Role of numbers in driving culture change

A change in culture involves changes both at above and below the iceberg. Changes above the iceberg (measurable) can only hint at changes below the iceberg.  But measuring change is important, as it gives you a hint of what may or mayn’t be happening below the iceberg.

But should you just stop at measurement?

I think measurement needs to be backed up with ‘conversations’ within relevant stakeholders around important processes that characterize culture.

This combination of conversations around important processes that characterize culture, backed up by metrics can be a powerful potion to drive culture change.

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Sourav

Setting up Teams

Well! I've been part of setting up of a completely new team this year. 

 

The team members are going to be spread across atleast 3 countries and time zones. Most of them are new to company. There will be little overlap in working hours of this regional team and parent organization (in India). 

 

We have managed to get the first set of employees onboard.  Upcoming challenge is to build a team from a set of employees spread out geographically.  So what should be next steps?

 

We obviously need common goal/s- something to which people can relate and rally around. We do have common goals. We need to ensure that employees understands and acts on those goals.

 

We need enough team members to connect regularly with each other.  So necessity to set up regular team meetings. Given that it is a high context culture, face to face presence might be more beneficial. Possibly technology- webex, etc - can play a role here. We also need to have an agreement on frequency at which this team gets together.

 

We have a manager, new to company. We need to hand hold manager  for atleast one annual cycle. We also need to involve other managers in organization in setting him up for success.

 

We need to be able to integrate this team in existing regional offices where their members are based out of. Ensuring alignment of policies to regional practices is minimum requirement. We already have ensured this. Ensuring connects with key stakeholders is another requirement. We have initiated this. But what more?

 

We also need to be able to integrate team into parent organization (based out of India). Visits of team members to parent organization, sync with key stakeholders, and including them in key conversations in parent organizations are first steps we have taken. But what more?

 

These are some of the things that we need to work on in next few months as we go about trying to build a team from geographically spread out and remote team members.

 

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Sourav

Excellent Managers

What are enablers for managerial excellence?

Let’s make an assumption - focus of excellence is on what managers are doing today.

Hence focus becomes - what are HR processes manager is supposed to manage for his/her directs.  Some of these processes are across employee life cycle (e.g - joining, onboarding, development) some across team life cycle (e.g- storming, forming, norming).

I've come across two ways of ensuring this focus.

• Organization clarifies what is expected of Managers and measures them on basis of outcomes (subjective or objective).
• Organization institutes project teams to drive outcomes/improvements related to focus.

Both ways can work. In the first way, consistency in outcomes across managers may be a challenge.  In the second way, there is a danger that responsibility for managing is abdicated – responsibility for managerial outcomes is perceived to have moved to project teams.

But obviously, managerial outcomes still need to emerge from Managers doing the right thing for their employees.

That's a focus one has to maintain in the second way.

 

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Sourav

 

Intentions!

Some time back I was watching webcast about launch of Annual Performance Review process.

Head of HR was addressing Managers. She took a lot of time to explain the ´intention´ - single line message - behind the shape of curve and review process.

 

Like many others, I was struck by power of her words.

I have been wondering what happened. What did she do that left it´s mark?

 

I have heard many a times objective or metrics of a process but I´ve never found an objective/metric/goal so powerful.

 

First, I think word ´intention´ has more elements of a verb than words objective/metric/goal. It makes me realize that I am the executioner of the intent.

 

Second we associate a value judgment with intentions. ´If my intention isn´t in place, then either something´s wrong with me or I’m at wrong place!´ We mayn´t associate such judgments with other 3 words.

 

I´m sold on figuring out the intention behind the HR processes we manage. Let me illustrate. What´s intention behind:

·         recruitment/selection processes? Some options are – to make any participant a brand ambassador, to reinforce uniqueness of working here, to find a role/culture fit, etc.

·         compensation processes? Some options are – we´re best paymasters & we´ll do everything to retain you; you´re best judge of your money (take it in whatever way you want), etc.

