Communities!

How does one build a community out of a large group of managers?

 

I am not talking of just setting up a body and asking them to meet in regular intervals. The members must feel they are a part of the community and they are invested in success/failure of community.

 

Well!  Over last few months we took our first steps towards creating a community of managers.

 

We have rallied leaders/managers around a common purpose. So relevance seems to be there.

 

There was high business involvement in creating community. Leaders and managers are actively involved in running community.

 

So basic design elements for a successful community - relevance and business ownership - seem to have been taken care of. This is getting manifested in predictable periodicity- community has determined frequency in which it meets and agenda items for their meetings.

 

 

So what next? What should be imperatives in remaining months?

 

A core managerial/leadership group has been involved in designing and launching the community.  How do we get even more managers invested in success of community? That surely is an upcoming agenda.

 

We have made decent progress in facilitating sessions. 

But I feel facilitator’s needs upskilling in facilitation skills. Additionally discussion need to be more conversational – this will ensure higher peer learning during sessions.. These two surely are focus areas for next few months.

 

I like the term go-dos. It's catchy and it brings in element of transfer of learnings to workplace. We have made go-dos a unit of conversation of this community. 

But how do we know whether these  go-dos are getting done? How do we enable community members to egg each other on in execution of go -dos?  Are go-dos actionable enough?  These are areas we could further look at.

Technology can play a role here. We can create a virtual community space where managers come together and exchange notes at regular intervals (how do we build consensus around frequency?) on progress against and further learnings from go-dos.

 

 

A related thought – manager community is a large group- consisting of around 90 managers.

‘Large group interventions’ is a separate field of study. I am not sure whether this means that I need to do different things for this community or do things differently. That's something I want to explore further too.

 

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Sourav

 

Employee Sessions!

Certain HR processes are periodic and predictable in their occurrence, e.g. - Training Need Identification, different steps of Performance process, etc.

Is there a need to communicate with employees when such predictable processes are underway?

I would contend yes! Even if there is no new message to provide or skill to develop, still there is a need to reinforce key message or make employees update their skills.

How do we communicate with employees when such predictable processes are underway? 

We could use low-context mechanisms, e.g.- mailers, emails.  While mailers can reach large populations at one go, it doesn´t guarantee participation or interest.  In fact, as a process owner you would not even know how many people read the mailers.

We could use high-context mechanisms, e.g. employee sessions/town halls/nukkad nataks (street plays). In these mechanisms, you would know participation rates and you can get a sense of what´s staying with the audience.

But, how do we know whether these employee sessions have worked or not?

I think there are a few things that need to be looked at:

·         What is targeted message for sessions? Were these delivered during session?

·         Who was target audience? What was participation rate of targeted audience?

·         Who should be delivering session? I think a joint business-HR facilitation for employee sessions on HR processes leaves a powerful message.   I have experienced such facilitation a number of times, and always it seems to drive involvement and powerful conversations within room.

·         By end of session, did audience understand & internalize the action items for them?

·         Were these actions actually worked upon post session? When it comes to behaviors, it´s not easy but also not impossible to measure.  We may not even have metrics but indicators (even qualitative) might do.

An effective employee session does a good job in all elements of pre- session communication, session design, choice of facilitator, facilitation skills, post session closure, and processes/interactions to support actioning at work place.

Does this sound similar to a training workshop design? Yes, it does in terms of process. Intent of employees sessions is awareness, understanding, learning, and committing to actions.

But I experienced designing and executing these sessions as being different from doing same for a training workshop. Have not been able to place my finger yet on what´s the difference though!

What´s been your experience with Employee Sessions? How would you figure out whether these sessions have worked or not?

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Sourav

360 Degree Processes!

Over last few months, I facilitated 360 degree feedback process for a few employees.  

They have now received feedback reports and have undergone report debriefing sessions. While some of them seem to have accepted feedback & sound committed to working on them, some other seem compliant & a bit skeptical.

