically organisational managers and leaders draw on formal authority, control of resources, and use of organisational structure, rules and regulations. Their status and power are signalled in the organization chart. These higher level managers have what is called 'positional power' which gives them certain privileges and responsibilities that the lower level OD consultant does not have. The closer someone is to the top of the chart the more they are perceived to have the right to ask for things and not be challenged or questioned. In these circumstances the OD consultants feel that they must do what the higher level person tells them to do without questioning it.

Second the OD consultants are usually based in Human Resources functions and managers tend to think of HR as a service function that does what it is told to do by operational managers. In this case the managers feel that they are in a position to control other parts of the organization because some parts, including HR, are thought of as 'support' functions, while others are 'delivery' functions. In most companies the delivery functions are considered more important than the support functions.

So how can an organization development consultant do to remove the barriers of positional power and control of support organizations? The first step is to recognize that organization development work always involves challenging and questioning. This means learning how to ask a lot of questions in way that is not in a combative or confrontational but careful, constructive, and confident. The second step is to develop really excellent business knowledge and, more importantly, keep it up to date.

Read this extract from an advertisement placed by a large multi-national company for an OD consultant and you will see how the challenging and questioning ability is described in terms of influencing skills:

This is largely a role of influence, balance between strategy and tactics is critical. This will be a person who leads from behind. It is critical that he/she has a customer-focused perspective and orientation to the process. To make the point again, this person must be exceptionally strong in a role of influence and flawless in their approach related to managing people and expectations.

Being able to influence without authority is at the heart of an OD practitioner's ability to challenge and question effectively – often a tricky thing to do in difficult situations where, for example, there is no opportunity for a second chance, or there is a lot of resistance from another person or group.

Further on in the job spec for the OD consultant comes the requirement for a "business-oriented" approach:

While this person will be expected to have deep technical skills in organizational development, their holistic business acumen and practical results-orientation will be critical for their internal credibility. This position's success will be measured by the job holder's business orientation and the continuing demand for their involvement by operational line executives throughout the company.

So in order to be able to challenge and question effectively the OD practitioner needs to have excellent influencing skills and a strong sense of the business. This ability to talk the same business language as line managers, and to realize that they have time, budget, and cost constraints as they try to drive performance is an essential part of OD consultants proving that they are truly business aware.

The first step in learning how to influence effectively is to find out what your current influencing capability is. There are many influencing skills surveys available and it is worth finding out more about these as a good diagnosis can help you find out where to focus your efforts to develop your influencing skills. One assessment tool suggests that there are 5 core skills required for effectively influencing others.

1. Openness which asks how well you set agendas, build trust, handle concerns, and manage the other person's expectations.
2. Investigation which assesses your ability to diagnose the situation, ask good questions to uncover needs, listen attentively, and help people take another look at their decisions.
3. Presence that examines the way you can help people consider the potential consequences of their choices and decisions and how they might benefit from exploring a range of options.
4. Confirmation that explores how well you do at handling concerns and gaining agreement even if there are a number of different ideas in the room.
5. Rapport building that considers your ability to build long-term relationships that are mutually beneficial

Once you have done this look for courses or books that will give you some information and some practical exercises you can apply as you learn to influence. A useful book on this is Influencing: Skills and Techniques for Business Success, Fiona Dent and Mike Brent, published by Palgrave MacMillan. Then keep on practicing.

To develop business acumen you need to learn about the industry sector that your company operates in, the market conditions, the competitors and so on. There are usually specialist journals by industry available. Additionally there are numerous business journals and magazines. Some to read are the Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly, and strategy + business. All of these have websites that you can learn more from.

But as you are developing these sources of power remember that you already have some. You have the technical skills related to human resource matters and employment conditions. You have a certain amount of resource power – the manager wants you to do something so you are a resource to him/her and you can do the work 'going the extra mile', or you can do it just well enough.

Use your power skillfully and take action to develop your influencing skills and business knowledge. My next step in doing this is to take a program, Know the World, Know Yourself at the newly founded Global Shift University.

Good wishes for 2012.

This past week has been exceptionally busy for me, but reflecting on it a theme has emerged as, among other things, I've read three articles on healthy communities, participated in a discussion on organization development in China, and read a lovely article about a woman in her 70s who is an excellent runner and has developed her form using Chi running techniques, and commented on a wellness white paper a colleague sent me.

