Business Sustainability and Risk

Last week I was lucky enough to attend an Executive Workshop in Phoenix, Arizona, that was presented by the AHC Group, and led by the group’s founder, Dr. Bruce Piasecki.

For those who are familiar with the long-term focus of Bruce’s work, it will come as no surprise that the theme of this meeting was around various aspects of business sustainability—often referred to as corporate social responsibility (CSR). These discussions revolved around the various ways that a business can approach the ‘three legs’ that define sustainability efforts: social, environmental, and economic (also commonly referred to as people, planet and profit).

Beyond the simple pleasure of leaving behind the subarctic temperatures of home—I must say that I really enjoyed the event, and I would like to share a few of the highlights.

{images1}The meeting itself was comprised almost entirely of speakers from the private sector—companies that are wrestling with the challenges of implementing these ideal world concepts in the unwashed reality of day-to-day business.

The topics were varied and well connected—but the session on evaluating risk really resonated with me, so I thought I would share a few of my notes.

One final thought before we get to the good stuff: this was a private event, so I’ll not be sharing any names. Apologies to those who will not receive credit for their contributions. I thought it better to err on the side of caution in this case. However, if you would like to have some first hand experience with these events, the solution is simple—sign up to attend!

Risk Management

  • Determining the Probability of an event is much more difficult than determing Severity. People have a fairly easy time finding agreement on the potential impact that a given event will have—but when asked to nail down the likelihood that it will happen, consensus is much more difficult.
  • There are some legitimate reasons to debate who your Risk/Safety group reports to—is it the CEO, CFO, Legal, or is there direct communication with the Board? It parallels the question: who is your legal counsel there to protect: the CEO or the Corporation? Two very different priority profiles can be in play.
  • Are you evaluating your Risk exposure thoughout your full value chain or is your focus internal? Are you asking your suppliers about their risk exposure and mitigation plans? Microsoft and nVidia both faced revenue challenges in the last quarter—and both pointed to reduced global sales of PC’s as the floods in Thailand resulted in severe shortages of hard drives. PC makers were unable to ship finished units. And who at these companies had figured East Asian environmental issues into their risk exposure?
  • Include an outsider in your Risk Identification activities. Many companies have been involved in ‘high risk’ activities for so long that it has become ‘normal’ to those who live it every day. They don’t see the degree of risk as they are simply too accustomed to it.
  • And, in a real eye-opener: every $1 spent on planning will save $4 - $7 in response costs.
  • Many of us are familiar with the Probability/Severity matrix, which often takes a form like this:

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This is a very straightforward way to look at risk exposure. But the important issue that was raised: what happens when an event in the top left box takes place? An event with a very low probability of happening—but when it does, the impacts are profound.

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Think Deepwater Horizen oil spill or the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant disaster. Events like this indicate the need for viewing that segment of the matrix in a different light.

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Reputational Risk

  • There is growing corporate awareness of ‘Reputational Risk.’
    • The importance of this risk component appears to be driven by the increasingly frictionless sharing of information via the Internet and social networks.
  • It is thought that this concern with reputation will accelerate a move to the concept of the Triple Bottom Line as:
    • Shareholder returns are being increasingly impacted by negative reputation events, and;
    • We are beginning to see executive compensation packages that include KPI’s that track CSR indicators.
  • Businesses are finally coming to the realization that bad press on the Internet lives ‘forever’. A negative event or story can and will continue to surface in Google searches for months and years after the issue has been rectified. Is your company doing enough to surface the positive things that it is doing? And like it or not, social media is here, it is real, it is important, and companies had better get out in front of it—or suffer the consequences.
  • Remember that your supply chain can and will impact not only the direct operating risk, but also exposes you to great Reputational Risk (have you been tracking the Foxconn/Apple stories that were precipitated by the New York Times investigation?)
  • This is not a static environment: what was acceptable in 2008 will not be acceptable in 2015.
    • Sharing of negative reputation is never going to become more difficult
    • Activists are becoming increasingly sophisticated and dedicated to online communications and community building

Reaction

As I listened to these discussions—particularly as the concept of reputation was revisited—I came to see that some of the same advice that we have been giving leaders to enhance their skills on the ‘micro’ level is equally pertinent on the ‘macro’ stage:

  • Employee engagement is the solution to many of their issues. How to encourage this engagement? Well, that’s a whole other series of posts—but let’s start with the concept of ‘trust’ and let it spin out from there.
  • Great leaders (and managers) must become great storytellers. The attention of our various stakeholders is so fragmented that, if you want to convey a lasting message, you must be able to grab and hold that attention. We are living in an era that is witness to the creation of a ‘YouTube Generation.’ Attention span has gone from hours to minutes, and is now measured in seconds. If you doubt this, think about the pacing of some of our classic movies, The Godfather for example:

Now, reflect that against the cuts that are made in the Best Picture of 2011, The King’s Speech (a restrained and slow moving film by current standards):

 

 

 

And for another example of a great storyteller, please be sure to check out Dr. Piasecki’s new book, Doing More With Less

 

Food Safety - A Complex Leadership Challenge (Part 2) - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Food Safety - A Complex Leadership Challenge (Part 2)

This post follows on Part 1 where we discussed employee engagement and the vestiges of 19th century management.

 

“Treat regular workers as if they were volunteers.”

Drucker on Leadership

Gaining Traction on Engagement

What exactly do we mean when we talk about ‘improving engagement’?

Put simply: both individuals and managers must focus on how they need to work together.

To do so, employees must:

  • Understand the Strategy and contribute to the organization’s mission and direction—at least in terms of how it impacts their day-to-day work
  • Be led by Managers who willempower them and create a work climate that promotes motivation
  • Posses the ability to Self-Managein order to participate in setting their own goals as a critical contribution to the strategic direction of the enterprise

These skills are absolutely necessary in our world of “doing more with less”—and to do so at the speed of change itself.  Imagine the gains if organizations were able to harness the discretionary effort of all employees all of the time!

With that in mind, lets take a look at each component.

Understanding Strategic Direction

To give their best every day requires that employees make a total commitment to the company mission. The first step is that all employees understand and accept the fundamental purpose of the organization, the clients it serves, and it’s operating assumptions. Modern workers expect no less and will not accept any less. There is ample evidence to support this.

As a reality check, consider the following three questions from Gallup’s employee engagement survey:

  • I know what is expected of me at work.
  • I have the materials and equipment I need to do my job right.
  • At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

Managers who can Empower Teams

Pushing the reset button on employee engagement requires managers to change their mindset from the command and control model and means that they can no longer do it all:

  • The span of knowledge represented in the modern workforce is so vast that managers can’t possibly be experts in all aspects of their job.{images2}
  • The speed at which change is occurring in turn requires rapid decisions in order to meet client expectations and to remain competitive.
  • The need for self-organizing teams operating from a shared understanding becomes essential for achieving results.
  • And the above leads to the inevitable need to build consensus. Consensus building is the key to integrating interests and to avoiding problems in business processes. If you want employees to be engaged and to use their best judgment when making day-to-day decisions, they need to understand how their actions will harmonize with the overall team effort as well as others in the greater organization.

These issues require a radically different leadership style from and managers and leaders.

Again, let’s check how the above issues key into the questions that count for employees as reflected in Gallup’s Q12:

  • In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
  • My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
  • There is someone at work who encourages my development.

Arriving at positive answers to these questions is key to getting employees engaged!

Self-Management

Why is self-management so important? Because, in traditional organizations, most employees have not had a chance to develop the team decision-making skills required with greater discretion. Self-managed work teams have been around for decades. While much was learned from the early trail blazers such as Tavistok Institute, wide spread application began with the work of the likes of Deming and others who advocated a much softer version of employee involvement in the pursuit of quality.

A more contemporary example the Lean movement, first employed by Toyota (post Deming) and the Agile Manifesto which grew out of it, is widely considered as an effective management philosophy appropriate to our modern times. Lean production, or simply lean, is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination.

As a management philosophy, who can argue with such a definition given the need to innovate and reduce cost!

Placing the Role of Management Under the Lens

You can gain a rapid perspective of how much self-management “space“ there is in your own organization through the lens of leadership styles. The continuum of leader behaviour is adapted from the Harvard Business Review article How to choose a leadership pattern by Robert Tannenbaum and Warren Schmidt.  The continuum outlines leader behaviours that range from ‘tell’, through to ‘sell’, ‘consult’ and ‘join’.

To achieve any semblance of employee engagement and self-management, it is pretty obvious that teamwork—leaders in collaboration with team members—must shift to the right of diagram. Shifting to the right creates space for employees to use their own judgement about what is best.

It also creates the climate necessary if you want to harvest the “discretionary effort” dividend!

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In my experience, this co-dependency is the often-overlooked “joint product” of greater employee engagement and leadership. The one can’t take place without the other.

Again, let’s check how these topics key into the questions that count for employees—here are another three key questions from the Gallup’s Q12:

  • At work, my opinions seem to count.
  • The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
  • My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.

With this information informing the discussion, do you feel your employee engagement profile is up to the challenge of your food safety goals?

 

 


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Harmonizing U.S. and Canadian Food Safety Goals - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Harmonizing U.S. and Canadian Food Safety Goals

Introduction

Agriculture and food manufacturing and production is big business between Canada and the United States of America.   In 2010, food and agricultural products accounted for over $33 Billion in bilateral trade.  Canada imports approximately 13% of all U.S food and agricultural exports.  The U.S imports about 20% of all Canadian products (Regulatory Cooperation Council).  This trade includes both inputs to agricultural and food processes, as well as consumable goods. 

In Canada, agricultural and food products are regulated by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Other regulatory partners, including Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada are responsible for managing and mitigating food safety risks in the human population.  In the food safety arena, there is broad co-operation between CFIA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 

The tragedies of September 11, 2001, led to increased border surveillance and has had negative impacts on the flow of goods between Canada and the United States.  Recognizing the harmful effects on trade and economic prosperity, the Obama administration and the Canadian Federal Government have recently entered into a new agreement around border security and higher levels of co-operation and joint harmonization of food safety standards and processes. 

This post will outline some of the recent challenges and some background on the new agreement as well as suggest some possible impacts for food safety management.

Challenges

Food safety is a concern at every level of government: Federal, Regional and Local.  The response to a food safety concern can have wide ranging and immediate impacts on the population, {images1}agricultural sector, producers, food processors and the ability to access markets.  The regulatory regime is also complex with both Federal and Provincial requirements in the Canadian market and at the Federal and State level in the United States.  There are numerous product certification and compliance standards.  Monitoring and managing food safety is a complex management task.  There are rigorous requirements to maintain documentation on traceability of inputs from the supplier chain, and tracing processed products through the distribution chain. Documentation on lab testing and quality assurance standards is also required.

Increasingly, government is relying on the food processors themselves to self-monitor, with inspectors auditing the paper trail.  The reporting burden can be onerous, particularly on smaller producers. The result has been that smaller producers have focused on local market markets and have shunned export opportunities. 

New Border Agreement

In December 2011, a new Border Perimeter Agreement was signed between Canada and the United States (www.BorderActionPlan.gc.ca). As part of this agreement, a Joint Action Plan Initiative has been developed with the following activities that impact food safety:

  1. Develop common approaches to food safety;
  2. Equivalence agreements for meat safety systems;
  3. Mutual reliance on jointly acceptable food safety laboratory recognition criteria, test results and methodologies;
  4. Streamline certification requirements for meat and poultry; and,
  5. Implement common meat cut nomenclature.

The impact on both agricultural producers and food processors will be substantial.  When the negotiations are completed, both countries will recognize compliance verification procedures done at source.  This is designed to simplify movement of goods and products. 

A series of Canadian working groups will be established to negotiate and implement the joint action plan.  These groups will work with their U.S. counterparts to co-ordinate food safety approaches and methodologies.  The plan is to complete the harmonization within 18 months. The aim is to create alignment and harmonization of regulations, standards and approaches to food safety risk management procedures.

Improving the Inspection Regime

While all of this is being completed, CFIA has undertaken a two-year project to modernize Food Safety Inspection processes, anticipated to be completed in 2012-2013.  This special initiative is looking at all aspects of food safety inspection and compliance activities undertaken by the {images2}CFIA to make inspection more effective and efficient, while maintaining food safety outcomes.  Various commodity sectors take different approaches to food safety inspection processes.  Depending upon the nature of the risk and the complexity of the processing environment, inspection procedures can range from review and audit of traceability documentation at the processor level; to risk based strategies for inspection of products at the border or at the processors sites; or full time Federal inspectors on-site in the processing facilities.  As part of this modernization effort, options for third party inspections, certified by CFIA are also being examined.

Implications

These initiatives will have, potentially, profound impacts on agricultural producers and food processors.  Food safety risk management is increasingly being downloaded to the plant and producer level.  The implication of both the new border agreement and inspection procedures is to lower trade barriers between the U.S. and Canada, and to reduce duplication of inspections, lab sampling and compliance activities. We anticipate that this will be based largely on a risk management approach, as opposed to a brute force inspection regime.

For agricultural producers and processors, this means a renewed focus on accountability and traceability of inputs and subsequent distribution of products.  The ability to maintain accurate records, often computerized for data sharing, will require investment in more sophisticated IT solutions.  The ability to understand and comply with the Performance Measurement regime of government departments will become a crucial component of understanding the food safety requirements.  In the end, this is designed to make life easier for everyone.

Understanding the new regime can position producers to take advantage of the new market opportunities and prepare themselves to expand their market horizons.

The end result is enhanced access to markets for both Canadian and American producers.

Take-aways

  1. How long does it take your organization to run a traceability report? 
  2. Is your traceability system automated or paper based?
  3. If you were asked to exchange electronic data with relevant inspection authorities, could you comply?
  4. What opportunities exist for your company or organization to take advantage of the harmonization of food safety approaches? 
  5. What are your next steps?
Food Safety & Traceability: Managing Change & the People Side of the Equation - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Food Safety & Traceability: Managing Change & the People Side of the Equation

The challenges facing the food and beverage industry regarding food safety and traceability are daunting. There’s no shortage of reports of food and beverage recalls on a pretty much quarterly basis. Too often, the food involved is the source of serious illness and even death.

Regulators have, and continue to augment, regulatory and inspection regimes to little avail; in the end they must rely on producers to show progress on improving food safety. For their part, food and beverage producers are keenly aware of the importance of food quality to their brand promise and at the same time just how much damage even a minor recall can wreak on an otherwise great brand.

In recent years, both food and beverage producers and regulators have and continue to make major capital and operating investments aimed at stiffening their quality systems as well as remedial processes to manage inevitable recalls. Yet, the current state of food safety is still suspect and is a source of major cynicism on the part of consumers. Each breech of food safety episode only serves to increase public mistrust.

The ongoing question continues to be “how do we get better traction from our food safety and traceability investments?”

Part of the answer lies in the fact that technologies and systems will only take the quality quest so far. Without an accompanying improvement in the management of people, these investments will never achieve their intended
 goals. As Tom Peters and Bob Waterman have so eloquently pointed out, “excellence is about people, creating communities of excellence through listening, respect and giving people the space to be innovative and creative”.

While there are a number of service excellence frameworks for high-level engagement here’s a simple one to judge your own efforts by:

  1. Mission: A key element of success too often missed is the importance of aiming past the target. In hockey we aim for the back of the net, in golf we aim for the back of the cup. All too often in business we settle for profit. That may work for the capitalist, but it’s generally not very motivational for the vast majority of employees. For a growing number of food industry firms, the mission is food safety and traceability. Profit becomes one of several measures by which overall success is measured.
  2. Selflessness: One of the great secrets of work life for me was the realization that no firm could achieve outstanding results without the full engagement of all employees - what is more generally known as the discretionary effort. Discretionary effort is all about putting in the extra time and effort to achieve excellent results. It’s the opposite of ‘what’s in it for me’ so prevalent in much of society. In that sense it is an unselfish work behavior; its precondition is belief in the intrinsic worth of the business mission. Of course, there are significant enablement conditions that must also be in place. In essence it’s a simple idea but it is not easy to achieve.
  3. Commitment to Excellence: Commitment to excellence means that the business success of the firm depends first and foremost on the brand promise to provide products of the highest quality. This links back to the over-arching mission of “aiming past the target”. It is also the discipline by which the business strategy and subsequent lower level goals and activities must be aligned. Commitment to excellence provides the glue - the intrinsic reward - that every single person in the production chain receives in their quest for satisfaction and well being that comes from knowing that they have done their job well.
  4. Ethical Standards: Nowhere are ethical standards more important than perhaps in food safety and traceability. Outstanding ethical behavior must be seen as an imperative from the highest levels of management to the provider of most lowly task. People at all levels must be rewarded for doing the right things regardless of the cost. Behavior premised on the notion that “it’s wrong only if you get caught” is unacceptable.
  5. Cultural Integrity: Every person must believe that everyone accepts and works by the principles espoused by the service excellence framework - or they will be found out and there will be consequences. Employees who firmly believe this to be true of the company may be seen as naive by an outsider but not to insiders; it is just “the way we work here.”
  6. Trust: Trust is the lubricant on which service excellence thrives.  Every employee must be able to say: “I trust my employer and I trust the process we follow.”
  7. Living the Life: Living the life is all about inculcating the values into the daily work of the entire organization, in every office, meeting, and work site. The above values{images1} must be trained for, fostered, nurtured, and rewarded throughout every system, in particularly the human systems, of the organization.

Although it seems rather straightforward, is it really that simple? Not exactly, but for the organization who can achieve this state, it is worth its weight in gold!

Are these ideas new?

No.  Actually they’re more or less 1500 years old.

This blog was inspired by the Business Secrets of the Trappists Parts 1 to 4 published by Forbes in 2009.

 

 


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Managing Change:
A workbook for personal and organizational change

 

 

 

 

 

Food Safety - A Complex Leadership Challenge (Part 1) - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Food Safety - A Complex Leadership Challenge (Part 1)

At their most basic level, companies exist to create revenues by selling products to customers.  And for most industries, this seller-buyer relationship is founded on a basis of trust.  The buyer trusts that the seller is going to provide a product or service that performs well, and can be counted on to do so consistently and safely.  Sellers who reliably honor the trust relationship by meeting these standards find that buyers are {images1}remarkably loyal to trusted brands, and are often willing to pay a premium to vendors they trust.

This relationship is especially true in situations where health and finance are at the heart of the buying decision.  But when the trust relationship is damaged, consumers will lose faith in the ‘brand promise’ and quickly turn elsewhere.

Trust in the Food and Beverage Industries

Many people don’t make the immediate connection—and some of those involved are reluctant to admit it—but food and beverage companies are directly participating in the health products and services market.

The food and drink that we all ingest is fundamentally connected to our health.  This ties the concept of ‘brand promise’ directly to the notion of trust relationships.  If consumers believe that the brand is detrimental to the health of their families—this can stem from pathogenic contamination, materials contamination, unsafe transport and storage processes, or even inputs of a ‘questionable’ origin—they are not going to buy.  It’s uncomfortable for food and beverage producers to admit that they are being increasingly grouped with health industries, but it is true.  And it isn’t going to change any time soon.{images2}

Nonetheless, most producers understand the critical link between ‘brand promise’ and trust.  They continue to make major capital and operating investments in quality and safety systems.  And certainly governmental agencies have long recognized the importance that their citizens have confidence in the safety of their food supply—hence the long list of regulatory requirements and inspection regimes.

But despite these public and private investments, the ongoing question continues to be, “how do we get better traction from our technology and quality improvement efforts?”

Part of the answer lies in the fact that technologies and systems will only take the productivity and quality quest so far.  Without an accompanying improvement in the management of people, these investments will never achieve their intended goals.  Consider the quote from a recent Global Workforce study:

“There is a gap between what employees want and expect from their employment relationship and what employers can afford to deliver, compromising employers’ ability to shift their focus from recovery to growth.”

Insights From the 2010 Global Workforce Study
Watson Towers

Getting Traction on Employee Engagement

The food manufacturing sector’s quest for food safety and traceability is not much different than the business challenge we all face:

How do we create a compelling argument for all our employees to improve quality while the current austerity also requires cost containment?

What employees want and expect from their employment relationship and what employers can afford to deliver is working at cross-purposes.

It is against this backdrop that the C-level executives need to see the current constraint era as an opportunity for “laying the foundation for organizational transformation.”

Productivity Rationale

While the solution is difficult and typically multifaceted, the only way out of this situation is to harness the discretionary effort of employees.  At the root of ‘above average’ performance is a workplace culture that engages employees.  It is typically a necessity, and often, the only solution. Consider the recent data from Gallup.com on employee engagement:

  • In world-class organizations, the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is approximately 10 to 1; while,
  • In average organizations, the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is approximately 2 to 1!

Clearly, increasing employee engagement correlates directly with a positive impact on key business metrics.

Take a look at your own most recent survey results (have you ever surveyed your employees?)—how do your employee engagement survey results compare with the above?

What Separates World Class Organizations?

Recent studies of best-in-class organizations reinforce that employee engagement and employee performance do truly go hand in hand. In their recent report, The Engagement / Performance Equation, the Aberdeen Research Group showed that 43% of Best-in-Class organizations have a formal employee engagement strategy, while just 14% of low performing organizations do. The Best-in-Class Model provides a useful framework for organizations to move themselves forward in achieving higher performance outcomes.

Digging into the Best-in-Class Model further reveals that we don’t have an employee engagement problem; what we have is a failure of leaders and managers to create an engaging work environment.

Why is it so hard to change leadership and employee engagement in organizations?  The first place to look is at your workplace “social technology”.

What’s your Social Technology?

The fact of the matter is that we are all struggling under the legacy of 19th century management while trying to cope with the demands of the 21st century world. Consider the following…

A Century Old Social Technology:
As managers, we tend to think of technology in terms of IT, machines, robotics, etc.  But how we manage ourselves is also a “technology”—a social technology.  Looked at this way, most organizations still employ a very old approach despite the dramatically different circumstances:

  1. Hierarchical “command control” organizations (also known as “scientific management”) grew out of the military and was “perfected” for application to the workplace with the onset of the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries by people like Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and in the early 20th century by Henry Ford.{images4}
  2. The principles established are still engrained in the workplace of the 21st century in practices such as “span of control”, “unity of command”, and via management principles such as planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.
  3. In fact, automation, job specialization, and the drive for productivity in manufacturing operations create a bias for a “command control” as the default approach.

However, we now live in a globalized world where quality, knowledge and adaptability are king:

  1. We no longer live in a 19th century world but in a globalized world; a world that changes at the speed of the internet; a world that is interconnected at state, business, NGO, and private citizen levels; a world where our biggest challenge is to manage knowledge and ideas—not machines or “things”.
  2. In this world of “managing at the speed of change”, it is impossible for a leader to possess the depth and breadth of knowledge needed to sustain the innovation and adaptability required to be successful.

In short, we are seriously in need of a new “social technology” that provides us with a management model that is consistent with the challenges of the 21st century.

What do you think—is there a disconnect in the workplace between 21st century demands and 18th century management models? Is this a real concern of yours or an imagined problem cooked up by booksellers and academics?

Keep an eye on this space for part 2 of this discussion.  (Update: click here to read Part 2 of this post!) Or, better yet, sign up for our newsletter updates in the right-hand column of this page to make sure you don’t miss it!

 

 


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Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field: Leadership or Bullying? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field: Leadership or Bullying?

I was born in 1955, the same year as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

As a fellow cohort a few things distinguish me from them: I’m a lot shorter, far less wealthy, not nearly as smart, nowhere near the visionary, and the list goes on. Plus, I’m a boring Canadian.

Having already read a lot on Jobs in recent weeks, and despite all the media hoopla following his death, I still bought his new biography as soon as it was on the shelves. Author Walter Isaacson’s 600-plus page tomb, with the minimalist title “Steve Jobs”, is an excellent account of Jobs’ complex life. (Isaacson also wrote an excellent biography on Albert Einstein).

It’s worthwhile to note that Jobs hounded Isaacson for over five years to write his biography (which ended up being produced from some 40 interviews with Jobs). {images1}It was Jobs’ wife, Laurene, who in 2009 finally laid it out for Isaacson why he needed to start on the biography as soon as possible.

Rather than tear through the book I’ve decided to read it slowly, savoring the countless stories and anecdotes, some which are humorous, some sad and others that piss you off when you realize how big an asshole Steve Jobs could be.

But the main reason I bought the book is because I’m reading it through a leadership lens. Steve Jobs’ treatment of not just employees but friends and business partners was often appalling. Yet his achievements over 35-plus years (with some intermittent problems) were incredible. This conflicts in a major way with the leadership literature, where treating people with respect and as human beings, not inanimate objects, is a key cornerstone. Jobs, somehow, was able to motivate people (employees and business partners) to produce far beyond what was initially thought possible. And he did this by often berating and belittling them.

Jobs was a visionary and a perfectionist. You learn a lot about why he became who he was through Isaacson’s recounting of Jobs’ upbringing as an adopted child. However, his detached, often brutal, immature behavior is still a mystery. Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field, coined for his ability to bend reality in order that his underlings accomplish what he demanded, was demonstrated on numerous occasions when he was told that something was not possible, or could not be done within a short timeframe.

Bud Tribble, a software designer under Jobs, adapted the Reality Distortion Field expression from Star Trek. As Tribble explained to Andy Hertfeld, who had just joined the Macintosh team and who expressed his disbelief with Jobs’ unrealistic product release deadline of January 1982, “Steve has a reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is {images2}malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he’s not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.”

What’s intriguing is how Jobs broke the so-called leadership rulebook by not inspiring or coaching employees to achieve something, and instead flatly insisting that it could and would be done. Negotiation was out. Failure was not an option. Naysayers were turfed.

Steve Wozniak (aka “Woz”), who co-founded Apple, explains it this way: “[Jobs’] reality distortion is when he has an illogical vision of the future, such as telling me that I could design the Breakout game in just a few days. You realize that it can’t be true, but he somehow makes it true.”

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through. (Paul Jobs)

Jobs’ use of foul language and insults were well known. His typical remark to an engineer was “This is shit!” This is clearly not the most desirable way to provide feedback. However, Apple employees (at least some) learned that what Jobs was really trying to say was “Tell me why this is the best way to do it.” What Jobs was attempting was to challenge employees to be creative and to find the optimal way to achieve something—to make something perfect.

Some employees learned to push back, sometimes really hard. Jobs would buckle if presented with a compelling case. Of course this took a lot of courage and self-confidence. As Apple manufacturing manager Debi Coleman, who stood up to Jobs, enthused: “[Jobs] would shout at a meeting, ‘You asshole, you never do anything right.’ It was like an hourly occurrence. Yet I consider myself the absolute luckiest person in the world to have worked for him.”

Steve Jobs’ approach to inspiring his employees was indeed bizarre. Yet as Isaacson states: “It infused Apple employees with an abiding passion to create groundbreaking products and a belief that they could accomplish what seemed impossible. They had T-shirts made that read ’90 hours a week and loving it.’”

Jobs learned from his original Macintosh team that A-plus players prefer to work together and won’t tolerate B-quality work. And to design and create consummate consumer products – his never-ending quest for perfection (ingrained in him by his father, Paul Jobs) – you need the best people.

It’s easy for us to question Jobs’ motivational tactics, which were jaw-dropping at times. But then look at how he resuscitated Apple which was on the brink of death in the nineties, and then led it to be the most valuable company in the world. Whether CEO Tim Cook and his {images3}executive team can propel Apple forward with the same velocity is doubtful, especially given mounting global competition for consumer products.

Rather than smirk at his Reality Distortion Field, perhaps there’s something to learn from how Steve Jobs approached leadership. There are long entrails of vision-less CEOs who beat up employees, decimating their organizations, while living for quarter-to-quarter results. And then exiting with golden parachutes.

Steve Jobs was far from perfect. Later in life, towards the end, he shared some of his misgivings with Isaacson, acknowledging his mistakes. He was one of the greatest enigmas as a corporate leader. What he lacked in people skills and empathy, he made up for with a compelling vision for the future and the pursuit of excellence. He clearly has left an indelible mark on society.

Reflect on the following words from Steve Jobs, shared with Walter Isaacson. Keep in perspective that at age 25 Jobs was worth $256 million. In the fall of 2011 his net worth was an estimated $7 billion.

I never worried about money. I grew up in a middle-class family, so I never thought I would starve. And I learned at Atari that I could be an okay engineer, so I knew I could always get by. I was voluntarily poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life even when I was working. So I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful, because I didn’t have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when I also didn’t have to worry about money.

I watched people at Apple who made a lot of money and felt they had to live differently. Some of them bought a Rolls-Royce and various houses, each with a house manager and then someone to manage the house managers. Their wives got plastic surgery and turned into these bizarre people. This was not how I wanted to live. It’s crazy. I made a promise to myself that I’m not going to let this money ruin my life.

Steve Jobs was about simplicity in life—something from which we could all learn.

 

This post originally appeared on Jim’s blog Changing Winds, and appears here with his permission.

 


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Download Jim's White Paper:

Management Innovation and Globalization: The Leadership Challenge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Case for Transforming to a Process Managed Organization - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

The Case for Transforming to a Process Managed Organization

 

A recent global strategic business report makes the assertion that the global business process management market is projected to exceed $5.0 billion by the year 2017.

This is good news for the Information Technology community, considering the advent of cloud computing, mobile and other technologies, but what does it mean for businesses, non-government organizations, and organizations and agencies of different levels of governments?

We can start with some definitions.

What is Business Process Management?

{images1}Business Process Management (BPM) can be viewed as a different organizational model than the typical organization chart, which doesn’t generally reflect how work actually gets done and more often than not shows a chain of command and functional responsibility.

Unlike typical models, BPM encourages staff to reflect on the needs of their individual customers, both internal and external. BPM is about taking control of complete processes all the way to and from the customer; involves people, processes, systems and strategy; and, is primarily about business design.

Why transform to BPM?

The BPM philosophy has been around for about a decade—but what exactly is driving more and more businesses and organizations to want to adopt BPM functionality?

Well for starters, the recent global recession has been one catalyst for organizations to improve efficacy, efficiency and strategic value of their critical business processes in various scenarios. You may recall that I made the case in two earlier blogs for organizations doing their own scenario planning - SCENARIO PLANNING: Create a Context and Scenario Planning: Crystal Balling or Smart Business?

As well, if one or more of the following questions rings true, the time may be ripe for you to consider transforming to a BPM organization:

  • How do you deal with continuous change—new competitors, new business models, new innovations—that changes the rules of your industry?
  • How do you cut costs and improve margins simultaneously?
  • How do you keep your most productive people content when the market environment pushes them to exhaustion?
  • How do you organize yourself to deliver unique value to your customers now that traditional methods of building loyalty are under siege?
  • How do you keep your company from becoming commoditised—undifferentiated—swimming in the sea of sameness?
  • How do you make your processes more responsive and your structure more efficient?

What does BPM do differently than current business processes?

The reality of current business process design reinforces the idea of working in silos, of many hand-offs that lead to backlogs and delays, and of processes and organizations that are designed to deal with a single task or action.

BPM provides an approach that addresses the issues of strategy, people, processes, and systems. It involves understanding, designing, executing and optimisation of enterprise-wide business activities to deliver the unique business vision specific to your organization.

BPM starts with defining and shaping the process project – the first of a ten-stage interactive approach. This is followed by:

  • gathering data for process mapping and analysis;
  • gathering data on stakeholders, sponsors and clients;
  • subjecting the data gathered to examination and analysis;
  • re-designing processes;
  • getting consensus and selling the change;
  • implementing the accepted proposals;
  • measuring and setting process standards;
  • monitoring the effectiveness of new systems or procedures;
  • and, finally, ensuring that the redesigned processes, systems and procedures are to a standard sufficient to achieve the defined objectives.

In conclusion

If you cannot identify yourself as a BPM organization, you might want to consider taking the necessary steps to move in that direction.

 

BPM embraces business methodologies and technologies developed in the last decade. It is an evolution in thinking and practice that allows organizations to develop and internalize ongoing performance improvement.

If you have implemented BPM, I would be interested in knowing your experience.

 

 


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Download our new eBook:

Managing Change:
A workbook for personal and organizational change

 

 

 

 

 

Food Safety & Traceability - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Food Safety & Traceability

 

 

Popular Change Management Items from the Delta Blog:

Food Safety - A Complex Leadership Challenge (Part 1)

Food Safety - A Complex Leadership Challenge (Part2)

Food Safety & Traceability: Managing Change & the People Side of the Equation

Harmonizing U.S. and Canadian Food Safety Goals

Leading Change: Talking About Communication

Change Ready or Change Fatigue

Everyone Hates Change: 12 Steps to Help Overcome the Fear and Doubt

A Checklist to Understand Your Capacity for Change

Build a Culture for Continuous Change

Change Begins with Listening: 5 things to Work On

Leading Change - Modelling Behaviours Is Crucial for Success

Kotter's 8 Steps to Change: More Relevant Than Ever

7 Key Factors for Making Change Happen

Anomie: Lost in a World of Constant Change

You Can Transform Your Organization

Is Your Leadership Failing Your Team?

Are Your Paws Sticky? Leadership Lessons From a Lab

Do You Trust Me?

Bringing Deming to the Office: Drive Out Fear

 

Popular Project Management Items from the Delta Blog:

Project Management: Don't Lose the Game at the Kick-Off Meeting

PRINCE2 vs PMBOK: Comparing Apples and Oranges

Project Management as a Management Tool

Project Management: Are you RACI?

How to meet client expectations: Product-based Project Planning

Managers: 7 Steps to Successful Project Launch

How to Get Things Right? Checklists

The 5 Levels of Teams: Where Are You on the Team Curve?

Delegate with Meaning: 4 Steps to Success

 

Other Popular Items from the Delta Blog:

The Case for Transforming to a Process Managed Organization

Budget Cuts: Cut Your Headcount or Imrove Your Processes

When Dogma Gets in the Way of Innovation

Sewage Pumps and Leadership

Understanding Corporate Myths and Symbols: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself

Talkin' Pictures

Survivorteam! What it Takes to Get Through the Tough Times

Are You Prepared for the Future? How to Deal Effectively with Global Turbulence and Uncertainty

PICO: 4 Steps to Asking Better Questions

Delta at the Food Manufacturing & Safety Forum 2012 - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Delta at the Food Manufacturing & Safety Forum 2012

{images1}Delta Partners is pleased to be participating in the 2nd annual Food Manufacturing and Safety Forum, to be held in Dallas, Texas, January 25-26.

We will be there to discuss our enhanced consulting capacity in Organizational Development and Change Management, as well as our expertise in food safety consulting.

We look forward to developing new relationships that will allow us to assist in developing client capacity, and support U.S. based food companies in their export development to Canada.

If you will be there, please send us a note so that we can connect in Dallas!

Is there a difference between Program Evaluation and Performance Measurement? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Is there a difference between Program Evaluation and Performance Measurement?

In response to my recent blog concerning why Public Service managers should care about Program Evaluation, I was asked about the difference between evaluation and performance measurement.  As these terms are bandied about rather loosely, there may be a perception that they are really the same thing.

The Simple Answer

The simplest answer is that performance measurement and evaluation are complementary activities.   Evaluation gives meaning to performance measurement and performance measurement gives empirical rigour (evidence) to evaluation.

For example, the performance of a heating system might be measured by the output in BTU’s and the ambient temperature in degrees—this is performance measurement.

On the other hand, an evaluation of the heating system would likely use this performance information, combined with additional information to determine if the ambient temperature was appropriate for whatever purpose the space was being used.  It would also determine the extent to which the ambient temperature could be attributed to the performance of the heating system as opposed to other factors—such as the type of insulation installed—and arrive at some judgement as to whether it was a good, adequate or bad heating system in this context.

Of course, there would always be room for dispute over whether the insulation was part of the heating system or an external factor, the answer to which would depend on the purpose of the evaluation.

Performance Measurement

Performance measurement is the activity of judging, on the basis of empirical evidence, the extent to which a program or activity has met its output targets and/or achieved its concrete objectives. 

It does not question the objectives themselves and, therefore, stops short of any final judgment as to whether the program or activity was good or bad – only if it was successful—or not—within the narrow confines of its mandate.  Clearly, there is room for a bad program to be successful and a good program to be unsuccessful.

Evaluation

Evaluation is a more holistic activity, taking everything into account (including performance) to come to a good vs. bad judgment.

{images1}Viewed in this way, there is room for a significant amount of philosophical debate on the matter, as this type of judgement depends upon the various perspectives and values of stakeholders.  Therefore, quality evaluation is highly dependent on the professional judgement of the evaluator in the context of a governance (decision-making) framework that is seen as legitimate.

Evaluation in the Public Service

In the Canadian Public Service ‘Evaluation’, as the subject of the Policy on Evaluation, has a specific meaning that goes beyond the mere measurement of performance but limits the evaluation mandate enough to avoid the more difficult philosophical issues that might otherwise arise – though this is never cut and dried in practice.  Hence, the standard PS Evaluation comes to a judgment as to whether the program is/was successful and relevant.  It also generally includes a judgment concerning value-for-money or cost/benefit, which is based on a specific form of performance measurement. 

It is also worth noting that there is currently a movement in the Canadian Public Service toward the integration of the performance measurement and evaluation functions.  For a reasonably well-balanced discussion of the relationship between performance measurement and evaluation, with ample reference to the Canadian public sector, I would suggest the textbook by James McDavid and Laura Hawthorn (2006), Evaluation & Performance Measurement: An Introduction to Practice.  In it, the authors present an integrated view of performance measurement and evaluation in the wider context of the Performance Management Cycle, which includes:

  • Setting objectives;
  • Business planning and program design;
  • Aligning management systems at the program level;
  • Performance measurement and reporting, which includes program evaluation;
  • Realizing consequences (e.g. executive compensation and funding decisions); and,
  • Revisiting objectives.

Complement or Conflict?

According to the Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation (Wholey, et. al.):

Considerable differences in opinion exist among evaluators as to how performance monitoring and in-depth evaluation studies are related, in particular the extent to which they are at odds with or complement each other.

Wholey et. al. is not too explicit concerning the way in which they are at odds, only to suggest that performance monitoring tends to be more of a management tool, whereas in-depth evaluations provide more information for policy and program decisions.  This introduces the idea of a role distinction between managers and evaluators that practice performance measurement and evaluation respectively.

In my view, these roles are generally complementary.  If they are at odds with one another, it is either a situational conflict—where the program manager is being ‘judged’ by the evaluator—or a more general result of professional specialization and differentiation, which results in a certain amount of ‘positioning’ behaviour – but this is the subject of another blog post (What is Program Evaluation and Does it Really Matter?).

 

What do you think?  Does this capture the distinction between program evaluation and performance measurement – or is there a lot more to it?

 


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Download our new eBook:

Evaluation: A Primer on Evaluation in the Government of Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Delta’s Top 10 Posts for 2011 - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Delta’s Top 10 Posts for 2011

For the past year we’ve been publishing posts fairly consistently (we aim for twice weekly on Tuesdays and Fridays) on the Delta Blog on a range of topics - from change management and leadership to program evaluation and innovation.

Overall, I think that we have achieved our goal to provide our clients and readers with information and resources that are readable, accessible, timely, current, helpful and valuable. We’ve attempted to share our professional knowledge and experience to help both individuals and organizations succeed.  We try to get people to think about concepts that are critical for successful leadership and management.

While you may have already read some of our blog posts, there are others whose title may not have piqued your interest at first glance or that you may have missed entirely. So, we took stock of our inventory and we came up with this short list of our ‘must read’ posts to share with you.

Delta’s 2011 Top 10 Recommended Blog Posts

  1. Canada’s Public Service: A Career for the Net Generation  (Max Sunohara)
    Our #1 most read blog post in 2011!
  2. Strategic and Operating Reviews: We Can’t Agree to Disagree (Alcide DeGagné)
    Our 2nd most read post in 2011 – once you’ve read this one you’re sure to want to read the rest of the 5 part series.
  3. Prince2 vs PMBOK: Comparing Apples and Oranges (Debra Sunohara)
    Our 4th most read post in 2011 – a post about project management, what is PRINCE2, and why should care.
  4. What is Program Evaluation and Does it Really Matter?  (Greg Tricklebank)
    Our 6th most read post in 2011 – and we can’t emphasize enough the importance of program evaluation.
  5. Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Illness in the Workplace(Alcide DeGagné)
    How is mental health dealt with in your organization and what can YOU do about it?
  6. 10 Guiding Principles for an Effective Performance Measurement Framework  (Scott Hodge)
    How does your organization measure and manage performance?
  7. Change Begins with Listening: 5 Things to Work On  (Debra Sunohara)
    Communicating and listening are skills that we all need to work on and improve.
  8. Public Service Renewal – Are those A’s or F’s?  (Debra Sunohara)
    A leadership framework to help guide you to scoring straight A’s on your Public Service Renewal report card.
  9. Budget Cuts: Cut Your Headcount or Improve Your Processes  (Steve Davies)
    The challenge is simple; when you have to reduce costs, take a good look at your processes first!
  10. Kotter’s 8 Steps to Change: More Relevant Than Ever  (Geoff Schaadt)
    Everyone keeps coming back to Mr. Kotter. Why? Because effecting change —real change —transformative change —is hard.
  11. Bringing Deming to the office: Break Down Barriers  (Phil Hawkins)
    Editor’s pick – read Phil’s first in a series of three posts and we guarantee you’ll want to read all three!

Not only did we publish just short of one hundred blog posts in 2011, we also published two new white papers and four eBooks that you may find useful:

What do you think —did we hit our mark? Which of our blog posts was your 2011 favourite?  What topics did we overlook?  Are there issues we spent too much time on?  Are there areas where you would like to see more depth?

We had a lot of fun working on these projects in 2011, and we hope the year was a good one for you too.

Best Wishes and Happy Holidays —we look forward to delivering more great content to you, our readers, in 2012!

 


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Download our new eBook:

Managing Change:
A workbook for personal and organizational change

 

 

 

 

 

Managing Change: A workbook for personal and organizational change - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Managing Change: A workbook for personal and organizational change

"Profound and lasting cultural change in an organization cannot happen unless individuals...themselves undergo a personal change”.
     - Stephen R. Covey

Over the years, we have helped a large number of clients deal with the “pain points” they face in their work place. All of these cases involved understanding the root causes of their pain. Invariably, both the pain and the root causes were highly unique to each situation.

However, there are also common traits that are universally present in these complex environments. Modern organizations, if they hope to get through these pain points, must learn that:

  • Leading organizational change requires embracing both personal and professional change;
  • Managing change is now a basic skill requirement for all managers —in fact, it is now a survival necessity; and,
  • Creating a change tolerant environment is now a prerequisite to releasing the innovation required for finding and implementing solutions to a better way to working.

In short, without creating the conditions needed to encourage transformational change, engaging your employees in an innovation effort won’t happen.

This is why we have created our latest eBook…

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Managing Change: a workbook for personal and organizational change.