·         learning processes? Some options are – you´re a ´talent´, it´s your responsibility to identity and drive learning needs; we value role based learning & personal development is your concern, etc.

·         role designs? Some options are- we value specialization/generalization; empowerment/centralization, etc.

I´m not sure if, in this post, I´ve chanced upon anything new. But I do feel I´ve found a way to see existing processes more powerfully.

 

What do you think?

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Sourav

Focussed Group Discussions

The week gone by was a week full of FGD’s J.  I have already written a few posts about these FGD’s. Here’s another one! In this post I have penned some of my thoughts, observations, and reflections on the week gone by.

I love the word ‘we’. Someone stands up and says ‘We feel this way!’. I am left wondering ‘Who is the we out here? I saw no-one even nodding his/her head in acknowledgement of what you were saying?’. So finally I had to tell someone ‘I acknowledge the concern you have but would you please use the word ‘I’. Let others speak for themselves.’

How does one hijack a conversation from someone else - make someone else stop dead in his/her tracks and veer the conversation towards what one wants to discuss? In Group Discussions at college, it is common to hear ‘conversation hijackers’ like ‘Taking forward your point….. ‘, ‘I agree with you… ‘, ‘Let me flesh that out a bit more…’.  In the week gone by, I heard another version of a conversation hijacker.  ‘He is right. Let me illustrate through an example……..’ ; by the time the hijacker finished enumerating the example I was left wondering ‘Where was the linkage between the example given (which in some cases was not an example) and what the first person was trying to say?’

‘Let me tell you what happened to me once…’ statement is a conversation diverter. Well if I really had to know what happened to you once, I would ask you so.  We are attempting to look at what is our current state and how can that be improved. Events in the past that have no or little bearing on the present don’t help us improve the present.

‘Let me tell you what happened to someone …’ statements is another conversion diverter.   We are here in FGDs to explore your experiences. Let everyone take responsibility for sharing their experiences.

Whenever I talked about concepts to participants, I found them discussing issues.  But whenever I started asking them specifics, they could easily latch on to the same and discuss. Maybe when one works with an hourly focus, one’s mindset becomes very ‘event specific’ and ‘here and now’.

I managed to put together a HR toolkit for these discussions. I went in and said ‘We can discuss processes or we can discuss networks. Specifically, we can choose 1/2 processes and discuss how we can improve them; or we can choose 1/2 stakeholders and discuss how do we improve the ‘conversations’ between you and these significant stakeholders.’ The toolkit did provide a structure/framework for the discussion.

There was one particular conversation that has stood out in my mind.  During one of FGD’s, the group was insistent on understanding what my role would be when it came to process escalations.  Every few minutes the conversation would veer towards this point. After some time I realized that this was becoming a stumbling block – if I didn’t address this the discussion would just not move forward. I was not sure if I could make a commitment. I myself am learning the ropes - the way things ‘currently’ get done here. But I also realized the group was looking for answers. I told them ‘I don’t think I can make a commitment at this point of time on what my role in process escalations’ would be. But I am committing that I would come back to you with an answer. Would this commitment do?’. The group accepted the commitment and we could make progress on a number of other things we wanted to discuss.  I realized ‘Sometimes a group is not necessarily looking for an immediate resolution. What they are looking for is a commitment that a resolution would be reached.’

I was told, People Manager for the group should not be present in FGD’s. I am not sure why – somewhere you would need to get both the parties face to face and make them talk. So I did do the FGDs without the people manager being there in the room, but I also am aware that in some form or the other the people manager would need to be, and s/he would need to feel, involved in the process.

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Sourav

'Conversations' in Work Teams

Last week i started planning 'deep-dive' meetings with work teams. In my previous role, i used to experiment with something similar - 'Branch Visit' meetings is what i used to call them.

I had already completed introduction sessions with these teams. I was wondering how should i structure the upcoming sessions.

Should i ask them to tell me about their positive and negative experiences in this company, and explore how we could have more positive experiences at workplace? This is something which i have explored in my previous role.