I´ve been thinking - ´As a 360 degree process facilitator, what are things I should/should not focus on?´.

·        Why does an employee want to undergo a 360 degree process?  In this case, the manager had suggested process to employees. I realized employees were enthusiastic, neutral, or skeptical about undergoing process.  I wondered ´Did manager commit a mistake by asking his employees to undergo process? Can these conditions lead to ownership of development process by employee?´ I don´t think manager committed a mistake by suggesting/recommending process. Necessary condition is that the employee feels need for undergoing the process.  How we get to that state is immaterial.

·        When might it be useful for an employee to undergo a 360 degree process?  I think an employee might consider undergoing the process after s/he has spent reasonable time (probably about a year) in a 'new stakeholder network'. This new stakeholder network might arise out of a role change, change in external stakeholder groups, etc.

·        What is feedback used for? If feedback will be used for performance/career decisions, then state it so. If it used for development decisions, then state it so. In either case, follow principle in letter and spirit. 360 degree process becomes dysfunctional when there is divergence between stated intent and actual practice. In previous case, an employee works on feedback because his career is at stake. In later case s/he works on feedback because s/he feels ownership for what´s expressed. Later case is preferred (there would be less ´forced performance´) but either case can bring about movement.

·        Who do we take feedback from? Do we choose only those who are like us (& hence might like us)? Are we willing to take risk to reach out to those who may be neutral about us too?

·        How do we deal with feedback? One frame of reference to look at feedback from is 'How are our actions being interpreted/perceived?´. In this frame, how our actions are interpreted matters more than our actions. Do we have control on way our actions are interpreted? I am not sure of that. But I do think we need to take responsibility for way our actions are interpreted.  When we start thinking about our actions and intentions, defenses might rise up. Under such circumstance, accepting feedback and working on same becomes difficult.

·        An employee signed up for 360 degree process, got his report, and underwent debriefing session too. What next? Where does process go from here? I think it is about whether employee is creating a development plan that has buy in of his superior (where would resources come from?)and is committing to any actions around same.  If these two things are happening, feedback process is possibly producing its outcome.

Have you experienced a 360 degree process? How was your experience like? What works and what does not?

-

Sourav

A 'Concern'!

A few days back i received a call from a colleague. She said 'I was to facilitate a session beteween Leadership team and a group of individual contributors. But i might not be able to come to work tomorrow. Can you facilitate this session? I would help you prepare for it.'

I did agree and landed up facilitating this discussion between 2 Leadership Team members and a around 15 individual contributors.

There was a particular challenge/dynamic i faced during the discussion - 'When does one take up a 'concern expressed' for team/group/organizational level actioning?'

In the initial part of the discussion, I realized there were di-alogues happening in the room. One person was expressing a concern, while another person was responding to his/her concern. The concerns were being acknowledged, and many a times being taken up for actioning.

I found something amiss with this inter-personal dynamic. I thought 'How could a concern be acknowledged as a team/group/organization level action item without first being thrown around the room and debated?'

I subsequently made a conscious attempt to change the nature of the discussions. Every concern raised started getting thrown around to others in the room and debatd. I asked 'Have others had a similar experience? Has anyone else handled a similar situation successfully?'

The tone of the discussion changed. People in the room with differing opinions/experiences slowly but surely started speaking up.

With multiple people speaking about their experiences handling similar situations; we got a better sense of whether a concern expressed lay at the individual/team/work-group/organizational level.

It also made participants see that someone they considered 'their type' (and not from HR or Leadership team) had experienced a similar situation differently from the way they had experiened a situation. The face validity of possible solutions proposed was consequently higher as it came from someone perceived to be 'their type'.

What did i those who expressed concerns that were unique - not representative of a team/group/organizational level problem?

Well! I tried acknowledging his/her concern (s/he felt heard) but managed to make him/her aware that his/her concern maybe unique and may not be reflective of a larger problem. 'Feeling heard and acknowledged' seems to have a cathartic effect.

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Sourav