 

 

 


This eBook doesn’t pretend to be an exhaustive compilation on the subject of organization development and change. Rather, its aim is to provide a condensed and readable workbook that you can work through on our own to help you understand change, how it impacts you personally, and how it impacts those around you. We have included a number of checklists, tools, and resource links to assist you as you begin your own journey in managing organizational change. To the experienced change manager, most of this is not new. But it is a good example of ideas that, while they don’t represent the latest fad, still represent good value for our clients.

Please let us know in the comments if there is anything here that you particularly like—or dislike—to help us refine the document for future readers.

And, as always, please feel free to share this information freely with anyone who you think can benefit from it!
 

Managing Change: a workbook for personal and organizational change - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Managing Change: a workbook for personal and organizational change

Delta Partners is pleased to offer this eBook—Managing Change: a workbook for personal and organizational change.

This eBook doesn’t pretend to be an exhaustive compilation on the subject of organization development and change. Rather, its aim is to provide a condensed and readable workbook that you can work through on our own to help you understand change, how it impacts you personally, and how it impacts those around you.  We have included a number of checklists, tools, and resource links to assist you as you begin your own journey in managing organizational change.

Please share this book freely, but be sure to let people know where you found it!

Strategic & Operating Reviews: The Ultimate Leadership Challenge (Part 2) - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Strategic & Operating Reviews: The Ultimate Leadership Challenge (Part 2)

What Needs to be Done?

“Treat regular workers as if they were volunteers.”
      Drucker on Leadership

Overview

While research shows that engaging employees can directly improve performance, experience has shown that it is not easy to do. In its July 2011 study, The Engagement/Performance Equation (paywall), the Aberdeen Group states that to move towards Best-in-Class performance, organizations must:

  • Work with senior leaders to get buy-in, and support engagement and performance management efforts;
  • Give managers the tools to deliver effective feedback and reviews;
  • Instill accountability at the individual and managerial level for the achievement of personal AND team goals.

Gaining Traction on Engagement

But what does that mean precisely?

At a more granular level, we find it more effective for both individuals and managers to focus on how they need to work together. To do so, employees must also:

  • Understand Strategic Direction and contribute to the organization’s mission and strategic direction—at least in terms of how it impacts their day-to-day work;
  • Have Managers who can empower them and create a work ethos that promotes motivation;
  • Posses the ability to Self-Manage in order to participate in setting their own work goals as a critical contribution to the strategic direction of the enterprise.

The above skills are absolutely necessary in our world of “doing more with less” and to do so at the speed of change itself. Imagine the gains if organizations were able to harness the discretionary effort of all employees all of the time!

With that in mind, let’s take a look at each component.

Understanding Strategic Direction

Creating the conditions where every employee has the desire to give their best, every day, all the time, is what we are seeking here.

The first step in this process is understanding the fundamental purpose of the organization, the clients it serves, and its operating assumptions. Modern workers expect no less, and will accept no less. There is ample evidence to support this.

As a reality check, consider the following three questions from Gallup’s employee engagement survey (pdf):

  1. I know what is expected of me at work.
  2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my job right.
  3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

Managers who can Empower Teams

Pushing the resent button on the manager’s role requires managers to change their mindset from the command and control model in important ways:

  1. Shifts in knowledge, technology and politics:
    • The span of knowledge represented in the modern workforce is so vast that managers can’t possibly be experts in all aspects of their job.
    • The speed at which change is occurring in turn requires rapid decisions in order to meet client expectations and to remain competitive.
    • The need for self-organizing teams operating from a shared understanding becomes essential for achieving results.
  2. The “creative chaos” imposed by the speed of change requires focusing on:
    • The few critical drivers in order to assure the accomplishment of goals.
    • Selecting the “right drivers” is a collaborative team process which in turn leads to agreement on the “focused measures” all team members agree to use as decision guides.
  3. And the above leads to the inevitable need to build consensus.

    Consensus building is the key to integrating interests and to avoiding problems in business processes. If you want employees to be engaged and to use their best judgment when making day-to-day decisions they need to understand how their actions will harmonize with the overall team effort as well as others in the greater organization.

Again, let’s check how the above processes key into the questions that count for employees; here are three key questions from the Gallup’s Q12 (pdf):

  1. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
  2. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
  3. There is someone at work who encourages my development.

Arriving at positive answers to these questions is key to getting employees engaged!

Self-Management

Why is self-management so important?

Because, in traditional organizations most employees have not had a chance to develop the team decision-making skills required when they are given greater discretion.

Self-managed work teams have been around for decades. In the early days examples included Volvo and Gains’ Topeka Kansas dog food plant—which built on the pioneer work of the Tavistok Institute. While much was learned from the early trail blazers, wide spread application began with the work of the likes of Deming and others who advocated a much softer version of employee involvement in the pursuit of quality.

Putting it all together

The Lean movement first employed by Toyota (post-Deming) and the Agile Manifesto, which grew out of it, is widely considered as an effective management philosophy appropriate to our modern times. Lean enterprise, lean production, or simply lean is a practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination.

As a management philosophy, who can argue with such a definition given the need to innovate and reduce cost in these modern times.

Start with the Role of Management

You can gain a rapid perspective of how much self-management “space“ there is in your own organization through the lens of leadership styles.

The continuum of “leader behaviour” below is adapted from the Harvard Business Review article How to Chose a Leadership Pattern by Robert Tannenbaum and Warren Schmidt.

The continuum outlines leader behaviours that range from “tell” through to “sell”, “consult” and “join”. To achieve any semblance of employee engagement and self-management, it is pretty obvious that teamwork—leaders in collaboration with team members—must shift to the right of diagram. Shifting to the right creates space for employees to use their own judgement about what is best.

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It goes without saying that the shift also demands a different style from leaders. In my experience, this co-dependency is the often-overlooked “joint product” of greater employee engagement and leadership. The one can’t take place without the other.

This is why sending managers off on leadership training retreats is rarely helpful. It may improve their knowledge of leadership concepts, but it can’t engage the emotional changes that the tough issues require when transforming teamwork—that can only take place with the whole team in the same room at the same time.

Again, let’s see how these processes key into the questions that count for employees - here are another three from the Gallup Q12:

  1. At work, my opinions seem to count.
  2. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
  3. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.

So, given this background, what can you, as the leader-manager, do in practical terms to nudge your team to greater engagement?

In part 3 of this series, I will present the mechanics of choosing a leadership patter that fosters employee engagement at the team level.

 

Enjoy this post? You can read Part 1 by clicking here.

And, if you have not already read our series of SOR related posts, you may find our page—Leadership and Management in a DRAP Environment—to be a useful collection of articles and links.

Strategic & Operating Reviews: The Ultimate Leadership Challenge (Part 1) - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Strategic & Operating Reviews: The Ultimate Leadership Challenge (Part 1)

In an interview report in a recent issue of the Canadian Government Executive magazine, Wayne Wouters, the top public servant in the Canadian federal government, answered a number of questions explaining his take on leadership in the Public Service—Modern leadership: agile, adept and collaborative.

I totally subscribe to the essence of his message; however, for me the message didn’t directly address the scale of change required given the enormity of the challenge facing Canada’s Public Service (PS) posed by the SOR/DRAP world employees must now live in.

“There is a gap between what employees want and expect from their employment relationship and what employers can afford to deliver, compromising employers’ ability to shift their focus from recovery to growth.”
Insights From the 2010 Global Workforce Study
Watson Towers

Backdrop: Business Cycle Pressures

Budgetary cutbacks at this stage of the business cycle are proving especially challenging for both the private and public sectors. In the case of the private sector, there’s a compelling need to shift their focus from recovery to growth. In the case of the public sector, government debt and deficits create a compelling argument to cut costs.  In both cases, what employees want and expect from their employment relationship, and what employers can afford to deliver, is working at cross angles.

It is against this backdrop that the Honourable Tony Clement made his recent comments that the current round of budgetary cuts to support the Government’s Deficit Reduction Action Plan should be seen as an opportunity for “laying the foundation for the future of Canada’s public service.” In short, turning a financial necessity into the justification for transforming the public service.

In a previous blog, I argued that we can’t agree to disagree and I still feel that is the right course of action. Employees must trust that the political leadership has the best interest of both them and the Canadian public in attacking the budget deficit while striving to improve the overall performance of the public service.

So then, how do we reconcile these seemingly dueling priorities—improving the functioning of the public service while reducing its resources?

Productivity Rationale

While the solution is difficult and typically multifaceted, the only way out of this situation is improved productivity. Knowledge workers are the backbone of 21st century organizations in advanced economies, and there’s extensive research to support the notion that a capable and enabled workforce can indeed achieve above average, competition beating, outcomes.

At the root of above average performance is a workplace culture that engages employees.  It is typically a necessity, and often, the only solution. Consider the recent data from Gallup.com on employee engagement:

  • In world-class organizations, the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is approximately 10 to 1; while,
  • In average organizations, the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is approximately 2 to 1!

This is a dramatic difference!

Clearly, increasing employee engagement correlates directly with a positive impact on key business metrics.

Take a look at your own most recent survey results; how do your employee engagement survey results compare with the above?

What Separates World Class Organizations From the Norm?

Recent studies of best in class organizations reinforce that employee engagement and employee performance do truly go hand in hand. In their recent report, The Engagement/Performance Equation (paywall), the Aberdeen Research Group showed that 43% of Best-in-Class organizations have a formal employee engagement strategy, while just 14% of low performing organizations do. The Best-in-Class Model provides a useful framework for organizations to move themselves forward in achieving higher performance outcomes.

If you dig into the Best-in-Class Model further, you quickly come to the realization that we don’t have an employee engagement problem; what we have is a failure of leaders and managers to create an engaging work environment.

This picture results in a virtual “call to arms” for managers to reconsider their personal conception of the practice of management, leadership, and employee engagement. This is a formidable challenge—and an exciting one—given the vast changes we face in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, while organizations are trying to be more effective with the same or fewer resources, these initiatives are typically dropped and employee engagement takes a hit!

Why is it so hard to change leadership and employee engagement in organizations?

What’s your Social Technology?

Well, the fact of the matter is that we are all struggling under the legacy of 19th century management while trying to cope with the demands of the 21st century world.

Consider the following:

  1. A Century Old Social Technology: While as managers we tend to think of technology in terms of IT, machines etc., how we manage ourselves is also a “technology”—a social technology. Looked at this way, most organizations still employ a very old approach despite the dramatically different circumstances:
    • Hierarchical “command control” organizations (also known as “scientific management”) grew out of the military and was “perfected” for application to the workplace with the onset of the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries by people like Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and in the early 20th century by Henry Ford.
    • The principles established are still engrained in the workplace of the 21st century by practices such as “span of control”, “unity of command”, and management principles such as planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.
    • In fact if you’re laboring in a governmental organization, because of the invisible line between the creation of nation states and the military, the “command control” approach was, and typically still is, the default approach.
  2. However, we live in a globalized world where knowledge and speed are king:
    • We no longer live in a 19th century world but in a globalized world; a world that changes at the speed of the internet; a world that is interconnected at state, business, NGO and private citizen levels; a world where our biggest challenge is to manage knowledge and ideas—not machines or “things”.
    • In this world of “managing at the speed of change”, it is impossible for a leader to possess the depth and breadth of knowledge needed to sustain the innovation and adaptability required to be successful.
    • In short we are seriously in need of a new “social technology” that provides us with a management model that is consistent with the challenges of the 21st century.

Management guru Gary Hamel’s outstanding video on Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment articulates the need for radical change in a refreshing way.

 

In my next post, we’ll take a look at how leaders and managers can begin changing the “social technology” in their workplace.

 

For an excellent discussion of social technology see Rod Collins’, Leadership in a Wiki World, Chapter 2.

 

If you have not already read our series of SOR related posts, you may find our page—Leadership and Management in a DRAP Environment—to be a useful collection of articles and links.

Measurement and Evaluation: Integrating the Functions at PPX - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Measurement and Evaluation: Integrating the Functions at PPX

from: Performance and Planning Exchange (PPX) - November 28, 2011

This morning I attended another excellent PPX sharing and learning event at which senior performance measurement and evaluation managers from TBS and several line departments gave refreshingly candid presentations on the progress of measurement and evaluation integration.

By way of background, the Government of Canada recognizes the close relationship between measurement and evaluation in the context of its broad agenda for results-based management from a whole-of-government perspective.   This means developing fact-based decision processes that align policies, objectives, activities/programs, and results at all levels—as well as horizontally. 

The vision for the future is fairly clear. 

However, it is generally recognized that there is a long way to go in achieving it—the main barriers being the chronic difficulty of obtaining adequate performance data and an organizational culture that tends to resist exposure to rational decision processes out of fear that there will always be winners and losers.

The ‘Take-Aways’

The presentations from this morning’s session were both positive and realistic concerning progress made to date. 

Without imputing any specific opinions to the speakers—at risk of misrepresenting them—the following are some of my personal ‘take-aways’ from what was said.First, the Central Agencies have realistic expectations regarding the pace of change and they are mindful of the time needed to embed the performance culture while avoiding the compliance mentality that works against this.  They appear to be willing to drop high-level reporting requirements that either don’t add value (e.g. output measures) or are impossible to meet (e.g. high level attribution of outcomes).  However, they do expect departments to stop fiddling with Program Activity Architectures (PAA’s) that are good enough, and get on with developing performance measures that align with objectives—where standardization and re-use of measures will be key to success.

{images1}(It is worth reaffirming that performance measurement is the responsibility of program managers and not the heads of evaluation.)

Second, departments and agencies appear to be committed to the functional alignment of performance measurement with evaluation, and they have made a promising start at formalizing and standardizing the evaluation process and/or the key performance indicators.  For example, one group is using the familiar MAF assessment categories (attention required, opportunity for improvement, etc.) to assess progress on ten specifically defined attributes of quality performance measurement systems.

Other signs of progress include:

  • A very high-level Evaluation Committee that includes the DM, senior managers and some external expertise;
  • An effort to unify the data collection process for multiple purposes, including planning, reporting and evaluation;
  • The use of ‘communities of practices’, for example, to move away from the compliance mentality and embed the value of performance measurement and evaluation in the culture.

Many of us question whether the 100% coverage requirement of the new Evaluation Policy is sustainable. 

On the basis of what I heard this morning, I would say that it is—provided that implementation includes: common sense, flexibility, and an organizational climate of trust.

What do you think—are we making progress toward a real culture of performance-based management?

 


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Download our new eBook:

Evaluation - A Primer on Evalution in the Government of Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons in Innovation from PS Engage 2011 - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Lessons in Innovation from PS Engage 2011

Along with over a hundred other delegates, presenters and sponsors, I had the pleasure of participating in the PS Engage 2011 Learning & Networking Event last Tuesday.  The Canadian Aviation and Space Museum was a wonderful and inspiring choice of venue, and we were extremely fortunate to have the entire run of the museum for the day—not to mention lunch in amongst the aircraft. I would definitely recommend that anyone planning a conference in the Ottawa area consider the Aviation Museum as a possible venue.

Thom Kearney, who has been the driving force behind the conference, did an excellent job of outlining the PS Engage philosophy:

  • tolerance{images1}
  • diversity   
  • change happens
  • failure is good
  • share thoughts and ideas
  • stay curious
  • have fun
  • network and learn

Naturally, many delegates were busy live tweeting throughout the day, and if you were not able to attend in person or watch the live webcast you can:

  • Check out the twitter stream for an excellent highlight of the presentations #PSE2011
  • Look at some interesting overall #pse2011 hashtag statistics
  • Watch the video - the video, photos, tapestries, and presentations from #PSE2011 will be released in the next few weeks on the PS Leader Site.

I thought that this would be a good opportunity to share with you some PS Engage highlights and my “lessons learned”. After all, my intent was to Come to PS Engage 2011 and Think.

Some of the speakers:

The Honourable Tony Clement, President of Treasury Board and Minister for FEDNOR

  • “Collaboration is one of the most important issues for the Public Service of the future…and has to be linked to sharing knowledge”
  • Considers himself the Minister responsible for championing innovation
  • It’s about Public Servants being creative, finding more efficient and effective ways to deliver services and using technology as a tool for change
  • Wants future PS employees to consider the PS as a career of choice
  • SOR/DRAPshould be seen as an opportunity; it requires the PS to be creative and transformative, to deliver services in a more efficient and streamlined way, and to go through a cultural renewal as it drives for excellence
  • Announced TBS’ release of the newGuideline for External Use of Web 2.0
  • Read Tony Clement’s PS Engage Address{images2}

 

 

 

 

Denise Amyot

  • Encourages all employees to engage in social media and gave a Twitter 101 course to staff
  • “Don’t monitor or control…instead show trust and confidence”
  • Lead by example and “Be the change you want to see in the world” - Mahatma Ghandi

Alan Silberberg– Storytelling: At the Heart of Engagement

  • Attention spans are getting shorter due to the use of technology so the art of storytelling becomes even more important – you need to capture your audience’s attention in the first minute
  • “Hollywood writers have a secret – tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them.”
  • How do you get them to say ‘Yes’ instead of ‘No’? Don’t take no for an answer.
  • Identify the WIIFM – What’s in it for me?

Ina Parvanova- Innovation at Mayo Clinic

  • When you want to implement new ideas, the status quo, size and tradition are challenges
  • Need to keep innovating and speed up the implementation of innovation
  • Need to anticipate client needs and make innovation a strategic priority
  • Need to invest in building an infrastructure for innovation, learning and sharing

Ellen Grove– 5 Reasons to Consider Agile Work

  • Agile Work delivers results faster – work in short increments, fail fast and often
  • “The best measure of progress/results is getting stuff done”
  • With Agile you deliver the highest priority work first and build a capacity for continuous improvement
  • Collaboration is critical

Martha McLean– The Agitator and the Elephant in the Room

  • “If you’re not told not to do it, do it!”
  • Trying to engage others, not stir up trouble

Debrah Martin - Communications

  • Communicate, communicate, communicate
  • “Avoid jargon – it’s toxic.”
  • “How will you communicate what you experienced at PS Engage…back at the office?”

Sylvie Lafontaine - Standards

  • Social media requires a shift in how we think from publish to participate
  • Connect – share – create – collaborate
  • We need to get public participation in developing standards
  • “Integrating and leveraging all windows and doors to share all of the knowledge” – not creating internal silos

Tabatha Soltay - Great Bosses

  • “Give them the freedom and trust they will do it”
  • Great bosses empower people
  • Need to be willing to learn as an employee
  • “Anticipate, explore and experiment”

Ken Cochrane - Taking Responsible Risks – An ADM’s Story

  • “There’s a lot of technology, but it’s not about the technology…it’s about change, people…”
  • Innovation – risk – results
  • Need for culture change – more collaborative and innovative
  • “You can’t control the dialogue with or without policy”
  • “GCPedia is about breaking down the barriers”

Steve Ressler – On-Line Community Building

  • Need to be consistent – it takes time and hard work
  • Need to share
  • How to build an awesome on-line community: find a great topic, stand for something (brand), treat everyone like a guest, hustle hard, remind, monitor closely (metrics), know what people want.

Jon Weigelt – From Sea to Sea to Sea

  • “Where is Canada innovating? Where can we lead?”
  • Innovation is key and spans the entire organization
  • PS needs to be innovative because they are competing for talent through hiring
  • Innovation in government – engaging individuals – empowering businesses – driving efficiencies
  • www.govcamp.ca

Thom Kearney summed it up nicely in his Report from #PSE2011 – Five things you can do today.

 

The next question is, of course, should there be a PSEngage 2012, and if so, what should it look like? What are the next steps in Canadian Gov 2.0?

Social Media Guideline Released by Treasury Board - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Social Media Guideline Released by Treasury Board

The Honourable Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board Secretariat and Minister for FedNor, announced at PS Engage 2011 the release of Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0.

This long-awaited guideline provides Public Servants with direction in both their official duties and personal use of Web 2.0 tools and technologies.

Delta Partners was proud to contribute to the success of PS Engage 2011, and our representatives at the event were delighted that this important announcement was part of the kick-off address presented by Mr. Clement.

Come to PS Engage 2011 and Think - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Come to PS Engage 2011 and Think

We have burned a lot of cycles on this blog writing and writing and writing about…

Some of the many hurdles facing the Canadian Public Service

  1. The Great Recession has left global markets in turmoil, and, even though we Canadians have been well insulated, this thing is far from over. Fiscal responsibility is the overriding theme for every public institution—with the result that the leaders in our Public Service are facing great change and uncertainty as they engage in SOR/DRAP.
  2. The potential for radical change in the delivery of programs and services with the emergence of open government initiatives, never before considered expectations for transparency, and “Gov2.0” approaches to platform creation.
  3. Lagging productivity measures continue to plague the Canadian workplace with the result that we are less and less competitive on an increasingly competitive international playing field.
  4. Changing workplace demographics will continue to challenge managers as they face the double-edged sword of a) retiring Boomers walking out the door with much of the “institutional memory” that departments have developed over the last 40 years, and b) a drastic shift in the preferred work habits of younger employees who expect an environment that will transition from:
    • hierarchical to distributed
    • siloed to shared
    • autocracy to meritocracy
    • solitary to collaborative
    • fixed to mobile

The perspective from Canotek Road

So, how does this impact me (and, more importantly, Delta Partners)?

Let’s be perfectly honest with one another—Delta Partners Inc is a for-profit business that has been working with a large number of Public Service clients for over twenty-two years. If you look at the top of this page you will see our stated mission: to serve as ‘trusted advisors’ to our clients.

If we don’t stay current, if we don’t explore new challenges and new opportunities, if we don’t consider new ways of thinking about a rapidly changing world, if we don’t work every day to be a “living, breathing, learning organization”, then how can we hope to provide timely and relevant advice to our clients? How can we be trusted?

The Champion

Enter Thom Kearney.

Chance provided me with the good fortune to meet Thom at an OCRI breakfast event last year. If you don’t know Thom, you really ought to go out of your way to make it happen. He is one of those people with that irrepressible ability to see three steps ahead of pretty much everyone else.  So, when he and I sat down over coffee to catch up, and he told me about a conference that he was interested in putting together here in Ottawa for Public Servants—I was in. I was really intrigued to hear about his vision for a conference that would help people approach all of these intertwined issues in a new light. And so, PS Engage 2011 was introduced to me.{images3}

PS Engage 2011

The theme for PS Engage 2011: “A tapestry of people and ideas.”

The thinking behind PS Engage 2011: bring new voices and new ideas to Ottawa to better equip all of us here to consider our shared future.

And some fascinating voices they will be:

There is much more that you can read about PS Engage 2011:

Join us

Personally, I am so excited about this event that I have been a volunteer on the organizing committee since the day that Thom told me about it. And, I’m proud to say that my leaders here at Delta Partners believe in what we’re doing—they agreed to provide sponsorship dollars for the event well before the program was ironed out.

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So please, join us on November 22nd at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum (side note: what a fantastic venue, and we have run of the whole place just for this meeting!).

You will learn. You will meet some great people. And you will think.

 

 

 


 {images2}

 

Download our new eBook:

Evaluation - A Primer on Evalution in the Government of Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leading Change—Talking About Communication - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Leading Change—Talking About Communication

We spend a lot of time talking about communication around here.

Why? Because it may very well be the most important aspect of anything you hope to achieve in a group environment.  Right now, we’re focusing on change and the steps that you can take to give yourself the best chance of success.

But it really goes beyond just change management—if you can’t communicate effectively, you can’t accomplish anything where the group size is greater than one!

You Under-Communicate 100x Too Much

One of the 12 things you should do when you encounter resistance and need to get your change initiative back on track is to improve and increase communication.

It may be #2 on the list, but it should be #1 in your heart!

You might be tired of me repeatedly coming back to John Kotter and his lessons on organizational change, (and if you are, you might just as well remove this site from your bookmarks…) but in his words:

“It’s not likely that you will under-communicate a little bit; you will probably under-communicate 10x to 100x too much.”

So with that thought as a backdrop, let’s look at some foundational elements for the communications aspect of your change management plan.

A Change Communication Strategy Framework

My intent is to provide you with a framework for discussion, and some objectives for your change communications.

Communication Objectives

  • To explain the need for change and create a sense of urgency
    • Business case for change
    • What would be the consequence of keeping things as they are?
  • To articulate a clear vision of the post-transition future
    • What is the future-state vision of your organization and how will it be achieved?
  • To inform employees regarding expected changes and the on-going change initiative
    • How familiar are you with the expected changes?
    • What opportunities might it open up for you and/or your work group?
    • What challenges might it present for you and/or your work group?
    • What do you think you might gain/lose, if anything, as a result of these changes?
  • To manage expectations with respect to the change
    • Has anyone produced before and after process maps in a format that can be easily understood and communicated? 
    • Would this be useful?
  • To encourage managers and employees to take ownership of the change and to share responsibility for its successful implementation
    • We expect employees to share their concerns and to contribute to the identification and implementation of any solutions that may be necessary.
    • Do you think the work environment at your organization is conducive to that?
  • To overcome resistance to change
    • What, if any, previous experiences have you had with change?
    • How did that go for you?

Timing/Frequency of Communications?

  • Timing with respect to the implementation schedule?
  • Timing with respect to other key events in your environment?
  • Regular update (e.g. Newsletter) or ad hoc communications?

Communications Vehicles?

  • Electronic – intranet, email, blogs, wikis, social networks
  • Paper – to reach those without electronic links or comfort
  • In person – to provide opportunity for dialogue and engagement in large groups, small groups, and individually

Source of Communications and Communications Audiences?

Who owns the change initiative and who should be responsible for sending and receiving communications?  What are the communications roles of:

  • The President/CEO/Lead?
  • Senior Management?
  • Transition Project Manager?
  • HR?
  • Communications Director?

Audience Segmentation

Strategic communications requires some sort of audience/user segmentation.  A standard way of doing this is based on familiarity with the initiative and favorability of opinion.  Be sure that you have these segments in mind as you plan your communications.  If your message speaks to only to the boosters, how do you think it will be received by the detractors and the cynics?

 

{images1}

 

Employee Issues

What are the key issues for your employees that you must be sure to address?  Have you asked them?  How recently?

  • Training?
  • Impact on how we will do our work?
  • Impact on management and supervision?
  • Impact on careers and career planning?
  • Impact on social relations at work?

Workshops

Have your management teams prepared for workshops with the employees as part of the planning process and to create greater engagement from everyone who will be affected?

  • What is our role in achieving the desired future end-state?
  • What are we losing in the new end-state?
  • What are we gaining in new end-state?
  • What can we do to make the transition easier?
  • What help do we need to make the transition easier?
  • What steps do we need to take to develop our role in reaching the end-state?
  • How will we know that we are successful?

Ongoing Support

Leaders who expect the change—even among those who are behind them—to simply be accepted and followed without any further support are in for tough times.  You can expect that your team will need additional:

  • Change leadership coaching
  • Facilitated group problem-solving sessions
  • Teambuilding
  • Recognition and celebration of successes

 

This list should provide you with a good starting point as you think about how you will communicate with your people.  But, of course, it isn’t exhaustive—what important pieces would you add to the framework?

 

 

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

Build a Culture for Continuous Change
Change Begins with Listening: 5 Things to Work On

 


 

Change Ready or Change Fatigue - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Change Ready or Change Fatigue

Your organization has—though painful at first—completed a large-scale change initiative.

And now you are starting your next change project, right on the heels of the first one.

Taken together, it just might be too much change for your employees to absorb and implement. Following one change program with another often encourages employees to maintain a ‘bunker’ mentality, where they feel they just have to wait-out the current transition in the hope that all will go back to the status quo.  While a certain amount of skepticism may be understandable under the circumstances, such an attitude does not inspire the trust that leaders need to have in their employees.

Pace of Change

Often the biggest organization-wide challenge that has to be faced is dealing with the pace of change.  The fact that employees believe that many change-related deadlines are artificial suggests a lack of trust in the leadership.  One common theme which you may hear is that the organization needs to slow down, prioritize, insulate certain aspects of its ongoing operations, and define and implement the change elements on a more rigorous ‘managed project’ basis.

Almost everyone agrees that ‘letting-go’ can be difficult on an individual level, and organizationally this may not have been worked through yet.  As a result employees can get the impression (and/or fear) that more and more responsibility/workload is being added on without a compensating decrease in lower priority activities.

Of course, the problem is often that there is a lack of agreement on priorities among major stakeholders; there is no broader sense of what to let go in a business sense.  As a result, the organization doesn’t let go of anything—giving the appearance of adding on with a sense of urgency about everything.

If a number of employees were to be interviewed in your organization, a significant number of them would likely say that people are tired.  People have been in transition so long that they are burned out.  They need a signal that the crisis is over—and that the sense of constant urgency is not the ‘new normal’.

Organizational Structuring

The structuring and restructuring of roles and responsibilities to align the organization with the new strategy is a key element of transformation.  However, the iterative nature of this restructuring only adds to the sense of chaos.

Some managers may even say that they know what their responsibilities are ‘at this hour’ but by ‘tomorrow’ this could change. 

There may be a general feeling that the delegation of responsibilities is given and removed on an almost ad hoc basis. Employees may feel that the org charts don’t make sense because there has not been any real discussion of processes to support the new vision, and that org charts are designed around individuals with too much attention to political trade-offs. This appears to create organizational instability and uncertainty that has a ripple effect on the capacity of mid-level managers to maintain any single direction.

14 Change Readiness Questions

A survey consisting of 14 questions can provide you with an indication of your organization’s change readiness. This is not a ‘pass or fail’ test of transition readiness.  If the answer is ‘yes’ to fewer than 10 of these questions, the organization is likely to have a difficult time moving through a transition.  The results may be different—and likely less positive—when a deeper sample of the organization is surveyed compared to the opinions of only senior managers.

Yes or No:

  1. Is there a fairly widespread sense that the change is necessary?
  2. Is the change part of a widely understood strategy?
  3. Does the culture of your organization validate the idea of helping employees deal with the problems they encounter, or are they pretty much on their own?
  4. Do most people accept that the change is an effective response to the underlying problem?
  5. Does your organization tend to blame people if they make mistakes in a new situation?
  6. Are there people in your organization who have expertise in the handling of change and who could assist others who may need it?
  7. Do people know what it is time to let go of—and why?
  8. Does your organization provide people with adequate training for the new situations and roles that it thrusts them into?{images1}
  9. Has the change been explained to those who are going to be affected by it in as much detail as is currently possible?
  10. Has the proposed change polarized the workforce in any way that is going to make the transition more disruptive?
  11. Does your organization’s history work in its favour during times of transition?
  12. Is the level of trust in your organization’s leadership adequate?
  13. Has your organization set up some way to monitor the state of the change?
  14. Has a clear set of responsibilities been established for seeing that the human side of the change goes well?

Next Steps

Successful change leadership requires a high degree of self-awareness, individually and collectively.  This is only developed through engagement, dialogue and interaction.

If your organization does not score well on the change readiness survey there are some steps you can take to facilitate the transition process:

Establish a Change Management Working Group - represented by each branch of your organization.  Line responsibility for Change Management should not be delegated to the HR group.  As we have discussed before, the Change Management Working Group should include representatives from every level of the organization who are:

  • people who have their hearts in it,
  • people who will provide leadership,
  • people who will attack barriers,
  • people who will get others on board.

This group will be expected to:

  • establish a change implementation plan;
  • establish measurable success factors and service standards;
  • monitor progress against the plan;
  • evaluate performance against standards;
  • track issues and address them using a cohesive process; and,
  • identify and support opportunities for employee engagement.

Establish a Project Management Office to implement and maintain project management discipline, including scheduling, resource leveling and risk management for a clearly defined and phased organizational change initiative.  The Project Manager would sit as part of the Change Management Working Group.

Draft a Communications Strategy Framework—from a transition support perspective—with:

  • defined communication objectives;
  • timing/frequency of communications;
  • communications vehicles;
  • source of communications;
  • communication audiences and audience segmentation; and,
  • key employees issues to which communications must be sensitive.

And remember, it is impossible to over-communicate with your staff if you truly expect to create transformational change.

 

So what do you think?  Is your organization ready to move forward with the next planned change initiative?

 

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

Kotter’s 8 Steps to Change: More Relevant than Ever
Build a Culture for Continuous Change

 


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Download our new eBook:

Evaluation - A Primer on Evalution in the Government of Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone Hates Change: 12 Steps to Help Overcome the Fear and Doubt - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Everyone Hates Change: 12 Steps to Help Overcome the Fear and Doubt

Everyone knows—and in theory agrees—that change is necessary.  It must and will occur.

Implementing change is hard. And making it stick is even harder whether you are following Kotter’s Eight Steps to Changeor David Ulrich’s Seven Key Factors for Making Change Happen.

Irrespective of your organization’s change capacity, you may encounter some employees who resist change. But what do you do when a key person on your team just can’t or won’t adapt to change? When almost everyone is on-board, except for those few resisters? How do you influence your employee’s behavior and get them to “switch"?

How you handle this situation will test your leadership skills.  It can be frustrating, and may even make you question whether or not the planned change is right for your organization.

In the workplace, many people resist the kinds of organizational change that introduces:

  • New technology;
  • New work processes or tools;
  • Policies and procedures;
  • Reorganization, downsizings, takeovers, mergers, out-sourcing, and joint ventures; or,
  • New co-workers or team members.

Signs of Trouble

When your employee is resisting change, they may show signs of:

  • Frustration;
  • Appearing uncomfortable;
  • Disappointment;
  • Resentment;
  • Low-morale;
  • Depression;
  • Distrust, mistrust, or lack of trust; or,
  • Feelings of sadness, loss, and anxiety about the future.

You may also notice an increase in employee:

  • {images1}Stress, anxiety, absenteeism, and illness;
  • Mistakes and failures; or,
  • Turnover.

And a decrease in:

  • Cooperation and teamwork;
  • Productivity; and,
  • Quality.

It’s not just difficult personalities

Although you may encounter some employees with “difficult personalities” that resist change, most who do refuse to adapt to change do so for other reasons. You may be able to predict which employees may have difficult reactions to change if they lack coping skills and/or a support system.

Some people can’t or won’t adapt to change because they:

  • Fear the unknown;
  • Associate change with “loss”;
  • Find learning new things difficult;
  • Have lost control of the content and timing of what they do—which can in turn lead to stress, burnout and depression;
  • Have a valid reason to challenge the change initiative;
  • Are uncomfortable and agitated—having lost the comfort level of the “way things used to be”—as creatures of habit do not like to have their regular routines disturbed;
  • Are simply difficult—they like the attention of being a “key” player and in this case the “resister”.

But, as a leader, it’s important to bear in mind that the resistance is not always a function of the people:

  • The environment or situation—change theenvironment and there may no longer be a problem.
  • The change has not been clearly defined, communicated or understood.
  • The new procedures add complications, complexity, and waste time.

When Change Resistance is a Red Flag

When the person who resists the change is the one you would least expect to do so, you need to seriously consider if they have a valid reason.

If they are a valued team member, are respected and trusted by your other employees, and are normally are onboard with changes—you need to quickly take stock of the situation:

  • How will the change affect your employees—will it result in extra work?
  • Should your employees be focused on finishing something rather than on the new change?
  • Can you identify the root cause of the resistance?
  • Will the change result in an overall negative impact for many employees?

Feedback you receive from these employees early in the change process may be key to allowing you to make the corrections that are necessary to get the change initiative back on track.

What not to do:

  • Don’t use jargon monoxide—communicate in terms that employees can understand.
  • Don’t try to argue with a stubborn employee.
  • Don’t use threats of negative consequences to force compliance.
  • Don’t negotiate, bribe, or make promises in exchange for compliance.
  • Don’t give too many choices or options for change actions—they might not choose any.
  • Don’t downplay—be honest and open about how your employees will be affected by the change.
  • Don’t take advantage of your employees—they know when they are doing the work of two or more people yet are not being compensated for it.

12 Things you can and should do:

  1. Start by finding out why there is resistance—change begins with listening and you should solicit both positive and negative feedback from employees.
  2. Improve and increase communication—hold more meetings, not fewer; assess your communication needs and what forms of communication would be most effective.
  3. Focus on what has worked rather than what has not.
  4. Use peer pressure as a motivator—knowing that co-workers have already accepted and are adapting to the change can steer an employee in the direction of acceptance.
  5. Use positive motivation not fear—in the current economic and SOR induced climate, there is already enough fear and stress in the workplace.
  6. Provide assurance—remind them of the benefits the change will bring: faster processes, increased productivity and a lighter workload!
  7. Provide supportand ease them into the reality—make your staff aware of the help they will have during the initial transition period; offer and provide extra support whenever needed.
  8. Underline the cost advantagesthat will result from the proposed changes.
  9. Keep things simple—stick to baby steps to avoid overwhelming change resisters.
  10. Recognize and acknowledgeincreased demands, workloads and pressures on your employees—a simple thank you can go a long way.
  11. Celebrate accomplishments!
  12. Set realistic expectations, don’t set yourself up for failure—change takes time.

All of this should lead us to consider what you can do to prevent or minimize resistance and prepare for change.

My gut response is that it all boils down to leadership; if your employees trust you and believe in you, then they are more likely to follow you.  So  makeSo make sure to plan, communicate, involve, train and support the way to change.

 

Have you dealt with any employees who have resisted adapting to change? Let us know about it in the comments.

 


 {images2}

 

Download our new eBook:

Evaluation - A Primer on Evalution in the Government of Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are your worried about SOR/DRAP? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Are your worried about SOR/DRAP? Strategic & Operating Reviews: A Checklist to Understand Your Capacity for Change - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Strategic & Operating Reviews: A Checklist to Understand Your Capacity for Change

As the rate of change that our people and our organizations face continues to accelerate, many are undoubtedly in the process of preparing for some form of transformational change.

For public servants, most of you are preparing to face the fallout of the current SOR, while private sector companies wrestle with increasing intrusion from global competition or the market disintermediation of online players.  In either case, your organization is undoubtedly in the process of or preparing to undergo a “transformation”.

Against this backdrop, we felt that it would be useful for managers to have a tool that would allow them to evaluate the current state of their organization—the capacity of the organization to engage in real change right now.  So, we would like to share with you some of the questions that we have found useful in evaluating the change capability of an organization.

Ask Everyone

The opinions of employees and other stakeholders are an important indicator of where you should focus your efforts.

Completion of a questionnaire based on these materials should take less than 20 minutes to complete, and can provide you with valuable insight. Of course, you will still need to put the answers into context;

  • what is their position/job type,
  • where are they located—central or regional,
  • do they supervise others,
  • how long have they been part of the organization, etc.

Your Vision Statement

If your organization has a strong change capability, most of your employees and colleagues will agree with these statements.  If they disagree with any of the statements, then you have pinpointed a weakness in your change capability that you will need to mitigate.

I agree/disagree that:

  1. Our vision statement represents the future vision for my organization.
  2. Achievement of this vision will require a transformational change.
  3. I have a clear role in achieving this vision.
  4. This vision is likely to be achieved by the year X.
  5. I can list the top 3 most important barriers to achieving this vision.

Elements of Strategic Change

As with any other project that an organization takes up, the planning and development of a change initiative should have a clear strategic plan, i.e., there are deliberate and coordinated actions.  Throwing some things against the wall to “see what sticks” rarely works when executing a marketing plan, and are about as likely to work with a change management initiative.

Different elements need to be in place, in varying degrees, for successful strategic change to take place. However, some requirements may be more important than others for your organization.  Are these elements present in your organization? How do you, your employees and your colleagues rank the relative importance of each element? Which is most important? Which is least important?

Yes/No - strategic change requires:

  1. Flexible Management Policiesthat permit employees to decide how best to carry them out, depending on the circumstances.
  2. Commitment of senior managers and leaders.
  3. Planning and prioritizing- along with ongoing operations, as an integral part of the regular business planning process.
  4. Progress to be measured and monitored.
  5. Calculated risk-taking- a certain amount of it.
  6. Audit and evaluation functionthat play a role in encouraging improvement.
  7. Accountability mechanismsthat encourage all employees to take ownership of results as appropriate to their roles.
  8. Some positive incentivesfor employees to participate.
  9. Important messages be shared and understood by all stakeholders.
  10. Information sharing – a positive attitude toward it.
  11. Innovation to compensate for the absence of sufficient financial resources to achieve business objectives.
  12. Talent, skills and dedication of employees- be recognized as the most valuable resource available to an organization.
  13. Communication and accountabilitythat cuts horizontally across the vertical chain of command.{images1}
  14. Ability (best practices supported by technology) to successfully transfer critical knowledge from person to person or role to role.

Some of the following statements reflect commonly held stereotypes. Based on your own knowledge and experience, do you agree or disagree with them? Do your employees and colleagues agree or disagree with them? What do your answers reveal about weaknesses in your organization in the areas of working climate, employee engagement and organizational alignment?

I agree/disagree that in my organization:

  1. Management policies are written in such a way that they restrict the freedom to carry them out as effectively and efficiently as possible.
  2. Leadership appears to be committed to a single, clearly articulated transformational agenda for the organization.
  3. Strategic change priorities are clearly articulated through the regular cyclical business planning process.
  4. Managers have the performance information they need to make decisions that will keep them on track towards achieving the vision.
  5. Taking calculated risks can be damaging to one’s career in the event of failure.
  6. Audit and evaluation are primarily regarded as punitive exercises that frequently result in the assignment of blame for poor performance.
  7. Strategic change is supported by the establishment of clear accountabilities for results.
  8. Employees are rewarded and/or recognized for their contributions to continuous improvement.
  9. Many important messages, whether accurate or not, are first communicated through the rumour mill.
  10. It is difficult to get people to share information if they perceive that it might cause them to lose an advantage.
  11. Limitation of financial resources tends to be regarded as a valid barrier to the achievement of strategic change.
  12. Employees feel as though their well-being receives the care and attention that it deserves.
  13. Horizontal channels of communication and accountability are well developed and utilized in support of operational and organizational development objectives.
  14. Despite frequent employee turnover, little support is available (either in sharing best practices or supportive knowledge capture technologies) for ensuring that critical knowledge is successfully transferred from person to person or role to role.

The Sticking Points

An organization’s ability to successfully undergo a strategic change is dependent upon management policies and practices, human resources management, knowledge management, organizational culture, and communication.

Here is a quick checklist of some common things organizations often overlook or downplay as they embark on a strategic change project:

  • The vision for the future is effectively communicated below the managerial levels.
  • People tend not to change their way of doing things unless they have a compelling reason to do so.
  • There are mechanisms to ensure that a consistent transformational plan would survive a change in leadership.
  • There are mechanisms to ensure that the highest priorities are identified and resourced.
  • Vertical ‘stovepipes’ effectively inhibit the necessary horizontal initiatives.
  • The organizational culture promotes continuous improvement through the encouragement of critical thinking.
  • Employees generally perceive change as a threat.
  • In general, adequate expertise and support methodologies are available within organizations to facilitate improvement initiatives.
  • There is insufficient time available to launch improvement initiatives within organizations because of heavy workloads associated with normal day-to-day activities.
  • There should be an active leadership role responsible for standardizing and supporting business management tools designed to support continuous improvement efforts within organizations.
  • Regulatory roadblocks are not impediments to change and improvement within organizations.
  • Organizations should adopt a common approach to promote continuous improvement across operating units.

