Instructional Design Articles

Is creativity really promoted in the workplace? Or are we are creating “sheeple?” Look at the office space. It’s sterile, quiet, etc. There is NO conversation!!!!  How can we promote productivity in such a barren work environment?
 
In a recent visit to a client site, one of the first things that I noticed was how quiet and solitary the organization felt. It was silent. Everyone was working on something while listening to their headphones.
 
There was:

• No one collaborating
• No one sharing information
• And each person an island on their own

As the client and I discussed her issues, she commented that “I can’t get my folks motivated to solve this problem creatively”

WORKING ON A SOLUTION

The first thing we did when we started working on the project was to bring the team together. Surprisingly, it was the employees I walked by getting to the client’s office that had the foundational issues.
 
They didn’t really know how to work together. They didn’t really know how to TALK to each other.  

Each was so focused on their own initiatives and projects that they had no idea how to collaborate because they had no idea how to communicate.

Once we got going on solutions, it didn’t take long to encourage them to collaborate. They loved it. It took time to show them how to do it effectively, but once they did the creativity flowed.  Amazingly, they not only resolved the issue we were brought in to help them with, but 3 others that they had been struggling with for over 18 months.

All told, increasing their collaborating and communicating delivered :
 
• $150,000 savings due to a process improvement
• Saving 2 days on resolving trouble tickets
• Created a process to standardize proposal responses
 
HOW’D THAT HAPPEN?
 
Honestly, it was very simple to turn the team’s creativity and ingenuity loose on some of the problems they had been struggling to solve. The primary tool that was utilized was encouraging them to collaborate much more.

We used three easy methods to jumpstart this process:
 
1)    We sat the team in one group, no walls but with access to private areas.

We gave the team their own space as a group to work. The team sat in a common room without walls but with easy access to private areas to make phone calls or to have some private time for themselves.
Primarily though, there were was done in one common area. In it were whiteboards, flip chart paper, and other easy to access collaboration tools.

Outside of a handful of tasks that could only be conducted by one or two people on the team, a free project or task was completed as a group. The task or issue was treated as a project. The team would meet together briefly and designate a leader (unless one person was already designated leader) and they would formulate a plan with milestones, deliverables, and due dates.

Then, they would work together on reaching the milestones and creating the deliverables to ensure that due date were met.

However, when they came up with the challenge, they also had to be able to offer a solution or an idea to overcome the challenge. It didn’t always work out perfectly, but it improved the quality of solutions created by the team immensely.

SILVER BULLET

Let’s be clear, this solution works well for this particular team. It is by no means a silver bullet to solving productivity problems for teams. But, it does highlight an issue that we have seen, very frequently in organizations.
We don’t promote collaboration actively.

Workplaces are designed, in many cases, to suppress spontaneity, creativity and most importantly collaboration unless it’s scheduled. Collaboration happens when it happens. Implementing a few simple methods can create an environment work) in which teams can “prove” creativity by being collaborative.
 
Although counterintuitive, the solution may seem counterintuitive; actually increase the speed with which the team completed projects.
 
Maybe it’s time that we tear down the cubicle walls.
 
How does your organization promote collaboration? What are some winning tactics that you’ve seen to promote teams working together more effectively?
 
Please send us an e-mail or comment to let us know how.

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

There is a reason that marriages are not considered mergers. They are not the joining of two disparate groups to make a stronger bigger group, but the joining of two groups to make one cohesive unit dedicated to being great together, supporting each other and leveraging each other to be more successful.  
 
Yes, marriages and mergers are different.
 
Clearly there is a difference in combing the operations of thousands of people versus two.  But the sentiment is the same.
 
MIND-SET OR APPROACH

The reason that most mergers fail is mind-set. The approach of many mergers is to come out it from the standpoint of garnering new market share or swallowing a potential competitor or sometimes to even purchase new growth/new technology.
However, the standpoint is generally from the perspective of “how can we make our company bigger and better faster?” It’s not, “How does this merger benefit our customers, employees, and in the end, both companies.

Of course mergers are an important tool to continue the growth, viability, and infusion of innovation of some larger organizations. Often, on paper, these mergers make sense. They are the combining of two organizations that can leverage the economies of scale to drive down cost or corner particular market share.