But somewhere down in my gut, i felt uneasy about using the above mentioned method. I felt I should explore a different way of conducting these conversations.

I had a few options. I could use the process route - what do you feel about effectiveness of HR processes in your team? I could use the experience route - tell me about positive and negative primary experiences you have had in last 1 year?
I chose neither of the above.

I decided to experiment with something I had hypothezied a few months back. Basis of any effective HR process is 'adequate number of quality conversations'. So today, in my first deep-dive discussion with a 15 member strong work team, we had conversations around:

• What are platforms for conversations (e.g.-One on Ones) that exist between your people manager and you?
• Are these platforms scheduled in adequate frequencies? You have conversations with your people manager in what frequency (once in --- hours/days/months)?
• Do you need more platforms and if yes, what would they be?
• What gets discussed in these current mediums/platforms?

We additionally explored the following questions. In current/envisaged mediums/platforms what would you want to, with your people manager,

• converse more about?
• converse less about?
• start conversing about?
• stop conversing about?

Today's discussion was energezing. I had planned a discussion for 90 minutes. The discussion actually lasted 110 minutes - and even then i had to stop it - the energy of the group just wouldn't ebb.

By the end of the discussion, i had 5 white boards full with data.

The experiment seems to be working. 'Conversations' does seem to be a useful unit of analysis for working on effectiveness of HR processes.

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Sourav

Management by Exception & Symptomatic Treatment

Here are some thoughts I had penned down a few years back about the need for pro-activity in HR processes.

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“Prevention is better than cure” – is a maxim we hear oft but the relevance of this statement, in our day-to-day lives’ & especially outside the realm of medical sciences, is seldom appreciated. The words “prevention” and “cure” come to fore when there is a “Problem”. There essentially are 2 kinds of problems:

a) the root causes of which are "finite and predictable"– Hence these constitute a set and when we speak of “dynamism” it can only happen between the different points on this “finite and predictable set”.

b) The root causes of which are “infinite and unpredictable”- Hence there’s no fixed set which can be defined here and hence this is a case of “unpredictable dynamicism”.

In the 1^st case different “fault control mechanisms” can be designed and implemented “at a single point of time” to ensure that prevention is there. Till the time no symptoms arise, everything is running fine. But if symptoms arise, let’s cure it!!. Hence there is a requirement only to “manage the exceptions’”, and you would do that only when the symptoms arise.

And then I am reminded of Pavlov’s dog experiment - 'Conditioned Behavior'. We get conditioned to respond in a particular way to the environment. If we aren’t wise or self aware enough to understand “subtle changes” in the external environment – then we would continue responding to two different situations requiring different approaches in the same way. What would be the consequences? Not pleasant to say the least!

In my immediate environment I see a strong focus on reliability of services, and hence on scenario 1. But somewhere I see a “stretch – over” of the scenario 1 behavioural pattern when it comes to people related decisions (which fall in the realm of scenario 2). If you have a cough, I’ll get you a cough syrup. But I wouldn’t look at preventing the cough. The problem is at times the cough becomes so acute that the cough syrup just doesn’t work. Hence “cure” as a strategy fails as “prevention” was never focussed upon. Hence scenario 1 response is made for a scenario 2 case – set up systems and get into the Management by Exception trap. A self-defeating but self-reinforcing circle!

Sometimes I hear the term ‘intellectual discipline’ being used to justify scenario 1 responses. I find it more of ‘color blindness’-in the same picture, one isn’t able to make out the different hues, and colours, and respond accordingly.

“Hey, this guy is cribbing too much. All these years he has performed well but has never cribbed! What should we do? Transfer him? Give him a role change? Recognize him in some other way ?”

But what do you do if you are from the school of thought “performance speaks for itself”?

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We have a certain image in our minds when we think of systems and processes. That image is about stability and predictability. HR processes can act as guiding posts but every interaction is new and needs to be shaped. Secondly HR processes are designed around minimum number of interactions you need to have. What is required is pro-activeness? People management is much more than just handling and ensuring HR processes are in order.

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Sourav