 

As with any checklist or tool—this is not intended to be an exhaustive and complete list.  Rather, it should provide a starting point as you begin to ask the difficult questions of yourself and your people.  All input is valid, all data is useful.  But it’s up to you—as the “subject matter expert” on your organization—to evaluate the feedback that you receive in the proper context.

What do you think?  Are the questions relevant to your situation?  Did we miss any critical items that you think should be included in the discussion?  Let us know about it in the comments.

 

 

If you have not already read our series on managing in a SOR and DRAP environment, you may find these posts relevant:

Strategic and Operating Reviews: We Can't Agree to Disagree
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 5: Waiting for Your Numbers
Leading Change—Modelling Behaviours Is Crucial for Success
Change Begins with Listening: 5 Things to Work On
$90k-a-day for Consulting? Depends What You Are Buying.
The Alternative to 'Death by a thousand cuts'

Build a Culture for Continuous Change - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Build a Culture for Continuous Change

So what is the culture of an organization, and where does it exist?

Change is a good thing.

For the purposes of this discussion, the culture of an organization exists in the conversations of its participants.  In other words, what conversations routinely happen and are encouraged versus what conversations are looked on disapprovingly.  In my experience, change is generally regarded as a bad thing both by people and corporations—something is wrong if we need to change.

An executive from a large shipping company once told me that their autopilots spend at least 85% of their time getting the ship back on course.  Maybe organizations are similar. What if we decided that change is not only inevitable, but a good thing, that it shows we are moving with the times?

Different Conversations.

A culture of change permits—requires—different conversations from the ones normally permitted in organizations.  These conversations are defined, or at least flow from, the process diagram and the relationship between customers and suppliers, both internal and external.

Here are some examples of new conversations that may be promoted into the “acceptable” level.  To put it another way, they are conversations that will be included in the culture.  But first we need to get some clarity on terminology. Too often people hide behind jargon, so I propose the following:

“Input requirements” becomes “What I need to do my job”

“Process step” becomes “What I do”

“Process” becomes “what we do”

“Requirements of the process  (or process step)” becomes “what the customer needs”

“Process Owner” becomes “Interface Manager”, the one who ensures communication between departments and divisions

“Customer (internal)” becomes “the person who needs something to do his/her job”

“Supplier (internal) becomes “the person or department that must provide what someone needs to do his/her job”

OK, so some of them don't exactly roll off the tongue, but they are unique and provide clarity. There are others, but using this list we can now have change related conversations in plain English.

Conversations about purpose.

In his book “The Learning Organization”, Peter Senge describes one of the characteristics of a Learning Organization as “much discussion about purpose”.  This is a key ingredient of the new culture.  People can now ask, for example “what is the purpose of what I am doing?” or “what is the purpose of what we are all doing?”

Though this scenario may be horrifying to some managers, I have found that whilst doing their day-to--day work, people do lose sight of their overall goals and need to have them clarified from time to time.  This is normal.  It is also a useful activity for managers as people may require greater clarity on the goals as their work and knowledge progress.

Conversations about “what I need to do my job”. 

In the process model, suppliers are to provide what the customer needs (not an unusual concept).  Therefore, the culture must permit related conversations such as:

“this is what I need to do my job”
“here is feedback on how well you gave me what I needed in the last period”
“here is my new list of what I need (to do my job)”
“I can't give you what you need today, but here's my plan”
“my supplier cannot provide all of my required items, where do I get the others from”

All of these conversations are done in the context of purpose; the purpose of the process and the purpose or objective of the process step being discussed.  This may, in fact, lead to a re-opening of the purpose discussion, this is normal—in fact, it is desirable.

These conversations are a great opportunity for the manager to relate to his or her team, and to imbue more of a sense of ownership of the project in the team members.

That these conversations are alive and well in an organization is essential to the creation of a culture of change management. 

Those managers whose style is reminiscent of a certain shoe company (Just do it!) will not fare well in this endeavour.

A management structure for change.

Current hierarchical management structures frequently prevent this from happening. 

Sometimes what people need lies in another department or even division.  Department heads have their own, usually functional, targets and are often unwilling to incur more work for what appears to them to benefit another department.  Often they are not in a position to see (or to care, because of how they are paid or otherwise rewarded) that for a small increase in their costs, vast savings can be gained by the company.

Documentation

{images1}As an organization progresses there will be some need for documentation.  I once worked for a company that won the Baldrige Award.  There was documentation such that, if piled up, would reach the 11th floor.  I often wondered who would keep such a pile up to date?

Of course we need documentation, but keep it to only what is useful and can be easily updated.  For these purposes, everyone's description of “what I need to do my job” is top of the list, as are “purpose of what I do”, and “purpose of what we all do”.  This last should be done in detail as there is always a customer for the overall process, and that customer should have a detailed list of what they need.  If this is not available or not adequate then some very worthwhile time should be spent in defining these requirements.

As the culture matures you will see the need for other documentation, especially as more and more processes are linked into the whole.

A document often overlooked

An essential, but often-overlooked, piece of documentation is a well-crafted company “Mission Statement” or “Strategic Intent” statement.

This should be done in such a way that employees can keep a copy pinned to their office wall and refer to it when there is a decision to be taken that must align with company strategy.  It must help everyone identify what they do, and how it aligns with the aims of the company.  If the document does not provide at least these, then it needs more work.

Someone in charge.

As time progresses and the culture takes hold, it will be useful to have a central repository for this information—and someone to see that it is maintained.

Similarly, as process awareness grows and frustration occurs because some of the vital conversations are still not permitted, or difficulties develop due to departmental or divisional boundaries, then an Interface Manager could be appointed.  This person needs to be senior enough to authorize changes and to make cross-boundary agreements.  It is also very useful if he or she has a vested interest in the process being successful.

What factor(s) are critical to success?

The simple answer is management.  This kind of change cannot occur “bottom up”.  Managers and executives are the ones who control the culture of an organization.  They are the ones that control, whether they realize it or not, the conversations that are permitted in an organization.  As mentioned, the “just do it” management style will not cut it.  Managers in this type of climate are more likely to ask, “What do you need?”

People have often said to me, “what if what they say they need is ridiculous, or impossible?”  To paraphrase Albert Einstein, often things look impossible only in the context of how we do things today.  Ultimately, it will depend on the manager and whether they regard the request as “ridiculous” instead of taking it on as an objective to provide people with what they need.

This is how seemingly impossible changes occur.

The goal—companies are a collection of processes, not just functions.

The ultimate goal should be this: right now we use a functional org chart to describe the organization, but as a culture of change develops, we should be able to describe the organization as a set of processes.

Functional management has its advantages—you should probably keep all the programmers or accountants working together, there is synergy to be found.  But we need to recognize that processes are what the company does, not functions.

A routine piece of business requires action from most of the departments in the company, but how many businesses actually manage it as a process, even conceptually?  The cost of the transaction is the cost of the process, but today, costs are usually reported by function.

As managers, we need to create a culture that accepts the fact that what we do—and how we do it—changes all the time. 

Change is a good thing—it makes us better.

 

If you have not already read our series on managing in a SOR and DRAP environment, you may find these posts relevant:

Strategic and Operating Reviews: We Can't Agree to Disagree
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 5: Waiting for Your Numbers
Leading Change—Modelling Behaviours Is Crucial for Success
Change Begins with Listening: 5 Things to Work On
$90k-a-day for Consulting? Depends What You Are Buying.

Change Begins with Listening: 5 Things to Work On - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Change Begins with Listening: 5 Things to Work On

As Geoff Schaadt conveyed so well in his latest blog post Kotter’s 8 Steps to Change: More Relevant Than Ever, in Step Four, Communicate the Change Vision, it is likely that you will under-communicate 10 to 100 times too much.

In other words, “good communication” is critical to the success of each and every change initiative. Of course, communication is never one-sided, and in order to be a good communicator you also need to be a good active listener.

To be a good communicator you need to:

  • Be goal-oriented
  • Be clear and understandable
  • Convey respect for listeners
  • Be open and allow for responses
  • Be consistent with and use emotion
  • Avoid ‘games’ and hidden agendas
  • Seek mutual understanding
  • Include ‘I’ statements and ownership
  • Avoid assumptions

To be a good active listener make sure you:

  • Don’t talk.
  • Are permissive—Create an environment that makes others feel they are free to talk.
  • Look and act like you want to listen and are interested - Listen to understand, not to reply.
  • Eliminate distractions and pay attention—Demonstrate that you value what the speaker is saying.
  • “Walk a mile in the speaker’s shoes”—Hear to understand the speaker’s point of view.
  • Are patient—Give enough time and do not interrupt.
  • Control your temper and emotions—In anger we usually misinterpret the meaning of words.
  • Try not to argue or criticize—Don’t put the speaker on the defensive; you’ll lose even if you win the argument.
  • Ask questions—show you are listening.

Silence is golden

 

Active listening skills can include using silence to:

  • Organize what the other person is saying—main ideas, key words, etc.
  • Analyze and compare what is being said with what you think or know.
  • “Hear” feelings/emotions—often they contradict verbal messages.
  • {images1}Understand words from the speaker’s point of view.

4 things a good active listener never does:

  • Interrupt
  • Argue
  • Pass judgment
  • Jump to conclusions

Five Listening Behaviours to Work On

Most of us need to work on our active listening skills. There are five listening behaviours that you can exhibit that will help you on your way to becoming a good active listener; natural response, restatement, questioning, summarizing, and reflection.

You are probably already using some or all of these intuitively, but here are a few suggestions for how to use these listening behaviours and be both a good communicator and a good active listener.

  1. Natural Response – use it to convey that you are interested and listening or to encourage the person to continue talking:

    “I see.” or “That’s interesting.”

  2. Restatement – use it to verify meaning and interpretation with the speaker, to show you are listening and that you understand what they are saying, or to encourage the speaker to analyze other aspects of the issue being considered and discuss it with you :

    “As I understand it then, your plan is…” or “This is what you have decided to do and the reasons are…” or “If that’s the case, what do you think about…?”

  3. Questioning – use it to get more information about a subject or to be certain you understand what is being communicated:

    “Could you explain more about…?” or “Do you mean that…?”

  4. Summarizing – use it to bring all of the discussion into focus in terms of a summary or as a springboard for discussion on a new topic or issue:

    “These are the key ideas you have expressed…” or “If I understand how you feel about the situation…”

  5. Reflection – use it to demonstrate that you understand how the speaker feels about the topic":

    “So, you’re saying that you feel…” or “That seems to indicate you were really mad about…”

Listen to Lead

There are many nuggets of folk wisdom that apply here:

  • Open your ears, not your mouth.
  • We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen more than we speak.
  • Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

We’ve all heard these, and many more—but that doesn’t make them any less approriate.

If you truly want to become a leader of tranformational change, then you must become a great communicator.

And that begins not with your voice, but with open ears and an open mind.

 

If you enjoyed this post, may also enjoy:

Talkin’ Pictures
Managers, it’s Time for an Easter Egg Hunt

 

If you have not already read our series on managing in a SOR and DRAP environment, you may find these posts relevant:

Strategic and Operating Reviews: We Can't Agree to Disagree
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 5: Waiting for Your Numbers
$90k-a-day for Consulting? Depends What You Are Buying.
Leading Change—Modelling Behaviours Is Crucial for Success

Leading Change—Modelling Behaviours Is Crucial for Success - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Leading Change—Modelling Behaviours Is Crucial for Success

“Leadership to step through the door”
      - Jody Loughrey

 

I received a really powerful comment to my recent blog on Strategic and Operating Reviews—Change and Failure. While agreeing with my comment for leaders to get their strategy and operational alignment right, the commenter then went on to lament the great vacuum of  “leadership to step through the door”.

Lead by Example

{images1}If we want employees to seize the challenge of new directions that flow from strategic and operating reviews, then leaders must lead by example by stepping through the door of change themselves!

Gone is the era of leaders who preach to the masses about the need for creativity and improved productivity, but do so from the confines of their boardrooms, choreographed “town hall” meetings, email blasts, and press announcements.

When the Going Gets Tough

Research clearly demonstrates the powerful connection between employee engagement and employee performance—and how that connection results in organizational success.   To good leaders this is not news; it is something that has been intuitive to them for some time.

But engagement is not something that just happens—it is the result of involved leaders who carefully create a work climate that supports employees with the right skills, knowledge and development opportunities. And most importantly, who support them when the going gets tough—and it always does get tough.

To Kill the Myths

For starters, management needs to counter the many myths that Jim Taggart points out:

  • The management “team”—in reality, there is often a great deal of maneuvering behind the scenes when it comes to positions, promotions, resources, etc.
  • Management has all the answers—employees are there to carry out orders, not be creative or innovative (this is linked to Peter Senge’s “I am my position” disability).  Above all, don’t question management actions. Keep your head down.
  • Employees are encouraged to be risk takers—actually, people often get punished when they do take risks.
  • “This is how we do things around here.”—the new employee who asks “why” is told, “that’s just the way it is.” Any further questioning risks their good standing in the eyes of managers and peers.

And Align Actions

In short, you need leaders and managers who understand the culture, what needs to change, how it will be done, and when. And most importantly, when it comes time to challenge the current way of doing things, are prepared to lead by example.

There’s a simple test for this: Is what senior management says aligned with its daily actions?

If not, forget about building employee engagement.  You’ll need all your energy to cope with the shock and trauma that will follow!

Future Shock

Why is this leadership behavioral change so important? Simply put, it is because the speed of change occurring in our world has been accelerating for decades.

Alvin Tofler was the first to coin the expression “future shock” in his 1970 book of the same name.  Orson Wells, the narrator of the 1972 documentary, describes future shock as a disease resulting from “too much change in too short a time”.

Watching this 40 year-old video is somewhat surreal as the change that Tofler described some 30 years ago has only accelerated and become even more pervasive today.

Step Through the Door

Fast-forward to the aftermath of the Great Recession, and there is growing evidence that the shock experienced by employees in many parts of the Western world is akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. This is the place where we need managers to manage and leaders to lead!

“Leadership to step through the door” clearly recognizes the connective tissue between leadership behaviours and their impact on your employees’ engagement! Sure, as leaders we must do the big “strategy think” and make the decisions, but those activities alone are going to fall well short of creating transformational change in our organizations!

 

To me, this is what Jody meant when he said we need “leadership to step through the door”; and that’s true change in action!

 

If you have not already read our series on managing in a SOR and DRAP environment, you may find these posts relevant:

Strategic and Operating Reviews: We Can't Agree to Disagree
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 5: Waiting for Your Numbers
$90k-a-day for Consulting? Depends What You Are Buying.

Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 5: Waiting for Your Numbers - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 5: Waiting for Your Numbers

This post is the fifth in our series on Strategic & Operational Reviews (SOR).

Part 1 — Strategic & Operating Reviews: We Can’t Agree to Disagree — dealt with the issue that changes are coming to the Public Service, whether or not the leadership want it to happen.  And, if these changes are going to be successful it will be predicated on creating alignment and embracing conflict management.

Part 2 — Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure — focuses the discussion on creating a greater understanding of the concept of alignment, why it matters, and where it is critical for success.

Part 3 — Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure — discusses the fundamental fact that SOR is about change.  Managers must accept this fact and commit to the aspects of change management that will create the greatest likelihood of success.

Part 4 — Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success — outlines the areas where managers need to maintain their focus as they work through these issues.

 

I had a conversation with an old client last week.  You won’t be surprised that the topic quickly came around to the current climate of “doing more with less.”

And, I suspect that we covered the same ground that many, many managers in the Public Service are talking about right now:

  1. You know the budget cuts flowing out of the Strategic and Operating Reviews (SOR) are coming;
  2. You don’t know what you will need to contribute to the departmental Deficit Reduction Action Plan (DRAP), but you know it’s likely between 5% to 10%; so,
  3. What should you be doing right now?

As we talked, we uncovered four things that he could be addressing today that don’t require any specific knowledge of future budgets or staffing, but will prepare the organization to more effectively and rapidly implement the changes.

The 1st potential problem:

Things will fall apart when an organization's values, mission, vision, and customer/stakeholder value proposition haven't been properly defined. With an inappropriate definition, the risk of setting or continuing with misaligned implementation objectives is huge. 

Action:

Get your team to re-examine your program values, mission, vision, and customer/stakeholder value proposition.

Give it a good scrub.  In particular, understand where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Consider the Pareto Rule: where 20% of the output takes up 80% of the effort.

 

The 2nd potential problem:

Even if your team gets the strategy right, there is still a chance that the selected objectives won't get you where you need to go. The key is to identify the logic model(in the form of linked, strategic objectives) that will produce the desired outcome. It is critically important to get this as right as humanly possible.  

Action:

The best way, in my experience, to do this is to ask—and answer—a series of questions that cascade from the mission, vision, and value proposition and are in alignment with the strategic direction and values. 
In the private sector, these questions look something like this:

  • To achieve the financial results we want, how must we appear / what must we deliver to our shareholders?  (Brand promise to owners)
  • To achieve the financial results we want, what must we do/deliver to our customers? (Brand promise to customers)
  • To give our customers what they want and achieve our financial goals, what processes must we excel at? (Brand promise to employees)
  • To execute our processes and achieve our other objectives, what organizational capabilities (people, culture, skills, tools, technologies, etc.) must we have/put in place? (Total brand alignment.)

{images1}

By answering these questions in a focused way, organizations can develop a balanced set of strategic objectives that:

  • result in the desired outcome,
  • are well aligned,
  • will be relevant to everyone in the organization, and
  • will drive the organization to where it wants to go.

With appropriate contextual adaptations, these same questions can be applied to public sector organizations.

The 3rd potential problem:

If objectives are mostly financial, they often produce unbalanced outcomes.

If objectives are not aligned and achievable, the inconsistency will be apparent to both customers and employees.

And, if objectives are not actionable within the organization, you may well be out of business.

Action:

Make absolutely sure that revised operating budgets take into account the “creative thinking” that went into the SOR—do not disconnect them.

Revisit your Pareto list; make sure that you know where the 20% of your activities that achieve 80% of the results are to be found—and be certain that these are preserved! Your cuts should target those activities that generate no added value (NVA).

The 4th potential problem:

Ignoring your employees inevitably leads to alienation and decline in morale.

Action:

To make sure employees understand the big picture, carry out the review process with as much transparency and involvement as is possible—especially for those staff who will be affected by the changes. The following will dramatically mitigate the inevitable hit on employee morale:

  1. Make sure their input is factored into your decisions. If not, explain why not.  Help them develop an understanding of the outcomes you’re projecting and create an early commitment to the plans that will follow.
  2. Present the total plan and work through it with the front-line teams early and often. Use effective communication to combat the “rumours”—which are typically worse than the reality.
  3. Build engagement with employees by giving them the full picture and show them how changes to the work processes—that THEY OWN—will be critical to the success of the project.

{images2}

Next Steps:

If you take these actions steps seriously, you will have more than enough to keep you busy until your budget numbers arrive.  For now, keep your focus on strategy, alignment, and engagement—that is what will put you ahead of the game when it’s time to implement.

 

 


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Download our new eBook:

Evaluation - A Primer on Evalution in the Government of Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kotter’s 8 Steps to Change: More Relevant Than Ever - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Kotter’s 8 Steps to Change: More Relevant Than Ever

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.
       - John Wooden

In 1996, John Kotter published Leading Change, which quickly became the seminal work in the change management space.

15 years later—an eon in the Internet time-space to which we have become accustomed—and Leading Change is still the work that most change management professionals will point to when asked “how to do it.” There have been some other blips on the radar in the change management discussion, most notably the high-intensity spotlight wielded by the Heath Bros, Chip and Dan, in Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.

Yet everyone keeps coming back to Mr. Kotter. (welcome back!)

{images1}Why? Because effecting change—real change—transformative change—is hard. Really hard.

And The Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change that Kotter spelled out in Leading Change has been proven to work better than most anything else when appropriately implemented. The Eight Steps give organizational leader/managers a clear map to follow when most are wandering in the dark as they face the challenges of non-linear acceleration of change as we move into the 21st century.

But this post is not intended to re-hash every aspect of the Eight Steps. Rather, I wanted to remind everyone how unique it is in this “management” space to have a book that has held up so well over time. So many flavour-of-the-week approaches to managing an organization have come and gone in the last fifteen years that we could, and have, fill a library with them.

The other, really unusual aspect of Leading Change as a cornerstone work, is that its relevance has only increased since publication. Business-as-usual did not pass this book by; it is virtually required reading for anyone who leads an organization today.

The Eight Step Process

For those who are not familiar with Kotter’s work, here is a list of his Eight Steps, with some recent comments that he has made on those issues that he finds to be critical for success (I’ll include a link to these comments when/if it becomes publicly available):

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency

  • This is the absolute starting point.
  • You must appeal to both the intellectual AND the emotional.
  • Repeatedly screaming at people “Your platform is burning, you are going to die!” does not work.
    • Threats lose their value.
    • It results in a demoralized workforce.
    • Talent leaves as soon as there is a good out.

2. Create a Guiding Coalition

  • If you want transformational change, you must create transformational leadership.
  • If you want transformational leadership, hierarchical-command/control structures will not work.
    • Good managers, utilizing good policies and practices, can create great results—but they cannot create transformational change.
  • Note the use of the term Coalition: if you want transformational leadership, this must represent a broad cross-section of people from all levels of the organization.
    • people who have their hearts in it
    • people who will provide leadership
    • people who will attack barriers
    • people who will get others on board
  • If you don’t do this right, it will effect everything else that follows.

3. Develop a Vision and Strategy

 

4. Communicate the Change Vision

  • It’s not likely that you will under-communicate a little bit; you will probably under-communicate 10x to 100x too much. And your initiative, no matter how well planned, will fail.

5. Empower Broad-Based Action

  • Give away authority. The hierarchy must give way to the network.

6. Generate Short-Term Wins

  • Make the wins real and they will be powerful.
  • If people don’t see results, cynicism will quickly follow.

7. Consolidate Gains and Produce More Change

  • Never let up!
    • You must maintain the urgency.
    • If you hand your initiative off to a change management “department” or “committee” — you will fail.
    • Don’t get discouraged, it might require cycling back and trying new things.
    • Don’t let your “command and control” genes take over.
  • It’s like tending a fire, you can’t start it and walk away.

8. Anchor New Approaches in the Culture

  • You don’t “change your culture” to create transformation.
  • It’s the reverse, if you want to create a culture change then go through the other seven steps — then, after success has been created, the outcome will be a change in the culture!

Management v. Leadership

I think it’s safe to say that we are all exhausted with the manager or leader debate. I’ll not waste too much time on that. However, a couple of quotes from Kotter that make it very clear; change management is a task for leaders.

Managers can define projects, develop measures, and monitor systems—they cannot create change.

“Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.”

“…linking the discussion back to the engine that drives change—leadership—and in showing how a purely managerial mindset inevitably fails, regardless of the quality of people involved.”

Change Leadership

So, the question that spins out of all of this focus on leadership:

Is it time to change the term “change management”?

Would the process be more accurately conveyed if we started referring to it as “change leadership”?

Read the Book

Again, if you haven’t read Leading Change, and you have any interest in creating lasting change in an organizational environment, you really should pick up a copy.

Not only do you stand to gain some critical knowledge, I think you will be shocked at the prescience of this 15 year-old book.

 

updated 11 October 2011 - added a link to the recent Kotter webinar

 


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Understanding Corporate Myths and Symbols: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Understanding Corporate Myths and Symbols: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself

I’ve talked about corporate climate and culture in past posts, Do You Know the Difference Between Corporate Culture and Climate? and The Smell of the Place.

Today I want to look at two major obstacles to changing corporate culture: myths and symbols.

Myths and symbols, especially with organizations that have been around for a long time, impede the ability of people to understand what’s occurring in the workplace and the context in which it exists. In particular, they distort the lens through which we see our world, which in turn can significantly affect how we interact with others and adapt to change. We may react to change through emotion, thus making it that much harder to see reality.

Some common examples of corporate myths:

  • The management “team” — in reality, there is often a great deal of manoeuvering behind the scenes when it comes to positions, promotions, resources, etc.
  • Management has all the answers — employees are there to carry out orders, not be creative or innovative (this is linked to Peter Senge’s “I am my position” disability). Above all, don’t question management actions. Keep your head down.
  • Employees are encouraged to be risk takers — actually, people get punished when doing so.
  • “This is how we do things around here.” — the new employee who asks “why” is told, “that’s just the way it is.” Any further questioning risks their good standing in the eyes of their managers and peers.

Examples of typical symbols in the workplace:

  • Doors to the senior managers’ suite are locked
  • Water coolers that are off-limits to staff
  • Executive lunchrooms
  • Preferred parking

When organizations enter a period of turbulent change (such as what we’ve been going through since the financial meltdown and the onset of the Great Recession) myths have a profound effect {images1}on our behavior as a consequence of our becoming more anxious. This may manifest itself in such behaviors as hoarding information at work, distrusting co-workers and (especially) management, and resisting reorganization and new approaches to work. These behaviors are carried through to weakened service to clients and citizens.

As an organization’s culture begins to change, its old myths are challenged and new ones are created. One result is a clash of myths as the old guard attempts to fight off the new ideas and approaches that new employees bring with them. What’s striking about this dynamic process is that it takes place at an unconscious level.

Furthermore, established myths cloud management’s perspective and vision — which comes at a critical time as senior leaders should be thinking about the organization’s future and where they should be focusing their attention.

Here are seven questions to consider for your unique workplace context and issues:

  1. Where do senior executives focus their attention? What symbols and myths do they value?

  2. Is what senior management says as a collective aligned with its daily actions?

  3. How are employees recognized and valued?

  4. Is exceeding clients’ and customers’ needs and wants the focus of the organization?

  5. When major mistakes occur does management seek out scapegoats, or does it assume responsibility and learn from them?

  6. Are the organization’s rules and policies gospel, or is their flexibility in how they’re implemented?

  7. How is work actually done in the organization?

There has been WAY too much hype over the years from leadership gurus, CEOs, senior executives, etc, who have espoused feel-good platitudes about how important employees are, and that they’re an organization’s most valuable asset.

Indeed, if employees are to regain their trust in those who lead organizations, especially as a result of the Great Recession, a huge amount of work is needed to begin the healing process. And as part of this, a vital aspect will be to jettison those symbols and myths that impede the engagement of employees, that undermine trust and credibility, and that redirect the organization’s attention to non-productive ends.

If you haven’t already, read my post on Lincoln Electric for the true story of a 100-plus year old Cleveland-based manufacturing company that has remained a world leader by staying focused on its customers, treating employees fairly, and remunerating them exceptionally well.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the center and knows.
- Robert Frost

This post originally appeared on Jim’s Changing Winds blog, and has been adapted here with his permission.

 


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The Alternative to ‘Death by a thousand cuts’ - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

The Alternative to ‘Death by a thousand cuts’

Earlier this week, the Ottawa Citizen published a Susan Riley piece entitled “Death by a thousand cuts”.  In it she expressed her concern that “no good will come” from the current round of federal budget cuts.  While I don’t subscribed to her largely cynical notion that only bad things will result, I do share her worry that the total focus on cuts pushes aside the need to build a “leaner, more nimble public service.”

I also want to stress my belief that the Public Service is populated with talented and intelligent people. But let’s face it, to arrive at a leaner, more nimble public service—one that builds creative capacity and embraces risk—there must be a radical cultural shift. But the culture, well that’s something else…

We have danced this dance before.

Many of us went through this same exercise during the downsizing that took place during the 90’s, and some of our lessons learned from that experience:

  • Ideally, cuts should target positions—not head count

    An open-ended incentive package for early departure is only about saving dollars; unfortunately, it’s often those with the most knowledge and the most talent that leave.
     
  • Failure to inform people what lies ahead—the why and the when—generates fear, uncertainty, and stress

    The bottom line is that this negatively impacts productivity and capacity immediately, and results in a deteriorated workplace climate that discourages change.
     
  • {images1}Those employees that remain are often left to fend for themselves

    The skills and experience that have walked out the door cannot be replaced or learned quickly, so remaining employees must struggle through as best they can.

This reshaping of the Public Service will require rethinking your business and how you do business. Ideally, this should be done concurrently as you re-define the organizational mandate and expected results, streamline business processes, re-design jobs, and build competencies and capacities.

Getting Lean Is More Than Trimming Fat

In contrast to the cost-cutting mentality that is usually applied, building the creative capacity of the professional public service is a theme with great merit.  And private and public sector organizations, faced with the same need for capacity growth in an environment of limited financial resources, are shaping “lean” organizations. 

The Lean concept is a management approach that has evolved from the automotive manufacturing floor, and is now finding its way into the halls and cube farms of the “office”.  More than just another management tool, Lean is really an all-embracing philosophy, one that considers the use of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful—and thus a target for elimination.

And, as you consider the application of lean to any public sector organization, remember that the first two principles of lean are continuous improvement and respect for people.

The remaining 4 are:

  • long-term thinking;
  • belief that the right process will produce the right results;
  • adding value to the organization by developing your people and partners;
  • and, continuously solving root problems drives organizational learning.

To be clear—Lean is about reducing waste in every form, and, ultimately, costs.  It is not about reducing head count!

Trimming Fat is More Than Counting Pennies

Now wouldn’t it be wonderful if the goal of every department within the Government of Canada was just that: any expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for Canadians is wasteful and thus a target for elimination!  Of course, this approach would be aligned by political and strategic intent, and implemented by a committed cadre of executives and a core of engaged employees. Wow!

For several years running the Clerk of the Privy Council, Canada’s most senior public servant, has given an accounting of activities aimed at improving public service management in his Annual Report on Public Service Renewal to the Prime Minister. While many good ideas, initiatives and interesting insights were reported, most observers believe that the public service culture and workplace climate has remained unchanged—this is particularly so with the 'net generation'.

With these issues in mind, I feel that that there are two critical things to be aware of if this deficit reduction process is going to be successful:

  1. The resource allocation decision-makers must NOT focus exclusively on dollars and cents, but bear in mind the need for a leaner, more nimble public service.
  2. Those who are implementing the decisions must recognize the need for effective change management and alignment processes.

If you have not already read our series on managing in a SOR and DRAP environment, you may find these posts relevant:

Strategic and Operating Reviews: We Can't Agree to Disagree
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success
$90k-a-day for Consulting? Depends What You Are Buying.

PSES 2011 - Make your voice heard! (updated) - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

PSES 2011 - Make your voice heard! (updated)

{images1}Update: the 2011 PSES has been extended to October 7th!

Public Service employees have only 3 8 days left to complete the 2011 Public Service Employee Survey (PSES).

Twenty-eight of the seventy substantive questions address the Management Accountability Framework (MAF) and will help determine whether deputy heads are meeting expectations.  This is a powerful reason for all public servants to take the time (15 -20 minutes) to complete the survey.

This is one of the very few opportunities to have an effective say in the way your deputy and, by extension, other senior and middle managers are performing on the job.

As they say—if you don’t participate, you have no right to complain.

 


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$90k-a-day for Consulting? Depends What You Are Buying. - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

$90k-a-day for Consulting? Depends What You Are Buying.

Tories hire $90,000-a-day consultant to cut spending

The above headline appeared in the Globe & Mail on September 20, 2011. Understandably, the reaction by members of parliament and the public has been swift and vocal. Clearly, many people find the Government’s decision to engage consultants in this critical task as offensive.

But really, should anyone be surprised? Let’s deconstruct the issue a little—

There’s a perception that spending such a large amount to “reduce costs” seems, at first blush, to be a contradiction. The story, as it has been structured, appears to have been deliberately provocative, and implies that such fees are outrageously exorbitant. This is hardly the case given that any top-tier consulting firm will regularly charge anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 per day for senior staff, plus travel and related costs.

If you do the math, the fees would suggest a consulting team of around 40 people.

Is it conceivable that a review of strategy and operations of the size and scope of the federal government justifies a team of 40 people working full-time until March 31st, 2012?

Probably.

 

To be sure, without greater transparency about the terms of reference that set out the goals and deliverables of the consulting resources being contracted, we are left to our own devices to understand the situation.

Here’s my take on the thinking that might have gone into the decision to contract a team of senior management consultants:

  1. The Public Service is inadequately equipped to direct this government-wide challenge. For sure, reviewing departmental analysis and providing ministers with recommendations on which cuts to make is clearly a very large job that needs to be done in a relatively short time.

    However, there are two Secretariat groups that provide ongoing support for expenditure management and planning and priorities.  These are highly skilled people with intimate knowledge of the subject matter. Year after year they review department requests and package the analysis used by ministers to make decisions. Their expertise and process knowledge is deep, and it is unthinkable that they will not be involved in the “packaging” of the decisions the Ministers of the Board will make.
  2. There’s a real need to augment the resources of the Secretariat, and to advise Ministers on fine tuning the recommendations of Departments prior to bringing them to the Board—maybe. A small, integrated team, devoted to advice on the cuts, can provide assurance of consistent standards, and, perhaps, a perception of greater fairness in the process.
  3. There is a perception by Ministers that the Public Service can’t be trusted to be “objective” about tough spending decisions.

    There may be some truth to this as long-term staff of every organization, whether private or public, are invariably biased by their past experiences. But so too are the consultants being brought in. And, more importantly, Canada has a strong reputation among Western democracies for having a professional, objective, and disciplined Public Service.
  4. A related issue might include the desire to counter the “tribalism” that has already reared its head during the strategic and operating reviews. This occurs when one group blames another for past expenditure growth, thus eliminating any potential collaboration to identify innovative solutions or more effective ways of achieving results.  This can happen with head office vs. field operations, military vs. civilian staff, etc.
  5. There’s a desire by the new MAJORITY Government to create the perception of applying “strong business decision-making” to their PS cuts. This may be particularly helpful in areas where the cuts will be broadly unpopular with the general public—and there are bound to be some of those.

    Being able to point to “the best private sector advice” will be useful to the Government in future damage control situations. That is, that their decisions are based on sound business analysis, and not on political ideology.

 

However, the bigger issue within this entire debate is not being addressed.

Commenters on both sides of the discussion have been hyper-focused on the numbers: $4 billion in annual savings, 5% to 10% budget cuts, $90,000 per day.  These yardstick indicators are clearly critical in understanding and measuring where it is that we need to get to, and how well we are progressing.  But making the decision to cut is easy; making it actually work is the hard part—and that can only be done within the Public Service.

My concern—and I suspect it is the concern of our professional Public Service—is that with all the emphasis on making the cuts, the creative effort of enhancing the capabilities of a reduced public service gets put aside.

In short, how many members of the $90,000 per day consulting team are working on the “people issues” that will invariably accompany these cutbacks?

If the critical issues of innovation and employee engagement are not addressed, the quality of the services delivered to Canadians will decline.

I suspect that this is a growing concern of many other Canadians as well.

If you have not already read our series on SOR, you may find these posts relevant:

Strategic and Operating Reviews: We Can't Agree to Disagree
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure
Strategic and Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success

A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place — Wouldn’t It Be Nice? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place — Wouldn’t It Be Nice?

Does it seem to take forever to find that document on your server? Do you spend hours in your storage room looking for things? If so, than you are probably wondering if there is a way to reduce time wasted searching and increase your productivity, and the answer is a simple, Yes! Implementing a 5S cycle can be the answer to these problems.

5S You Say?

5S or FiveS is a great foundation for creating a focus on organizing, increasing visual order, and standardizing a workspace, be it at work, or at home. 5S is a system with a Japanese origin (The Toyota Production System), used predominantly in the manufacturing industry, it incorporates 5 stages all beginning with the letter “S”:

  • Seiri
  • Seiton
  • Seiso
  • Seiketsu
  • Shitsuke

These words can be loosely translated to mean Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain.

The goal of 5S is to organize a workspace to promote flow, reduce wasted time, reduce cost, optimize productivity, increase safety and boost mental health and morale by using visual cues to increase the consistency of successful results.

The Cycle

5S is a cycle and not just a step-by-step process. Each stage follows the previous one — then the process repeats itself anew in an on-going basis.

The stages of 5S are as follows:

Sorting (整理)

Essential items only, everything else must go!

A review of all the things in your office, on your desk , in your room, or on your computer or server should be conducted. Whatever is needed to do business is kept; the rest is discarded, recycled or sold. This stage eliminates wasted space, makes what you need easily accessible, increases “thinking space” by de-cluttering your surroundings, and promotes productivity be decreasing wasted time spent sifting through unnecessary clutter.

Set In Order (整頓)

Arrange everything that you kept so that it is easy to find and missing items are easily noticed.

{images1}This stage of 5s fosters efficient workflow. You know where your tools are because everything has a designated place — you don’t waste time looking for them. Things like labels, storage bins, colour coded files and efficient shelving solutions are excellent ways to accomplish this task.

Shine (清掃)

Clean your space.

Cleaning should be part of your daily routine just like the other four stages of 5s — Japanese workers clean at the end of every shift. A clean workspace promotes a positive mental outlook that increases productivity and flow, so sweep, dust and “shine” away!

Standardize (清潔)

Everyone should know “how we do things here”.

By understanding, agreeing to, and implementing standardizing practices in the work environment, abnormal practices are easy to identify and correct. This will require a good amount of discussion and planning with your co-workers. It is important to use visual cues such as posters, pictures or labels to reinforce these habits and facilitate the understanding of the practices.

Sustain (躾)

Maintain what you have done; don’t let all the hard work go to waste!

The fifth — and perhaps the most important — stage incorporates sustaining the previous four S’s. Focus on the new standards and attempt to prevent a gradual regression to the old ways. Reminders with the use of visual cues such as posters, labels or pictures facilitate success in this stage.

Don’t Get Carried Away

It is easy to go overboard with 5S. You could put down electrical tape on your desk to outline where your pencils, eraser, ruler, laptop and notepad go, and you can even go a step further and force this on your employees!

{images2}Successful 5S implementation requires that everyone involved is involved.

Before implementing 5S make a plan; don’t just force this new system without warning! Like any successful change initiative, key factors for making change happen need to be in place, including senior management being fully committed and leading the way.

Implementing 5S In An Office Environment Can Be Difficult

Culture is a very important part of office life, and is much more evident in an office than in a factory. Employees customize their space with personal belongings to make it feel more like their own. This can create a problem since 5S takes away a lot of the personal touches in an office, and people can see this as an attack on their sense of self.

As with everything, moderation can go a long way. Office workers can embrace the other 4 S’s without diving too deeply into “Set in Order”. In fact, many times a good “Sort” will motivate people to do a much better job with order and cleanliness.

Understand the culture before you force new systems from the top down.

The Sixth “S”

There is a lot of talk online about the inclusion of “Safety” in 5S.

While obviously important in an industrial setting, this concern applies to the office as well. The correct application of 5S should reduce many obvious health risks in the office like elimination of hazzards such as loose cables and clutter.

However, it is important to keep in mind the many ergonomic issues stemming from the physical setup of desks and workstations. From carpal tunnel syndrome to back injuries, most health issues arising from the office can be prevented!

For more information on 5S for the office, I would suggest Lean Thinking by James Womack & Daniel Jones.

Do you implement 5S in your work environment? Would like to share your experience? Do you plan on implementing 5S? As always, thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated!

 

Photo Credit for the 5S Desk: timebackmanagement.com

 


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Leadership and Management in a DRAP Environment - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Leadership and Management in a DRAP Environment

Managers in the Canadian Public Service, tasked with finding their 5% and 10% budget contributions to the Deficit Reduction Action Plan (DRAP), are facing a Strategic and Operating Review (SOR) that will challenge their abilities as both managers and leaders.

Many of the Associates at Delta Partners have been through this before, so we put some thoughts together for a series on the Delta Blog:

And, as you begin to think about your approach to these challenges, we pulled together a list of our pieces that we think are most relevant to public servants as they chart their course through what will likely be a difficult process:

Change Management

Strategy

Program Management

Business Processes

Employee Productivity

Leadership and Implementation

If you would like to talk more about how SOR is going to affect you, please contact us.

Your trusted advisors.

Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success

This post is the fourth in our series on Strategic & Operational Reviews (SOR).

Part 1 — Strategic & Operational Reviews: We Can’t Agree to Disagree — dealt with the issue that changes are coming to the Public Service, whether or not the leadership want it to happen.  And, if these changes are going to be successful it will be predicated on creating alignment and embracing conflict management.

Part 2 — Strategic & Operational Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure — focuses the discussion on creating a greater understanding of the concept of alignment, why it matters, and where it is critical for success.

Part 3 — Strategic & Operational Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure — discusses the fundamental fact that SOR is about change.  Managers must accept this fact and commit to the aspects of change management that will create the greatest likelihood of success.

 

Over the next four years, most departments within the Public Service are faced with the reality of identifying 5 to 10 percent of their operating budget as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan! It goes without saying that this is a gigantic challenge that will stretch the will and the endurance of public servants at all levels.

Based on our previous experience, we have developed a framework that can assist managers as they consider how to approach the implementation of the required changes.

The specifics will vary with the size and complexity of the organization, but this framework provides the key elements that must be considered for implementation of the action plan.

At the top of the framework “pyramid” is the overarching Strategy.  Three “pillars” support strategy: Program Management, Business Processes, and Employee Productivity.  And these activities are built upon a “foundation” of effective Implementation.

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Strategy:

Many of the proposals currently being considered will directly impact the nature of your program and/or the responsibilities of your organization. A revisit of the Program architecture, including mission and vision, will help you identify where changes need to be considered in light of shifting priorities and changes in the legal, social, economic or environmental context of the program.

Program Management:

Changes to key elements in a program will directly impact the core capabilities of the organization.  This, in turn, will require a review of the structure, reporting, and management accountabilities.

A program management review will identify where the issues identified in the strategy analysis resulted in disconnects from the PAA results structure, the Program business plan, and other resources.

Business Processes:

The needs of your clients must be identified and clarified, and business processes must be evaluated to identify where you might find potential efficiencies.

These two activities will highlight opportunities to innovate service delivery, recognize where new technologies can be appropriately implemented, identify potential activities that no longer add value, and generally offer a more robust service delivery model.

And don’t forget to revisit previously considered service delivery alternatives — that service automation or shared services initiative that was rejected before might be appropriate now given advancing technologies and changing priorities.

Employee Productivity:

Employees must be given specific information about how their jobs will evolve as changes are implemented.  And, where people are cut from the organization, some jobs may have to be redesigned, and affected employees deployed to other jobs where there is “best fit.”

Many of these changes are going to require that the organization build capacity.  This will also require that your people develop new competencies, or, at the very least, become more efficient and productive in the positions that they now hold.  Either way, investments in learning will be required.

And, as a manager, you must always keep in mind the tremendous emotional stress that all of these changes and uncertainty are going to create for the people who work with and for you.  This will require significant attention as employees seek coping strategies.

Implementation:

Successful implementation of your plan will hinge on effective leadership and employee engagement.