The connection between all these is close, albeit from different perspectives. They are all concerned with creating and using positive energies and emotions. Doing this leads to individual and organization health and high performance. I'm glad that I've recognized the theme and can now re-group myself as by Friday I felt thoroughly pulled down by the inertia, politics, and power plays of organizational life. (Not helped by watching the movie All the King's Men about a politician,Willie Stark, who "begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success and caught between dreams of service and an insatiable lust for power")

Meg Wheatley's interview in strategy+businessreinforces my view that community matters. She makes the point that "In a time like this of economic and emotional distress, every organization needs leaders who can help people regain their capacity, energy and desire to contribute". Unfortunately, she also says that people are reporting that "mean-spritedness is on the rise in their companies. And there seems to be a growing climate of disrespect for individual experience and competence." Partly she thinks this is due the uncharted territory that we (organizations) are in. Certainly in my work this week I've heard the phrase 'we're doing things we've never done before' echoed several times, and that is somewhat scary and I've observed that people are reacting in a scared way.

Wheatley has some antidotes to this 'running scared' mentality including taking time to reflect, making choices, and learning how to find the place beyond hope and fear. In another article of hers she quotes Rudolf Bahro, a prominent German activist and iconoclast: "When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure." Bahro offers insecurity as a positive trait, especially necessary in times of disintegration."

As she rightly points out living with insecurity and taking a reflective and thoughtful path to manage it positively is a lot easier said than done but nevertheless has huge benefits, and pays dividends in terms of higher motivation, and performance as well as increased feelings of individual well-being that ultimately contribute to the creation of organizational health (the collectivities of individual well-being among other factors).

In the November issue of ACSM's Certified News, Margaret Moore (aka Coach Meg) of Wellcoaches Corporation discusses the 'pivotal role of positive emotions in successful group performance', drawing on the work of Marcial Losada and Barbara Frederickson to argue that groups and communities that have positive emotions and participative management practices are higher performing than those that are fear driven, rule bound, and risk averse. Her article has a nice illustration of the butterfly effect (Lorenz equation) that I learned about while taking a program on chaos theory.

Moore presents a list of Losada's findings that, if applied, would help develop the positive emotions she advocates. One that I would like to see more of is the ratio of positive and negative topics and points made in meetings staying at above 3:1. Do this focusing on "positive topics, asking positive questions, providing affirmations, exploring strengths, or success stories.

In one of the meetings I attended last week someone presented a change curve (the standard, simplified, type of visual about the emotions people feel about change), and talked, humorously, about the 'valley of despair' part of the curve that she feels in. We all enjoyed the discussion and laughed a lot so maybe humor is another way of generating positive emotions. (I'll ask her on Monday if she has moved on from the valley of despair towards 'the search for meaning').

The content of these articles relates to another article I read (in November's AARP Magazine) about Betty Holston Smith. She is in her 70s and has run eight ultramarathons in the past four years. Her running technique is based on chi running (Chi is energy – the life giving, vital energy that unites body, mind and spirit a concept that has its origins in early Chinese philosophy). Her positive energy abounds and is a testament to its contribution to high performance.

Finally a co-worker asked me to review the business plan and rationale for an organizational wellness program that looks at five areas of well-being: career, mind and body, financial, community (being a member of a goal oriented or special interest group), and social (the network of relationships a person has). The paper lists the organizational benefits of such a wellness program including – as Wheatley, and more both imply in relation to reflective behavior and positivity:

 Increased employee productivity
 Higher quality work
 Improved employee morale and job satisfaction
 The ability to innovate, implement and adapt to change
 Reduced turnover
 Fewer stress-related disabilities and illnesses
 Reduced absenteeism
 Reduced presenteeims (employees who are not engaged)

I wait to see if the program will be financed or introduced as we are currently focused on stringent cost cutting, and axing of what are seen as discretionary efforts.

The Chinese connection came up again in the discussion I had with two Chinese colleagues about organization development in China. One of them mentioned the principles of yin/yang, wondering why organization development as we know it is currently rooted in western traditions, and suggesting that organization development that flowed from Chinese traditions might have a very different aspect and approach.

It was a fascinating discussion originating in the idea that a Chinese organization I am working with would like to offer a recognized and certified organization development program to its members. The plan was to buy in an existing western one. What emerged as we talked, however, was the notion of co-creating a Chinese organization development course with, among others, people who have been on the two-day organization design and development programs that I have run there and then aim to get that one certified.

The intention of this approach would be to explore and include more of the traditional Chinese philosophies and approaches – my colleague mentioned the yin-yang complementarities – and develop a potentially very different approach to organization development that could act to counter balance the fear and anxiety noted by Meg Wheatley, whilst recognizing that both exist as part of the dynamic system of an organization.