Unfortunately, what ends up happening is people get in the way. Mergers, like any change, are messy and complex. Therefore distilling what could make a potential merger successful, in most cases, will you increase the likelihood of a long-term success and long-term return on investment.
 
Viewing Mergers like a Marriage

There are a few simple questions to think through before deciding whether or not the merger could actually work.
 
1.    Will the resulting company be beneficial to both parties? 

That is, when all is said and done, will the merged entity have benefited the two previously separate companies, the customers of the two previously separate companies, and the employees of the previously separate companies?

There might not be some employees that become redundant when there is a merger, but it’s important to make sure that those employees that are seen as assets review the merger as beneficial to them. If they don’t, it could be more costly to merge them to leave the companies separate.
 
2.     Are the two companies’ cultures compatible?
 
Cultures that are diametrically opposed will likely clash and work against each other. It is likely that those cultures will never completely melt.
 
This constant internal battle between the two opposing cultures will undermine forward progress and often make it difficult, if not impossible, to implement new strategies or products quickly.
 
Therefore, it may be better to avoid a merger of two diametrically opposed cultures than to force the marriage between the square peg and the round hole.
 
3.     Once the merger is completed, can the two formerly separate companies work together towards mutual benefit?

Although this is hard to determine prior to the merger happening, it is vital that both parties are willing to commit to the benefit of the newly created entity.
 
It is a desire to do what is best for the new organization, thinking about decisions and direction based on what will make the new organization successful.
 
Senior leaders have to be fully committed to this and wiling to reward and reprimand individuals that exemplify either.
 
4.     Are both organizations willing to willing to give up something about themselves to make the new merged entity successful?

Each party or company must be willing to give up some tactic or artifact that is part of their cultural make up.  Both sides need to show their willingness to be fully behind the new organization.
 
If these can be addressed with some level of certainty, the merger has a higher chance of succeeding.  Undoubtedly, there will still be challenges; no merger is that simple.  But, if both organizations are willing to embrace the new organization,a merger can work.

However, if there is not a goal of common success, then the merger will go the way to AOL Time Warner.  Marriage sounds like a strange business term.  It feels like there is some commitment to it.  That is because there is.
 

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

One of the most prevalent signs of Organizational Learned Helplessness (OLH) is the art of making any news sound good.

Better known as “spinning”.  Spinning takes its queue from George Orwell’s 1984 –

Not constantly spinning goes against the “new normal”, but has been shown to reap huge benefits – look at Apple, Ford, etc. There are three fundamentals to gain and maintain trust:

1.Tell the whole truth earlier – In In the age of the Internet and WikiLeaks there is no doubt that the truth will come out eventually is imperative that you tell the whole truth. It seems counterintuitive to the art of spinning. But, employees, customers, and investors are likely not going to believe the spin. They will fill in the blanks on their own. They have been taught to do this by the constant masking of what is really so. If the truth is told early then you can get out in front      of the issue and begin to correct it.
 
2. Instead of controlling a story, try solving the problem – it sounds deceptively simple, but it’s not. The focus should never be damage control, but solution creation. Once a mistake is made, it’s made. The real test is can the issue be resolved to become stronger. Tylenol did this beautifully. An issue with their product became a catapult to huge market share and public safety.
 
3. Accept blame and move on. Admittedly, this is the hardest one. In our litigious society it is difficult to accept blame because there could be larger ramifications. However, the quicker that blame can be assessed. The better that a solution can be provided. Now accepting blame or fault doesn’t necessarily mean that the entire situation was your or the organization’s fault. Really determining the issue and then working towards a solution will make everything resolved more quickly and more amicably.
 
The truth will always find a way out, always.  Organizations that get out in front of problems and start to provide solutions can move past a problem and turn it into a win for the organization will be seen as far superior to their competition.  That is why we still talk about Tylenol’s outstanding reaction more than 25 years later.  My wife used to tell me something that still holds true today –

Spinning your clothes doesn’t get the stain out, it embeds the dirt deeper.

The truth can’t be controlled, so you might as well stop trying…ask the leaders at Toyota.
 
What do you think about controlling the truth?  What is the danger of telling too much truth?

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.