The magnitude of the impact on your organization may dictate that the changes be managed as a formal project, especially as it spans a three year period.

Have you considered your approach to change management? How are you going to create engagement and minimize change fatigue in your people? What other elements of your HR plan will need to be activated to successfully carry out your Deficit Reduction Action Plan contributions?

Managers must think carefully about how they are going to approach this critical issue.

If their people do not understand the how and why of the strategic decisions, if there is no effort to engage and communicate, if true leadership is not brought to bear — successful implementation is not likely to follow.

A Framework for Alignment:

Before pushing the START button, all segments have to be pulled together to ensure a coherent and integrated approach that is also “doable”.

Many of the key tools and management practices may be in place, but will have to be updated based on deficit reduction objectives and targets.

The elements outlined above provide a simple framework that can be used to identify key implementation actions required.

Clearly, this is not an exhaustive list - it was never intended to be.  The intent is to bring structure to your thought processes as you determine your alternatives.  The strength of this approach lies in its ability to recognize a range of appropriate alternatives managers might pursue by building on what they have in place while addressing the gaps.

 

What are your thoughts as you consider this framework?  Do you find any critical areas that are not addressed that might have a measurable impact on your plans?

 

 


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Evaluation - A Primer on Evalution in the Government of Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure

This is the third post in our series on Strategic & Operational Reviews (SOR).  Part 1 — Strategic & Operational Reviews: We Can’t Agree to Disagree — dealt with the issue that changes are coming to the Public Service, whether or not the leadership want it to happen.  And, if these changes are going to be successful it will be predicated on successfully creating alignment and embracing conflict management.

Part 2 — Strategic & Operational Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure — focuses the discussion on creating a greater understanding of the concept of alignment, why it matters, and where it is critical for success.

Implementation is About Change

Implementing a Strategic and Operating Review (SOR) is fundamentally about change.

Sometimes it is a big change, sometimes a small change.

Sometimes you're asking people to shift from doing what they know to something unfamiliar. Sometimes you're asking them to take the long view when they're rewarded by a different set of metrics. Almost always, you're asking people to think a new thought, do a new thing, learn, stretch, and cooperate with others in creating something together.

And, quite often, you're making the decision while challenged: programs are delivering on their product offers while in motion, and while delivering this quarter’s budget targets. Or, a program is trying to reach scale with limited funds; deciding what new product to build is hard because everyone has an opinion — yet very few of us have any data on which to make the call.

In or Out?

In the end, alignment is about how you do your work.  Specifically, how effectively you implement your strategy.

In aligning the business model, disagreement is fine as long as you come to clarity about which path is the one you will travel together.  And, sooner or later, you'll face one of those moments: 

Are you in, or are you out?

As we have previously stated, political and PS leaders cannot agree to disagree on issues of alignment. They must be crystal clear about the needs and requirements of the public who will ultimately judge their work.

Tribalism – The Other Elephant in the Room

Perhaps the greatest impediment to organizational alignment is “tribalism”.

The Oxford Dictionaries define tribalism as “the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one’s own tribe or group” — and is seen in this context as a derogatory behaviour.

An excellent example of tribalism in the PS was recently cited in the Ottawa Citizen in the article “Team calling for deep cuts at DND thwarted, report says”. The article characterizes the DND review, led by General Andrew Leslie — Canada’s former military commander in Afghanistan, as having been blocked from examining the “civilian” side of DND.

{images1}This is not a new phenomenon.  It occurs in all kinds of organizations, but perhaps with greatest frequency and intensity in bureaucratic organizations. And, if the change involves a merger of different cultures, it presents a “double jeopardy”.

Bodies that are organized along tight specialty lines such as military vs. civilian or engineering vs. support sometimes develop strong “us” vs. “them” outlooks.  Unfortunately, strong “tribal identities” can torpedo attempts to develop an overall corporate identity  — an identity that is so vital to an organization’s effectiveness.

A strong group identity can be a major asset in developing a sense of belonging and loyalty among employees, but when that engagement is directed inward — against other groups within the same organization — it becomes a major barrier in any attempt to align operations.

Faced with the need to re-align programs and budgets with strategic direction, over-active tribal behaviours become spoilers.  Strategy direction changes and operating process changes are thwarted, and budget savings are not achieved. In frustration, policy makers and executive managers cut budgets in the “belief” that operating managers will be forced to make the desired changes.

However, the typical outcome of this approach is that frontline staffs are simply left to “do more with less”.  Without leadership guidance these same staff, though, have no real understanding of how they can adapt their work processes to accommodate the increased load. Ultimately, these ever-increasing demands can have a devastating impact on the workforce.   

It’s People

You are probably tired of hearing this, but it bears repeating: big initiatives are bound to fail if clear decisions are not reached at the highest levels that will create alignment within programs.

However, the executives who are debating these alignment decisions are just as likely to face failure if they don’t acknowledge the need to gain solid engagement from workers.

The critical elements of change management must be baked in to their operational plans from the beginning.  If their people are not engaged, informed, empowered and committed, the executive can deliver almost any plan they like — doesn’t matter.  It’s going to fail.

 

In preparing this blog series, I found  Nilofer Merchant’s book, The New How, helpful. You may find her discussion regarding collaborative ways to have your whole organization strategize of interest.

Update:
The series concludes — Strategic & Operational Reviews Part 4: A Framework for Success

 


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Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Strategic & Operating Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure

In my previous post — Strategic & Operational Reviews: We Can’t Agree to Disagree — I discussed the fact that SOR will bring changes to the Public Service, whether managers want it to happen or not.  It’s coming.  The success or failure of these changes will be dictated by two key concepts: alignment and conflict management.  And these must be dealt with at the strategic level — leaving these issues to those individuals charged with implementation will almost always result in failure.

Why does alignment matter?

Boiling the concept down to essentials, alignment matters because it decreases the amount of energy it takes to go from A to Z.

If your program is not aligned with public expectations in terms of services offered, ease-of-access, or customer experience, then it is likely to fail. While you may still get from A to C — or even to K — with some misalignment, you are living with friction and energy loss.  But when alignment kicks in, the program really scales.

A great example is the dramatic improvement of Passport Canada performance as reported by the Auditor General of Canada (AG). Many recall the bad publicity and headaches, if not heartaches, of just a few years ago when your passport was up for renewal. Passport Canada has worked hard at improving their processes. But their focus on aligning strategy, planning, and operations has paid real, palpable dividends for the citizens of Canada.

What are the areas where alignment & conflict is pivotal?

It might risk over-simplifying a complex topic, but I find that there are three areas where alignment & conflict management is pivotal:

  1. Aligning the program promise with the public’s needs;
  2. Alignment of the Government’s interests with the executive team’s goals; and,
  3. Aligning what services the program should offer and which public segment we focus on.

The Program Promise

The alignment of the Program’s promise with the public’s needsis somewhat analogous to the concept of “Brand” in the business world.

{images1}If you doubt that notion consider the RCMP "brand”.  For many years it was regularly put in the same company as Coke, Disney, and other world-famous brands. Fast forward to today and look at the RCMP brand in our own country… I leave you to read between the lines.

Seth Godin says it really well:

Long-term brands and relationships are built on alignment.

The Wal-Mart relationship: I want the lowest prices and Wal-Mart is committed to giving me the lowest prices. That's why there's little pushback about customer service or employee respect... the goals are aligned.

The Apple relationship: I want cool products and Apple thrives on creating innovative products. That's why there's little pushback on pricing, obsolescence, or disappointing developers.

There’s an important lesson here for government; if program brands do not align with the targeted public needs, there will be pushback!  Our consumer society looks at everything through this lens.

Promise and Clarity

As we speak, the Privy Council Office is requesting proposals to bring the federal government’s branding into the 21st century. In and of itself, this is a both a laudable and necessary goal. But, consider the pyramid of federal programs addressing a broad variety of publics in a multicultural society.

Add to that a current requirement to retool and rebase those same programs to eliminate the national deficit, and the question emerges, “Is this the right sequence in which to do this?”

Taken together, the task is formidable!

Josef Jurkovic nails the alignment challenge in the Postmedia News article, Pimping my Canada: Ottawa seeks fresh new brand image for the 21st century:

“It will require exceptional clarity about how we want to brand the government of Canada and what we will do to live up to the promises the government is making”.

Political and Executive Team Alignment

The alignment of the Government’s interests with the executive team's goals is one of the significant “elephant in the room” issues for the public service.

Given that it’s a tough thing to deal with only emphasizes the importance of the need to do so. 

On day one of a new program, the Public Service (PS) team and the Government are on the same page; both plan for a big outcome. However, needs shift, stakeholder interests become rigid, a new government comes in, and PS execs fatigue. The magic window of opportunity that was there in the beginning narrows dramatically.

Back in the late-70’s, I worked on preparing Air Canada and CN for privatization. Both companies were costing the government tons of money and had long outlived the original policy justification for setting them up in the first place. Both were privatized some five years later. Today, we wouldn’t dream of government ownership of these two transportation giants.

Clearly this experience demonstrates the need for ongoing, intelligent change of government services and programs.

Aligning the What with the Who

At any stage of a program, you'll have competing priorities.

As a start-up, you will face challenges in design and delivery of your initial service offering, quickly followed with incremental fixes and upgrades — meanwhile, you will be designing and building your next generation.  Of course, all of this takes place while searching for funds to breath life into the program.

And you'll have to figure out which public segments to serve.

Some new initiatives provide a "middle of the road" solution that pleases no one. Some start with one offer then switch to another as they follow shifting trends and current events. And then there are those teams who never really make a decision — and so try to do everything well.

Without alignment, without clear decisions and strategic direction, you end up with the Yahoo peanut butter solution; you spread yourself so thin that all value is lost.

You think this doesn’t happen in government?

In business and in government your brand promise can only be understood in terms of, a) how much money you need, b) who your key customers are, and c) the quality of the service experience.  These are thorny questions.

That’s why alignment is so hard.

 

Update:
This series continues — Strategic & Operational Reviews Part 3: Change and Failure.

 


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Strategic & Operating Reviews: We Can’t Agree to Disagree - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Strategic & Operating Reviews: We Can’t Agree to Disagree

Once again, the Canadian Federal Public Service is undergoing strategic and operational reviews (SOR) — and implementing the changes that flow from SOR will represent a tremendous challenge.

They’re Crazy

From my personal experience, a range of mixed emotions will follow:

If she/he thinks I’ve bought in to this plan, they’re crazy.

Even if {fill in the group} doesn’t believe in our current vision, they’ll believe it when they see it.

I don’t think {fill in the project} even matters to our public.

 

In the current environment of SOR and budget reductions, no doubt many public service managers are muttering similar statements to themselves.  The water cooler talk is totally focused on the subject:

I am so glad I am permanent.

Poor Sue, she’s a temp and will no doubt be gone.

Given the AG’s recent report, {fill in the program} will be killed.

Deal with It

We mutter these statements under our breath or only to our closest colleagues.  Why? Because we’ve been conditioned to avoid conflict, and schooled on what it takes to be a good corporate citizen.  Because that’s primarily how we get ahead in the system!

But we’ve all learned in real life that wishing these tough issues away is not a solution.

Because most of us are bad at dealing with conflict, we’re also bad at developing what must come through conflict — the extraordinarily hard decisions of alignment.

Pushing Strategy Down

Fostering alignment is the toughest part of implementing the decisions that spin out of SOR.

For too long, alignment has been thought of as “pushing the strategy down” or “across-the-board reductions” to meet the budget target. Gone is any notion that if a strategy is to be effective, the operational plan and budget decisions must remain connected to the innovative work that went into the original strategic planning process. In fact, strategy developed without careful assessment of its operational and financial consequences will only lead to the demoralization of those who must implement it.

Why is alignment so important anyway?{images1}

In the age of Gov 2.0, the public served by a government program expects to see “alignment” between the policy presented by their elected leaders, the architecture of the program, and, most importantly, the user experience.

The citizens of 2011 Canada who access a government program have the same expectations for quality service as they have come to expect from their favourite shopping outlet, bank, or service provider.  Today’s “consumers” don’t think consciously about these expectations — it’s what they have been trained to expect.

It should be obvious to the political and public service leaders that this is the case.  But scanning the newspaper, one can quickly identify any number of current events that highlight a “misalignment” within some government service.

Execution is not Alignment

These parallels between business and government are likely obvious to you, but let’s complete the picture:

Between the creation of a new idea and that idea becoming a reality, many different decisions and actions need to happen.  The degree to which those designs, choices, trade-offs, etc. are in sync, the faster and easier it is to bring the idea into existence.

The more people disagree or are confused, the less “aligned” the mechanisms become — and the desired outcome will not likely result.

Disagreement needs to happen and be dealt with during strategic development, not during execution.  These disagreements — or misalignments — that emerge during execution just wear down your already fatigued people, and result in unnecessary time and resource overruns that can easily consume the savings that you are trying to gain.

The more we move forward without real agreement, the more we veer all over the road as we implement.

And there it is in a nutshell — in so many cases we have meetings and planning sessions where the outcome is that we simply agree to disagree and let the plans die on the table.  But in these situations where big change must be developed and implemented, where implementation will move forward regardless, we cannot agree to disagree.

The leaders and influencers must deal with the conflict or risk the viability of their plans, their goals, their resources, and their people.

 

Update:
If you found this interesting, be sure to read the next part in this series — Strategic & Operational Reviews Part 2: Alignment and Failure.

 


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Sewage Pumps and Leadership - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Sewage Pumps and Leadership

If you don’t read Jim Taggart’s Changing Winds leadership blog, you really should add it to your list – he does a great job!  Yesterday I read his latest entry Work Hard, Play Hard: Leadership Lessons to Redefine Your Thinking about Michael Abrashoff, retired U.S. Naval Captain and co-founder of GLS Worldwide.  Jim’s post is a review of Michael’s book, It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy.

As I read this post it reminded me of the time I heard Michael speak in Toronto a few years ago.  He told one story in particular that always stuck with me – and it’s about time that I shared it with someone else…

The USS Benfold

When Captain Abrashoff took command of the USS Benfold in 1997, the ship had one of the poorest service records in the U.S. Navy.  One year later the crew of the USS Benfold achieved the highest performance ratings in the fleet – and went on to win multiple awards and achievements. 

The details of this remarkable turnaround are well worth the time it takes to read the book – I highly recommend that you check it out.

Sewage

Here is the story (as I remember it)…

During the first 30 days of his new command Captain Abrashoff spent most of his time exploring the ship, {images1}and one of the lessons he learned was that he had a sewage problem.

In the lowest part of the ship, in the dark of the bilge, there are pumps that move the ship’s sewage. It seems like such a meaningless thing – sewage pumps.  This is a fighting ship of the sea, outfitted with the latest technology that the U.S. defense industry can attach to a floating vessel with the purpose of blowing other things up.

But the sewage pumps were junk.  And they were junk in all of the ships of this class.  So there was a shortage of parts to keep them running.  And – as these things always go – there was a shortage of engineers who knew how to keep them running. 

Big deal – these are just sewage pumps.  They have no impact at all on the ship’s capacity to launch missiles. 

However, if these pumps are not functioning, the ship is not combat ready.  No sewage pumps, no operations.

Every Day

So, Captain Abrashoff, recognizing the importance of these pumps, but more importantly, recognizing the importance of the sailors who kept them functioning properly, would make the difficult climb down into the depths of the ship to check on his staff – every day.  Let’s repeat that — every day.

{images2}He could have just as easily picked up the phone and checked in, or had one of the ship’s officers do it for him.  But he recognized the critical failure point that these pumps represented in his efforts to change the performance and culture of his command.

So he took the time to personally visit these sailors so that they would clearly understand how important their work was to the success of the organization.

Where Are Your Pumps?

You might lead a small group or a large organization — either way, there are some great questions in this story:

  • Do you know where your sewage pumps are?  Can you describe — right now — which functions (processes) will stop your organization in its tracks.  Which ones seem vital, but under scrutiny maybe aren’t so critical as you thought?
  • How much time do you devote to those items deemed “important” by your managers and leaders that don’t add any value to actual accomplishment?  Do you have the guts to ignore these for the good of your organization?
  • Do you hide behind paperwork and reports or do you climb down into the “bilge water”?  How often do you get out of your office and talk to the people who make your organization actually work?  Not the “junior officers” and other middle-managers, but the “coal face” workers who make real things happen?
  • How important is prestige in your organization? Does the value of the paycheque dictate the value of the individual? Does your culture acknowledge the importance of those who “do” being just as (more?) important as those who “discuss”?

What other questions or observations can we draw from this story?  I would love to know if this story resonates with others as it did for me.

 


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Budget Cuts: Cut Your Headcount or Improve Your Processes - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Budget Cuts: Cut Your Headcount or Improve Your Processes

“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
     – Edwards Deming

Budget cuts. Lay-offs. Resource restrictions. Fiscal restraint.

We hear it again and again.

As a manager, how are you going to meet these financial requirements?  If your organization is like most, you are likely considering a workforce reduction – and will probably work through a scenario that looks something like this:

  1. Freeze current and upcoming projects.
  2. Analyze to see which projects or activities (e.g. admin) can be reduced or completely cut.
  3. Reduce the number of employees, usually starting with contract staff.
  4. Manage the reduction in workforce (and deal with all of the associated issues that will accompany this activity).
  5. Stabilize the organization.
  6. Re-grow the organization as and when the opportunity and climate changes to make this possible.

A Better Question

The requirements can vary, but in the current climate {images1}many organizations are looking at future budget cuts of between 5% and 15%.

The question: why is everyone’s first reaction to reduce staff? Is it because that is the largest line item on the expense ledger? Is it habit?

A better question: are there any other options that can be taken before resorting to this highly disruptive – both organizationally and emotionally – activity?

Non Value Add Activity

Through experience I have come to realize that a large percentage - typically greater than 50% - of an organization’s activities can be classified as “non value add activity” (NVA).

This is independent of public or private, large or small. NVA are simply activities that ultimately do not contribute to the goals and objectives of an organization. Very typical examples include:

  • Multiple sign off for purchase orders
  • Double, triple or quadruple checking work
  • Producing reports that are never read or used to make any decisions
  • Running meetings that never define follow up actions or are simply grandstands to vent issues
  • Adding tasks to projects that don’t contribute to the project goals
  • Looking for information that is not easily accessible
  • Continuous state of firefighting

I could go on and on – the point being that a huge cost saving opportunity is sitting in every organization as process improvement, yet we still look to reduce staff levels rather than tackle it!

10% Is Easy

Over the last 15 years I have realized the following in terms of effort:

  • 10% savings is an easy hit and relatively quick to do as long as the organization is focused and committed.
  • 20% savings requires some level of system integration, and requires time and effort - but is still relatively straightforward.
  • > 30% savings is difficult (but rewarding) and can be considered world class for most organizations.

{images2}

Heads Are Easy to Count

So why do most organizations choose to reduce their workforce rather than improve processes? From experience, I believe the following reasons to be true:

  • Savings due to process improvement can be hard to articulate – savings due to reduced headcount are easy.
  • There is an initial spike in effort (and therefore spend) to initiate process mapping activity – this puts management off the idea.
  • A percentage of staff needs to be temporarily re-allocated to perform process mapping activity – this can be difficult to justify
  • Rapid and decisive decisions need to be made to implement improvement activities – this can be difficult, especially in a public sector environment.
  • Employees need to be empowered to make small changes that accumulate to make a significant impact – again, this is typically not the case in most organizations.
  • The process mapping activity cannot be haphazard, there must be an investment in training, mentoring and facilitation – this runs contrary to the upcoming budget cuts.
  • There is a lack of understanding around the benefits of process mapping at all levels in an organization.

Cutting Heads Doesn’t Improve Anything

Again, I could go on, but the above points are typically enough to stop process mapping activity as an approach to budget reduction. However, if you do choose to implement a robust process mapping strategy you will likely see the following:

  • A relatively quick – usually a matter of months – ONGOING reduction of 5% to 15% in operating costs.
  • Increased repeatability of the output of the processes, resulting in increased customer – both internal and external – satisfaction.
  • Reduction in risk as non-essential steps have been removed, therefore reducing the number of opportunities where mistakes can be made.
  • Increased employee satisfaction in a difficult climate.
  • Improved level of documentation.
  • Capturing of the embedded knowledge of your employees.
  • Improved vertical and horizontal communication.
  • Integration with root cause analysis and risk management activities.

The Challenge

The challenge is simple; when you have to reduce costs, take a good look at your processes first.

By keeping your staff intact, you can deliver your key projects with minimal disruption, maintain capacity, maintain embedded knowledge, improve customer satisfaction, and improve employee engagement.

 

 


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Need help finding the easy wins in your business processes?

Delta Partners provides training in Process Management that will help your people help themselves.

Learn more

 

 

Leadership According to Attila the Hun - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Leadership According to Attila the Hun

Since its publication in 1985, Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun by Wes Roberts, Ph.D., has had a cult following in management circles.

Leadership Secrets first gained notoriety in the late 1980's when it was mentioned in a passage in the book Call Me Roger, where Roger Smith, the Chairman of GM at the time, forbade his new business associate, Ross Perot (a fan of the book), from distributing 500 copies of Leadership Secrets at a dinner attended by managers of GM's new Saturn Division. Since then the book and its principles {images1}have been applied in countless contexts from management, to the military, to sports and even dating.

In Leadership Secrets, Roberts uses Attila the Hun as a metaphoric character to deliver his precepts and concepts on leadership. He does this by melding short historical vignettes of Attila's life with fictional "campfire chats" given by Attila to his chieftains to impart his wisdom on leadership.  While the advice in the book is written as if it were the King of the Huns who spoke it, Leadership Secrets is more a reflection of Roberts' own experiences, research and observations on leadership.

Chapters in Leadership Secrets cover a range of leadership qualities including: morale and discipline; responsibility; negotiation; decision-making; delegation; overcoming defeat; and giving praise and punishment.

Attila on Leadership — You've Got to Want to Be in Charge

Roberts writes that — for Attila — leaders are not born, they are made.  But, not everyone is ready or willing to become a leader. Too often, people are put in leadership positions that they are either not ready for or have no desire to take on.  For Attila, the weakest leaders are those who do not want to lead in the first place.

A good leader for Attila is someone who has a "lust for leadership"; they must want to be in charge.  A committed leader will distinguish themselves from others. They will lead by example and by doing so will gain the trust of their subordinates, peers and superiors.

Attila's (Roberts') leadership approach could be classified as "servant-leadership" in nature. A servant leader has an inherit feeling to want to serve and lead (i.e., they want to be in charge) rather than wanting to lead based on power and authority. This goes with Roberts' own philosophy on leadership, which he describes as: "The privilege to have responsibility to direct the actions of others in carrying out the purpose of the organization, at varying levels of authority and with accountability for both successful and failed endeavours."

Qualities of a Hun Leader

For Attila, there are key qualities that leaders at all levels should possess. These includes such things as: loyalty; courage; desire; stamina; empathy; decisiveness; accountability and responsibility; credibility; and, dependability. Becoming a leader and developing these qualities does not happen over night — it takes time.  Leaders need to commit to lifelong learning and be constantly open to gaining new insights to help them grow.

Attilaisms — Leadership Advice from the King of the Huns

Part of the appeal of Leadership Secrets is the "Attilaisms" that Roberts uses throughout the book. These are short passages where Attila gives his advice and counsel on different aspects of leadership.  Most are quite catchy and stick with you, making them perfect takeaways for leaders.

Some of my favorite Attilaisms include:

  • Advice and Counsel: A chieftain who asks the wrong questions always hears the wrong answers.
  • Being a Leader: If it were easy to be a chieftain, everyone would be one.
  • Character: Seldom are self-centered, conceited and self-admiring chieftains great leaders, but they are great idolizers of themselves.
  • Decision-making: The ability to make difficult decisions separates the chieftains from Huns.
  • Delegation: Abdication is not delegation. Abdication is a sign of weakness. Delegation is a sign of strength.
  • Developing Leaders: A good chieftain takes risks be delegating to an inexperienced Hun in order to strengthen his leadership abilities.
  • Leadership Qualities: A wise chieftain never depends on luck. Rather, he always trusts his future to hard work, stamina, tenacity and a positive attitude.
  • Perception: A Hun who takes himself too seriously had lost his perspective.
  • Personal Achievement: Great chieftains accept failure at some things in order to excel in more important ones.
  • Problems and Solutions: Huns should be taught to focus on opportunities rather than on problems.

Have you read Leadership Secrets?  Do you have any favorite Attilaisms?  Are good leaders those who want to be in charge? Are some people born leaders or are leaders made?

 

 


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Is Your Leadership Failing Your Team? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Is Your Leadership Failing Your Team?

We have been having a lot of conversations with businesses, teams and their leaders, about engagement, disengagement and the link between team culture and a company’s or team’s ability to be innovative…or just productive.  Top of mind is the competitive business environment and how a team can be not just responsive, but out-pace competitive pressures in the marketplace. 

The extensive research on the topic of innovation all indicates that while there are several key factors that enhance innovation, it all begins with leadership. Leaders either inhibit or enhance all the other factors that are the hallmarks of highly productive and innovative teams.

Innovation is not an accident or only the purview of wacky creative types.  Innovation is a disciplined approach and requires leadership that can manage and allow for the ingredients that make innovation possible.  Here are three key areas to explore to see if your leadership is on the right track:

Diversity:

Are you, as a leader, able to manage the diversity required for the necessary creative tension that this diversity will ignite?  Many leaders look for talent who have similar world views to their own.  While you all may feel comfortable sitting around the boardroom table, {images1}the similar ways of thinking and approaches will ensure a lot of the same-old-same-old.

Hiring a diverse team is not enough, however, as this diversity needs to be effectively managed so that tolerance of differences is nurtured and tension is given enough rein to allow creativity to spark, but not so much that everyone hates each other.  This requires clear communication of the rules of engagement, rigorous facilitation of team acceptance of individual differences and an understanding of why this is important, and an even balance between a hands-on and hands-off approach.

Openness:

Are you able to handle a bit of failure?  What about new ideas – how open are you to these…especially those ideas that are so outside your way of seeing things your first instinct is to scoff?  Teresa Amabile and Mukti Khaire discovered in their research of leading creativity scholars and executive from companies such as IDEO, Google, Intuit, Novartis and E Ink, that it is imperative that managers decrease their fear of failure and rather have the goal of experimenting constantly.  Fail early and often and learn from each failure is the resounding consensus of both the scholars and executives.

Letting Others Be Leaders:

Can you let go of the reins?  Are you able to let employees run with an idea and bring others on side, or create an initiative and see it through?  Autonomy is a critical factor to an employee’s sense of worth and this really fosters individual creativity.  Are you attached to finding glory in being the one with all the answers, or does your sense of glory come from helping others realize their unique talents towards a common goal?

According to Jeff Mauzy and Richard Harriman, in their book, Creativity Inc., leadership that does not support employees’ creativity is characterized by:

  • a strict adherence to procedure
  • low tolerance for autonomy
  • over-reliance on past strategies and successes
  • imitating the competition
  • lack of acknowledgement for personal merit
  • quick dismissal of ideas that don’t fit the mold
  • failure to allow for and acknowledge small wins with individual employees.

As Amabile and Khaire discovered in their research cited in their article, Creativity and the Role of the Leader, “One doesn’t manage creativity.  One manages for creativity”.  In doing so, you will go a long way to enhancing the culture and productivity of your team.

This post originally appread on the Delaney Tosh's Surge Strategies blog and appears here with her permission.

Stephen Davies - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Stephen Davies

Practice Lead - Training, Senior Consultant

{images1}Stephen leads a dual life as an education/learning professional and a business development executive. His key educational roles are professional training for private and public sectors and part time lecturing at the Sprott School of Business in entrepreneurship related subjects. His primary corporate training partners include Delta Partners and the National Quality Institute / Excellence Canada. He recently calculated that he has trained more than 11,000 people since 2000!

His current operations management consulting specializes in process mapping and modeling, business excellence methodologies, enterprise risk management, root cause analysis and quality management standards and awards. His work is carried out mainly in the technology, public and military spaces with his most significant and memorable opportunity training in military theatre with SNC Lavalin PAE and DND in Afghanistan and Bosnia.

As a business development executive, Stephen focuses on helping new companies scale sales by optimizing their operations. Stephen is currently the virtual VP Business Development for Flywheel Energy Systems Inc, an energy storage research and development company. A selection of his other clients include CRSTL Solutions, Porter Airlines, National Quality Institute and the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO). He is also a partner withThird Core Venture Expansion Partners.

Stephen is also a senior member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), a past marketing chairman for the Standards Engineering Society (SES) and a past outreach director for the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD). Stephen is currently the programs manager for the Public Sector Quality Fair (PSQF) which is run by the Canadian Public Sector Quality Association (CPSQA).

Stephen has Top Secret security clearance.

Experience

Stephen is currently working in the following positions:

  • Training Practice Lead at Delta Partners, where he helps to co-ordinate training and facilitation activity for public and private organizations
  • Partner at Third Core Venture Expansion Partners, where he helps early stage companies scale sales by optimizing operations
  • Managing Director at SJD Group which is his own boutique consulting company specializing in operations virtual executive roles.
  • Executive Director (starting January 2012) and Trainer for the National Quality Institute / Excellence Canada

Past positions include:

  • Vice President of Business Development at DISTIL Interactive
  • Senior Program Manager at Nortel Networks
  • Senior Supply Chain Manager at MITEL Networks
  • Quality Manager at International Quantum Electronics

Education and Professional Certifications

Cardiff University

  • M.Sc., Systems Engineering
  • B.Sc., Physics

National Quality Institute / Excellence Canada

  • Certified Excellence Professional
  • Certified Trainer

American Society for Quality

  • Senior Member

Personal

Stephen lives in Ottawa with his wife and has three children, a dog and three cats. He enjoys home renovations and is a sailing and rugby enthusiast. He is also active in the entrepreneurial community, participating in a number of ongoing networking events.

Stephen also volunteers with a number of local professional society chapters, most notably the Canadian Public Sector Quality Association and the American Society for Quality.

Thought Leadership

Stephen has delivered a significant number of presentations at numerous conferences and written for various journals, a selection includes:

Publications:

  • “A Sales Execution Strategy Guide for Startups”, Technology Innovation Management Review (TIM Review), Sep 2011
  • “Sales Strategies – back to basics”, Open Source Business Resource (OBSR), Aug/Sept 2010
  • “Closing the Assessment Gap: Personnel certification and the growing need to measure employee competencies”, HR Reporter, 10th March 2008
  • “Let them play! Using computer games to learn can actually lead to developing key competencies”, Workplace News, Feb 2008
  • “Innovations in training: Digital Games Based Learning”, RABQSA e-momentum page 18, April/May 2007
  • “Why skills based assessment?”, RABQSA e-momentum page 11, Nov/Dec 2006
  • “Corporate Games”, CQI (formerly IQA) Quality World page 16, April 2006
  • “Corporate Gaming: Exploring the use of DGBL for auditor training and assessment”, IRCA Inform, Quarter 1 2006

Conference engagements:

  • “Using Gaming Technology for Personnel Certification”, e-Learning Guild Annual Gathering 2009
  • “Leaping from Role Play to Game Play”, DevLearn 2008
  • “Measuring Employee Competencies”, ISO9000 Conference 2008
  • “Digital Game-Based Learning Masterclass”, American Society for Quality World Conference 2008
  • “Serious games for serious standards”, Standards Publishing Association Board 2008
A Primer on Evaluation in the Government of Canada - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

A Primer on Evaluation in the Government of Canada

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
    - Milton Friedman

Delta Partners is pleased to present our newest eBook Evaluation - A Primer on Evaluation in the Government of Canada.

{images1}With the Policy on Evaluation deadline to evaluate all direct program spending once every five years fast approaching, and with the increased focus on fiscal restraint and scrutiny of spending throughout the Government of Canada, evaluation is becoming an increasingly important tool to help inform decisions on resource allocation, managing for results, and continuous improvement.

Given the increased profile of evaluation and our firm’s experience in the field, Delta Partners undertook to write this eBook to share our knowledge and offer a comprehensive primer on how evaluation functions within the Government of Canada. The development of the eBook was a collaborative effort between Debra Sunohara, Director of Client Services, and Christian Bertoli, with contributions from Alcide Degagné, Greg Trickleback, and Geoff Schaadt.

Evaluation Basics

As the title suggests, this eBook provides a primer for those who may have little knowledge about evaluation. However, we also believe that it offers a “refresher” of some long-forgotten fundamentals for those who may be seasoned practitioners in the field.  And, regardless of your experience, this should serve as a good reference document for anyone interested in the practice of evaluation.

In the eBook you will find information on:

  • What is Evaluation? Why Evaluate? What Gets Evaluated in the Government of Canada?
  • Different types of Evaluation.
  • The Government of Canada Evaluation Policy Suite.
  • Roles and Responsibilities of Key Players involved in the Evaluation.
  • The Evaluation Cycle.
  • Core Elements of an Evaluation Report.

Tools for Managers

While the eBook provides good coverage of the basics, it also offers valuable information and tools for managers to help improve the performance and success of evaluation projects. We have compiled a list of 11 Critical Success Factors that we believe, if applied, can increase the likelihood that evaluation projects will achieve their intended results. The eBook also contains an Evaluation Capacity Check Questionnaire to help assess the “health” of your department or agency’s evaluation function, and a step-by step guide for developing Performance Management Strategies. 

Going Beyond the Printed Page

While the eBook contains a good overview of evaluation, we understand that some readers will want more information on the subject. For those who want to learn more, we have embedded hyper-text links throughout the document that will transport you to sources cited. In addition, we have included links to several electronic resources including Delta Partners’ blog posts on evaluation, other recommended evaluation blogs, and Government of Canada and international evaluation resources.

 

I hope that you enjoy the eBook, find the information useful, and make it a part of your reference library. And please, feel free to share this document widely with anyone who you think might find useful.

Click here to go to the download page.

Evaluation - A Primer on Evaluation in the Government of Canada - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Evaluation - A Primer on Evaluation in the Government of Canada

Delta Partners is pleased to offer Evaluation - A Primer on Evaluation in the Government of Canada. This eBook provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of evaluation in the Government of Canada.


The eBook is a valuable resource for anyone interested in learning more about evaluation - particularly as it applies to the Federal public service in Canada.

Enterprise Risk Management Training & Facilitation - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Enterprise Risk Management Training & Facilitation

Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.
     - Warren Buffett

Delta Partners defines Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) as:

  1. A risk-based approach to managing an enterprise or organization.
  2. An integration of strategic planning, process management, and internal control.
  3. A strategy for managed risk response.
  4. A prerequisite for effective preventative actions.
  5. A systematic process for risk identification, prioritization and mitigation.

Our training employs a variety of tools and client-specific case studies to ensure that your team actually acquires the skills that they need to implement ERM.

Our facilitation ensures that the application of ERM has a measureable impact on the bottom line.

Do you know where the ticking time bombs are that could impact your organization?

By having a systematic approach to analyzing risk, you can:

  • Prioritize the threats that will have the greatest impact on your organization.
  • Predefine reaction strategies.
  • Track issues over time.

Have you planned for reduced staff, decreased budget, and operational upheaval?

{images1}The structured analysis of future states can allow you to:

  • Anticipate the impact on your stakeholders.
  • Forecast issues that will impact the effectiveness of the strategic planning process.
  • Appropriately assign resources to minimize organizational disruption.

Public servants – have you integrated the TBS requirements for risk management into your operations?

ERM provides a framework that will:

  • Enable compliance with TBS integration and reporting requirements.
  • Ensure that you able to meet your deadlines for the Policy on the Management of Projects and Policy on Investment Planning, Assets and Acquired Services by April 1, 2012.

Course Outline

For more information on course structure and pricing, click here.

One Day

This is our standard one-day offering that is normally accompanied by a one-day facilitation exercise.  It is also possible to expand and customize this training module to a multiple day offering as your needs require. 

  • ERM overview
  • Benefits of ERM
  • Costs of ERM
  • ERM process
  • Challenges in implementing an ERM program
  • Categorizing risk (financial, operational, HR, legal)
  • Risk response (avoidance, reduction, transfer, acceptance)
  • Overview of risk management tools (focus on FMEA)
  • Tracking and prioritizing risk (priority lists, heat maps)
  • Solutions to mitigate risk

Two Day

The Two Day program includes all of the content of the One Day program, and adds:

  • Overview of ISO 31000:2009 and/or TBS Framework for the Management of Risk
  • Integration into strategic planning, including risk analysis and internal audits
  • Integrating ERM into process management and Root Cause Analysis activity
  • Strategizing around ‘Black Swan’ events

Extended training options are available; please contact us for more information.

Training Programs Overview - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Training Programs Overview

At Delta Partners we strive to maintain our roots as a boutique firm that cares about your specific needs and requirements whether we’re delivering training to 5 people or 5000.

We believe that is important that your training causes you to get your hands dirty.  High-level presentations are interesting, but they don’t help you accomplish anything after you return to the office – and they certainly don’t provide a positive return on your investment.

Getting to know you, your organization, and your needs is critical as we work with you to make sure that our standard courses are tailored to solve your problems.

Our preferred approach is to accompany one day of training - including a custom case study - with one day of facilitation to embed the knowledge by working on real world problems.  This ensures that your training:

  • Is relevant to your needs
  • Builds your competencies; it’s not just a transfer of knowledge
  • Provides a measurable return on your training investment

Pricing

(all prices exclude GST/HST)

Standalone

·   One day of training

$3000

Integrated

·   One day of training

·   One day of facilitation

·   Custom case study

$4400

Extended

·   Integrated program, plus;

·   Training needs assessment

·   Training post-mortem assessment

$6200
  • Maximum class size is 15 people to optimize interaction and delivery
  • All prices include course materials
  • All courses are delivered on-site (additional fees may apply for off-site delivery)
  • Travel expenses will apply for delivery outside of the National Capital Region
  • Additional days of facilitation available at $900 per day
  • Standalone Training Needs Assessment available at $1600
  • Standalone Training Post-Mortem Assessment available at $1600
  • Training content that goes beyond our standard catalogue is available; please contact us for pricing options

Courses

Our initial course offerings reflect the realities of the current challenges that our clientele are facing on a day-to-day basis:

Process Management
Process Management includes the use of process maps to reduce operating costs, capture process knowledge, remove communication barriers, and meet reporting requirements.  Learn more here.

Root Cause Analysis
Root Cause Analysis incorporates best-practice tools to identify the true causes of problems or failure within the organization to reduce firefighting, financial loss, and liability.  Learn more here.

Enterprise Risk Management
Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) helps you identify, categorize, prioritize and mitigate risk at the project, program and organizational levels. ERM will allow you to reduce operating costs, improve decision-making capacity, and meet reporting requirements.  Learn more here.

Future offerings will be determined based on client feedback, and may include:

  • Service Level Agreements
  • Measuring Customer/Client Satisfaction
  • Performance Management
  • Project Management for Managers
  • Operations Management

Please let us know what you would like to see, or share other ideas that aren’t listed here.

Instructors

Delta Partners selects instructors based on two criteria:

  1. A deep knowledge of the subject matter
  2. A proven capacity to teach

Most of our instructors have secret level or higher security clearance, and are assigned based on their experience and availability.

Delta Partners’ Training Practice Lead is Stephen Davies.  He welcomes your questions and inquiries.

Root Cause Analysis Training & Facilitation - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Root Cause Analysis Training & Facilitation

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
     - Henry Ford

Delta Partners defines Root Cause Analysis (RCA) as:

  1. A structured problem-solving suite of tools that exposes the underlying complexities and issues surrounding a challenge that might not be immediately obvious.
  2. A way of ensuring that all factors have been considered in the investigation process.
  3. A systematic approach to drill down through the obvious symptoms to uncover the true root causes.
  4. A prerequisite for effective corrective and preventative actions.
  5. A fundamental tool for continuous improvement activities.

We use a variety of tools and client-specific case studies in our training to ensure that your team actually acquires the skills that they need to implement RCA, while the facilitation activites ensure that the application of RCA has a measureable impact on your bottom line.

{images1}Is your staff engaged in continuous firefighting?

By clearly identifying the true cause of a problem, you can:

  • Better utilize the people in your organization.
  • Reduce frustration.
  • Empower individuals to drive continuous improvement initiatives.

How much of your budget goes to fixing the same problem again and again?

Robust investigation of problems:

  • Eliminates repeated investment in band-aid solutions.
  • Optimizes process mapping analysis because you are working with valid data.

How easily can a new problem turn into a catastrophy?

By understanding a system view of your organization’s defenses against failure, you can:

  • Remove or reduce pre-conditions for failure.
  • Understand the organizational and management weaknesses that allow incidents to snowball.
  • Enhance your Enterprise Risk Management program by categorizing known and newly-discovered problem root causes.

Course Outline

For more information on course structure and pricing, click here.

One Day

This is our standard one-day offering that is normally accompanied by a one-day facilitation exercise.  It is also possible to expand and customize this training module to a multiple day offering as your needs require. 

  • RCA overview
  • Prioritizing problems
  • Problem definition
  • The importance of evidence
  • Defining causality
  • Defining categorization
  • Tools overview
    • 5 Why’s
    • Ishikawa (Fishbone) diagrams
    • Causal Tree
  • Integrating RCA into a corrective/preventative process
  • Effective solutions

Two Day

The Two Day program includes all of the content of the One Day program, and adds:

  • Investigative interviewing techniques
  • Tools
    • Barrier/Energy Flow Analysis 
    • Control Failure Analysis
  • Human Performance
  • Swiss Cheese Model (James Reason)

Extended training options are available; please contact us for more information.

Are Your Paws Sticky? Leadership Lessons from a Lab - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Are Your Paws Sticky? Leadership Lessons from a Lab

We thought nothing of it.

Paint the deck since it was starting to peel.

Except something weird happened along the way.

Max, our five-year-old American Yellow Lab, loves to lie on the deck, watching as people (and dogs) pass by down below on the walking path behind our house. Two days after painting the deck, which we though was dry, we let Max out for some much-needed R&R to check out the passersby.

He sauntered out on to the deck. Then we noticed a sticking sound as his paws stuck lightly to the deck. Oh, oh. Max was not pleased. “What the heck have you guys done to my favorite place?”

Sue and I were in deep doo-doo.

“I’m healing Max.”

For the next two weeks there was nothing we could do to get Max on to the deck. We finally thought of his beloved liver treats. That initially seemed to do the trick, except that he was so hesitating, looking at us with suspicion. “What are you guys up to?” After eating his treat he high-tailed it back into the kitchen.

Sue and I were starting to get frustrated.

That was until Lily arrived for a visit. Lily’s our oldest granddaughter, nine years old. I explained to {images1}her our dilemma. That it was going to take time for Max to rebuild his trust and confidence to venture out on to the deck. She quickly got the message and started working with Max, gradually getting him to go on the deck and relax. Her little 2½ year-old sister, Ashley, also got into the act.

As Lily said to me one evening while she was stroking Max’s head to help relax him while lying on the deck, “I’m healing Max.” Indeed she was.