What are you doing to balance your fear and anxiety with positive energy and emotion? I've registered to take a half day course in Chi running!

Many organizations are in the throes of supporting people as they transition from current ways of working to new ways of working. For many people the new ways of working are radically different. Among other changes they are moving from

• Own desk/office space that is assigned to them to shared space, perhaps desk sharing or hoteling
• Roaming or teleworking from the assigned space to roaming or teleworking from unassigned space
• People having private offices based on position in hierarchy to people having enclosed work space based on job function.
• Traditional one-for-one space assignment to neighborhoods or zones with fluid boundaries

In making this cultural and working practices shift people tend to concentrate on space planning and work practices and processes. But there is another factor around the cultural change that is worth investigating.

Some research by Professor Halevy of Stanford University, and others, suggests in his article Power Corrupts, Particularly When it Lacks Status that if symbols of status are removed there are consequences in the way power is used (and misused). He and his research team predicted that when people have a role that gives them power but lacks status – and the respect that comes with that status – then it can lead to demeaning behaviors. They tested this prediction and found it to be true – albeit in laboratory rather than a real world situation. Nevertheless it is an interesting finding because if it is generalizable into the world of work there may be the unforeseen consequence of negative behavior change if symbols of status i.e. private offices are removed and there are no replacement status symbols.

I asked whether the research had touched on offices as status symbols and Halevy replied: "We haven't looked at the effects of taking away status symbols on the behavior of power holders, although I suspect that, in the absence of alternative ways to signal status, taking away these status symbols might lead power holders to try to dominate others in their environment to re-establish a clear hierarchy. Thus, devising alternative, less costly ways for people to signal their status might be necessary to avoid these outcomes".

If people either consciously or unconsciously regard 'their own' private office as a status symbol (regardless of whether they say it is an essential for them to work effectively), and have an emotional attachment to this 'entitlement', what are the effects of any drive towards a working environment that has many fewer private offices and encourages people to hot-desk, desk share, 'hotel', and telework? Will power without status corrupt absolutely as the Economist article commenting on Halvey's research suggests.

In my own work I have heard people say that they would like their managers to have offices. I was a little perplexed by this but then read another article, The fluency of social hierarchy: The ease with which hierarchical relationships are seen, remembered, learned, and liked, that suggested "that relationships with more hierarchical organization are easier to see, understand, learn, and remember. This cognitive fluency of hierarchies could be one mechanism through which hierarchies persist and are enjoyed even though people often claim to want to avoid them" – it seems plausible then that private offices signal the comfort of hierarchy.

In fact, Halevy's more recent research in fact shows that power without status, while perhaps not corrupting absolutely, does breed dysfunctional relationship conflict in organizations.

So it would be interesting to do specific power/status research project on the power and status implications of moving from traditional to new ways of working. People in the following situations could be invited to participate in the research:

• Those who currently have private offices and who have not been asked to give them up
• Those who currently have private offices and might be asked to give them up
• Those who have had private offices in the past and have already given them up private offices,

The research may extend to consider other things that might qualify as status symbols such as car parking spaces or 'territory' like their own floor plate for their organization.

The findings from any such study might help with
:

• Mitigating some of the risks around impacting people's feelings about status
• Capturing ways in which employees may self-affirm to compensate for lost status symbols
• Identifying 'compensating' status elements if these are required for effective performance
• Determining whether there is any link between power use and status symbols in an organization that affects for good or ill workplace performance
• Developing a change plan that recognizes the power/status relationship

What's your view – are offices the status symbols of power? Will the exercise of power change for the worse if the status symbols are removed?

Imagine a look alike Las Vegas casino but in Johannesburg. Now imagine around 70 organization design consultants sitting in there in one of the artificially lit hotel conference rooms working through an eclectic program of presentations, exercises, flag twirling, journey mapping, world café, and other things beloved by 'interventionists'. I was one of the 70 at the New Africa Organization Design Forum Summit there. My task was to talk about the myths of organization design. At points I found myself asking myself 'am I seriously part of this community?' this question perhaps brought on by the ODD sessions. I finally worked out that ODD was an acronym (organization design and development) and not intended to be a descriptor so clearly I was confused there, but maybe not.