A Long Journey

So what’s my point in sharing this story with you?

It’s all about leadership.

Think about work situations where management broke the trust. What took months – years – to build was destroyed in a matter of minutes. It may have been a reorg, downsizing, merger, change of policy. Whatever. It doesn’t matter the reason.

The point is that employees – PEOPLE – were hurt, or there was perceived hurt.

If you detach yourself for a moment from the human factor and its implications, there are big consequences for organizations, whether business or government. If you destroy the trust that people have established in you, their leader, only to dismantle it without engaging them in a two-way conversation, you’re in for a very long journey of reconstruction. Along the way, productivity will plummet, innovation will sink and client service will suck.

{images2}Sue and I, with Lily’s (and Ashley’s) help had to work consistently to regain Max’s trust over two weeks. That it was okay to venture out on to the deck, and that we weren’t trying to hurt or manipulate him. Lab’s are highly intelligent dogs, but they also remember and are stubborn. Sounds like a lot of people I know.

And yes, very recently Max walked nonchalantly out onto the deck one evening. Just like the good old days.

So if you’re in a leadership position and you’re frustrated with why your people are not aligned behind you, step back for a moment. The first question to ask yourself is, “Do my people trust me?"

The second one is, “Are their paws sticky?”


We are the only species that follows unstable pack leaders.
    – Cesar Millan (The Dog Whisperer)

This post originally appeared on Jim Taggart's blog Changing Winds and appears here with his permission.

When Dogma Gets in the Way of Innovation - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

When Dogma Gets in the Way of Innovation

How to make innovation every employee’s responsibility was the topic of discussion at a recent Surge Group Breakfast Dialogue. Often organizations can’t get on the road to innovation because their people are blocked by the thinking of the past.

A story shared by Paul Barron, Associate Portfolio Manager at Odlum Brown Limited, illustrates the point:

When Paul was an owner of a graphic design firm, the production staff was hindered by a large industrial refrigerator in the middle of the work space.  {images1}Its purpose was to keep the photographic paper stock cool, which was considered best practice at the time.  The problem was that the fridge was a nuisance:  Employees had to walk around it constantly and they had to open and close the door frequently. Moreover, the fridge was costly to maintain.

Eventually, Paul asked the paper producer why the paper had to be kept cool.  He learned that paper kept at room temperature was acceptable as long as the paper was used within two months.  He realized that the need to keep paper cool had become a “given;” it was a kind of myth that no one thought to question.  With this discovery, Paul was able to eliminate the fridge and improve productivity and lower costs by making some simple changes to inventory practices.

The Dogma Trap

This story illustrates how blind acceptance of dogma can block innovation. Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, a master innovator, made this point at his commencement speech to the graduates of Stanford University in 2005. He said:  “Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.”

In our coaching and consulting practice, we have seen how some work groups bypass problems in their system by creating “workarounds.”  A workaround can be a pragmatic way of navigating the red tape that can creep into an organization. However, it is a temporary fix at best.  The problem with workarounds is that the system can become unstable when it is subject to unusually heavy demands or when the system is expanded.  They can also lead to inconsistent practices and duplication of effort which degrade efficiencies.

Employees can be extremely creative in finding workarounds and they can even be rewarded for it.  The challenge for the leadership team is to channel employee energy into solving the root problem.  Of course, this is easier said than done and it may require a major change initiative.  On the positive side, the germ of a solution can often be found in the workarounds.

Question Assumptions

If you have innovation as a goal, then ask yourself:  Have we inherited a process, policy, structure, or facility that has become a barrier to performance? Can we potentially unlock significant improvement in our organization if we found a way to remove this barrier?

One of the factors that sets innovative companies apart is that they regularly question their assumptions and the assumptions in their industry and in the marketplace.

 

Bert Zethof is a senior consultant with Delta Partners, and is a Certified Management Consultant and Performance Coach. He is co-founder of The Surge Strategies Group Inc. and provides facilitation, coaching, and consulting services in the areas of strategic/business planning and in leadership and organization development.  Full profile on LinkedIn.

4 Myths of Performance Measurement - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

4 Myths of Performance Measurement

The development of a strategic performance measurement system is a critical process for the overall success of any organization. There are, however, a few myths about the development of performance measures that are often discussed and mistaken as “guiding principles”.

Here are four guidelines that often espoused, but in my experience could become catastrophic landmines if not properly understood.

What is measured is what gets done.

I hear this a lot, especially by other consultants trying to sell managers on why performance measurement is so critical to operational and strategic success. It must be one of the most common myths about the benefit of a strong performance measurement system is that it will direct staff to focus energy on the important activities. And, by calling it a 'myth', this will also likely be the most contentious statement in this blog entry.

In order to keep performance measures at a manageable amount, organizations should define and implement the critical few measures that will provide the best barometer for their operation. However, by focusing only on those one to three key measures of activity, management and staff can develop a myopic view of their operation. Those key measures may also establish an indirect incentive for staff to adjust work practices in order to show operational improvement. For instance, if you set a goal to reduce the number of purchase requisitions processed, don’t be surprised when the materiel management staff delay purchases in order to “double up” requisitions. This will reduce the number of purchase requisitions. Goal achieved . . . Right? Perhaps, but what is the potential impact on their clients who do not receive requested goods in a timely fashion?

Just do it! 

Although many practioners recommend that the best approach is to jump right in and establish a series of measures – then, over time once the practice of collecting and reviewing performance data becomes more engrained in the day-to-day business practices, go back and re-evaluate the measures. 

Unfortunately, an effective performance measurement system can’t just be implemented.

A successful performance measurement system is built on a solid strategic-level cause and effect model, often depicted by a logic model and/or a strategy map. And it is supported by an organization-wide education regarding its purpose and intent. An organization doing anything less creates a measurement framework that does not have the necessary foundation it requires to be successful.

Further, the implementation of a performance measurement system is really an organizational change initiative. As such, if the staff is not informed of the intended role of the new system, it will often be met with fear and cyncism. This is one of the key reasons that many, if not most, measurement systems survive for 6 to 12 months - then wither on the vine, failing to fully provide the performance information senior managers need to support their strategic and operational decision making.

A performance measurement system is an ideal way to rank and rate the performance of individuals.

Ranking and rating staff is not the intent of performance measurement.

The focus of performance measurement is on the performance of the organization, not on the individuals within the organization. When a measurement system is used for ranking and rating co-workers, it causes more detrimental effects than positives outcomes. It will destroy teamwork, eliminate sharing and collaborating around innovative ideas, and foster antagonism. 

Similarly, we should also make a distinction between performance management and performance measurement. The historical and narrow view of performance management was on the improvement of the individual staff within an organization. However, the more common perspective and definition of performance management is the alignment and integration of performance information across all business perspectives – planning, resources, operations and projects, and risk – and consolidating the performance information to drive informed decision making on all aspects of the enterprise. Performance measurement is a performance management tool to support the collection and analysis of performance information.

We can simply ‘copy and paste’ their performance measurement system.

“Company ‘X’ has a proven and successful performance measurement system - we will simply copy their framework and implement here in our organization.”

If you are in search of the magical silver bullet, be prepared for frustration - and probably failure. 

That is not an appropriate approach to introducing an effective performance measurement system.  Successful performance measurement systems are tailored to the causal output-outcome relationship for the organization.  As such, the system has to be constructed from within, and be customized for the context and culture of your organziation.

Getting the Most from your Performance Measurement System

It may sound counter-intuitive and counter-productive, but a successful measurement system should really raise more questions than it answers.

Appropriate performance measures supply us with detailed information about the performance of the organization, about the linkages and causal relationships between outputs and outcomes, and contribute to learning opportunities about your organization and your operational environment.  Through this learning, we build our knowledge of the organization.  From this knowledge we revise our theories -- which leads to more questions about how we may further improve the performance of the organization.

{images1}

Has your organization fallen victim to any of these performance measurement myths? Does your performance measurement system successfully contribute to the growth of organizational knowledge? Are senior managers using, or even looking for, performance information to support decision-making? Is performance information being used to support organizational reviews and change initiatives such as Strategic Operational Review? Is performance information being used to guide continuous improvement opportunities?

Which is your favourite book on STRATEGY? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Which is your favourite book on STRATEGY?

 

 

 

Here are my favourite books on strategy:

The Art of War – Sun Tsu{images1}

James Clavell
This book offers an overarching vision of strategy and implementation that is still highly appropriate in the chaotic times we face. The importance of visionary zeal found in the Confucian concept of “oneness" grips the ‘human spirit’ and passion so necessary for successful change critical to strategy execution.

 

 

 

Passion for Excellence{images3}

Tom Peters
This book is far superior to the previous In Search of Excellence – often referred to as ‘the most successful management book ever written’ as a result of its commercial results.  Ironically, the most valuable part of this book is the stories describing the failings of companies that had been held up as stellar examples in the original In Search of Excellence! Of the course, the case study references are no longer current, but the lessons to be learned are still valid.

 

 

 

Hope is Not a Method{images5}

Gordon Sullivan
The book chronicles the travails of the 'reinvention' of the US Army following the Vietnam war, and was written by the General who headed up the project. The examples are now dated, but the underlying lessons and the methodological discipline offer much of value.

 

 

 

 

 

Switch{images6}

Chip and Dan Heath
This book is about change in really difficult situations; and a challenging strategy invariably involves change. In other words, strategy implementation is all about managing change—defining the strategy, selling the need, creating the buy-in, and creating successful outcomes through a systematic and rewarding process. This is a recent effort and is infused with current research into human behaviour.  It is also written in non-technical vocabulary rather than the usual ‘policy wonk’ jargon.

 

 

In the end, there is no ONE best way.  The right strategy at any particular juncture is really dependent upon the situation, the context and the resources available.

So, you’ve seen my list - what is the best book on strategy that you have read?

Benchmarking Evaluation in the Canadian Federal Government - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Benchmarking Evaluation in the Canadian Federal Government

 

Some time ago, in anticipation of the new Government of Canada (GOC) Policy on Evaluation, we conducted an evaluation benchmarking study of several federal government departments and agencies on behalf of one of our clients.  By sharing some of the findings and conclusions, we hope to spotlight a few issues that need to be addressed as managers seek to achieve compliance with the new policy on evaluation.

The New Policy on Evaluation

All departments and agencies are expected to achieve compliance with the new Policy on Evaluation by April 1, 2013.

The policy requires that evaluation be explicitly linked to the Expenditure Management System (EMS) and that evaluations be conducted of 100% of direct program spending, revolving on a five-year schedule.  It is also required that departmental evaluation units review all TBS submissions and Memoranda to Cabinet (MC). 

Within four years of the introduction of the policy on April 1, 2009, departments must have developed the capacity to implement the policy, demonstrated in an approved rolling five-year departmental evaluation plan.  During the transition period, the departmental evaluation plan must demonstrate progress toward 100% coverage and use a risk-based approach to explain the department’s coverage and non-coverage choices.

Our Study Findings

The general preference for most departments is to conduct as many of their evaluations as possible in-house.  Those that do contract out tend to manage all evaluations themselves and focus the contractors on fieldwork, which may be extensive because their delivery agents have poor data collection practices and few databases.    

Evaluation staff tends to be located at departmental headquarters with a centralized reporting structure.   A decentralized reporting structure is possible, where evaluation staff has some reporting relationship with the program areas.  However, this does not meet the neutrality criteria of the new Policy.

A matrix organization structure is common within evaluation units, where staff are assigned to managers for administrative purposes and assigned to a project manager or lead - which may or may not be the same person - for each evaluation.  It is also possible to organise into fixed teams assigned to each strategic outcome area.

The majority of the evaluators are at the ES-5 or ES-4 levels, with managers at the ES-6 or ES-7 level.  ES-2 and ES-3 classifications are typically used for developmental positions.

In the year prior to the coming into force of the new Policy (2008-09), each of the studied evaluation units conducted 7 in-house evaluations on average, with a ratio of 2.3 evaluation staff per project, including EX and administrative/ support positions and funded positions that were unfilled.

Impact of the TBS Evaluation Policy

Evaluation units that already review Cabinet documents will be least affected by the new Policy, as will those already close to 20% evaluation coverage per year.  Those with a high proportion of grants and contributions in their budgets will most likely fall into this category as well, because G’s & C’s had previously been mandated for 100% review every five years.

Departments and agencies that currently use a risk-managed approach to evaluation will need to become more sophisticated in the way they do it.  For example, it will no longer be acceptable to simply ignore low-risk programs.  Rather, a decision will be required as to the evaluation approach (e.g. whether to conduct a full implementation evaluation or just an impact evaluation). The relative risk of non-performance of individual programs is the key criterion for planning both the timing and evaluation approach for each program evaluation.

For some departments, the number of evaluations that they must do will increase greatly, leaving little choice but to contract out.  This will be particularly challenging in sensitive areas, where outsiders may experience difficulty in collecting good information.

Options in Responding to the Policy

Departments and agencies have a number of options that can be used singly or in combination.

Negotiate with TBS to limit the definition of 100% coverage

Some program expenditures may be deemed impossible to evaluate because they comprise overhead costs similar to those commonly found in internal services, or because security and/or privacy issues would block access to the relevant data.

Although there is no defined process for refining the definition of coverage, TBS may be open to lowering the target coverage if a convincing case was put forward.  Alternatively, they may agree to limit their expectations for evaluations of this type of spending.

Maximize the use of targeted summative evaluations

The Policy provides for a flexible suite of evaluation approaches within the Evaluation Plan.  Targeted summative evaluations are acceptable to TBS for smaller programs with low or medium risk levels.  Although small programs linked to strategic outcomes may be deemed high risk because they receive a lot of public attention, the cost of an evaluation should be somewhat related to the cost of the program.  It is likely that some programs will carry a lower risk than others. With a larger number of evaluations to be done, applying the risk factors to planning will become more critical to minimize costs and to maintain an appropriate cost to value ratio.

Increase the productivity of existing resources

The evaluation unit may initiate a number of productivity improvement initiatives.  These include:

  • utilizing students for data coding,
  • introducing automated surveys to replace some interviews,
  • collaborating with the performance measurement group to develop data collection tools,
  • training evaluators to increase data analysis capability,
  • holding programs more accountable for program data collection
  • and restructuring roles and responsibilities of managers and directors to better utilize existing resources. 

Contracting Out

Contracting is the most common option for supplementing staff capacity. However, contracting increases the risk of compromising quality and sometimes creates the requirement to rewrite reports to better address terminology, political sensitivities, etc. 

One approach to mitigating this risk is to manage all evaluations internally and to sub-contract elements - primarily the fieldwork - rather than the entire project. Components that typically lend themselves to contracting out include literature search, data entry, interviews, survey design, data collection, peer review and assisting the programs to set up data collection tools at the front end of projects.  Also, developing comprehensive guidelines for contractor use can approach the quality challenge.

With an increase in demand for contractors from all departments simultaneously, driven by the implementation of the new Policy, many evaluation directors believe there is not an adequate supply of experienced evaluation consultants available.  One option is to evaluate and accept alternative experience, such as research or management reviews, for applicability to evaluations or some of the sub-components. 

Finally, expansion of contracting out would require evaluation managers or project leads to develop contract management skills and the ability to articulate quality standards for use by contractors.

Increase the Evaluation Staffing Complement

The main challenge to relying on increased personnel to meet the new targets is being able to staff the positions.  Most departments report difficulties in staffing due to a lack of qualified and experienced candidates. If all evaluation units across government grow at the same time, the candidate pool will not be adequate to meet the needs. Without an increase in supply, departments may resort to classification increases and incentives to steal from each other, which will increase the cost of the evaluation function without increasing the output - and the overall percentage of vacant positions across government will rise.

Since recruiting experienced staff is already difficult and is likely to become more so, departments need to put in place a developmental program to be able to train as many evaluators as possible prior to April 2013.

One alternative to some staff increases in evaluation would be to collaborate with the research unit, if there is one, to include some of its products as part of an evaluation; the Policy requires that the report be approved by the Head of Evaluation to qualify for inclusion in the evaluation coverage statistics.

Suggested Better Practices

The following is a list of some better practices suggested by the benchmarked departments and agencies on the basis of their experience:

  • Have separate Performance Measurement and Evaluation units, permitting more focus on evaluation. This does not preclude the possibility of collaboration between the two units to gain efficiencies in data collection.   The Evaluation unit can also engage in joint planning or collaboration with Audit and/or Research units.
  • Use in-house teams to manage and be involved in every evaluation, even if much of the work is contracted out.  Also, ensure that there are well-articulated quality standards for contracts.
  • Establish Memoranda of Understanding with universities to subcontract parts of evaluations such as literature reviews.
  • Involve the Evaluation unit in the early stage development of all MC’s and TBS submissions.
  • Ensure that the Evaluation unit has access to a data-mining expert.

With respect to HR recruitment and retention for evaluation units, suggestions included the following:

  • Use collective staffing pools.
  • Maintain flexibility in recruitment and developmental progression by having excess unfunded positions classified with varying linguistic profiles.
  • Hire Management Training Program graduates and/or use the Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP) with bridging option.
  • Provide developmental programs for ES-2 and ES-3’s, and ensure that evaluation assignments are included in formal or informal departmental professional, management development or internship programs.
  • Maintain a focus on work-life balance with many flexible work arrangements.

Conclusion

The new Evaluation Policy will present transitional challenges for some departments and agencies over the coming months. However, there are reasons for maintaining a robust evaluation program that go beyond mere compliance with the Policy. 

In view of the GOC strategic and operational review, the survivors are likely to be programs with a clear and well-articulated PAA (program activity architecture), backed up with a well-integrated performance measurement and evaluation framework.  

In the longer term, drastic ‘program review’ will not last forever.  Public Service culture is intrinsically oriented toward outcomes for the public good.  Evaluation practitioners are among the strongest proponents of this and, in the right environment, the evaluation function can be part of the positive motivating force for program managers and staff throughout the Public Service.

The Essence of Evaluation - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

The Essence of Evaluation

The LPGA Commissioner, Michael Whan, just announced the plan to inaugurate a fifth major tournament on the LPGA tour, sparking a discussion on the Morning Drive television program about fairness …

Annika Sorenstam, for example, had won a record 10 majors when there were only 4 each year. With 5 majors per year, future players will have an unfair advantage, with more opportunities in the race for record-breaking statistics. The question is whether it will be fair to compare the record of pre-change major winners with that of post-change winners.

History v. Progress

This issue is not unique to golf. All sports progress, {images1}rendering the current record keeping and breaking basis different from the past and sparking endless debate about who’s the greatest. Is Hank Aaron greater than Babe Ruth?  How do we fit Barry Bonds into that conversation - especially in light of all of the evidence that has come out regarding performance enhancing drug use during his period of dominance?

The response from Gary Williams (Morning Drive, July 20, 2011) was, “You’ve got to exercise your mind and evaluate”.

Performance Management v. Evaluation

For me, this discussion captured the essence of evaluation as compared with mere performance measurement.

Sports achievement, like many other types of result, is relatively easy to measure.

However, to arrive at a conclusion as to who or what is good, great or the greatest, you’ve got to exercise your mind and evaluate - often agreeing to disagree.

What do you think - agree or disagree?

What is Program Evaluation and Does it Really Matter? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

What is Program Evaluation and Does it Really Matter?

A great deal is written about the self-identity of ‘evaluation’ as a discipline and/or a profession.  Viewpoints abound concerning the role and expectations of evaluators, ranging in scope from mere collector and presenter of factual data to virtual philosopher-king, arbitrating complex issues concerning what is of value to society. And, of course, there is much in between...

State of Evaluation Practice

The Journal of the Canadian Evaluation Society has recently published an interesting overview of evaluation practice in Canada that, among other things, suggests the following:

  • Although Canada leads the world in developing a professional designation system for evaluators, there is no commonly accepted core body of knowledge.
  • One of the core notions that distinguish evaluation from other disciplines – attribution (assessing cause and effect relationships) – is not clear to everyone, even within the profession, and there is no agreement about what is entailed in addressing attribution questions.
  • Partly as a result of these professional limitations, combined with limited resources and a lack of independence, it is difficult for evaluators to articulate convincing arguments that address difficult issues.  Rather, evaluation tends to be overly centered on performance measurement and accountability.

Quoting from Foundations of Program Evaluation: Theories of Practice, “Without its unique theories, program evaluation would be just a set of loosely conglomerated researchers with principal allegiances to diverse disciplines, seeking to apply social science methods to studying social programs. Program evaluation is more than this, more than applied methodology.”

This perspective should be of no small interest to evaluation practitioners, especially those in the federal public service, since the vast majority of them are social scientists by training. 

Is evaluation anything more than applied social science methodology?

Rethinking Evaluation

Although I suspect that most practicing evaluators pretty much know what they are doing, it seems that ‘evaluation’ itself - as a discipline, profession or whatever - is in danger of sharing the fate of much analytic philosophy – that of disappearing up its own backside.

I recently came across a blog post by evaluation guru Michael Scriven suggesting that it’s time to re-conceptualize evaluation from the ground up. Using the metaphor of a Copernican revolution (the discovery that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa), Scriven suggests that evaluation is in fact the logical backbone of every discipline, implying that evaluation is the sun around which all other disciplines revolve.

To quote Scriven’s reply to one of the comments:

“It is a logical fact that no discipline can lay claim to that title unless it has standards of quality for its data, hypotheses, theories, and methods. Applying those standards, or showing that they have not been met, is by definition evaluation. Hence it’s a logical fact that the key component of establishing and maintaining a discipline’s credentials is evaluation. QED”

It’s the ‘QED’ (the conventional way of signaling the completion of a proof in philosophy) that gives away the game.   There are logical facts and this may be one of them, given the meaning ascribed to the terms ‘discipline’ and ‘evaluation’.   However, the truth of the proposition is trivial with respect to the question at hand.  It does not address the issue of whether evaluation itself is a discipline or, alternatively, an activity that is legitimately distributed across numerous disciplines.  This form of argumentation could go on – and on and on – hence my reference to the backside.

Adding Some Perspective

The broad context within which a rethinking may be placed is nicely expressed in terms of the three branches of the ‘Evaluation Theory Tree’ (pdf).

  • Social Science and Statistics (questions of method)
  • Analytic Philosophy (questions of value)
  • Public Administration (questions of utility)

Historically, the social science perspective established the randomized experiment and the more practical quasi-experimental method as the gold standard. However, it was also recognized that the experimental paradigm might limit the evaluation perspective to the official goals of the program.  Subsequent developments emphasized the necessity for using social science knowledge and theory related to the subject matter in question to identify plausible and defensible models of how programs can be expected to work and possible unintended consequences.

The major contribution of analytic philosophy, as represented by Scriven, is the way in which he defined the role of the evaluator in making value judgments.  According to Scriven,

“Bad is bad and good is good and it is the job of evaluators to decide which is which.”

This absolutist position is based on theories of natural justice which bridge the fact/value gap by arguing that there are natural human needs which everyone has a right to have satisfied and that these universal human needs form the basis of what ought to be valued.  The only alternative position is that all values are equally valid, in which case ‘might makes right’.

In the interests of balance, it should be pointed out that there are other approaches to questions of value, including those based on a constructivist paradigm.   That is, in place of the existence of a single reality, individuals ‘construct’ their perceptions of reality.  The role of the evaluator is to orchestrate a negotiation process that aims to culminate in consensus on better-informed and more sophisticated constructions.

Turning to questions of utility, the principle concern is the production of useful evaluations and taking steps to ensure that they get used.  This generally entails some form of stakeholder engagement in the evaluation process and tends to place the evaluator in a consultant role.   Approaches that emphasize the utility of evaluations range from the simple consultation of decision-makers to ensure that the evaluation meets their needs to more inclusive forms that are sensitive to the needs of program and/or organization managers.  Additional approaches that go even further in the intensity of stakeholder engagement include ‘practical participatory evaluation’ where primary users and evaluators are explicitly recognized as collaborators in the evaluation process and ‘empowerment evaluation’, where evaluators allow participants to shape the direction of the evaluation, suggest ideal solutions to their problems, and then take an active role in making social change.

How are evaluation and social science research different?

Admitting that I am biased, I like definitions of evaluation that suggest, as a discipline, it is the application of social science methodology (and theory) to social problems and issues - broadly defined as any issue with a behavioral dimension. 

As I understand social science, this is certainly broad enough to encompass the relevant philosophical issues of valuation and the practical issues of decision-making and action.  Moreover, it encompasses a variety of approaches ranging from quantitative performance measurement to varying degrees of participative evaluation and constructivist assessment.

However, the practice of evaluation, as a profession, is indeed more than the practice of social science research.  This is well expressed in the following quote from William Trochim:

 “Evaluation is a methodological area that is closely related to, but distinguishable from more traditional social research. Evaluation utilizes many of the same methodologies used in traditional social research, but because evaluation takes place within a political and organizational context, it requires group skills, management ability, political dexterity, sensitivity to multiple stakeholders and other skills that social research in general does not rely on as much.”

I do believe that questions of value belong to the realm of philosophy.  The question is, should such judgments be left to the professional philosopher/evaluator as Scriven and others suggest?

I think not.

Concluding Remarks

Evaluation is not a science, and I’m not even sure it’s a discipline.  At best, it might be considered a profession.  However, it seems this type of internal speculation has tied evaluation practitioners in a knot concerning their self-identity.

 

What do you think?

Is evaluation more than applied social science?

Is there an ‘identity crisis’ amongst evaluation practitioners?

Do practicing evaluators even care about this?

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments below.

10 Guiding Principles for an Effective Performance Measurement Framework - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

10 Guiding Principles for an Effective Performance Measurement Framework

Like most organizations, you probably dedicate significant time and resources for planning – strategic planning, operational planning, business planning, program planning, project planning, even planning for meetings.  How do you know if your operational performance is contributing to the achievement of the goals and objectives set out in the plans, or if you are heading down the wrong path? 

Many organizations have had difficulty establishing a clearly defined set of performance measures and indictors, and even more challenges trying to operationalize their performance measurement framework (PMF).   It all sounds easy – set goals, identify key indicators to track performance, determine data sources to populate the measures, analyze the data, and make changes along the way to re-align performance to the goals and objectives. 

As a guide, here are a set of principles that help frame the development of performance measures:

Principle #1 - The measurement system must be tied to the vision of the organization.  

The aim and purpose of a PMF is to gauge the organization’s performance and to ensure the organization is moving in the right direction to realize that vision.  For Government of Canada (GoC) departments and agencies, the focus becomes the mandate of the organization and the strategic objectives identified in your Program Activity Architecture (PAA).

Principle #2 - The measures must be balanced (comprised of financial and non-financial data).

{images1}For many government organizations, one of the key concerns for senior managers is whether their unit will lapse funding at the end of the fiscal year.  While financial measures are often among the easiest to identify and collect data on, performance measures must reflect all aspects of the organization.  Otherwise, you will not have an effective reflection of the organization’s overall performance, and any decisions made based on that data may lead to operational changes that might not be the most appropriate course of action.

Principle #3 - Measures must be a mix of process data and outcome data taken over time. 

The measurement system must reflect all programs and activities the organization conducts, both internal and external.   It is not sufficient to measure just past results.  It is essential to also analyze what the processes are generating on an on-going basis.  Process data in time order provides a ‘lagging’ indicator of the organization’s operational or output efficiency, but can also serve as a ‘leading’ indicator - providing a signal on whether policies and programs are contributing to the targeted outcomes and the intended results.

Principle #4 - Measures must be based on operational definitions. 

Good measures are based on an organization-wide common language with clear and concise definitions of key organizational policies and terms.  A common lexicon leading to a unified use and interpretation of the key terms by staff must be attained before performance measurement information can be effectively used to assist and facilitate decision-making.

Principle #5 - Measures must be within the organization’s sphere of influence. 

The measures must reflect the activities undertaken by the organization.  Although it may be useful to measure pertinent issues outside the organization’s domain, they do not assist in determining how the organization is performing from a strategic perspective.  The performance measures should be restricted to the key outputs and outcomes identified in programmatic logic models and in higher level PAA’s.

Principle #6 - Measures must be dynamic, relevant and timely.  

The measurement system should provide meaningful, relevant, and timely information.  Tracking performance leads to increased knowledge and appreciation of your operational environment.  As your knowledge of the organization’s performance improves, each of the measures will need to be revised or changed to incorporate this new knowledge and understanding.  Continual review of performance indicators is essential to ensure you have appropriate performance information to support decision-making, especially in a changing environment.  Dynamic measures serve as indicators of current performance and assist in the prediction of future performance.

Principle #7 - Measures must be interconnected (ie: always reported collectively, never singly).

The measurement system is essentially a report card on the organization’s operational performance.  The causal links between outputs and outcomes is explicitly displayed in logic models and strategy maps.  {images2}Those same causal linkages should be reflected in the performance measures.  If measures are analyzed individually, you lose the understanding and appreciation of the interactions between programs and the improvement potential that is inherent in improved coordination.  This is why many organizations have established performance dashboards and scorecards for analyzing and reporting purposes.

Principle #8 - Senior Management is accountable for the measures.

Senior management is ultimately responsible and accountable for the organization’s PMF and the related processes and practices.  Employees will remain responsible for data collection and the initial interpretation and analysis of the performance information.   However, the accountability for the performance of the organization lies with the senior managers and, as such, they must take responsibility and demonstrate active leadership in supporting the performance measurement practices by using the performance information in their communications with staff and in their decision-making.

Principle #9 - Measures must be limited in number but still provide a holistic view.

Many organizations develop detailed logic models and then identify 2-3 performance measures for each output and outcome in the model.  By the end of the initiative, the team has identified an unmanageable number of performance indicators.  Instead, consider your outputs and select the key outputs that are most vital - then select the outcomes where you have the greatest level of influence.  Establish key measures that gauge the efficiency in which you generate the outputs and track the progress in achieving the intended outcomes.  If you develop too many measures, you run the risk of focusing too much attention on the measures and not enough on the organizational performance.  As a general rule of thumb, you should limit your PMF to approximately 20-25 key measures.

Principle #10 - Measures must be communicated and documented.

Employees from every level of the organization should be able to study the measures for themselves to determine how the organization is performing.  It is not enough to simply communicate the results; employees must be actively engaged and allowed to use the performance information in their own decision-making, in contributing to policy and program changes, and for their continuous process improvement efforts.

Do you have an effective Performance Management Framework?

Once you’ve reviewed the 10 Principles, reflect on these questions to assess whether your organization has an effective PMF and strategy in place:

  • Is your organization currently tracking operational performance?
  • Are key performance terms commonly used and understood across the organization? 
  • Is performance information appropriately presented and reported?
  • Is performance information being reported solely to meet external performance reporting requirements or is it also being used internally to support decision-making?
  • What impact is the collection of this data having on performance and decision making?
  • Is the collection, analysis and reporting of this data functioning as intended?
The Benefits of Having a Mentor - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

The Benefits of Having a Mentor

Coaching and mentorship are two popular concepts that are used interchangeably quite often.  And while there are similarities, they are not the same thing. 

Management and executive coaching seems to be quite in demand these days and is cited often in literature.  Not surprisingly, there are also numerous consultants offering coaching to their clients.  

In the midst of this, mentorship seems to have taken a back seat, and the purpose of this article is to bring forth the benefits of having a mentor. 

First however it is important to clarify what these two terms mean.  With a clearer sense of their similarities and differences, we can discuss the benefits of having a mentor - with a particular focus on the wellness of the person being mentored.

Take a moment and type these words in your Google search and will discover page after page attempting to define the similarities and differences between “Coaching” and “Mentoring”.

The fact that these two words are often used interchangeably can easily create some confusion.  Yet a simple definition will allow the reader to compare and contrast the two roles. 

Coaching is…

"a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve. To be a successful a Coach requires a knowledge and understanding of process as well as the variety of styles, skills and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place"
    - Eric Parsloe, The Manager as Coach and Mentor(1999)

Mentoring is...

"off-line help by one person to another in making significant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking"
    - Clutterbuck, D & Megginson, D, Mentoring Executives and Directors (1999)

“A mentor has a one-on-one relationship with the person who is being mentored. Their position is not so much a job, but more a friend with a higher level of experience, helping someone along the way. Usually the mentor will use their own expertise {images1}to help guide their protégé on the right course through business and personal decisions. They offer advice and constructive criticism, allowing the person to learn from their mistakes and successes. Though mentoring programs are usually set up for the benefit of the mentored individual, many mentors find that they learn and grow throughout their experience, as well.”
   - Oscar Derrida, Coaching Vs Mentoring - What’s the Difference?

Coaching appears to be focused on improving performance and effectiveness of the “coachee”, while mentorship is ensuring the transfer of knowledge and information, but more focused on the individual journey of the person being mentored. In other terms, coaching focuses on development of competencies, “learning to do” - while mentorship focuses on accompaniment or “being with”.

Have you ever benefited from the support of a good mentor?  I have been blessed on many occasions to have had someone take me under their wing to show me the ropes. In looking back now, I realize that not only did my mentor show me the ropes, but he invited and challenged me to be well not only in my work, but in my life. 

By “wellness” I am referring specifically to the six dimensions of wellness as outlined by Diane Thompson in her recent blog, Wellness Defined:

  • Physical
  • Emotional
  • Intellectual
  • Occupational
  • Social
  • Spiritual

How then does a mentor do this?

Organizational life

Organizational life and culture can be extremely demanding and confusing. 

Should I work more hours to get ahead? 

How can I speak truth to power? 

How can I ask for what I need to get my work done?   

There are so many demands that we can easily fall into the trap of feeling that no matter how fast we run, we will never get there or come close to realizing what we are hoping to achieve.

Being well in all circumstances

How can we maintain harmony with the various aspects of our lives and remain well?

It is on this ground that an excellent mentor walks with us.  The primary concern of a mentor is that we are well and are able to learn and manoeuvre and harmonize our lives at work, at play and at home.

A mentor will help us understand how to “get things done around here” - after all, they have been down that road.  Often a mentor will state that we should “pick our battles”, but what does this really mean?  It is an intuitive way of saying that you must judge the level of importance that the issue has for you, have the capacity to read the situation, and possess a good knowledge of the people you are working with.  Once you have done this, you will be better equipped to act

A good mentor can help me unhook from relationships or from situations that challenge me.  My mentor has often helped me to accept the situation as it is; understand how I am contributing to the problem, and help me to let go of historical justifications and future expectations - just come to accept the situation as is.

With this clarity I can make healthy choices moving forward.

Impact of a mentor

I have always wanted to be a good manager, and aspired to be an exceptional director. I automatically thought that to do so I would need to develop key skills and leadership competencies, and sought out resources to do this.  I was quite active in my efforts to take my leadership abilities to the next level. 

I{images2}t was one of my mentors who helped shift my gaze to another place.  He helped me understand that the secret to effective leadership was to look inward; to be ready to work on ‘who I was’ and not just ‘what I do’.  Wow! Now that was the most difficult task that I had undertaken. 

To be comfortable with who I was.

I was so busy saying yes to everyone, and to occasions to develop myself, that I had forgotten the essential ingredient - and that was the courage to look inside and do the hard work of accepting myself, choosing what was life-giving, and learning to say no and establish clear limits. 

My mentor helped me understand that I needed to be well; not only a good leader, but a good father who took care of himself and connected all of the parts of his life together.

If you come across a good mentor, walk with them for a while until they start helping you make the journey that takes you inward, so that what you do and how you act is grounded and life-giving.

Process Management Training & Facilitation - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Process Management Training & Facilitation

"If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you are doing."
     - W. Edwards Deming

Delta Partners defines Process Management as:

  1. A way to visually represent the work flow of your organization (process maps)
  2. A structured methodology for capturing supporting documents (policies, procedures, work instructions, records, templates, etc.)
  3. Identifying and reporting key performance indicators (KPI’s)
  4. Identifying controls to ensure product and service quality
  5. A platform upon which to base risk management activities

{images2}Our process management training employs a variety of tools and client-specific case studies to ensure that your team actually acquires the skills that they need to implement process management.

Our facilitation ensures that the application of process management has a measureable impact on the bottom line.

Do you need to reduce operating costs?

Faced with the challenge of reducing your operating costs by 5% - 10%, most organizations will take the obvious route of reducing their workforce.  However, the more effective way to reduce operating costs is to remove non-value added activities (NVA) from your organization’s processes.

{images1}

By first identifying and removing unnecessary process costs, you can avoid the highly disruptive effects that accompany workforce downsizing.

Do you have a plan to capture the knowledge that is leaving your organization because of reductions and retirements?

By accurately defining what you do, you can:

  • Identify where critical information has not been documented
  • Capture the knowledge that resides in informal channels
  • Review and publish the findings in an accessible and transparent manner
  • Better develop your succession planning and talent management strategies

Do you have internal barriers to communicating both up and across your organization?

By publishing uniform, transparent and easily understood process maps and supporting documentation, you create:

  • A common language that removes subjectivity
  • Improved reporting and decision-making 
  • Clearly defined roles and responsibilities that remove ambiguity
  • A platform for easier collaboration and information sharing across boundaries
  • A shared understanding of the priorities of the organization which results in greater employee engagement

Public service managers - are you on track to meet your TBS planning and reporting obligations?

A well-defined and documented suite of processes is a critical component in the successful planning, implementation and reporting of your various TBS requirements, including:

  • Policy on the Management of Projects – due by April 1, 2012
  • Policy on Investment Planning, Assets and Acquired Services – due by April 1, 2012
  • Policy on Evaluation – due by March 31, 2013

Course Outline

For more information on course structure and pricing, click here.

One Day

This is our standard one-day offering that is normally accompanied by a one-day facilitation exercise.  It is also possible to expand and customize this training module to a multiple day offering as your needs require. 

  • Process Management overview
  • Process Management benefits
  • What is Process Mapping?
  • Implementation strategy
  • Different ways to visualize a process
  • Process Mapping techniques*
    • Sequential process mapping
    • Time and Decision Based Cross-Functional Flow Charting
    • Value Stream Mapping
  • Creating policy, standard operating procedures, and work instructions from your process maps
  • Understanding the relationship between Process Management and Risk Management
  • Defining and integrating Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)
    • Understanding the relationship between Process Management and Performance Management
  • Defining process control points and integrating Quality Management best practices

* Advanced, customized process mapping techniques (IDEFO, Turtle Maps, etc.) can be added to the course for an additional fee

Two Day

The Two Day program includes all of the content of the One Day program, and adds:

  • Overview of Process Modeling
  • Analyzing Process Maps
  • Utilizing Process Mapping Software (Visio)
  • Facilitating Process Mapping Sessions
  • Additional advanced techniques

Extended training options are also available; please contact us for more information.

Training Programs - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Training Programs

Delta Partners has delivered focussed, high-quality training to thousands of clients since our founding in 1989.

We are pleased that our clients continue to turn to us for professional training services.

Training Programs Overview

Process Management Training & Facilitation

Root Cause Analysis Training & Facilitation

Enterprise Risk Management Training and Facilitation

Demand Stress and Depression in the Workplace - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Demand Stress and Depression in the Workplace

Delta Partners is pleased to present our newest white paper, Leadership and Engagement: Demand Stress and Depression.

In this paper our president, Alcide DeGagné, discusses the impact of changing corporate culture and the effect that it can have on impacted employees as the balance between the demands on them and the resources available to them becomes misaligned.  As the modern workplace continues to evolve away from the "replaceable cogs" view of talent that lingers from the industrial era to one that values the unique knowledge and abilities of the individual, managers will need to appreciate these challenges and learn how they can impact the climate in which their employees live and work.

 

Employee engagement has been a topic of vital concern to managers for some time now. It is fairly well understood that employees who have high levels of engagement are more likely to exhibit high levels of individual productivity, reduced absenteeism, reduced turnover, and greater job satisfaction.

Doing More with Less

However, few managers are aware of one major barrier to engagement efforts - depression in the workplace.

{images1}As mental illnesses become better understood, we are finding that the stress created by the ever-increasing demands of "doing more with less" are a major contributing factor to the high incidence of depression.  These are not inconsequential issues for our society, particularly as our public health system copes with the pressures of an ageing population and the federal public service deals with the challenge of higher rates of disability claims resulting from anxiety and depression.

Presenteeism

And the problem does not end with those who are missing work.  A new term has been gaining popularity in the press - presenteeism.  This is essentially the opposite of absenteeism; a situation where the employee is physically at work, but is suffering from an illness.  There are many reasons why people would come to work when they are ill, but from a mental health standpoint, it is simply more difficult for those with a physical ailment to be present at work.  And, unfortunately, these effected employees are often identified as those being "disengaged" from their work.

Solutions

The upside to this discussion is that there are steps that any manager can take to improve the situation for their employees to reduce the likelihood of demand related stress.

I encourage you to read my new white paper, Leadership and Engagement: Demand Stress and Depression for a deeper look at these issues and some practical steps that the manager can take to deal with them head on.

And, please, if you have any comments or experience related to mental health issues in the workplace, share them with us in the comments.

Demand Stress and Depression in the Workplace - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Demand Stress and Depression in the Workplace

As economic and demographic constraints require that we all "do more with less", there is a real risk that long-term demand and resource imbalances will create mental health implications for our workforce.

In this white paper, Alcide DeGagné examines the implications of demand stress and the steps that managers can take to mitigate the impact on their employees.

Internal Hurdles Challenge Even The Best Of Organizations - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Internal Hurdles Challenge Even The Best Of Organizations

Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) has gained recognition for achieving major improvements in a number of areas such as the startup of Service Canada. However, anyone who has spent significant time in any large complex public or private sector organization knows that the internal hurdles are invariably very challenging.

It’s no less so for HRSDC. According to a news article in the Ottawa Citizen Internal hurdles challenge HRSDC  which chronicled the travails documented by a local consultancy. The challenges highlighted by the article focuses on the lack of communication and collaboration between various functional components of HRSDC and how this limited the effectiveness of the Department. 

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Widespread Communication, Collaboration and Innovation Challenges

And frankly, communication and collaboration and the need for innovation are perhaps the greatest of the 21st century great stumbling blocks facing organizations of all kinds. Why is this such a challenge?

Well first, our modern workforces and customers, being as they are products of the information age, cry out for involvement and information. Add to that the growing complexity of the work place brought on by technology, speed, and competition, makes it virtually impossible for work to get done without extensive collaboration—especially when the need to remain competitive also requires a simultaneous need for innovation! This reality has led numerous management practitioners, consultants and academics to argue in favour of radically changing the human systems of organizations—in short, alter their DNA. Gary Hamel, a noted Harvard guru on the subject expressed this eloquently in his video Reinventing the Technology of Human Achievement.

A More Balanced View

Now coming back to the article, it clearly provides value in that it brings forth information on public service effectiveness that the Canadian public needs to know about. Tangentially, it also draws attention that there may be a deeper problem here.

That said,  the article is also unfair as it leaves the impression that internal communication and collaboration in the Department is at best inept or at worst is a symptom of relentless internal “wars”, endemic to the culture of HRSDC, as opposed to the fact that collaboration in complex organizations is a giant of a problem today. Also, the fact that the researcher had to obtain a copy of the consultant’s report via an Access to Information Request (ATIP) leaves the impression that the Department was trying to “cover up” or “sweep the problem under the rug”.

In reading the article I found that the negatives clearly outweighed the positive things the Department has achieved, especially since the background to the article provided absolutely no such references! And perhaps more importantly, the article does not deepen the understanding of a broader concern that haunts most modern organizations and people who work in them!

Have you read the article and would like to share your thoughts on the internal challenges facing HRSDC and other departments? Have you struggled with the same issues in your organization? As always, we appreciate your feed back.

Disability, Mental Health, and the Canadian Public Service - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Disability, Mental Health, and the Canadian Public Service

Today the Ottawa Citizen featured a front-page article, “PS disability claims soaring”.

Its timely release dovetails nicely with our discussion in Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Illness in the Workplace, and also the issues discussed in a previous  post that is still generating a  lot of interest:  Canada’s Public Service: A Career for the Net Generation?.

Highlights

The Citizen article highlights the findings delivered in a report produced by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).  Of note is the increase in disability claims by federal public servants in 2010, with 3,874 public servants filing for disability last year, an increase of more than 16% over 2009 claims.

According to the report, 16 out of 1,000 servants claimed disability last year compared to 13.78 out of 1,000 in 2009. More shocking, the incidence rate is up 35% since 2000, and we now have 11,100 public servants collecting disability benefits.

Mental Health and Women Lead

Mental health conditions resulted in 47.3% of the approved claims in 2010 - depression and anxiety being the most common illnesses.

These numbers are the highest in the history of the disability plan.

Furthermore, women made 70.5% of the approved disability claims, even though they make up just over half of all federal public servants. 

Time to Acknowledge the Challenges

The recent release of both the Conference Board of Canada Report on Building Mentally Healthy Workplaces and the PSAC Report as described in the Citizen highlights the urgent need to address the issue of mental health in the workplace.

The challenges associated with mental illness, a growing cadre of disabled workers, and a potentially toxic workplace are not trivial.  And, against the backdrop of funding cuts and potential workforce reductions, these issues will only become more difficult for managers as they seek new efficiencies and process improvements as they are forced to do more with less.

What do you think?

If you haven’t already read the Ottawa Citizen article, we encourage you to do so and would love to hear your thoughts on these complex issues.

Do you feel that you, other managers, or your employees have been provided with the information, training and resources needed to successfully deal with mental health issues in the workplace? What do you think should be done to improve these alarming statistics?

Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Illness in the Workplace - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Illness in the Workplace

Mental illness affects people of all walks of life. Twenty percent of Canadians will experience it personally in their lifetime, which means that chances are everyone will know someone who has - or has dealt with - a mental illness. Even though it touches the lives of most Canadians, many do not have a good understanding of exactly what mental illnesses are.

When we think of mental illness, a lot us of us would probably create a picture in our mind of tourettes syndrome, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia - think Russel Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind”. The fact is that mental illnesses include any disease of the mind like mood disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and eating disorders like anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.

A look at the Situation

The recently released report “Building Mentally Healthy Workplaces” by the Conference Board of Canada was based on a survey of over 1,000 Canadian workers, many of whom were managers. They also conducted follow up interviews with many of those who were surveyed, the results of which highlighted:

  • The prevalence of mental illness in Canada
  • Why mental health is important
  • How to manage employees with mental illnesses
  • Strategies for helping the mentally ill to re-enter the workforce

Stirring the Pot

The release of this report generated a lot of media buzz on the topic. CBC.ca released an article on June 20th, which discussed the “Manager skill gap” found in the survey.

According to the report, the majority of managers said that they were comfortable discussing mental illness with their subordinates, and were confident with their abilities to accommodate and help mentally ill employees. However, the employees did not agree, indicating that their managers weren’t knowledgeable in mental health issues.

Furthermore, 44% of the managers surveyed did not have formal training in managing those with a mental illness.

The Ottawa Citizen released an article in response to the report as well. Their focus was on workers and the fear of having to discuss or admit their mental illness to their managers.

The Benefits

Regardless of your focus, mental health is an important subject to address in our discussions and education efforts. Good mental health has many benefits for the employee - and in turn the organization. Mental Health Works is an organization that can help companies that need to improve the way in which affected employees are accommodated. Their website highlights some of the many reasons why good mental health is beneficial:

  • Reducing stress related absences
  • Reducing the risks of other health issues
  • Increasing productivity
  • Improving innovation
  • Reducing errors

Build Healthiness

There are many ways to build a healthy work environment. The Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario offers some great ways to help achieve good mental health in the workplace:

  • Increasing mental health awareness
  • Clearly defining employees’ responsibilities
  • Managing workloads
  • Recognizing good work
  • Promoting good work-life balance
  • Promoting wellness
  • Encouraging trust building
  • Creating an environment that promotes communication
  • Allowing as much flexibility as possible
  • Providing opportunities for growth
  • Increasing your knowledge of mental illnesses

And we suggest smiling more in the Workplace!

Keep An Eye Out

Monitoring your employees for early signs of mental illness is also important. While diagnosing should be left to health care professionals, it is still important to be aware of the early signs of mental illness, which, according to Mindful Employer’s “A practical guide to managing & supporting mental health in the workplace” includes:

  • Being consistently late
  • Decreased productivity
  • Decreased engagement
  • Fatigue and unexplainable pain
  • Lower quality of work
  • Not meeting deadlines
  • Changes in personality
  • Loss of sense of humour
  • Overworking
  • Increased use of substances

What Can I Do?

There are many ways co-workers can help a fellow employee with a mental illness.  How about trying to:

  • Ask how you can help
  • Keep an open mind
  • Direct employees to the appropriate resources available

 

For further information the University of Guelf provides some great resources for mental health awareness, as well as an excellent video series for people struggling with mental health issues.

The Canadian Mental Health Association also has excellent resources.

 

Do you feel comfortable speaking about mental illness in your organization and with your employees? Do you have a mental illness and would like to share your experiences?

Talkin’ Pictures - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Talkin’ Pictures

Do you talk in pictures?

Most people would say not, usually we speak in words - but people listen in pictures. 

They use the words you say to create a picture in their mind.  How they create those pictures is a story for another day – a long day!  Here's an example:

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There is nothing funny in the words used by Dilbert's unfortunate date, but the picture created in Dilbert's mind was amusing – Wile E. Coyote, et al.

This may explain a few things.

Assuming it to be true for a moment, that people listen in pictures, this may explain a few things.

Have you ever overheard an argument in which someone says “you said this ---”, and the other says “no I did not----”?  The first thing you probably noticed is that this line of reasoning doesn't get very far.

The truth is that people do not remember what you said - the words you used - they remember the picture that was created.  When they say what you said, it is actually a description of the picture they have.

The moral of that story is don't tell people what they said, because you probably don't remember the exact words.  If you are like most people, you probably don't even remember what you said with any accuracy.

Pictures are powerful.

The picture is very powerful. Often, in a serious meeting, someone will burst out laughing.  The person will apologise profusely and explain that they just had a vision of something humourous – often nothing to do with the subject of the meeting – but sparked by the words someone spoke.

This means that the picture we leave people with is more important than the words we speak.  The words are not remembered, but the pictures are.

I find this gives new meaning to the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

Words don't mean the same thing to everybody.

I don't mean by any of this that we do not choose our words carefully.  Unfortunately, a word does not mean the same thing to everyone – meaning, in this case, a particular word does not create the same picture for everyone.  So now when we speak we need to be aware that pictures are being created, and we need to ensure that the correct picture (the one we wanted) has been created.

I was having a conversation with someone and used the word “evacuate”.  I used the term as I had been taught in high school physics, meaning to suck all the air out of something.  The person I was talking to was horrified.  She told me that I wouldn't use that term if I knew what it really meant.  It turns out that she was a nurse and “evacuating” to her meant sucking all the fluids out of a person's body.

Imagine that picture as a conversation stopper!

Why is this important?

A conversation, as we know, involves speaking and listening.  If you are speaking, how do you keep the person to whom you are speaking actually listening to your conversation?  Take the above example of the nurse.  How much do you think she was listening to me, whilst picturing a body having all its fluids sucked out?

The ability to keep people listening is a very difficult task, and not to be taken lightly.  As a speaker it is your job to see that the message you want to convey is received as you intended.  In fact, as a manager, it is literally your job to see that the message is received as intended; this is how we communicate operational details. 

So it follows that to communicate (speak) effectively you have to know how to listen.

What can we do?

As we speak, with the best words we can muster, we must be always wondering what picture we are creating in the audience.  Be aware of using, without further explanation, words that you know may have many interpretations. For example, “outsourcing” is a current hot topic that will result in many different “pictures”. 

There are many others, I am sure you could create a long list.  The best way to find out is to ask, and welcome any feedback - even when the feedback is critical.

Often you will hear someone ask “what does that look like?  This is very good question and goes a long way towards helping us create an appropriate picture. For instance, when you hear an executive say he or she is “committed to quality”, then “what does that look like?” becomes an excellent question.

As a listener, it is even better to state your intention before asking the question.  An example would be “just so that I have the correct picture” or “so I don't end up doing the wrong thing” and then ask the question for clarification.  Communication is so much better when both the speaker and the listener collaborate on developing a proper understanding of the message.

An alternative to starting with “you said this”, is beginning with “what I heard you say is...”, or “what I picture is....”  This is good, because it doesn't make the speaker wrong, and it helps clarify the picture you (and the others in the meeting) are creating. 

However you do it, this process is vital, though not easy.  Some speakers grow defensive when asked to clarify - it takes practice to create clarity without ruffling feathers.

There is an adage that says “if you are not clear, then it is not clear.”  There is always the possibility that the speaker's message does not stand up to scrutiny.  While this can be temporarily embarrassing, it should be regarded as just another step on the road to clarity.

Wellness Works! - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Wellness Works!

 You may be sceptical.  Does it work?  Can a workplace wellness program actually result in a return on investment?  Can you really change your employees’ behaviour and overall health and wellness?

There are reasons to be sceptical.  The return on investment takes time and what will be the proof? 

What’s at stake?

  • Poor health habits and mental illness are taking an enormous toll.  Consider the following: 
  • The Conference Board of Canada estimates that for every employee who smokes, it costs up to $3,396 each year through increased absenteeism, decreased productivity, and higher insurance premiums, among other costs.
  • Experts estimate that 10 to 25% of all teenagers and 20 to 50% of all adults have a weight problem. It is known that obesity brings many health hazards with it, including heart attacks, strokes and diabetes with all of its complications. Obesity is a serious concern to all health care practitioners.
  • Disability-related absences from the workplace represent anywhere from 4% to 12% of payroll costs in Canada (Wilson, Joffe & Wilkerson, 2002)
  • Mental health claims (especially depression and anxiety) have overtaken cardiovascular disease as the fastest growing category of disability costs in Canada (Wilson, Joffe & Wilkerson, 2002)
  • 20% of Canadian workers experience a stress related illness every year (Statistics Canada, 2003)
  • It is estimated that 10% of the Canadian working population has a diagnosable mental illness (Dewa, Chau & Dermer; 2009)
  • Mental illness-related disability claims (short-term and long-term) account for up to one third of the workplace claims, equaling approximately 70% of workplace costs {images1}and translating to 33 billion dollars to the Canadian economy on an annual basis (Sroujian, 2003)
  • An employee with a previous disability claim related to mental illness/disability is almost seven times more likely to have another disability claim related to that illness than someone with no previous disability episode related to mental illness (Dewa, Chau & Dermer, 2009).
  • Stress, according to Chrysalis Performance Inc.  Research, may contribute up to:
    • 19% of absenteeism cost
    • 40% of turnover cost
    • 55% if EAP costs
    • 30% of short term disability and long term disability costs
    • 60% workplace accidents
    • 10% of drug plan costs
    • 100% of stress related lawsuits (Burton, 2006)

 

  •  Substance abuse in Canada is estimated to be $39.8 billion, or $1,267 for every Canadian.  The Costs of Substance Abuse in Canada 2002 (pdf) study was released in April, 2006. The study revealed that:
    • Legal substances (tobacco and alcohol) account for 79.3% of the total cost of substance abuse; illegal drugs make up the remaining 20.7%
    • Tobacco accounts for $17 billion (42.7%)
    • Alcohol accounts for $14.6 billion (36.6%)
    • Illegal drugs account for $8.2 billion (20.7%)

Success in Action

Pfizer Canada won Canada's Award for Excellence in Healthy Workplace in 2009. The award from the National Quality Institute recognized Pfizer's formalizing and offering an official program, VIVA Health and Well-Being.  VIVA is based on illness prevention, awareness and employee support.  More than three-quarters of employees said the VIVA program adds value to their jobs, helps them reach their health goals, improves morale, keeps them energized and helps reduce stress.   The underlying philosophy at Pfizer is that it takes More Than Medication.

Some results reported by Canada Awards for Excellence recipients include:

  • 91% improvement in employee turnover
  • 215% increase in cost savings
  • 90% increase in customer satisfaction
  • 33% increase in employee satisfaction
  • 82% reduction in cycle time
  • 57% decrease in injuries

Effective is the Operative Word{images2}

Your wellness program needs to be well focused and well executed.  What this means is that your program needs to be targeted to the health concerns of your employees and to the initiatives they need and want.  Doing this allows you to effectively execute your program with frequent communication and broad employee buy-in.   An effective wellness program is one that results in a healthy return on investment for both your employees and your organization.

Thoughts

Given the stark statistics on the burden of illness and associated costs, it seems clear that the time has come to concentrate on preventable illnesses, estimated to be 70 per cent of the burden by the New England Journal of Medicine.   

In addition, the Parliament of Canada Senate Subcommittee Report on Population Health (pdf), states in the forward on page 1, "We must change our way of thinking...Passively waiting for illness and disease to occur...is simply not an option."   The report goes on to say that this change will need to engage all levels of government, business and communities. 

 Wellness initiatives and programs provide a viable option to reverse the trends.   Is it time to review your productivity and risks in light of these statistics?   Have you thought about how your performance might be improved and your costs reduced with a targeted wellness program?

test page - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

test page

{images1} Using this page to perform some tests.

Is Work-Life Balance Beyond Our Reach? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Is Work-Life Balance Beyond Our Reach?

How balanced are you when it comes to juggling work duties, family responsibilities (not just kids but also ageing parents), social life, physical fitness, walking the dog, hobbies, and the list goes on.

When I worked in government before hitting the eject button last December, I spent a good portion of three decades working in the leadership and learning fields. For a few years I was quite involved in the wellness area, where work-life balance had become the rage in the federal government. I realized after a while that the work-life balance topic was not being taken seriously by senior management, despite a lot of espoused behavior. What was rewarded was working slavish hours, serving upwards and never questioning authority. Senior managers (e.g, VP equivalents) who talked about work-life balance were scoffed at.

I refocused my work and moved on. No point in pushing on a string.

True Story #1:

One senior executive I worked for a few years ago was tethered to her Blackberry. She was late forties, single and very focused on upward advancement. One of her new directors (middle-aged) shared an experience with me one morning while on the way into work. The previous morning she had been chatting to someone on the bus when her Blackberry buzzed. She ignored it. When she got into her office her boss was waiting for her, fuming. “When I email you, I expect you to immediately respond, regardless of the time.” The director got the message.

This same senior executive (who was later promoted to a VP-level position) used to tell senior policy officers that if they wanted a Blackberry (indeed they were a status symbol to have, especially showing it off in the elevator) they were expected to reply immediately when she emailed them–evenings, weekends, whenever.

True Story #2:

Another senior executive in my organization was renowned for his slavish devotion to his Blackberry. He was a very nice fellow, exceptionally bright, a workaholic and father of two young kids. What was remarkable about him was that he could chair meetings while simultaneously reading and replying to emails on his device. It was quite a spectacle to observe. Perhaps I’m jealous. However, he certainly was a poor role model to his directors and managers. I also wonder how coherent his email replies were. And I can imagine him at home, texting with one eye while the other is paying attention to his kids.

Good Intentions and Budgies

{images2}Work-life balance, as a societal and organizational issue, has fluctuated over the past 15 to 20 years. Some companies have worked diligently at paying attention to their employees’ wellbeing (e.g., clothing manufacturer Patagonia and statistical software company SAS). In most cases, however, good intentions on work-life balance issues by senior management have often had the attention spans of budgies.

There’s nothing like a good old recession, combined with the globalization of work, to pull the rug out from under initiatives dealing with human health in the workplace. After all, when you look at the working conditions in hungry-to-succeed societies such as India, China, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, etc., North Americans begin to look pretty pampered.

The March 28, 2011, issue of Canadian Business Magazine has a special feature entitled “Balancing Acts.” The subtitle is what is provocative: “How being ‘always on’ may be the secret to achieving harmony between life and work.”

What?!!

You can't have it both ways.

I can just imagine wellness experts and pseudo gurus going into apoplexy with that statement. But hold the bus. Let’s see what Canadian Business is saying.

Su Grant is a senior manager of recruitment strategy with Deloitte Canada. She’s connected to her team through her laptop and wireless device and argues that it’s a fair deal when an employee has flexible work hours and does work during evenings or weekends. “You can’t have it both ways,” Grant states.

Sean Durfy, on the other hand, said goodbye to the corporate world in 2009. As the CEO of Westjet, Durfy ran the airline for two years, leading its growth to $2 billion. In 2009, he earned a healthy paycheck of $2.1 million; the sky was the limit. But as a guy in his early forties with a wife who had been seriously sick a few years earlier, and with very young kids who hardly knew their dad, Durfy had an awakening while attending the Vancouver Olympics. He quit Westjet and is now a stay-at-home dad.

This week’s BusinessWeek profiled a CEO who also packed it in. Australian Hamish McLennan, CEO and global chairman of Young & Rubicam, quit his company at the age of 44. McLennan, CEO for five years, said 25 years “being a racehorse” was enough. As he stated to Diane Brady of BW: "My daughter is 13 and my son is 11….I don’t want to leave home and say, ‘Well, you had a great career, but we don’t know you.’” He continued: “At age 44, I’d rather be known as a good father than a good CEO.”

Seven Hours per Week

Carleton University’s Linda Duxbury is Canada’s leading researcher on work-life balance. In 2008, she and Chris Higgins (University of Western Ontario) published a report Worklife Conflict, the sixth in a series of reports prepared for Health Canada. The first survey was conducted in 2001, involving almost 32,000 workers across Canada. That first report revealed that one third of the respondents said they liked flexible work arrangements.

Duxbury has conducted other research on how people are trying to maintain balance with the use of wireless devices. For example, she followed 25 people for seven months who used Blackberries for work purposes. Of the 25, only four people were able to maintain tight control on when they used their devices. {images1}Most of the others used their Blackberries for work outside of office hours; however, four people used them for personal reasons while in the office.

One of Duxbury’s findings was that while the use of Blackberries changed how these people worked, their overall weekly hours of work remained the same. In another larger survey (840 workers), she found that the average number of hours worked outside the office was seven.

Other surveys have essentially corroborated Duxbury’s finding, with workers expressing that the use of technology has either had a neutral effect on their lives or improved their productivity and in turn their lifestyles.

As much as these studies were done following statistical methodologies, there remain serious issues on just how technology is affecting how we work, collaborate (virtual versus face-to-face), raise kids and assist ageing parents. At a macro level, how is it contributing to fostering innovation, productivity and national competitiveness? These are what counts when you want to have a serious conversation on a nation’s wealth and the ability to distribute it.

Wise Words

In the meantime, the haphazard approach to addressing work-life balance will continue in the midst of global volatility, with some organizations “getting it” and implementing meaningful policies, such as American Express and GlaxoSmith-Kline which ban email during weekends, evenings and holidays.

I’ll close with a quotation from Sean Durfy, who was interviewed for the March 28 issue of Canadian Business magazine. Durfy explained that he’s keeping up with developments in the business world by being a member of boards and staying in contact with business acquaintances. He does miss the “…game, challenge, leading people, building strategy, all that good stuff.”

His final comment, however, brought it home when asked what has he learned:

“It’s about putting down the Blackberry. People get comfortable working too much, or scared to quit. So many people say, ‘Frig, I hate what I’m doing, and my marriage is in trouble, but jeez, I gotta work, blah-blah-blah.’ My advice: If you’re not happy, if you’re not doing what you love, don’t friggin’ do it. Life’s too friggin’ short.”

Thanks for these wise words, Sean.

Take a moment to reflect on them.

Then take a minute to share your work-life balance experiences – the good, the bad and the ugly.

 

I see my patterns, and I choose to make changes.

     -Louise Hay

 

note: This post is revised from Jim’s previous writing in his blog, Changing Winds, and appears here with his permission.

Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work? Do You Trust Me? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Do You Trust Me?

I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
        - Henry David Thoreau

When an organization is secretive, tightly controlled, does not delegate authority, and sharply segregates management and management decisions from employees and lower level managers, it’s not a stretch to recognise that management does not trust its "underlings" to behave as reasonable, responsible people. 

Employees who routinely work in an environment of distrust often self-limit the scope of their responsibilities.  They direct their energies toward taking what they can out of the situation; these are not what you would call engaged employees.  "They don’t trust or respect us.  Why should we trust or respect them?” 

Trust breeds trust, distrust breeds distrust.

If you want to begin building trust, you must exhibit trust through leadership and culture change.  Trust in the work place is not achieved by announcing “From now on, we are going to trust employees and support people who take risks.” 

This will only result in a wait-and-see attitude. 

Pick your cliché:

  • Actions speak louder than words.
  • If you’re going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk.
  • Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.

Clichés become cliché because they contain some kernel of truth.

{images1}Senior leaders have a terrible time appreciating the level of scepticism, cynicism and pessimism that the rank-and-file hold any time a sweeping message of change is pronounced from the mountaintop.  Why is this?

Because the proof is in the pudding.

The Absence of Light

When thinking about trust, it may be practical to view it as an extreme point on a continuum where distrust is at the other extreme.

Trust should be seen as a positive force and distrust as a negative force. 

The middle of the continuum is then not just an equilibrium point, but also the point where the ice begins to melt, the ball begins to roll, and a positive relationship begins to form.

You can also think of distrust as the absence of trust, just as a physicist would see cold as the absence of heat, and darkness as the absence of light.

Absolute Zero

A physicist will explain that the less heat there is, the slower the molecules in that environment will move.  The result is less activity, until the point where absolute zero is reached and the molecules stop moving entirely.

Similarly, the less trust in an organization, the less productive work goes on.

In order to enable team building, collaboration, innovation and positive risk-taking, trust must be established both in the horizontal (team) and the vertical (management hierarchy).

What is the "trust" level existing in your workplace?

We have found that many large bureaucracies have considerable work to do to repair (create?) a level of trust within their organization.  The cutbacks stemming from budget constraints that we have recently seen - and that we may be seeing more of - often completely destroy existing psychological contracts with employees.

Measuring Trust

How do we measure trust? The same way we measure anything else - we ask questions.

Here are a few questions that can help you measure the climate of trust in your organization:

  1. Is what I did yesterday moving the organization forward or keeping it in place?  Was trust involved?   
  2. What got in the way of doing my job?  Was trust involved?
  3. How much time did I (we) spend covering myself (ourselves) today?  Was trust involved?
  4. What did I do today that could signal to the other person or group that I didn't trust him or her?
  5. What specific things did another person or group do that indicated that they don't trust me or the group I belong to?
  6. What got me upset, annoyed, or irritated today?  Did the issue involve trust?
  7. What specific things could I (or my group) do to enhance the level of trust in the organization?

When you reflect on your answers to the questions like this, you can uncover a number of issues involving trust. 

For instance, "Did I write that memo for the file to a) refresh my memory at a later date, b) to communicate information to those who may follow me on this project, or c) to justify my decision in case someone checks up on me?" 

Or, in another case, "Did I ask someone to report back to me on something at the end of the day because a) I wanted to clear my mind of that subject when the project was over, or b) because I wanted to make sure that he or she was working on it today?"

Creating Trust

Do you have stack of policy manuals? It may well be time to evaluate the ratio between the gross weight of your policies and procedures and of the degree of distrust between your management and employees.

Mr. Shakespeare tells us that, “There's no trust, no faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.”

So how do you improve trust?

Sometimes it's simply a quick matter of approaching a co-worker and apologizing for your actions.  Other times it will require a long and sustained war of attrition on the attitudes and actions that created the existing environment.

The short answer is that there is no short answer.  However, Stephen M. R. Covey has also written a great book on the subject, The Speed of Trust. We already have our copy; you should get yours (read our take on his take).

 

So, how do you build trust in your organization? What advice would you share?

Delta Partners & MacDonald Lane Extend Their Services in Nunavut - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Delta Partners & MacDonald Lane Extend Their Services in Nunavut

Government of Nunavut - Performance Measurement, Budgeting and Other Financial Services Standing Offer Agreement

 

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We are pleased to announce that, in partnership with MacDonald Lane Investments, we have been awarded additional Standing Offer Agreements to provide services to the Government of Nunavut in the following categories:

  • Accounting & Financial Services
  • Audit Services
  • Budget Development
  • Performance Measurement & Benchmarking

We are very excited to work with Steve Pollock and the team at MacDonald Lane to bring the best in HR expertise to the public servants of Nunavut!

Visit our websites Delta Partners Inc. and MacDonald Lane Investments to learn more about our services and what we can do to help you.

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Canada’s Public Service: A Career for the Net Generation? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Canada’s Public Service: A Career for the Net Generation?

The front page headline on yesterday’s Ottawa Citizen featured a story about a recent survey that links the level of engagement that Canadian federal public servants are reporting, based on the amount of time they have been employed.

What is interesting about this particular survey is that the group being evaluated is made up entirely of young people who were recruited via the Post-Secondary Recruitment program.  Essentially, these are young people who were recruited right out of university programs to begin their professional careers in the Public Service.

The gist of the story is this: young people are invigorated and motivated when they join the Public Service, but the job beats the enthusiasm out of them.  The longer they work for the federal government, the lower their reported scores on some key engagement indicators.

This result led to some water cooler chat in our office – with a recommendation that we address the topic here in our blog, particularly in light of our current look at workplace wellness.  As I thought about this, I started to think about the perspective of the university student who is beginning to consider their first job.  My conclusion? I realized that I am about as far removed from that group as it is possible to be. 

So who do we have that could most effectively provide an analysis of this group and their outlook on work and life?  Well, we have Max Sunohara, a current student at the University of Ottawa, working in our office this summer. Why not have Max provide the Net Generation reaction to the Citizen piece?

After discussing the issue with some Delta staff, I read the article online - the only place I go to read the news.

I can honestly say I was not very surprised with what I read. Before reading the piece, I hadn’t put much thought into why I would want to work in the public sector after finishing my post secondary schooling, and after careful thought I couldn’t come up with all that much. The truth is I never gave working in the public service too much consideration. I always envisioned myself working in the private sector. I wondered why that was, and so I started brainstorming and came up with some ideas.

This post will be aimed at outlining the various qualities that someone of my generation would be looking for in a job in the public sector.

Technology

As a member of the Net Generation I was born into a world of fast evolving technology, where the fastest and smallest gadget is rendered obsolete in a matter of months. My generation grew up with computers, laptops, cell phones, the Internet, and can’t imagine a world without them.

As mentioned, I went online to read the article for which this post is a response. I am sure if you offered an iPad with the Ottawa Citizen on it or the actual Ottawa Citizen to someone of the Net Generation they would choose the digital version.

There is a very simple reason. Paper is static; as soon as it is printed it is outdated. Digital on the other hand is dynamic. You won’t see breaking news that was on TV in the paper, but you will see it online. Due to this, it is crucial that employers use the web to interact with potential future employees. With that in mind, if an employer does not have a website they essentially do not exist to our generation, and if they do not have a strong web presence then they will more than likely go unnoticed.

Dynamic websites are really a must; the days of online brochures are over. Take our government’s website for example. It is plain, boring and not very interactive or dynamic. If compared to the government of France’s website, which is very good, one can really see what our government’s website lacks.

{images1}In order to achieve maximum engagement in the workplace, I believe that “Net Genners” require the open and freely connected use of electronics that they are used to. I believe that most people of the Net Generation would prefer to use their tower PC or laptop to a “work computer”. Asking a “Net Genner” to use a different computer, and different software, than what they are accustomed to would be like asking a star hockey player to start using different equipment. In both cases productivity would likely decrease and I would assume engagement would follow in the same pattern. This could perhaps be why the survey found that disengagement increased after working in the public sector for a while.

Environment

The conditions in which everyone works are probably one of the most important aspects of a job.

If I were coming out of a post-secondary program into a first job, I would want to work in a healthy environment that would help me learn and grow in my field. I would completely understand that I am very young and still have much to learn from my superiors, but at the same time I would still like to be treated with the same respect that I give to my co-workers and not be treated as if I were useless and just “the new kid”. I am sure most people of my generation are very open to adapting to the work style of older generations, but like most things in life this is a two-way street. If I were to adapt to the work styles of my superiors, then perhaps it would be mutually beneficial if they could also learn to adapt to the work habits of the younger generations. I am sure this would help to increase engagement if all the generations’ work habits could find equilibrium with each other.

With reference to mutual respect, I would like to mention an article I read on cbc.ca about a woman who worked for HRSDC and was harassed on many occasions by her superior.  Eventually she had to take a sick leave in order to remove herself from the situation when it was not dealt with properly by her department. The harassment included sexual harassment as well as yelling and threatening.

{images2}Behaviour like that should never be tolerated, and if such conduct was allowed while the new hires were working, I believe that it would have been a contributing factor to the disengagement trend found in the survey. For all generations, being treated equally and with respect is very important, but this is especially important for my generation. The the equal treatment of all races, genders, LGBT, etc, is a must for a healthy working environment and maximum engagement.

Why would someone of my generation want to work in an environment where unnecessary stress is created due to inappropriate behaviour and intolerance?

Accessibility

In order for someone to want to work in the public sector, the organization must be easily accessible. How could someone apply to work in an organization if they cannot find it? For my generation this would mean online.

I for one have never heard of the Post-Secondary Recruitment Program, nor have I heard it discussed among my peers. Again, having a website that engages the viewer is a must.  A website isn’t just an online brochure, but instead an evolving community meeting place that incorporates social media to involve the public as much as possible. The website should try to “sell” why the new graduates should work in the public sector on the website. The graduates should believe that by working in the public sector they will be making a difference and have interesting and meaningful responsibilities. This was a problem found in the survey, and it could very well be that the new hires did not know what exactly their new job would encompass when they were selected.

First Job Syndrome?

All this being said, the article does not take into consideration that for the new hires, this was their first job.  Perhaps the trend in disengagement is quite normal in all sectors. It is definitely possible that the new hires had high expectation walking into their new jobs, and were given a “reality check” when they entered the work force right after their post-secondary education.

I believe that some may have realized that the field was not right for them and that they would like to pursue other careers - thus were not happy with their current job.

Nevertheless, working in the service of the public is a great career choice and should be one of the top choices for younger generations. However, there are pros and cons as with any job that may make the public sector seem less appealing than the private sector.

This can all change if the new and older generations can adapt to each other.

Download Delta’s eBook: Leadership and the Intergenerational Divide by Delta Partners associate, Jim Taggart, in which he outlines the coming changes within the demographics of a soon-to-be four generation workforce.  Jim discusses the implications, the trends, and potential solutions for the leaders and managers who will be faced with this new and unique challenge.

Wellness Defined - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Wellness Defined

What do we mean by wellness? 

Merriam-Webster’s Eleventh Edition defines wellness as “the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal.”

The National Wellness Institute defines wellness as “an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence.”   The key idea is that wellness is intentional – people decide to be well, stay well, or get well, depending on their current health condition.

The Six Dimensions

The concept of wellness encompasses every aspect of our lives as outlined in the Six Dimensions of Wellness model, developed by Dr. Bill Hettler, co-founder of the National Wellness Institute.  The model is generally accepted by the wellness community, encompassing the following dimensions:

  1. Physical – bodily health through exercise, nutrition, and abstaining from harmful activities, such as smoking.
  2. Emotional – emotional health through learning to recognize, express, and control feelings and moods
  3. {images1}Intellectual – mental health through developing creativity, learning ability, and problem-solving skills
  4. Occupational – job satisfaction through learning individual aptitudes and skills, and finding meaning in work.
  5. Social – community connections through learning the part we play in our interconnected world
  6. Spiritual – larger life questions through learning to choose and live by a set of values that give meaning to our lives

Why Promote Wellness?

The deteriorating state of employee wellness is a proven trend.  Promoting a culture of wellness is a concrete way to reverse the trend.   It demonstrates care and concern for employee health, and it is a commitment to improved organizational performance.  Consider the following:

  • Obesity rates are on the rise
  • The workforce is aging
  • Lifestyles are more sedentary
  • Stress-related conditions are more frequent
  • People continue to die from smoking-related causes 

Most diseases result from a complex interaction between inherited risk factors and environmental risk factors such as diet, lifestyle, and social factors.  Many diseases can be prevented or controlled by adopting a healthy lifestyle, which includes being physically active, eating nutritiously, and avoiding tobacco.  Benefits of regular physical activity include a reduced risk of premature mortality and reduced risks of coronary heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, hypertension, and osteoporosis.  Regular physical activity also improves symptoms associated with musculoskeletal conditions and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.  In addition, physical activity can enhance {images2}physical functioning and aid in weight control.  Physical activity and a healthy diet play an important role in the prevention of obesity and weight gain.  Poor health habits take an enormous toll on the financial health of business with workplaces shouldering most of the burden of the increased physical health costs of their employees.      

Preventable illnesses make up approximately 70 percent of the burden of illness according to New England Journal of Medicine researchers.   Reversing this upward spiral of ill health and associated financial burden is a pressing concern and, for more and more organizations, the cure is workplace wellness. 

Questions to Ask

Three questions organizations can ask when assessing a wellness approach or initiative are:

  1. Does this help people achieve their full potential?
  2. Does this recognize and address the whole person (multi-dimensional approach)?
  3. Does this affirm and mobilize people’s positive qualities and strengths?

 

What are your experiences with wellness programs in your workplace? Do you find that they have been beneficial for employees? Has this translated into improved performance and success at the organizational level?

note: This post is revised from Diane's previous writing on her blog, Leaderwalk, and appears here with her permission.

2 Rules to Organize Yourself: Personal Kanban - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

2 Rules to Organize Yourself: Personal Kanban

Update 1 June 2011:

I have been exposed to Kanban and other Lean tools for a few years, which led to my exposure to Personal Kanban via the Lean community.  However, I was of the belief that this was a generic term and practice.  Apparently, not so.  I saw this tweet this morning, and must assume that Jim Benson, author of Personal Kanban, with Tonianne DeMaria Barry, originated the concept and name.  My apologies and regret for the oversight.  I did link to a review of the book in the N.B., but I should have been more thorough in my research.  Go read it and visit his site.

- Geoff

We have written extensively in this space about the relentless pace of change and turmoil that is accelerating around us. This upheaval is not limited to “the world”, but trickles down into the everyday demands that each of us must face as we “do more with less” – smaller budgets, reduced staff, and seemingly fewer hours in the day as our personal and professional lives bleed together.

The result is a flood of priorities – both small and large, both personal and professional – accompanied by the projects, the emails, the voicemails, the to-do lists - the endless number of things that we have to remember, attend to, and complete.

Your time and your attention are fixed, a non-renewable resource, regardless of the number of tasks that get “delegated” to you.

{images1}Productivity Porn

The psychological burden that each of us carries with us every single day continues to grow with each new ball that we have to keep in the air.

And so we seek new and better ways to keep track of it all.

Some of these things – dubbed Productivity Porn by the irrepressible Merlin Mann – are truly excellent (thinking of the David Allen empire or Atul Gawande and his Lists) while others I just find baffling (can someone make me understand the emotional need to pay triple for a paper notebook because it has a Moleskine label?).

So let me introduce yet another system for personal organization that may not be familiar: Personal Kanban.

Kanban

Kanban is a system of visual communication - in Japanese “kan” means visual and “ban” means card - that was developed for the shop floor at Toyota by Taiichi Ohno to create transparent communications to everyone in the production process, {images2}not just the managers.

Eventually Kanban became another of the tools used in the Toyota Production System (TPS) – also known as Lean Manufacturing or World Class Manufacturing.

Email and Lean Manufacturing

So, what do just-in-time manufacturing processes have to do with your exploding Inbox? And what makes this Kanban nonsense any different from GTD or FranklinCovey or any of the other systems?

First, Kanban is not another personal productivity system in-and-of itself. It’s more a way of thinking about how you implement the system that you are currently using.

Kanban has only two hard and fast rules:

  1. visualize your workflow
  2. limit your work in progress

Visualize Your Work

Much like the GTD approach, Personal Kanban requires that you do a complete mental “dump”. You need to write down everything that is on your plate. Every project big or small, every task you need to remember, every little niggling thing that sits at the edge of consciousness abrading on your peace of mind.

The point is to get it all out of your brain and onto paper (pixels?).

{images4}Then it is placed into some version of a Kanban Board. This can be a cork board with note cards, a white board filled with post-it notes, or any one of many digital versions. It doesn’t matter which approach you take – it only matters that you are able to create a visual representation of your tasks.

The board is broken into three columns:

  • Backlog – these are your tasks that are waiting to be done
  • Doing – these are the tasks that you are working on right now (work in progress)
  • Done – yes, capture what you have done, see it

Limit Your Work in Progress

It’s becoming more apparent that the human brain doesn’t multi-task well. Yet we insist on multi-tasking all of the time in an effort to “be more productive”.

Kanban abhors this approach.

We each have a finite capacity. So, we must limit the amount of Work in Progress (WIP) to allow for proper focus on the task at hand. The human psyche isn’t a great juggler – too many balls in the air reduces our efficiency and makes it far more likely that one of them is going to drop. And the amount of concentration and psychic energy spent on constantly shifting contexts is concentration and psychic energy that isn’t available for the work itself!

Implementation

Kanban doesn’t ask for great changes in the way we approach our own organization. However you sort and prioritize right now – keep doing that.

 The steps that are required to use Personal Kanban:

  1. You must visualize your work – get it out of your brain and onto paper.
  2. Place your tasks in the ‘Backlog’.
  3. Based on your system of prioritization, pull two or three or four of those into the ‘Doing’ column. Only you can determine the proper amount of active tasks that you can handle. (Though I would note that very few people can juggle five balls…)
  4. As you complete a task, it gets pulled over into the ‘Done’ column.

That simple.

Why bother with the ‘Done’ column – why not just trash those tasks as completed? Two purposes are served:

  • {images3}It provides a record of your workflow for review and refinement. Are you working on the “right” things?
  • Back to that concept of “psychic energy” – visual cues from the ‘Done’ column provide an excellent source of positive reinforcement.

Your board can be reviewed on a daily or weekly basis – whichever works best for you. What matters is that you visualize your work and that you don’t take on too many things at once.

And, once you understand and implement this approach on a personal level, you can apply the same methods with your teams and your organization for greater transparency and efficiency in your communications.

N.B.  This post doesn’t pretend to provide a complete discussion of Kanban systems or how to best incorporate them into your own life. If you are really interested in exploring this topic, deep guidance is only a Google search away – or have a look at this review by Tim McMahon.

So what do you think? Does this approach resonate with you or is it yet another plank in the great pile of productivity porn?

Picture Attribution:
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Show them Your Pearlie Whites - Improve Workplace Wellness with a Smile - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Show them Your Pearlie Whites - Improve Workplace Wellness with a Smile

Most people have heard that more facial muscles are used to frown than to smile — it’s something you might say to someone who seems unhappy to get them to “turn that frown upside down.”

Without a doubt, smiling can have positive effects on the workplace and employee wellness. A smile is a simple way to improve the mood; it’s a universal expression of joy and happiness. Smiling also tends to be contagious —when one person smiles others tend to reciprocate.  

In his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie offered the following on smiling and the effect it can have on others:

Your smile is a messenger of good will. Your smile brightens the lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds. Especially when that someone is under pressure from his bosses, his customers, his teachers or parents or children, a smile can help him realize that all is not hopeless — there is joy in the world.

But not all smiles are created equal. It’s not enough to smile, you have to smile and mean it.

Smiling for the Sake of Smiling

In many industries, especially where there is front-line contact with the public, employees are expected to smile.  This is just good customer service practice and is nothing new. In fact, the origin of the “smiley face” was the result of the work of Harvey Ball, who designed the simple logo for a button to help employees at State Mutual remember to smile whenever they {images2}answered the phone, paid a claim or typed a report as part of the company’s  “friendship campaign” to boost morale. 

However, several studies have found that forcing employees to smile — or put on fake smiles — at work would actually worsen mood, affect health, and negatively impact productivity.  A German study found that “professional smilers”, such as flight attendants, sales personnel, waiters and others in contact with the public for extended periods of time were at risk of serious health implications.  One of the lead researchers, Dieter Zapf, commented that this fake friendliness led to depression, stress and a lowering of the immune system - which in turn could lead to other serious ailments like cardiovascular problems.

A recent study at Michigan State suggested customer-service workers who fake smiles throughout the day worsen their mood and withdraw from work, thus affecting productivity. On the other hand, workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts — for instance, a tropical vacation —  improved their mood and withdrew less.  The effect seemed to be greater on women than on men. In fact, women in the study were more negatively affected by surface acting (i.e., fake smiling) than men, but were helped more by deep acting (i.e., a genuine smile). 

The key take-away from these studies is that forcing a smile can make someone feel inauthentic. These feelings can be internalized, but also project outwards. Think about all the negative connotations of salespersons and their “alligator smiles.”

For a smile to have a positive effect, it must be genuine.

Creating a Genuine Smile in the Workplace

{images1}If you want to use the positive power of a smile to improve your workplace, here are some things you can do to put a genuine smile on your (or someone else’s) face:

  1. Say hello and smile when you see a co-worker.
  2. Bring treats or healthy snacks to share (cookies are always a good idea).
  3. Hold the elevator or open a door for someone.
  4. Share a laugh with your co-workers. Tell a joke or a funny story. Forward a funny email or cartoon (but keep it tasteful).
  5. Make yourself available and approachable when someone has a question.
  6. Send an email to the tech support representative who helped you solve your computer issues.
  7. Acknowledge people for a job well-done or thank them for helping you.
  8. Repeat something nice that you heard about a co-worker or your boss.
  9. Replace supplies that are low (fill up the photocopier or printer).
  10. Check up on someone who looks like they are having a bad day.

Think You Can Tell a Fake from the Real Thing?

Think you can tell who the “faker” is? Try this test to see how good you are at identifying the genuine article.

 

So what do you think - does smiling have an impact in your workplace?

7 Key Factors for Making Change Happen - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

7 Key Factors for Making Change Happen

Change Management.

As a topic of interest, leading groups of people through periods of significant change and uncertainty became a central point of concern within the business community and press in the mid-to-late 90's.  Since then academics, consultants, retired and active business managers have written reams and volumes on the most effective ways to create lasting change within a group or organization.