The program veered from the sedate, and the 'I've heard this a thousand times before', to the wacky in unpredictable sequence, each session with its own specific language and vocabulary that required a jargon buster (unfortunately not provided). Similarly it veered from participants being seated and listening attentively to a presenter with power points to scrabbling on the floor picking up the bones and beans that John Ballam sowed amongst us in his superb method of shaking us out of our known worlds of 'adaptive systems', 'holistic thinking' 'new paradigms', 'mental models', and so on leading us towards 'shamanism', 'healing', 'energy fields', 'the consistency of the unseen', and 'fractals'. His mix of theatre and chaos theory started with his own chanting, dancing and sowing and finished with all participants doing a short stomp dance with pelvic wiggles. (Odd or not? Form your own views).

The overall theme for the three days (one pre-conference) was to discuss "Aligning Organization Design and Culture to Accelerate Performance and Adaptability in the Three Horizons of Work". In case you're wondering what the 'three horizons of work are' here goes:

I. Hierarchical: Innovations in Core/Mechanistic Design
Typical structure: Hierarchy / Vertical structures
Decision culture: Controlled, authority cascaded from top, directed
Culture of change: Push-Control & Predict,conformity with prescribed culture
Best fit change method: Waterfall, strategic planning,supports status quo,
Design leaders and methods: Galbraith; Star Model, Jacques; Requisite Order, Fredrick Taylor; Mechanistic

II. Participatory: Innovations in Emerging/Humanistic Design
Typical structure: Hierarchy / Cross functional Vertical and Horizontal
Decision culture: Delegated authority from top to select teams, feedback loops influence decisions
Culture of change: Push / Pull-Proactive, engage, transfer knowledge,learning, co-created culture
Best fit change method: Engagement events and initiatives, shifts the status quo and power relations
Design leaders and methods: Axelrod; Conference Model, Emery/Weisberg;Search, Lukensmeyer; AmericaSpeaks, Owens; Open Space

III. Individual Accountability Innovations in Experimental / Organic Design
Typical structure: Flat / Networked, Circles, Fluid, focus on roles not structure
Decision culture: Distributed to all levels based on accountabilities, all make relevant decisions through dialogue
Best fit change method: Pull-Sense & Response to real time stimuli,transparency, emergent culture
Real time & built into operating process, vertical structure fades, focus shifts to results vs. structure
Design leaders and methods: Adaptive Organizations: Winby; Decision Accelerators, Robertson; Holacracy, Ressler; Results Only Work Environments

The bulk of the participants were from South Africa and worked in government, and a goodly proportion of the speakers were North American consultants. With this combination I came away with a mixed bundle of stuff. There were some good questions raised.

One that I found intriguing was 'How does the national culture of South Africa support the organization development work that you are doing?' This led to a discussion on what the South African values are: 'Ubuntu' – I am because we are – was one value that doesn't mesh with the 'what's in it for me?' attitude that I meet in my American work, similarly the South African value of 'walk together and not apart', makes one think collaboration, a value reinforced by viewing the history of apartheid exhibition in the hotel I was staying in (coincidentally the same day that someone emailed me the Malvina Reynolds song, 'It's not nice' ). 'N Boer maak n plan' was another value people mentioned. This one is about dealing pragmatically with things that go wrong. Another was 'lekgotla' which is a forum for discussion and dialogue.

Having also just been in China I wondered about the Chinese values that might contribute to organization design work. Do national cultures mean working differently even in multinational organizations? Why is organization development and design work so North American based? Noble Kumawu, from Ghana, co-author of Global OD: A Model for Africa and the World, and CEO of OCIC International started to address that question.

Taking a view that questioning is the precursor to doing things differently (and hopefully better) I am now pondering national cultures, shamanism, and a whole raft of phrases that caught my attention: "Get rid of the heroes', 'selling an energy field' (not a BP or Shell thing but the psychic energy around organization development), 'find your organizational voice', 'courage is not the absence of fear but the control of it'.

I've added to my already extensive Amazon wish list with Howard Gardner, John D. Caputo, Angeles Arrien, Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, and Julian Jaynes, all now on it. I also met up with several people to continue the conversations with. So could I go back to work and 'add value' (the CFO might ask) to my organization having invested the time and money in attending? It's possible but exactly how to measure that is still a question mark. I'm comforting myself that several speakers (and participants) felt that measures and models were old school so I may not go down the track of contortions of proving it to myself or the CFO.

The gold coins? On inspection they proved to be plastic tokens, I think someone must have brought them in from the gaming tables or slot machines. They too were scattered about but on the tables not the floor. I just hope they're not symbolic of organization design or development work that promises a lot and yields little.