In fact, as the pace of change in which we all live continues to accelerate - driven ever forward by technological advancements, global economic competition, and shifting social demographics - the publishing industry appears to bring forth books and articles on managing change at a matching velocity.

Yet despite some excellent writing on the topic that has been recently published, such as Switch from the Heath Brothers that I have previously reviewed in this space, I find myself returning to {images1}some of the seminal pieces on this topic again and again.

One asset  that continues to inform our Change Management practice at Delta Partners has been adapted from Human Resource Champions (1997) by David Ulrich.  Though it is not exactly current, and certainly wasn't launched via twitter or Facebook, in no way does this devalue the underlying wisdom of the content.

Seven Key Factors for Success in Making Change Happen

Key Success Factors for Change

Questions to Access and Accomplish the Key Success Factors for Change

Leading change
(who is responsible)

Do we have a leader …

  • who owns and champions the change?
  • who publicly commits to making it happen?
  • who will garner the resources necessary to sustain it?
  • who will put in the personal time and attention needed to follow through?

Creating a shared need
(why do it)

Do employees …

  • see the reason for the change?
  • understand why the change is important?
  • see how it will help them and/or the business in the short- and long-term?

Shaping a vision
(what will it look like when we are done)

Do employees …

  • see the outcomes of the change in behavioural terms (that is, in terms of what they will do differently as a result of the change?
  • get  excited about the results of accomplishing the change?
  • understand  how the change will benefit customers and other stakeholders?

Mobilizing commitment
(who else needs to be involved)

Do the sponsors of the change …

  • recognize who else needs to be committed to the change to make it happen?
  • know how to build a coalition of support for the change?
  • have the ability to enlist support of key individuals in the organization?
  • have the ability to build a responsibility matrix to make the change happen?

Modifying systems and structures
(how will it be institutionalized)

Do the sponsors of the change …

  • understand how to link the change to other HR systems, for example, staffing, training, appraisal, rewards, structure, communication, and so on?
  • recognize the systems implications of the change?

Monitoring progress
(how will it be measured)

Do the sponsors of the change …

  • have a means of measuring  the success of the change?
  • plan to benchmark progress on both the results of the change and the process of implementing the change?

Making it last
(how will it get started and last)

Do the sponsors of the change …

  • recognize the first steps in getting started?
  • have a short- and long-term plan to keep attention focused on the change?
  • have a plan to adapting the change over time?

Ulrich goes on to reflect this list from an opposing point of view:

Why Changes Don't Produce Change

  1. Not tied to strategy.
  2. Seen as a fad or quick fix.
  3. Short-term perspective.
  4. Political realities undermine change.
  5. Grandiose expectations versus simple successes.
  6. Inflexible change designs.
  7. Lack of leadership about change.
  8. Lack of measurable, tangible results.
  9. Afraid of the unknown.
  10. Unable to mobilize commitment to sustain change.

The Bottom Line

Whether you subscribe to this approach or have another methodology that has proven more effective within your context, the underlying fact is this:

Creating real change is not an event.  It is a process that requires a context, a plan, and effective, ongoing leadership.

 

I would be interested to know: do you use tools such as this in your management practice?  What others have you found that have been particularly useful?  Will you share them here?

Innovating Innovation: Our Current Model is Broken - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Innovating Innovation: Our Current Model is Broken

I believe that ‘innovation’ is the source of constant discussion because nobody knows what to do about the massive problems facing the world today.

 Whether on the national stage or at the level of the organization, the message is the same, “we must innovate if we hope to….”

But saying that we need to innovate is the same as saying we need to change – no more and no less.

Hindsight is 20/20

The term ‘innovation’ invokes images of the great transformational changes brought about by inventions like the printing press, the steam engine and the microchip. 

This is what makes it attractive as a goal for leaders of business and government and a marketing hook for the consultants who advise them.  The innovator will gain economic benefits, provided that intellectual property rights can be protected.

The hype surrounding innovation must be based on the belief that, provided we don’t annihilate the planet, the future is going to be both better and radically different from the present. 

However, a moment’s reflection should convince anyone that innovation of this magnitude - genuine innovation on par with adoption of the steam engine - cannot be planned or predicted.  Change is only innovative in hindsight, which is why it is such a favorite topic for historians.

It’s Business as Usual

Reputable consultants know better than to guarantee innovation. 

Instead, we promise to create the organizational conditions that will increase the probability of innovation.  The recipe for this is available, free of charge, on numerous websites, and includes some combination of the following:

  • Risk taking– provideemotional support to those willing to try something new and demonstrate more interest in learning from failure than in punishing it.
  • Resources– provide concrete resources of money and time, backed up with the appropriate levels of authority and autonomy to act on new ideas.
  • Knowledge– ensure that information, both from within and outside the organization or system, is widely gathered, easily accessible, rapidly transmitted, and honestly communicated.
  • Goals– clearly state what needs to be achieved and avoid becoming prescriptive as to how it must be achieved.
  • Rewards– reward innovative behaviour, paying special attention to the symbolic value of awards and rituals which appeal to people’s intrinsic and individualized motivation.
  • Tools– without being too prescriptive, consider ways to build capability and capacity in deliberate methods for creative thinking.
  • Relationships– because innovative ideas typically evolve from collaborative relationships and are rarely the product of a ‘lone genius’, encourage a sense of being in a team, where those with different thinking can trust that their input will be honouredand explored, rather than immediately argued against.

(This particular list is borrowed from the U.K. Department for Business Innovation and Skills)

Not surprisingly, this is similar to the recipe that we offer to achieve any organizational change – organizational learning, organizational maturity, total quality management, overcoming resistance, etc.  In other words, the talk of ‘innovation’ in this context is a re-packaging of a tried and true generic solution to poor organizational functioning.

The Unsustainable Pleasures of Consumerism

The problem for me is the impoverishment of the term ‘innovation’ for what is essentially {images2}marketing purposes. 

But is there really any harm in this?  Well, it tends to limit the conversation in a way that eliminates the consideration of the broad social transformations that are brought about by true innovations.  Even worse, it promotes the delusion that the changes we need to create in our current global socio-economic system can be brought about by high performing ‘innovative’ organizations within the existing paradigm.

{images3}According to John Kenneth Galbraith, my favorite political economist and author of The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State, the modern fetish for innovation, when combined with mass advertising, serves the established economic order by securing a market for an endless supply of products - regardless of their utility, function, need or harm to the environment. 

Notwithstanding the pleasures of consumerism - misguided or otherwise - continuous incremental innovation of this kind appears{images1} to be both unsustainable and necessary to keep the entire economic system from collapsing.  

A ‘New’ Manifesto

I am somewhat sympathetic with the view that this is not a practical business concern.

However, I also believe that our business and government leaders who resort to arguments of ‘practicality’ are frequently using this as an excuse to avoid difficult and important issues - issues that often interfere with the pursuit of short-term private interests.

The New Capitalist Manifesto is a recent book on the subject by Umair Haque.  In it he proposes a new paradigm for business based on the well-founded assumption that Industrial Era tactics are unsustainable.  The following table is a brief synopsis of his suggestions for a new 21st century approach to business.

 

Industrial Era Capitalism

21st Century Capitalism

How production, consumption and exchange happen

A linear value chain exploits resources until they are depleted

Circular production networks are designed for reclamation and reuse

Which products and services are produced, consumed and exchanged

Branding conveys the benefits of a one-sided value proposition

Resources are allocated democratically, on the basis of many-sided value conversations

Why production, consumption and exchange happen

Based on short-term strategies designed to block competition and dominate a marketplace

Based on enduring philosophies aimed at providing a long-term evolutionary edge

Where and when  production, consumption and exchange happen

Based on the protection of existing marketplaces and captivity of customers, suppliers and regulators

Based on the creation of new marketplaces on the basis of real needs

What is produced, consumed and exchanged

Goods and services with minor or imaginary differences that people can be persuaded are important

Products and services that make a meaningful difference in peoples lives

It should be noted that Haque’s formulation is based on a detailed study of fifteen established enterprises that have adopted one or more of the new elements -  ‘cornerstones’ as he calls them - compared with a matched control group that have not adopted any of these new approaches.

A Little Balance

I do believe that we have little choice but to pursue change in the hope of averting disaster.  And our best prospect of achieving this is, in my view, to balance the effort we put into scientific and technical innovation with equal attention paid to social innovation. 

According to the definition provided by the Centre for Social Innovation,

“Social Innovation refers to new ideas that resolve existing social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges for the benefit of people and planet. A true social innovation is systems-changing – it permanently alters the perceptions, behaviours and structures that previously gave rise to these challenges.”   

Though probably not the last word, the paradigm proposed by Haque may, in fact, represent just such an innovation.

No Answers Here

Clearly, this is a topic with ramifications and complicating factors that far outstrip the capacity of a simple blog post to provide any satisfying answers.

And so, rather than closing with some pithy observation and recommendations for moving forward, I will take a much less satisfying approach and close by posing some questions for business leaders and the consultants who advise them:

  • The issue of social responsibility in business has been around on the periphery for a while.  Is it on the verge of becoming main stream out of necessity?
  • If you can’t get your employees engaged in the ‘innovation’ game, could it be because they don’t approve of the purposes being pursued?    Would they respond more favourablyunder a new business paradigm that featured a greater emphasis on social responsibility?
  • Do innovation consultants have an obligation to advise their business clients that leading edge firms appear to be experimenting with and adopting a new and socially responsible paradigm?

 

I hope you will share your thoughts on this issue in the comments section below.

(iPod image via Ars)

Project Management: Don’t Lose the Game at the Kick-Off Meeting - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Project Management: Don’t Lose the Game at the Kick-Off Meeting

There are always some clients/sponsors who insist on skipping the project kick-off meeting.

They are too busy, the project start has already been delayed enough, or it is seen as just a formality.

In a previous post entitled Managers: 7 Steps to Successful Project Launch, I identified the kick-off (or project launch) meeting as one of the steps you need to take to ensure your project is a success!

Lay the Foundation

Like any good coach, you need to make sure that the key players around you understand the advantages of your system.  The kick-off meeting should help you, your team and other stakeholders:

  • understand the project background,
  • confirm that the project fits in with your strategic objectives,
  • develop a business case,
  • clarify roles and responsibilities,
  • identify project deliverables,
  • identify key risks and stakeholders,
  • secure executive management support,
  • develop project plans,
  • and define a project governance framework.

It is often helpful to provide this list to attendees and key stakeholders ahead of the meeting along with an introductory letter to convince your client/sponsor that the project team can’t afford to skip having a kick-off meeting.  And, unfortunately, it’s likely that you’ll have to sharpen some of your interpersonal skills of persuasion as well!

Some talking points that can help you through these conversations:

  • we can’t know the players without a scorecard...
  • we need to get off to a fast start, stay productive for the duration of the project, and finish smoothly…
  • your help is essential for making sure that…
  • some of  the specific ways you can help include…
  • we’ve done this type of work before, but not with you…
  • every organization has its own unique personalities and politics, which can present opportunities or create barriers…
  • all projects have their supporters and detractors and if we know who these are…they can be a valuable source of information and good ideas….

Pre-Game Prep

Now you need to prepare for the meeting; how can you make sure that it will be efficient and productive?

  • Give your client/sponsor a document checklist prior to the meeting so they arrive with them in hand. Create your wish list - any documents you need to review or which may help you define the project requirement and environment further. These might include:
    • {images1}Plans - Strategic, Operational or HR
    • Organization Charts
    • Process Maps
    • Budgets, Financial Data
    • Previous Studies or Assessments
    • Business cases
    • Audit Reports
    • Press Releases
    • Policy Documents
    • Presentation Decks
    • Employee/Client Surveys
  • Making sure the right people are there – who should be there, but perhaps more importantly, who doesn’t need to attend?
  • Prepare and distribute a meeting agenda

In-Game Adjustments

You should go into every meeting with a clear vision and a plan for what you intend to accomplish:

  • Outline your corrective action methodology – How will you deal with project issues?
  • Describe the project in non-technical terms - provide location or contact for technical specifications (or other related documents)
  • Most of all use the meeting to CONFIRM:
    • Project goals, objectives and deliverables
    • Roles & Responsibilities
    • Stakeholder analysis, definition and engagement
    • How deliverables will be used, their target audience, who will review and comment on them, and why do they care about them
    • Relationship to other client/sponsor projects
    • Timing and milestones
    • Resource availability – Are they 100 % devoted to the project?
    • Assumptions – both yours and others
    • Methodology to be used
      • Highlight any methodological or procedural differences from regular projects of this type  
      • Discuss requirements, benefits, and issues of using proposed methodology
      • Provide bibliographic references, location or contact for procedures documents (or other related documents)
    • New technology being used and standards being adopted (benefits) or ignored (drawbacks)
    • Expectations and measures for Success – Can you guarantee satisfaction?
      • How does your client/sponsor define Quality? Value? Success? Usability?
      • How will the client/sponsor know whether the assignment achieved its purpose?
      • What specific service results and benefits are expected by the client?
      • What mechanisms would the client like to put in place to achieve expected results?
      • Who will be reviewing, commenting and signing off on the final deliverable(s)? Identify the real client!
      • Confirm the appropriate level of Quality Assurance for this project.
      • Frequency and format of progress reports - Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly?

Remember, every meeting will take on its own character.  Stay flexible and open to discussion, concerns, and reservations.

By acknowledging and acting upon the reservations that your stakeholders express during the kick-off meeting, you will avoid many unpleasant conversations down the road.

Post-Game Review

  • Prepare and distribute meeting notes
  • Revisit your assumptions
  • Update your Project Charter, Project Plans, Requirements, Specifications, RACI, etc.
  • Start a high-level draft of your After Action Reviewor Lessons Learned Report– be sure to include the new technologies, methodological or procedural differences you presented in the kick-off meeting

The bottom line is you should never pass on a project kick-off meeting.

There are always some who will say it is not necessary, that it’s a waste of time and a formality, but the project kick-off meeting plays a crucial role in setting the stage for ultimate project success!

To best address these  challenges, don’t give detractors any ammunition; do your best to keep your kick-off meeting as lean as possible – keep it short, and start and end on time.

Do you reliably conduct project kick-off meetings? Do you find that they impact the outcome of the project?

Is Our Thought Leadership Strategy a Waste of Time? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Is Our Thought Leadership Strategy a Waste of Time?

MAY 16, 2011 - BY GEOFF SCHAADT

 

I’m pretty sure that everyone who has some connection with Delta Partners is well aware that one of my primary responsibilities with the firm is delivery of our on-line “Thought Leadership” content.

So, you can imagine that my back was up a little when I received an email from Alcide with the subject line “Is Your Thought Leadership a Waste of Time?”  He was sending me a post from RainToday.com with that same title – Is Your Thought Leadership a Waste of Time? by Michael W. McLaughlin.  The post begins:

The editor-in-chief of Strategy & Business, Joel Kurtzman, reportedly coined the term "thought leader" in 1994 to identify people with business ideas that merited attention. Since then, it's become all the rage for consultants and others to vie for that role so they will stand out in a crowded market.

Unfortunately, many consultants' thought leadership marketing strategies, though well-intentioned, fall flat. They are squandering precious resources on a strategy that's destined to fail.

and follows with:

…in just one month the 25 largest consulting firms in the world published almost 500 new books and articles…

the introduction finishes:

In spite of the volume and intensity, a lot of the material that firms tout as "thought leadership" just isn't. SourceforConsulting.com found that most of what consultants offer as thought leadership isn't original and lacks hard data to support the arguments in it. What's worse, this so-called thought leadership doesn't capture readers' attention and fails to make a connection to the consultant's service offerings.

In short, too much of the thought leadership work in the market is yawn-inducing and a waste of effort.

Whew.  Talk about holding up a big mirror for some thorough self-examination.

I could go on, but this is the age of the Internet.  You can click the link, read it yourself, and form your own opinions.

However, I would like to go back in time and refer you to one of the slides that was prepared for the “Social Media Overview” meeting that we held last summer…

{images1}

So, in the context of Mr. McLaughlin’s arguments, I have a hard time arguing. Much of the content that firms (including ours) are creating and posting IS unoriginal and IS NOT cutting edge stuff.

However.

My view of our content has evolved.

This is not the tagline for Delta Partners:

Your thought leaders.

This is the tagline for Delta Partners:

Your trusted advisors.

In this role it is not our job or our intent to help our clients live on the cutting edge of the managerial arts and sciences.  Rather, it’s up to us to ensure that they have access to the information – regardless of its shelf-life –  they need to effectively do their jobs. 

The piece that I wrote on PESTLE Analysis has had excellent legs for our blog.  People are reading it and continue to find it as they search for information.  Is there anything remotely new about that piece?  Absolutely not. Does it provide value to our target audience as they work at their daily jobs? Without question.

As trusted advisors we are in a position to help our clients sift through the increasingly noisy world to find and present the topics that are important to them.  Especially when they don’t realize that it’s something they were looking for!

Sometimes this will include posts that really are “thought leadership” articles – consider the piece that Ellen Godfrey co-authored with Dr. Richard Smith last summer: Should a Public Service ‘Community of Practice’ be open to everyone in government?. That post received more attention than anything else that we have published on our website by a 2:1 margin.

However, our second most popular post was one that Raphael Amato wrote for us: Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace. This represents an article that does not bring anything groundbreaking to the discussion – Daniel Goleman first published Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ in 1996! However, Raphael’s article does provide outstanding value to those who take the time to read it. It offers a clear and concise description regarding the importance of the concept of EI and the central place that self-awareness holds for us all as we seek to be more effective in our work and in our lives.

Clearly there is value to be delivered in not only leading the pack, but also in reminding people of those important markers along that path that, although they may be behind us, represent a truth that we had best keep in mind.

And the other – far less glamorous – asset that we derive from the “Knowledge Share” section of deltapartners.ca?

Signals

By delivering quality content on a regular basis we also send a number of signals to the world:

  • To Google: We’re here and we know what we’re talking about! It’s not sexy, but it is fact. Google drives the vast majority of traffic that comes to our site. No surprise, this is true for most sites.  But the fact that we create quality, unique content, on a regular and ongoing  basis, and that attracts links from others signals to the Google algorithms that we are legit, we know our areas of expertise, and that people are paying attention to our site.  This has caused us to continually rank higher in Google search results.  - This brings us more business.
  • To Clients and Partners: We are engaged in our field, we are active, we pay attention to the matters of the day, we stay current, and you can trust that you will be well served if you choose to work with us.  - This brings us more business.

Captivating? No. Critically important? You could say that.

Quality

And so, the last point that I would like to highlight is regarding quality.

While it may not be so important (in my opinion) to be cutting edge in the “thought leadership” category, it is critical that we continually improve the relevance and the quality of the items that we do publish.

The fastest way to turn off an increasingly savvy audience is to present them with the same recycled ideas – marketing posing as information - that they can find anywhere.  To continue the growth of our audience, we must also continue to:

  • be engaging and authentic in our writing;
  • provide authoritatively researched and documented information (remember, we are writing for the Internet - links are easy!);
  • use our first-person experience with clients to identify and filter what is going to be useful to them;
  • challenge the status quo;
  • acknowledge when we don’t have the best answer and always be honest with our audience.

If we do these things well  we will, in fact, continue as trusted advisors to our clients and our community. 

And that is not a waste of time.

 

I apologize that I couldn’t post this in our regular blog format to allow for your comments, but this wouldn’t have been of interest to others outside of our organization.  However, if you have any comments I sure would love to share them.  Email me and I will append any comments to this web page.  Thanks.

- Geoff

COMMENTS

This is the first time I’ve seen such a commentary. Long overdue. Kudos to you and Alcide.

Later in your post you refer to recycled ideas. Indeed. That’s what the big players are into. The most recent example is a commentary on Innovation and leadership in the U.S. by McKinsey & Company. My view? Mostly recycled, non-illuminating ideas. And this from perhaps the world’s most respected consultancy.

Thought leadership, in my view, is not a scientific exercise. There’s a heck of a lot of (maybe mostly) intuition. Synthesis plays a key part. Maybe that’s why there’s so much recycled stuff out there. However, it’s much more than that.

Thought leadership needs to push the envelope of conventional thinking, challenging the reader or listener to move laterally, dismantling their beliefs (specifically their mental models) to explore possibilities and opportunities. Thought leadership serves as a catalyst to reflection and inquiry, thus sparking new thinking and ideas.

Maybe this is where the McKinseys and others fail to measure up.

It’s NOT about big being better than small when it comes to thought leadership from consultancies. In the words of the late E.F. Schumacher: “Small is beautiful.”

By Jim Taggart on 2011 05 24

 

 

Lest anyone doubt it, l want to categorically say that I believe our ‘Thought Leadership’ initiative is appropriate both correct for the reality we now find ourselves in. Additionally, I believe the evidence clearly demonstrates that we are beginning to get some real traction for with our social media efforts. Bottom line, is that Debra and her team are doing a great job making their mark in the intensely competitive consulting market we live and work in by building brand recognition for us that is based on quality and reliable consulting services. But, let’s be honest, it’s still a work in progress…

When I first caught sight of McLaughlin’s item, what caused me to click on it and read it was the fact that I had recently decided to unsubscribe from a number of ‘thought leaders’ I had been following myself, and who I felt were dealing with some very mundane stuff that really was not creating value for me. Reading the article led to the obvious question, what would a critical assessment of our own social media content conclude? My actual question to both Debra and Geoff was, Are we there yet?

Geoff’s analysis and response to this challenge is both thoughtful and articulate and I can only pump my fist and say YES! I do want to add a few facts that I find particularly indicative of the kind of traction we are getting from this initiative:

  1. Our enhanced web presence is generating enquiries and proposal invitations from segments of the market we have not heard from in the past. Some of them point to specific ‘thought leadership’ content as the reason for their call;
  2. Last week we had 407 visits to our web site from 56 different countries, up from 375 visits the previous week and continuously growing on a weekly basis;
  3. Web traffic is now 3 times what it was prior to launching our social media initiative; and,
  4. Social media amplification is dramatically deepening and broadening our brand reach: e.g., Greg’s recent excellent article on InnovatingInnovation: OurCurrentModelisBrokenthat has generated over 200 visits in only 4 days and is reaching a worldwide audience in 25 countries (Canada is 3rd in views - U.S. is 1st - and in 2nd...Netherlands?)

By Alcide DeGagné on 2011 05 25

Leadership and Innovation: Bridging the Gap - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Leadership and Innovation: Bridging the Gap

The word ‘leadership’ is used so loosely in everyday speech that it is in danger of becoming a superfluous term.

Within organizations – public and private – not only is it used to excess, but this trend is undermining what leadership is intended to accomplish. This is most unfortunate because the organizational turbulence we are witnessing as a result of gyrations in financial markets, the recession, technological advancement, geo-politics, and global competition is calling for enhanced leadership. But implicit in this calling is an urgent need for much greater clarity on what our collective expectations are regarding leadership and how it should be practiced in organizations.

(Note, that in this article that I am not delving into the leadership – management debate; that’s reserved for another posting).

Position Signals

In her book The Female Advantage (inspired by the early work of McGill University management guru Henry Mintzberg), Sally Helgesen succinctly sums up the issue: “…our continued habit of linking leadership with position signals, our inability to grasp how organizations are changing….in the future, our ideas about the nature of leadership will undergo a radical transformation.”

What this new leadership will look like and what qualities it will embody are important issues. She also emphasizes that organizations that address how power is distributed will have moved forward in creating leadership at all levels.

Solving Problems With the Same Thinking

The nub of the issue is how leadership is distributed within organizations.

The paradigm shift they face is transcending how they have operated in the past - whether producing goods or services - and how they will adapt to the new competitive world. It was Albert Einstein who once said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

{images1}A second word that is used ad nauseam is innovation.

Definitions abound in the literature, and I won’t attempt to introduce one here. It is fairly intuitive that if companies wish to succeed in a competitive world - and if they wish to be around for the long term - that they must strive continuously to improve their products or services; eliminate those that no longer serve a purpose; adjust their internal processes; invest in new technologies; and develop their employees – what economists call human capital stock.

How They Do What They Do

The practice of leadership within organizations and the linkage to innovation has probably never been as critical as it is now. As mentioned above, the gyrations being felt are exerting increased pressure on those in the top leadership positions of companies.

Gary Hamel is quite helpful here. In his book The Future of Management he speaks to an agenda for management innovation, noting that three major challenges confront firms in the global competitive environment:

  1. creating a faster pace of renewal,
  2. embedding innovation throughout the company,
  3. fostering a participative work setting to bring out the best in employees.

This calls into play leadership. One aspect is that managers need to learn how to function as innovators - not just their staff.

Management innovation, therefore, is about changing how managers “…do what they do.” It is a “…marked departure from traditional management principles, processes, and practices, or from customary organizational forms that significantly alters the way the work of management is performed.”

To ensure that a management innovation has a lasting effect, Hamel specifies three necessary conditions:

  1. The innovation is founded upon a new principle that challenges the status quo; the more unconventional the principle, the longer it will take competitors to adjust,
  2. It comprises a range of processes and techniques,
  3. It is part of a continuous process of innovation and improvement.

Closing the Gap

Recognizing that innovation occurs throughout organizations, but that one of senior leadership’s strategic roles is to create the environment for this to happen, requires that leadership also needs to be distributed at all levels.

When people see that the right conditions are being created to encourage innovation, they will move forward by empowering themselves to makes things happen.

The gap between leadership and innovation will then start to close.

note: This post is revised from Jim’s previous writing in his blog, Changing Winds, and appears here with his permission.

Logic Models: Both a Tool and a Strategic Process - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Logic Models: Both a Tool and a Strategic Process

Whether in government, the private sector or the non-profit sector, these key questions apply in any context:

  • Are we doing the right work?
  • Can we make better decisions?
  • Are we getting superior results?

Logic models can help with the design of your idea, program, or project to ensure the right work, the plans and implementation that reflect better decisions, and the evaluation that tests progress towards success.

Logic Models Are both a Tool and a Strategic Process

As a tool, logic models convey an idea, program, or project in a brief, visual format. As a strategic process, they offer the means to critically review and improve thinking. Whether used as a tool or strategic process, they support design, planning, communication, evaluation and learning, and provide considerable value to programs and subsequently, organizational effectiveness.

Two Types of Logic Models

Basically, there are two types of logic models – theory of change models and program logic models.

Theory of Change

“Theory of Change” models display an idea or program in its simplest form using limited information. These models offer a chance to test an idea, program or project plausibility. They are the “elevator speech” outline. A theory of change logic model offers the big picture of strategies that could generate your intended results.

It has just two basic elements: strategies and results.

Program Logic

“Program Logic” models display what an existing idea, new program, or focused change effort might contain from start to finish. Ideas, programs, or change these models support must pass the test of feasibility.

They illustrate the essential linkages needed to make a plan fully operational for each of the strategy strands identified in the theory of change. The primary elements for each strand of a program logic model include resources, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact.

The Blending of Models

Strategies reflect a choice of optimal actions to secure intended results. They describe the actions, or what you plan/propose to do.

Results reflect the long-term effect of strategies. Results are ultimately secured through the changes(s) generated by the preceding strategies.

{images1}

Resources typically include human, financial, organizational, community, or systems resources in any combination. They are used to accomplish activities.

Activities are the specific actions that make up a program. They reflect tools, processes, events, technology, and any other devices that are intentional to the program.

Outputs are what specific activities will produce or create. They can include descriptions of types, levels, and audiences or targets delivered by the program.

Outcomes are about changes as a result of the program. They often include specific changes in awareness, knowledge, skill and behaviour.

Impact is the ultimate intended change in an organization, community, or other system.  Impact sometimes occurs at the end of the program, but more typically the impact sought is much more distant.

OK, So What?

By way of example, and to illustrate different contexts for which logic models are useful, I want to explore with you several models that I had a hand in crafting for clients that cover the purposes I mentioned earlier - design, planning, communication, evaluation and learning.

Case 1 – Afghan Reconstruction and Redevelopment Framework

Of the models, this was the most complex. The model served as a way of coordinating the Government of Afghanistan National Development & Reconstruction, National Priority and Regional Development Programmes projects and activities. The programmes were the recipient of international donor funds and managed via NGO, UN or International Community direct intervention. Prior to the development of the model, many of the projects were left unchecked and carried out in isolation. Subsequently, these projects and activities were coordinated directly from Government of Afghanistan ministries.

Case 2 – International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Headquarters Monitoring and Reporting System

The model served to highlight the portions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ISAF operations that were most critical to achieving the earliest possible exit of NATO forces from Afghanistan. Information about what works and what does not was collected not by specialists, but by the many staff officers at the headquarters who performed the evaluation.

Case 3 – DND Civilian Employees Retirement Preparation Framework

The project served three purposes: to raise awareness of the changing civilian retirement environment and implications on National Defence; to formulate a new strategy and road map for civilian employee retirement preparation; and, to set the stage for follow-on work to achieve the desired changes as part of the strategy implementation phase.

Case 4 – Environment Canada

In this case, a logic model was designed primarily for the purpose of internal communications within Environment Canada, that is, to make it unmistakable how a particular directorate’s activities were connected to the Environment Canada program this directorate had responsibility for.

Conclusions

The practical construction of all the models began with:

  • being clear on the intended outcomes and impact;
  • from knowing what is to be accomplished, tackling the activities required to achieve the outcomes;
  • and finally, determining the outputs that would be required to produce intended results.

Logic models offer the strategic means to critically review and improve thinking. And better thinking always yields better results.

 

Is there scope for developing such models for your idea, program, or project?

I would be interested in knowing the context in which you developed your model.

Allen Black - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Allen Black

Practice Leader, Planning and Policy Analysis

Contact

Allen Black, CMC, MBA, MSc, BEng{images1}
Senior Consultant
Practice Leader, Planning and Policy Analysis
Delta Partners Inc.
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
(613) 747-8121

About

A senior consultant with Delta Partners, Allen has successfully managed an assortment of projects in several Departments of the Government of Canada covering a range of issues in organizational management, project management, change management, and organizational development.
As a Business Planning and Policy Analyst, Allen has expertise in Scenario and Contingency Planning, Strategic Planning, Operational Planning, and Business System Planning.

Allen has been active in both the international and national consulting environment. His international experience stems from service with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan as the Deputy Strategic Planner to the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), providing support and advice to the Afghan Government and the international community, UN and non-governmental organizations.

Education

Royal Roads University
MBA, Executive Management
Diploma, Knowledge Management

Cranfield University
MSc, Defence Modeling and Simulation

The Royal Military College of Canada
BEng, Engineering and Management

Personal

Allen plays tennis.

Thought Leadership

Allen is a frequent contributor to the Delta Blog. Is posts include:

Bringing Deming to the Office: Break Down Barriers - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Bringing Deming to the Office: Break Down Barriers

This post is the third in a series of three by Phil Hawkins in which he looks at the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming.  In the first, Bringing the Factory to the Office: Applying Deming, he discussed the concepts of quality, process, and people. In the second, Bringing Deming to the Office: Drive Out Fear, he addressed the domain of personal communication. The final post in this series highlights the need for a different view of organizational processes.

As I look through Deming's 14 points for management, I see items that are generally not reflected in representations of his work. The two that strike me immediately are numbers 8 and 9.  I find that these two are probably the least incorporated into common business practices.  We have already addressed number 8, and this post will discuss number 9:

“Break down barriers between departments.”

Unlike Point 8 this is straightforward, at least in concept. 

As with any corporate target – you put someone in charge of it.

What does it mean?

So what does it mean, to “break down barriers between departments”? 

It does not mean to destroy the ordered system of hierarchy in a functionally organized operation.  It means keeping whatever organizational model exists whilst acknowledging that work flows across departmental, and often divisional, boundaries. 

In most organizations no one is in charge of this flow across boundaries, thus no one measures it and no one reports on it - and it is vital in understanding the overall health of the business.

What's the problem?

We have seen earlier that a process is a way of getting people what they need to do their job.

Suppose what somebody needs is to be provided by someone from a different department or division, and for some reason they cannot or will not provide it when, and as, needed.

In today's functionally managed organizations, this issue must be escalated up through the management chain – with the arguments for and against becoming more and more unassailable along the way, until it reaches to the desk of the executive who controls both departments. Often, when faced with this obstacle, managers opt to do without the information they need from the other division.

{images1}In fact, in my experience, processes are frequently only defined within the scope of one middle manager - the path of least resistance - resulting in less than ideal performance of the company.

When functions are separately managed (for example, purchasing, accounting, and shipping) each one is usually driven independently to keep costs down, and reporting is generally done on that function throughout the company.

In this management system it is unlikely to be agreed that by increasing the costs by a small amount in one function can achieve great savings in the overall process. This is especially true if the manager/executive is paid on a cost target.

The solution.

To remedy this conflict, create the role sometimes called an “interface manager”. The person in this role is the one called upon to resolve inter-departmental issues, and is in the unique position of being able to evaluate the effectiveness of any process across the breadth of the company.

He or she ideally must see that the process runs well and is measured and reported on in a way that reveals the health of the business.  Having this role in an organization greatly reduces the time and stress of resolving inter departmental/divisional issues.

Management benefits.

This is not a simple “trouble shooter” role.  From this vantage point the person in this position can evaluate the function of the entire company at the process level – not even the CEO can do this.  A cross company evaluation only ever happens at the CEO level, but this is usually summarized by function. 

A person with a process view is in a position to evaluate quality - efficiency and effectiveness - across the company, and can give input on departmental and divisional budgeting and targets.  The person appointed to this role must be of sufficient standing in the company to be able to negotiate such changes.

Employee benefits.

Employees are given the freedom to talk to their internal (and sometimes external) customers and suppliers and define the processes that best meet their quality and productivity targets.  They have a much shorter (and less stressful) escalation path should they be unable to resolve interface issues themselves. 

Remember, a process diagram is at best a representation of specific human interactions that must take place for the business to be effective.

Bottom Line.

Develop the ability to view your organization as a group of processes.  Many organizations know the cost of individual functions, but few can show the cost of a company-wide process. 

Growth comes from shifting to a new paradigm when the old one is exhausted, and we are already experts at managing by function.  This paradigm does not have much new to offer us.

The process paradigm, by contrast, is relatively unknown and offers much in terms of new discoveries and ways of looking at our businesses. 

Having said that, this new paradigm will not reveal its secrets so long as process definition is viewed as an academic exercise, or worse, is “downloaded” to the IT department.

A Roadside Guide to Innovation for Human Resources Practitioners - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

A Roadside Guide to Innovation for Human Resources Practitioners

Let’s face it, the ability to offer many choices to meet as many individual needs as possible, whatever the situation, is a popular notion.  This applies to more than just the shampoo section of your corner drugstore.  

There is something special that comes from knowing someone cares enough to provide a choice that is made to fit your particular need. It builds confidence, strengthens relationships, and promises better results.

Provide Choice

Bringing more choices to the way a workforce can be managed is therefore important. It calls for innovative practices that can bring the work of human resources practitioners to a very different place. To human resources practitioners, innovation often means:

  • inventing new processes to find, hire, keep, train and promote employees;
  • filling the “tool box” with solutions that will make processes faster, easier, cheaper, lighter, smarter, simpler, and produce glowing results;
  • applying processes to make them less intrusive, more intuitive, modern, and inviting.

Significant Challenges

Finding ways to bring innovation to a practice built on tectonic plates of “fairness”, “merit” and “equity” is not for the faint of heart. Modernizing a human resources management regime in the face of such massive commitments offers a unique set of challenges, such as:

  • All innovative processes must live within a host of regulations, collective agreements, precedents, laws and directives – and more are added each year.
  • New processes must feature “fail safe” mechanisms that make it easy to follow rules and know when things go wrong.
  • {images1}Leaders must agree on new innovative processes in human resources management as they are often called upon to explain them.
  • Employees, unions, internal staff functions (finance, information technology) and regulatory agencies need to be consulted to verify that the innovation can be done and is compliant;
  • All who will be affected need to be well informed of the benefit of the innovation to best create a will to put it in place.

The Guide

When all is said and done, creating a process for innovation remains of great interest to the adventurous brave hearts from our human resources communities – especially those who have peered into the eyes of resistance and brought cloud capped goals down to their knees.

Here is a roadside guide to creating innovation in human resources:

Phase I: At the Executive Table

  1. Investigate: Find what drives innovation and what doesn’t in your organization.
  2. Explore: List what can be done to strengthen that which promotes innovation and weaken what doesn’t.
  3. Engage: Tell your leadership team what will make it easier to innovate within your organization.
  4. Promote: Find a leader who will champion innovative practices in your organization.
  5. Sustain: Create a team of leaders who will evaluate and oversee the innovative practices and the results that spin out.

Phase II: At the HR Workbench

Understand: Go over the strategic goals of your organization to identify why you need to innovate.

  1. Link: Choose areas that you would like to work on that will contribute most to the achievement of your organization’s strategic goals.
  2. Plan: Identify resources, competencies, boundaries, information, accountabilities, and time needed to work on selected items.
  3. Organize: Develop terms of reference for your innovation team(s).
  4. Report: Identify how you will know if the team(s) is doing well.
  5. Equip: Set up, coach and train team members to achieve their mandate.
  6. Motivate: Reward and recognize teams and members.
  7. Implement: Arrange smooth hand off and transfer of knowledge from innovation team(s) to implementation team(s).

 

This post was inspired by Innovative Intelligence, a book written by David S. Weiss and Claude Legrand, and purchased at the annual Human Resources Association Conference held in Toronto in February, 2011.

Leadership vs Management: Are You Numb from the Debate? (Part 2) - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Leadership vs Management: Are You Numb from the Debate? (Part 2)

How can you think and hit at the same time?

      - Yogi Berra
 

Part One of this two-part series assumed a more provocative stance on the leadership definition debate, leaving it to you, the reader, to initiate a process of reflection and inquiry. And my promise holds: there will be no definitions of leadership in this series, just a lot of questions, supplemented by the eclectic views of some renowned thinkers.

Who is a Leader?

Here are a few questions to ponder in your own context (organization or community):

Who is a leader in my organization?

Is leadership specific to management positions?

Or is leadership seen by senior management as more inclusive among employees?

These are important question to ask because, once answered, they help create a common vocabulary and set of expectations in the organization on how leadership is perceived and practiced.

But that’s only half the story.

What about management?

A sampling of prominent thinkers regarding their perceptions of management and leadership reveals a great deal of insight. The result is perhaps a rough consensus, but certainly not a definitive conclusion to the debate.

First up, the 20th Century’s greatest management thinker, the late Peter Drucker.

Drucker didn’t believe that management and leadership could be separated into two discrete entities. As he once explained:  “[It’s]…nonsense -as much nonsense as separating management from entrepreneurship. Those are part and parcel of the same job. They are different to be sure, but only as different as the right hand from the left or the nose from the mouth. They belong to the same body.”

{images1}Management guru John Kotter views the relationship between leadership and management as “…two distinctive and complementary systems of action.” Although each field has its own unique characteristics and functions, both are essential for managers if they’re to operate successfully in complex organizations that are subject to continuous change. Focusing on leadership development may produce strong leaders, but the consequence will be weak management. The converse is true. The challenge, therefore, is how to combine strong leadership and strong management so that there’s balance.

A third perspective comes from brilliant thinker (and contrarian) Henry Mintzberg, whose empirical research into the work of managers began in the early 1970s and which has continued. Mintzberg stated in an interview with CBC Radio many years ago that managers “…sit between their organizations and the outside world….they manage information in order to encourage people to take action.”

Where does leadership fit, therefore, in the context of an organization? The long lists of attributes of leaders prompted Mintzberg to reply: “…Superman’s abilities are modest in comparison. We list everything imaginable.” In his opinion, good leaders are candid, open, honest, and share information with people.

We Know It When We See it

When we enter an organization that’s functioning well, where effective management and leadership practices abound, we’re able to sense it. Call it the “smell of the place.” Or in reference to Part One, “I know it when I see it.”

It becomes very apparent in this type of organizational climate that there’s abundant energy present, and that this energy is focused. People enjoy going to work every day because they understand where they fit into the organization’s vision and what their roles and responsibilities are. They’re committed.

Weaving It Together

The challenge, then, is how to weave together the roles of management and leadership so they form an integrated whole - especially in terms of achieving results by people. This leads to a discussion of the key distinctions and complementarities between management and leadership.

Managers have to cope with growing complexity when it comes to understanding the outside world and the effects on their organizations. In the absence of good management practices organizations can fall into chaos - which in turn threatens their survival. You can argue that management brings order to organizations and consistency to their products and services.

In contrast, leadership involves coping with change. In a world experiencing economic and societal turbulence, this key aspect of leadership is becoming increasingly valuable to organizations.

Complexity and Change

These two features - coping with complexity and change - shape the functions of management and leadership. This results in three real world tasks that are essential for managers.

  • First, they must determine the work that needs to be done by employees.
  • Second, to accomplish this work people must work laterally, often forming networks. Managers are conduits to ensure that this occurs.
  • And third, they must ensure that work gets done properly and on time.

Management and leadership must address these tasks; however, they approach them from different perspectives:

Planning

Planning, budgeting and resource allocation are activities initiated through the management function in an effort to address the issue of complexity. As a management process, planning is about producing orderly results, not about change.

Leadership, on the other hand, involves creating a vision to chart a course for the organization. As part of this process, strategies are developed to initiate and sustain the needed changes to stay focused on the vision. How this is done is critical to helping move an organization toward its vision.

Organizing

To reach its goals, management organizes and hires. This involves creating an organizational structure, including a set of job descriptions (or roles), that will enable the organization to achieve these goals. Through this process of organizing and staffing, management develops delegation authorities and monitoring systems. It also creates communication plans to ensure that employees understand what is taking place.

However, the management function needs the opposing hand of leadership to assist it, namely in aligning people. Communication becomes a critical activity here, especially in regard to ensuring that all employees understand the vision.

Controlling

Management must also ensure that the plan is achieved, and it is does this through controlling and problem-solving. Monitoring plays an important role here. In contrast, leadership requires that people are motivated and inspired to work toward a vision, despite setbacks and unforeseen problems.

So what does all of this mean for management and leadership?

Management and leadership possess distinct differences, but also a complementarity that is yet to be fully debated, recognized, and put into practice.

The growth in knowledge work and the expectations of workers (Generation Y in particular) are strongly influencing how both leadership and management are practiced. Unfortunately, it’s almost as if the two are on separate tracks.

Work still needs to be planned, organized, directed, coordinated, monitored, etc. The context, however, is changing rapidly, both from an external world and from within organizations (e.g., the values people possess and what motivates and inspires them).

How organizations approach management and leadership development is critical to their eventual success, if not their long-term survival.  And if these organizations are going to succeed (or survive), one of the first questions that must be asked is:

How do we define leadership - and management - in our organization?

 

All generalizations, including this one, are false.

     - Mark Twain

Leadership vs Management: Are You Numb from the Debate? (Part 1) - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Leadership vs Management: Are You Numb from the Debate? (Part 1)

If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

   - Yogi Berra

I’ve been a student of leadership for some 20 years and am fascinated by viewing it through different lenses: business leadership, political leadership, historical events, geo-politics, and grassroots leadership.

What prompted this post was a recent interview on CBC Radio with retired Chief of Defense Staff, Rick Hillier. As with most who have served in top echelon positions–whether in business or government–when asked about leadership, the response is often an off-the-cuff definition of what leadership is. Hillier, who has written books on the subject since retiring, offered his own definition.

I can’t recall his definition.

In One Ear, Out the Other

To be honest it went in one ear and out the other. I’ve grown almost numb to the steady stream of definitions of leadership that abound in books, periodicals, and the media as a whole.

I then decided to Google a few search phrases, and received the following:

“Definition of leadership” - 73,700,000 results

“Definition of management” - 198,000,000 results

“Leadership versus management” - 26,400,000 results

I decided it was time to stop Googling and do some writing.

Undermanaged and Over-Led{images1}

You won’t find a definition of leadership or management in this two-part series, because my aim is to provoke reflection and inquiry.

Indeed, one issue intertwined with the definition debate is that of leadership versus management as functions: are they distinct or complementary?

To assist your reflection, I’ll provide a few perspectives from some respected thinkers and practitioners in the field.

As a start, Henry Mintzberg (McGill University) argues that organizations have been “undermanaged and over-led.” Now there’s something on which to think. (We’ll return to Mintzberg in Part Two).

We Know It When We See It

Our ongoing love affair with leadership as a topic is somewhat perplexing. Its pervasiveness extends from community meetings to corporate boardrooms to national politics to military campaigns. Our hunger for clarity in a sea of world turmoil and unpredictability forces us to look to those we perceive as having the answers.  Along the way, we engage in conversations and debates on just what our personal views or definitions of leadership are.

U.S. Justice Potter Stewart’s well quoted remark from a 1964 court case dealing with censorship in the movie industry (on “hard-core pornography… I know it when I see it”) has the parallel for effective leadership: we know it when we see it.

Nailing Jell-O to the Wall

Trying to establish a definitive definition of leadership is impossible.

Even attempting to create a generally accepted definition is more difficult than nailing Jell-O to the wall.

And that leaves us with what’s becoming a largely redundant conceptual debate, when what really needs to be explored is the inter-relationship between leadership and management - the latter of which has become the poor cousin as we contend with operating in an increasingly chaotic global environment.

 

In Part Two of this series we’ll look at what some of the big thinkers have been saying on leadership and management: their distinct aspects and complementarities.

Curiosity did not kill this cat.

   - Studs Terkel

Managers, it’s Time for an Easter Egg Hunt - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Managers, it’s Time for an Easter Egg Hunt

I have two kids.

They love kid things – colouring, bikes, skating, dolls, birthday parties, video games, dancing, hockey, braids. All the usual stuff. And they really love holiday celebrations, with the Easter egg hunt coming in very near the top of the list.

It has always been fun for my wife and I to set up the hunt. We’re plastic egg people. I know, it’s not traditional - yes, we have a fake Christmas tree too - but it’s convenient and let’s us mix things up with the treats.

But here’s the deal. As the kids get older, setting up the hunt gets more and more challenging. Parents, you know what I’m talking about.

When they were 3 years old, we would just walk around the yard and put plastic eggs down wherever we felt like it. Everything was out in the open and easy to spot. Yet they still would not see all of the brightly coloured eggs. Why? They would just walk around, head down, staring at the ground in front of wherever their body ended up pointing. Egg was a foot off the ground sitting on a swing? Couldn’t see it – it wasn’t where their attention was focussed.

But with time and the hard-won experience of multiple Easter adventures, they learned to take in more of their environment. Perhaps the eggs were above the ground, maybe even above their heads – higher than they could reach without climbing. They realized that Mom & Dad even put eggs in places that they couldn’t find without making an effort to get to places where they had never been before.

Now we have to work to find places that are challenging for our little bloodhounds to find. Why bother? It’s not as fun when it’s easy.

The Peter Principle – not Peter Cottontail

{images1}As a manager, time and experience have the same effect on you.

As so often happens, The Peter Principle placed me in a manager’s position before I had acquired the emotional maturity and life experience needed to be really effective at leading a group of humans toward a common goal.

I was so inexperienced that I just couldn’t see some serious problems that were right there in front of me – out in the open. They may as well have been trapped in a big pink egg and sitting on a swing seat. I was focussed on the ground in front of me.

But I didn’t get fired, and time and hard-won experience led to some inevitable growth. I learned to sit back, relax, and scan the environment with a practiced eye. And, eventually, I could pick out those bits of colour where there shouldn’t be any.

Still, I didn’t grow into a real and effective leader for my team and manager for my department until I got off of my seat, out of my office, and started looking in the places where I had never been before. It wasn’t easy. Sometimes it was scary to go into those places. But eventually – like everything that is worthwhile – I struggled through and I learned.

It’s Time for Your Easter Egg Hunt

Here’s my challenge to you as we head into the egg hunting season – get off of your seat, out of your office, and go looking in those uncomfortable places where the real challenges and problems for your team will be found.

  • We have been trained to provide consistent and clear feedback to our direct reports. When is the last time that you asked for their feedback on your performance? Do you think that they will feel confident and secure enough to provide you with honest feedback? There’s a nice, cozy dark place to start in. Nothing like a little dose of self-awareness to rattle our assumptions.
  • Do you know the short and long term goals of each of your staff? Have you ever asked this question and given sufficient time, space, and – most important – attention to allow the individual to develop a comprehensive answer? Do they have learning and development plans in place to support these goals?
  • Do you understand the preferred working and communication style of each of your team members? Are your team members clear on your preferred working and communication styles? Are you aware of the importance of generational differences in these preferences?
  • Do your employees believe that you “have their back”? When trouble appears do they feel like they are on their own, or are they part of team that pulls together and has a leader that will work for the greater good of the team - not for his/her own personal benefit?
  • Does your team trust you? How can you be sure?

There are many more challenges that could be added to this list. The point is, you’ll never know if you don’t search.

The answers won’t be in plastic eggs sitting out in the open – they’ll be difficult to find. But that’s ok, it’s not as fun when it’s easy.

How Resilient Is Your Organization? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

How Resilient Is Your Organization?

In response to last year’s H1N1 crisis, I posted a blog suggesting it would be timely for organizations to consider a strategic planning exercise aimed at developing contingency plans that could be quickly implemented to ensure continuity in their operations should such a crisis eventuate. Without such plans, organizations would be left scrambling in panic mode rather than responding in a calm and effective manner.

Planning for Today’s Threats

Events since then have made it quite clear that things happen beyond flu epidemics that we need to plan for.

At one end of the spectrum this might include an earthquake, tsunami, another ice storm, or other unexpected act of nature – while the other end of the spectrum might include local terrorist activity.

During the past few years, planners have found that they need new tools to help them take into account the possibility that a disaster as described might, in fact, happen. These tools are crucial in helping them think through the competencies and capabilities needed that would help mitigate the impact of these uncertainties.

Scenario Planning

Scenario planning is one such tool, and is being used by an increasing number of planners.

Scenario planning is "a systematic approach for imagining alternative futures, each of which is plausible but not assured." Scenario planning helps organizations "practice the future" by imagining a series of events that lead to alternative futures.

{images1}This approach allows the planners to consider the options they would have for the organization's strategic positioning or their influence on key events.

In addition, leaders can identify "trigger points" for each scenario. These are indicators that their business plan is moving toward, or away from, a specific goal, and that the need to protect business operations during a disaster is paramount.

Scenarios are not plans. They are simply vehicles to stimulate discussion:

  • regarding the organization's assumptions about the future;
  • that can open leaders' minds to new possibilities about how the future may unfold;
  • that will assist the organization in articulating its strategic intent and preferred stance;
  • and will force participants to acknowledge the risks and uncertainties of the future.

Different from Traditional Planning

Scenario planning is not a substitute for current planning approaches. Instead, it is a tool that can complement the traditional planning cycle.

Scenario planning differs from traditional planning in many ways. Traditional strategic planning often focused on one likely future environment, ignoring the uncertainties that can occur as a result of unpredictable events. When this one future fails to materialize, many organizations' strategic plans lead to financial disaster and subsequently are abandoned.

Contingency Planning Is a Business Issue

Planning for disasters - contingency planning - is but one future that can be developed in a scenario planning exercise. The primary objective of a disaster recovery contingency plan is to enable an organization to survive a disaster and to re-establish normal business operations.

In order to survive, the organization must assure that critical operations can resume normal functioning within a reasonable time frame. The goals of a disaster recovery contingency plan should be to:

  • identify weaknesses and implement a disaster prevention program;
  • minimize the duration of a serious disruption to business operations;
  • facilitate effective co-ordination of recovery tasks; and,
  • reduce the complexity of the recovery effort.

One Approach

Proactive is always better than reactive.

As a first step, you should assess your own preparedness. Think about different approaches to ensuring continuity in critical operations, and explore the business case justification for investing in disaster preparedness and organizational resilience.

The methodology that we have used to develop a disaster contingency plan emphasizes the following key points:

  • Provide management with a comprehensive understanding of the total effort required to develop and maintain an effective recovery plan.
  • Obtain commitment from appropriate management to support and participate in the effort.
  • Define recovery requirements from the perspective of business functions.
  • Document the impact of an extended loss to operations and key business functions.
  • Focus appropriately on disaster prevention and impact minimization, as well as orderly recovery.
  • Suggest project teams that ensure the proper balance required for plan development.
  • Develop a contingency plan that is understandable, easy to use, and easy to maintain.
  • Define how contingency-planning considerations must be integrated into ongoing business planning in order for the plan to remain viable over time.

Plan Now or Pay Later

A proactive organization will complete Scenario and Contingency Analysis solutions to identify and monitor key trends, wildcard factors, predetermined events, and critical uncertainties.

This can be accomplished by:

  • using systems thinking and creativity to identify trends and events likely to influence the future of your organization;
  • exploring the cross impacts of the various trends or factors on your organization; and,
  • inventing scenarios to develop robust alternative strategies.

Scenario planning helps your decision-making with benefits that extend to:

  • Helping an organization keep an open mind.
  • Helping an organization embrace uncertainty and positive risk-taking.
  • Engaging staff in fruitful conversation.
  • Building commitment and performance through shared experience.

 

Have you used Scenario Planning as part of your organization’s planning activities? I would be very interested to hear about the experiences that others have had with this approach.

Anomie: Lost in a World of Constant Change - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Anomie: Lost in a World of Constant Change

Some time ago, in a paper describing the important distinction between organizational climate and culture, I used the term ‘anomie’ as one of the dysfunctional states of culture.  But, what is anomie and why should you care?  I would argue that some of the seemingly most intractable challenges facing today’s manager may be the result of anomie.

What is it?

Anomie is a state of normlessness – a condition in which there is an absence of  clear  societal norms or values that would guide the behaviour of  individuals and groups in order to achieve success.  This has been associated with rapid social change. 

It was first suggested as a sociological phenomenon in the late nineteenth century to explain, in part, the higher rates of suicide that accompanied the industrial revolution in parts of Europe.

And, it is a propos today because the current information revolution is, arguably, at least as socially disruptive as the industrial revolution was in transforming the entire social structure through the reorganization of work and capital formation.

Why should we care?

It is assumed that the ‘normal’ state of affairs is one of equilibrium at the macro level.

In this state of equilibrium, culturally sanctioned goals are aligned with the legitimate means of attaining them.  Another way of viewing this – if we follow the standard way of speaking, acting, and working within our own culture, then we have a reasonably good chance for success in life.

However, when fundamental changes occur that disrupt this relationship between meeting cultural expectations and success in life, then people are left unfulfilled and  generally unengaged.

On the large scale, the result may be a period where society at large must go through a time of learning and adjustment before coming back to a state of equilibrium.

Lost without a compass

{images1}The real problem is for individuals and particular groups.

Due to this state of normlessness and a sense of not knowing what to do, many are left behind – lost without a compass.  Because so many of the ‘rules’ that govern our behaviour are embedded deep within the culture, they are not accessible for rational debate – we’re screwed.

Use your Imagination

It helps if we can view our personal situation through the lens of a ‘sociological imagination’ (as described in the sociological literature classic by C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination).

How, for example, is the information revolution affecting you and your employees and co-workers? 

If, for example, you are a stock broker or travel agent, you are probably looking for a new career.  If you have lived long enough, as I have, you will have noticed that today’s expectations of you are markedly different from those into which you were born and which shaped your view of the world. 

How have you adjusted?

Managing in the Vortex

If you are a manager, whether in a business enterprise, government department or not-for-profit organization, you now have the additional responsibility of helping your employees cope with the impact of these social adjustments while maintaining functional work groups.

Not only must you manage change, but you must manage in a changing socio-economic environment that may have unseen consequences for the climate in which you are trying to do your job.  For example, how is the level of trust amongst your employees?  How buoyant is the morale?

I am not suggesting that anomie is the only cause of these problems.  However, it is a likely contributor at a time like the present, when global change is occurring at an unprecedented pace with consequences that are impossible to predict.

Implications for Change Management 

The malaise caused by a changing social environment can be multiplied in intensity where the organization is undergoing internal changes as well. 

However, the formal organizations where most of us participate – the businesses, governments, NGO’s, associations, and unions - these can continue to provide a ‘safe haven’ for the individual caught in the vortex of rapid societal change.  They can provide clear standards and norms for the behaviours and actions of the individual.  This can result in the development and/or maintenance of mutual trust between the organization and the individual.

My practical suggestion for anyone who is planning a workplace intervention would be to make sure that your communications acknowledge the sweeping changes that are taking place at a societal level and the impacts you expect that they might have within your workplace.

Managing in the Multi-generational Workplace

This general line of thinking also has a place in multi-generational workplace management.

In this case, the perspective of the twenty year old will differ markedly from that of the sixty year old. 

As always, mutual trust is built upon open dialogue. Always acknowledge and include in your communications the differing impact of life experiences associated with changes in the larger macro environment.  Avoiding this discussion will only serve to reinforce the differences between these groups and the magnitude of the impact that these large societal changes will have on them.

How are you doing?

I would invite interested readers to share their thoughts on this topic.  It might be particularly interesting to read some of your answers to the questions posed above.

  • How is the information revolution affecting you, your employees, and co-workers?
  • How, if at all, have you adjusted to changing expectations over the last fifty years or so?  You don’t really have to be over fifty years old to contemplate this if, for example, you are influenced by the expectations of your parents
  • How is the level of trust and morale amongst your employees?  Might this be influenced by uncertainty around expectations?

Post Script

It should be noted that the concept of anomie, like most sociological constructs, has generally failed as a rigorous ‘scientific’ explanation of social/cultural dysfunction. 

So, if this is the sole standard by which you judge the merit of an idea, it will not appeal to you.  However, the learning point in this would be to understand the sense in which the scientific standard is, itself, a culturally sanctioned set of ends and means.  You might ask yourself how well it is working for you.

Survivorteam! What it Takes to Get through the Tough Times - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Survivorteam! What it Takes to Get through the Tough Times

I just finished reading a book by “Survivorman” Les Stroud that my brother-in-law lent me. Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival succinctly recounts seven incredible ­­­­­­true stories of people surviving and attempting to survive through outrageously extreme conditions. Reading these stories - along with Stroud’s assessment of what contributed and detracted from their chances of survival - brought me to reflect on parallels with personal and organizational success in everyday life. What can these tales from the uttermost edges of experience teach us about how we lead our teams and ourselves in difficult times?

Assess the Situation Thoroughly and Impartially

What struck me first and foremost is that the most successful survivors made a realistic assessment of the situation very early, and shared that information with their companions. This may be one of the most challenging and critical differentiators.

How many of us, when confronted with information that is frightening or that goes against our most dearly held beliefs and desires, succumb to the tendency to minimize, deny, or ignore that information. We instinctively look for someone to blame (even if that person is oneself)?

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, studying the reactions of people with life-threatening illnesses, listed denial, bargaining, and anger as the most common early reactions.  Unfortunately, the most common reaction to bad news is not the reaction most likely to contribute to success.

{images1}Knowing this, it may be helpful for leaders to intentionally practice their responses in lower-stress situations. Simply notice when you have a reaction to information that you find unpleasant, the feelings that arise, and keep bringing yourself back to the facts at hand. The greater the emotional reaction you’re having, the more time you may need to slow down and assess the situation thoroughly. It takes great discipline and character to ingest distasteful information and its implications without spitting it out or pretending it’s something it isn’t. Don’t underestimate this. Practicing under lower-stress situations will help you respond more effectively when things get really hot.

Successful survivors didn’t hoard information either.  If they were with others, they shared information with their companions and helped them cope with it. This was true even for the two Robertson parents stranded in a raft on the Pacific Ocean with their three sons. The most effective survival leaders shared information as openly as possible, and helped others cope with the reality of the situation.

Encourage Yourself and Each Other

You might equate being realistic about a life-threatening situation with succumbing to despair, but in the extreme survival experiences that Stroud describes, this was not the case. Once these people came to terms with the reality of their situation, they were better able to plan a course of action and execute it.  Even when they knew the chance of success was small, they also knew it was the only chance they had.

Sometimes the action was to navigate across treacherous terrain: Antarctic glaciers and crevices; dense tropical jungle; or thousands of miles of open ocean. In other situations, the chosen course of action was to wait for rescue in formidable circumstances: a plane wreck in the Andes Mountains, or a poorly stocked ship trapped in the ice of the Arctic Ocean.

To give themselves the inner strength required to overcome these challenges, the most effective survivors said words of encouragement to themselves - and to their companions.

Yossi Ghinsberg, making his way through the Amazon jungle, kept repeating, “Man of action, man of action!” A Uruguayan soccer team clinging to the side of a mountain simply repeated to each other, “Survive!” Whatever slogan, words, or mantra choosen, people who survived extreme situations reminded themselves and each other of their will to live.

Many of us know the perils of a critical inner voice and negative self-talk. As Richard David Carson describes in Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simply Method for Getting out of Your Own Way, people often live with internal monsters that deride us and undermine our work and relationships. The first step in escaping is to notice that it is happening. When we recognize those corrosive messages, we can then choose a different response. Positive or supportive self-talk is one alternative. Again, we can make ourselves more effective in tough times by practicing in lower-stress situations.

Use Down Time to Clean, Repair, and Prepare

By continuing to re-assess the situation as it changed - or as new information became available - survivors continued to adjust their assessments and formulate new responses. Sometimes, due to weather or confinement, the only feasible response was to wait.

When one is exhausted from long hours, physical exertion, and food rationing, I could imagine that it would be tempting to distract oneself and let things slide. Survivors did take time to rest, but they also used down time to keep themselves and their living site as clean as possible; to maintain and repair equipment as well as possible; and to anticipate and prepare for what could lie ahead. If they were in confined situations where movement was difficult, some found ways to exercise their muscles and minds so that they lost as little strength as possible.

When tasked with a demanding project or dealing with multiple life challenges, we can sometimes be tempted to use any down time to simply distract ourselves – watch television, overeat or drink, or otherwise divert our attention from a difficult situation. The first thing neglected may be our physical health, followed the maintenance of our surroundings. The problem is that by neglecting these things, we are unintentionally increasing the risk of something going wrong; thereby compounding the difficulty of the situation.

There are definitely times for recreation, celebration, and vacation. When times are tough, we need to balance those with the objectives we are trying to achieve. Celebrating small victories encourages us to continue. Sometimes a recreational break replenishes people’s motivation and re-energizes their efforts. Too much, though, can distract us from the challenging task at hand.

Most importantly, when times are tough we need, as much as we are able, to attend to those things that maintain our health and well-being. And we should encourage our teams to do the same. Going for a run may seem frivolous when you have a deadline looming. Taking the time to put things away or do the dishes may seem like a hassle. But, in the long run, these are the things that will make it easier for you to succeed.

Survivors know that.

Bringing Deming to the Office: Drive Out Fear - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Bringing Deming to the Office: Drive Out Fear

This post is the second in a series of three by Phil Hawkins in which he looks at the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming.  In the first, Bringing the Factory to the Office: Applying Deming, he discussed the concepts of quality, process, and people.  In this piece Phil moves on to the domain of personal communication.

 

As I look through Deming's 14 points for management, I see items that are generally not reflected in descriptions - or implementations - of his work.

And where common business practices come into play, one of the most infrequently incorporated points is Number 8:

“Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.”

How did it get there?

Fear is generally caused in the following way:

People hear or see something - or hear about it - and they interpret what they see or hear as a reason to be fearful.  They will draw a conclusion, correctly or incorrectly.

The problem is that the fear is real even if the conclusion is inaccurate.

Fear of what?

So what are these fears?

Being fired, missing a pay raise, these are obvious. 

Having to work overtime.  Being thought less of if you leave early to pick up your kids.  Having to move to another city. The dreaded public speaking assignment.  Or just a feeling that you cannot complete the task.  The list is endless.

And there is no real way of knowing what it is that a person is afraid of or why he or she is afraid.

Sometimes the individuals themselves are unaware of the source of their unease.

To top it off, there is always the nagging thought that you, as their manager, might have inadvertently caused the fear. 

Talk

The only way to discover these fears and put them to rest?  Talk to people. 

It isn't always easy.  Managers get no training in this whatsoever. Generally, managers need a coach or a facilitator to keep things on an even keel when they start out on this path.  And I don't mean the kind of facilitator who has an agenda and a watch. I mean a facilitator who can spot potentially difficult areas and guide the conversation though them.  If you set out to talk to people with the aim of discovering and resolving people's fears, you need to be prepared to hear about your part in the whole business.

Listen

If we can't yet get to the source of these fears, what can we do to counteract them?

People want to contribute, and they want to know that their contribution is appreciated; they need to know they are a part of the team.  The easiest way to have people feel part of the team is to listen to them.  Believe it or not, the biggest influence in people feeling part of an operation is if they feel that they are listened to.

This is fairly simple, but not as easy as it sounds.

To truly listen you will need to get rid of some of your own inhibitions and prejudices - as you surely have them. 

That's not to say this is a bad thing, everybody has them, and often you are completely unaware of them.  These impediments to listening can come from as far back as your kindergarten, your family, your neighbourhood - the list, once again, is endless.

Acknowledge

To cut a long story short, the only way you can find out if you were truly listening is to ask the speaker.

Only if the speaker acknowledges that he or she feels that you listened to them can you know that you heard what they were saying. 

Often I have heard interactions in which one person said to another “I heard you”, yet somehow it didn't seem to appease the speaker. The speaker clearly did not feel listened to.  You can try it yourself - when you feel someone was not listening to you, think about how it feels.  There is actually a sensation in your body. To ensure communication, especially as a manager, often the best course is to ask rather than tell.

This will make meetings last longer.  There will not be answers to all questions.  They will have to be followed up later, but it is all worth it.  After a while the team will be more cohesive and actually require less direction.

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The structure of the organization in which you work can also have a profound impact on the quality of your communications.  A hierarchical structure is very good for top-down communication, but seems to resist communication in the other direction.  Bottom-up listening seems to be in very short supply.

Those who argue they don't have the time to listen to the people below them are missing the point.

You Can Transform Your Organization - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

You Can Transform Your Organization

I was talking with a business leader recently, and he was lamenting the lack of passion and energy at his organization. He said he wanted to create an engaged and dynamic workplace, and had brought his managers together to talk about it - all to no avail. He told me it was essential to his organization’s success to retain great talent and improve his employee relations, but he feared some of his people were so disengaged that they were looking for other positions outside his operation. He continued by saying he wanted to improve his bottom line and create a passion for success throughout his organization, but he had no idea where to go next.

Make the connection

I told him he could do all of those things with a few careful actions - but it would require getting all of his managers on board.

This is summary of what we discussed, based on my experience with transforming an organization from despondent and glum to passionate and engaged.

I told him, “It starts by making sure everyone in the organization knows, understands and realizes they really can bring about positive and lasting change, in fact, that leaders are counting on them to do so. But in order to do that they have to see how their job IS connected to the vision, mission, and values, and that showing up and making their best contribution makes a difference to the results."

Acknowledge the chasm

It’s been shown time and again that when senior people go on an off-site to re-evaluate and re-develop the mission, vision, and values of the company, the people back at the office are raising their eyebrows and muttering:

"What are they up to now?"

"What a waste of time."

"What difference will that make around here?"

The disconnect between the well-intentioned senior leaders who are off searching for the right words to express the mission, vision and values that will chart the course for the organization, and the employees who fill their corporate offices or shop floors, is not a gap - it’s a chasm.

Blow up the “Magic Kingdom”

{images1}Yes, your clients will be able to understand your corporate direction, as the information will appear on your web site and show up on corporate materials

Certainly, if they’ve done their homework, sales people pitching to your company will know what to focus on to reach your ears.

But your employees?

True, they will see the signs and read the words; after all, they are in the reception area, the boardrooms, and the meeting rooms.

But is that all that's wanted? Don’t leaders want the message to resonate with everyone so that the workplace takes on a new life and energy?

In most cases, the perception of the employees will be that their leaders were off in a fantasy land with no connection to the reality of their jobs.

It’s the leader's job to change that viewpoint - to bring the words to life – to them – to their jobs.

Connect the words

Most employees will never make the connection between those lofty words - even if they are expressed clearly, using simple, straightforward language - to their own jobs. In my experience employees will continue on in their tried-and-true pattern as if the executive retreat and the work of their leaders was of little consequence - as if none of it has any relevance to them.

The well-facilitated discussions and final decisions that led to beautifully prepared corporate signs that declare the Mission, Vision and Values will never propel the organization forward as intended.

The CEO could gather employees together to talk about what those words mean for the company and their department - that would be a good start. Drilling down, taking time, and opening up the communication lines to help employees understand how their job IS connected to the vision and mission must follow.

It’s essential to imbed the actions you expect from each individual into their personal annual performance plans, as this will result in behaviours that support the higher purpose of the organization.

The best results are achieved with a dedicated, strategic, and constant ripple-down process.

Forge the chain

Each vice-president or senior manager must talk about what the words mean with their managers; they have to ensure those managers know what’s expected of them and that they will be supported as they change past practices to align with the vision. The managers have to know their performance will be measured against that goal - that actions must follow and that they will be held accountable to make changes.

This strong message will help those same managers encourage others to focus and realign their work to meet the mission and vision. Typically this leads to staff meetings, animated discussions, and stronger action plans. It frequently leads to some confusion, perhaps a few disgruntled people, but there will certainly be passionate engagement. When you get employees talking about how they make a difference, they will find creative ways to improve.

There’s no doubt that when employees see the link from their job to the corporate mission and vision there is a heightened awareness of the impact of their actions. This in turn drives more effective and meaningful performance reviews, less absenteeism, higher retention, improved engagement, and a stronger bottom line.

The missing pieces in many organizations are those links that make up the chain from top to bottom.

Create resonance

Words agonized over at retreats - and finally placed on plaques - must mean something to the employees. Naturally those words resonate with the people who created them, so taking the next steps to making them resonate with the rest of the organization must follow if they are to have the intended impact.

So, next time you glance at those carefully crafted words, pause to ask yourself, “Did we take the steps to help our employees see that those words really do mean something for them?

PRINCE2 vs PMBOK: Comparing Apples and Oranges - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

PRINCE2 vs PMBOK: Comparing Apples and Oranges

Most people have a passing understanding of the PMP credential.  This acronym is shorthand for “Project Management Professional”, and indicates that the individual has passed a certifying exam that indicates expertise in the principles of project management as identified in the PMBOK.  However, many people are beginning to hear about PRINCE2 as “yet another” project management certification, and are wondering if it’s worth their energy to find out more about it.

If you haven’t already heard of PRINCE2, then it’s definitely about time you had. PRINCE2 is rapidly spreading across the world - with the number of PRINCE2 Practitioners likely to overtake the number of PMBOK trained people in the near future.

PRINCE2 is even penetrating the Canadian workforce as both private and public sector organizations alike are filling PRINCE2 training courses with their employees.

GoC managers should also note that PRINCE2 is aligned with Treasury Board of Canada’s project management standards and the new Policy on Project Management that is targeted for full government-wide implementation by April 2012.

So what is PRINCE2 exactly and how does it compare to PMBOK?

PMBOK originated in the US and PRINCE2 was created by the UK government. Many Project Managers (PMs) in the UK have heard of PMBOK and some PMs in North America have heard of PRINCE2, yet most of these PMs do not know exactly what either PRINCE2 or PMBOK are. Many people have assumed that PRINCE2 and PMBOK are alternative approaches to project management - competitors fighting for numbers of trained and accredited PMs. But are they really? Absolutely not.

In fact, they are complementary and can be paired to improve how you manage your projects.

PMBOK = The Project Management Body of Knowledge

PRINCE2 =  PRojects  IN a Controlled Environment (PRINCE2)

  • a process-based project management methodology  based on 7 Principles, 7 Themes, and 7 Processes
  • a non-proprietary standard used by the UK Government and supported by the APM Group
  • offers three guides
    • Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2  (if you are working on projects daily)
    • Directing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (if you are directing or sponsoring a project)
    • Executive Guide to Directing Projects within a PRINCE2 and MSP Environment (if you found the Directing guide too long – it’s ½ the size)
  • what every PM should do

In short, PRINCE2 and PMBOK are not conflicting or competitive or mutually exclusive.  PMBOK’s strength is in teaching the knowledge base of the project management profession while PRINCE2’s is in setting out a standard approach to running a project.  Both PRINCE2 and PMBOK fall short of doing both of these to the same degree. In this sense they are complementary and should and can be used as such; PRINCE2 as a supplement to the body of knowledge and the PMBOK as a knowledge base upon which to implement PRINCE2 - all the while tailoring your approach to the size, type and complexity of the project, and any existing organizational project management methodology.

How can PRINCE2 complement your PM knowledge?

If you have taken a project management course(s), studied the PMBOK Guide, and maybe have even obtained your PMP designation, yet still ask yourself, “how do I now apply this PM knowledge I’ve obtained to run a project,” then PRINCE2 may be for you. Although PMBOK provides you with a depth and breadth of knowledge, PRINCE2 can provide you with clear processes.

{images1}PM’s have you ever wished that:

  • You were allowed to manage?
  • You knew exactly what Executives and key stakeholders were responsible for?
  • You had fewer status/steering committee meetings?
  • There was more wiggle room in the project plan?
  • The viability of the project was periodically reviewed and challenged?
  • QUALITY was defined in detail, documented and built into the project plan?
  • You had a complete set of document and report templates which include definitions of what should be in them & where the information comes from?

PRINCE2 is:

  • Methodology and a standard approach
  • Generic – can be used for any type of project
  • Process-based, product-focused, and business case justified
  • Prescriptive yet flexible - adaptable and should be tailored
  • International – used in more than 59 countries
  • Breaks down planning into Project Plan, Stage Plans, and Team Plans (easier planning and better control)
  • Defines project management team roles (10 in total): Project Executive, Senior User, Senior Supplier, PM, etc.
  • Not as comprehensive as the PMBOK, but based on the principles of the PMBOK and tells you how to apply PMBOK concepts in projects
  • Assumes that you have the PM Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and experience to fill in what PRINCE2 does not cover

PRINCE2 is not:

  • Detailed Techniques (except for Product-Based Planning and the Quality Review technique)
  • Specialist aspects (ie. it addresses the general project, not a financial or construction project)
  • Procurement
  • Project Human Resources Management, staff acquisition, team development
  • Soft Skills – Leadership capability

You won’t find any discussion of Earned Value or Critical Path Analysis in PRINCE2. Instead, PRINCE2 suggests that you must choose the techniques that are suitable for your project.

The Benefits of using PRINCE2:

  • You are using best practices – PRINCE2 has been in use for over 20 years in the management of thousands of projects
  • You can use it for any and all of your projects – from the smallest to the largest
  • You will have a clear structure and understanding of roles and accountability
  • You (PM) know which project issues you can handle and which need to be brought to higher management’s attention because you will be MANAGING BY EXCEPTION
  • You know when a project is no longer viable and should be killed – Continuous Business Case Justification
  • You know which reports and documents you need to produce, and what they should contain – 33 Management Product templates in Appendix A, Managing Succesful Projects with PRINCE2 (Project Brief, Business Case, Project Plan, Highlight Reports, End Stage Report, Product Description...)
  • You actively engage in continuous improvement and learning through the on-going use of the Lessons Log

So how do you implement PRINCE2?

  • Obtain senior management buy-in
  • Train project staff – from sponsors down through team members
  • Review existing business processes and PM methodology to see how they can be married to PRINCE2
  • And if needed, use external consulting support to draw on their experience and in-depth knowledge of PRINCE2 and how to best implement

You can’t compare apples and oranges...

In my opinion, you can’t pit process-based PRINCE2 against knowledge-based PMBOK as you need both knowledge and processes to successfully manage projects.

So why not think of PRINCE2 as another tool to add to your toolkit; read the PRINCE2 manual, or take a course and become accredited.  But all the while be thinking about how you can blend the two to create the best possible outcomes for your projects.

For more information on PRINCE2:

Which elements of PRINCE2 do you always apply to your projects – the concept of the Project Board and management by exception, business-case based decision making, product-based planning, quality reviews?

Debra Sunohara holds a Master’s Certificate in Project Management (though she still hasn’t taken the time to sit for the PMP exam!) and is a Certified PRINCE2 Practitioner.

Project Management as a Management Tool - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Project Management as a Management Tool

When most managers talk about project management it’s normally associated with a major event like a building construction project or a new business system design. These projects require a high level of project management expertise such as those acquired through a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) designation.  And there are, of course, times when a depth of knowledge and years of experience can prove critical to the ultimate success of the project.

The Bad News

Unfortunately for many of us, when we have been exposed to project management training, we are quickly overwhelmed with impenetrable technical jargon and a multitude of tools and templates to properly “do” project management.  We spend our study time searching for a PMBOK Rosetta Stone!

Therefore, many managers overlook the value of integrating the basic principles of good project management into their work environment:

  • setting measurable objectives;
  • developing a work plan;
  • tracking and communicating progress against milestones;
  • and evaluating results.

These steps are all directly related to an effective employee performance and/or work management process.

The Good News

You can successfully manage a project without being an expert on the subtleties of project management (PM) - you just need some basic tools and procedures, and the confidence to apply them properly. You need to build your PM toolbox.

Do I need Project Management training?

If any of these apply to you, then you probably need some project management training:

  • You’ve just been assigned a project and do not know how to start.
  • You’ve been chosen as the project sponsor and don’t know what you should expect from your project manager.
  • Your projects are often falling off track.
  • You don’t know if your projects are on track or not.
  • You have too many projects on your to-do-list and don’t know how to prioritize them.

All that you may need is a one-day workshop designed for the business person that will lead you through the project process from initiation to closure.

There are many courses and training tools available to anyone who is interested in developing this skill set.  And, these development activities provide an excellent example for those who are looking to implement the Public Service renewal objective of moving learning closer to the workplace.

A Dash of Discipline

The point of adopting project management discipline in the work environment?

It allows managers to:

  • effectively communicate what is required;
  • emphasize the behaviours expected of employees;
  • identify the competencies employees need to develop.

These PM abilities can be applied easily and will develop naturally as experience is acquired.

Project management may seem complex when you’re starting out. But - after a little practice - you will likely come to realize that it is really about common sense salted with a dash of discipline.

PM is People!

Maybe you have had experiences working with professional project managers who have turned you off by focusing too much on tools and techniques, and not enough on the “people” side of project management.

PM is, after all, about working effectively with people. Once you have learned its fundamental principles, you can adapt your approach to any size, type, or complexity of project.

But at its core, PM provides a framework for effective communication between people – and this is a capability that every successful manager requires.

Creating Order and Meaning During Organizational Chaos: Fall and Rise of the Learning Organization - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Creating Order and Meaning During Organizational Chaos: Fall and Rise of the Learning Organization

Delta Partners is proud to announce its second ebook: Creating Order and Meaning During Organizational Chaos: The Fall and Rise of the Learning Organization.

This book provides a unique view of the many challenges faced by the managers and leaders in today's organizations. The accelerating pace of technical change, coupled with the radical globalization of markets and logistical supply chains, result in an environment that is far more chaotic and unsettled than any we have faced before. This is going to require that a great many people rethink their approach to leading in the new century. I hope that it challenges you and eliminates the thinking that "business as usual" is a viable alternative.

-Alcide DeGagné

The Learning Organization.{images1}

Most of us have become well acquainted with this much used - and misused - expression. Many organizations adopt such labels as the Learning Organization, Lifelong Learning, and Continuous Learning. Are they living up to their claims?

This new ebook will stimulate your thinking on learning in the context of organizational turbulence and the impact it is having on people. It draws on the ideas of such notable thinkers and writers as Margaret Wheatley, Peter Block, Angeles Arrien and Peter Senge.

There has never been a greater need for the emergence of a learning (or thinking) culture in organizations, whether in the private or public sectors. The increasing rapidity of change - with the growing demands on management and staff to perform at higher levels with diminishing resources - demands that business be conducted differently. Competition over the past decade from emerging economies has accelerated, placing a greater premium on creativity and innovation.

This e-book will have earned its value if it helps to propel you, the reader, forward through reflections on learning experiences in both your personal and professional lives. If you are in a leadership position, it provides an opportunity for self-examination of your role as champion and advocate for your followers.

After all, leaders must not only question existing work processes and explore new concepts, they must encourage and expect that their staff do so as well.

Creating Order and Meaning During Organizational Chaos: Fall and Rise of the Learning Organization - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Creating Order and Meaning During Organizational Chaos: Fall and Rise of the Learning Organization

A second eBook from Delta Partners consulting associate, Jim Taggart, in which he explores the concept of the Learning Organization against the backdrop of chaos and turmoil that impacts so many organizations in the early years of the 21st century.

Jim describes the culture and climate that is necessary for both organizations and individuals to maximize their capacity to "think" and engage in a continuous learning process.

Project Management: Are you RACI? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Project Management: Are you RACI?

In some of our previous posts we’ve been looking at a number of tools and skills managers should include in their tool kit including SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, the “Org Chart”, PICO,  delegating, business case development, successful project launch, checklists, and how not to waste time in meetings.

In this post I would like to introduce those of you not already familiar with it to the RACI.  It is one tool that I believe all managers and project managers alike must have in their back pocket for those times when you need a really straightforward communication and planning tool that can be used to identify and communicate roles and responsibilities in any process/change management/project or initiative.

RACI stands for ...

Responsible – performs the activity/does the work

Accountable – ultimately accountable – has YES/NO veto

Consulted – contributes to the activity and needs feedback

Informed – needs to be kept in the loop – know decision or action

RACI, RASCI, RAM, RAMI....

Call it what you like  - it doesn’t really matter as long as you use one!

Some people prefer to use the acronyms RASCI (“S” added for Support), RAM (Responsability Assignment Matrix) or RAMI,  but regardless of the acronym, we are talking about the same simple, practical and efficient communication and project planning tool.

The RACI is a matrix in which you include tasks or activities in the vertical column against resources in the horizontal axis.

{images1}

The RACI is a:

  • Communication tool - a form of checklist/simple project plan that keeps everyone in the loop and on the same page. It should ensure that everyone on the team has the same information and shares a common understanding of who is going to do what and who is responsible for what.
  • Record of decisions including tasks, roles, and responsibilities .
  • An excellent way to Confirm a common understanding of roles and responsibilities following a meeting  (get sign off).
  • Customizeable - add a column for deadlines, format, comments as suited to your needs.

Communication is never perfect. The strength of the RACI is its simple ability to communicate and confirm the message. You may think that everyone at the meeting understood and agreed to the same decisions/task assignments/expectations that you did, but until you put those in writing and receive confirmation that everyone shares your understanding and agrees with it - you are increasing the risk that the message they understood is not the message that was intended.

There are so many instances in day-to-day life where you might find a RACI useful; organizing your child’s hockey team party, planning a wedding or family reunion, any kind of committee work.

An everyday example where I use a RACI is to coordinate joint venture proposal submissions. It is already a challenge to put together large proposals when one company is involved, but a much greater feat when several companies are involved. The need to validate a shared understanding of the activities required, the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved, permissions required, and submission deadlines for various content pieces is essential to my ability to orchestrate the on-time creation of a quality proposal.

A RACI can also be a useful tool for:

  • Workload analysis and avoiding duplication
  • Re-organisation
  • New employee orientation
  • Conflict resolution
  • Stakeholder analysis and management – who are the key players?
  • Delegating
  • Managing processes
  • Decision making (documenting how decisions will be made)
  • Documenting the “as is” state of roles and responsibilities in an organisation

6 Steps to Building and Using a RACI

  1. Identify all of the tasks/activities/processes involved and list them in order of occurrence down the left-hand column.
  2. Identify all of the roles/participants/stakeholders/players/team members across the top row.
  3. Fill in the cells by assigning each an R, A, C, I (or other) for each process/activity/task
  4. Take a step back and ensure that you do not want to add additional information - that your team would not benefit from additional columns such as deadline dates, comments, reference docs, templates, etc. - this is where you customize.
  5. Date and number the version – send it to all listed in the RACI and request confirmation that they are in agreement.
  6. Update the RACI as needed and resend to all players with new version number and date.

3 Things to Remember When you Build a RACI:

  1. Only one person can have an “A” per activity – otherwise you introduce confusion as to who is ultimately accountable.
  2. Limit the number of “R”s per activity to avoid duplication of work.
  3. Always include a legend of what R, A, C, and I stand for

Another way to look at the use of a RACI is through a Demming lens; it is a way to build some plan-do-check-act quality into your work.

So managers, the next time you are feeling scared off by the thought of complex project plans but aware that you do need something to keep your small project on track, under control, and all of the stakeholders/team members informed and in the loop...then why not try a RACI?

Government of Canada Launches Open Data Portal - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada

Government of Canada Launches Open Data Portal

From the press release:

{images1}The Honourable Stockwell Day, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, today launched the pilot project for an online Open Data Portal.

"The Government of Canada is launching its Open Data Portal to make a large amount of data accessible through a single window," said Minister Day. "With this portal, application developers can reuse data for commercial or research purposes to benefit all Canadians in a variety of ways."

During public consultations on the digital economy strategy, Canadians called for open data to be made available in more usable and accessible formats.

"We want to continue to make Canada one of the best places to do business by ensuring that Canadian entrepreneurs, researchers, academics and voluntary organizations have access to government data in useful formats to help foster innovation, job creation and community services for Canadians," said Minister Day.

This pilot portal will make more than 260,000 datasets from the following ten participating departments available to all Canadians: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Citizenship and Immigration Canada; Environment Canada; Department of Finance Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Library and Archives Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Statistics Canada; Transport Canada and the Treasury Board Secretariat.

The Open Data Portal is available at www.data.gc.ca. The pilot phase will take place over a 12-month period, during which the government will continue to increase the number of datasets available to users.

Click here to read the full release.

Are your projects in trouble? - Delta Partners Management Consultants - Ottawa, Canada