Organizational Change Articles

27 Aug 2015
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No, It’s Not Okay For You To Play Devil’s Advocate

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

Dear Meeting Colleague,
 
We are sorry to inform you that your request to play devil’s advocate cannot be accepted at this time. You’ve done a great job trying to identify everything that could go wrong with almost every idea that comes up in any meeting that you attend. That is commendable. You go above and beyond in your effort to make sure that we “see all sides.”

We applaud your knack for finding the flaws in any idea, but must deny your request at this time.

We know that the market is challenging, and it’s very likely that we haven’t thought of every single aspect of what could go wrong. Therefore, we are in dire need of a role we call “Ark Builder.”

The description is as follows:

• Nice to have:
◦ Sees that storm clouds are coming and can predict, or at least have some inkling, of what could happen when it rains
◦ Understands, and can articulate, what the problem might be when the rain does fall
◦ Can articulate the challenges and risks if substantial rain falls, and what the issues will arise
• Must have:
◦ Be able to clearly articulate their ideas on how to address the issues of the oncoming rain, such as building a large water floatation vehicle, developing a sandbagging plan, or other flood prevention/aversion plans
◦ Be willing to take on the work entailed in implementing such plans
◦ Understand that ideas may or may not be taken
◦ Be willing to take coaching and input from others
 
If this is a role that interests you, we welcome your application.

Unfortunately, this role has gone unfilled for too long. There is no increase in pay, but a vast increase in satisfaction and engagement for you – and everyone around you. For the company, you’ll actually be helping maintain productivity and minimize losses.
 
• •According to one survey, 78% of employees reported a loss of at least 3 hours a week because of complainers
• 11% of respondents said they’ve left a job because they couldn’t stand working with someone perpetually negative
• Unproductive time spent on problems (without finding solutions) can costs companies thousands of dollars per year, per employee
(Source)
 
In fact, there’s really no application or interview process. Any time you want the job, it is yours for the taking…
As of now, however, the Devil’s Advocate role has been permanently filled. Your requests now – and all future requests – will be denied. We’re no longer interested in fielding complaints and criticism without proposed solutions.
 
Thank you…
 
Are there people you’d like to share this rejection letter with? Why?
 
What more might be possible if we took on the Ark Builder role, and focused on finding solutions instead of just highlighting potential problems?

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.

27 Aug 2015
Sticky Post By Posted in Human Resources Articles, Leadership Articles, Organizational Change Articles Permalink

When Does Your Workforce Need A Transformation?

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

When Does Your Workforce Need a Transformation?

Lately, we’ve been talking a lot about employee retreats – and why they are so effective in bringing about transformations for your workforce. But why does your company need a transformation in the first place? What unique scenarios require transformations?
 
Specific needs will be different for every business, but there are some certain situations where this idea of “transformation” is so much more important than training alone – or, maybe more accurately, regular training just won’t cut it.
 
Transformations, as discussed in the last post, are major changes to ways of thinking, not just ways of doing things – so when would this kind of change be most necessary? Here are a few examples:

1. New Leadership
 
When a new leader comes on board, it can be tough to gain the respect of existing team members. Additionally, it can be difficult for those employees to fully understand the necessity of bringing in this new leader, changing the group dynamic, and relatively upsetting the “natural order” they’ve gotten used to.
 
In a situation like this, the desired transformation is from an attitude of adversity to an attitude of acceptance, respect, and collaboration.
 
Through an effective retreat, the team would have a chance to get to know this new leader, address concerns in an open and supportive environment, and hopefully get on the same page about why this leader has been brought on board.
 
By taking the time to alleviate any apprehension from the team before normal “workday” operations are affected by the presence of a new leader, the team is transformed without taking a toll on productivity.
 
2. Merger/Acquisition
 
When two companies come together through a merger or acquisition, there’s plenty of room for difficulty. Operations and expectations within the two companies will certainly have some variation, and the necessary “transformation” involves finding a new standard that everyone can agree on.
 
Achieving this kind of transformation takes significant preparation, as well as some clear-cut standards for how you want the final, “combined” operations to look like.
 
The change in thinking involves letting go of “the way things used to be” and internalizing the need for operations that meet the new goals of the merged company.

3. Broad Restructuring
 
Sometimes companies have to go through massive changes. It could be an entire shift in products or services offered, an update in systems that affects the entire company, new employee standards, or anything else that impacts many people across different departments.
 
The transformation(s) involved might be as large and complicated as the company changes themselves, but much like in a merger, it’s important that everyone understands and internalizes the need for the changes, and overcomes any resistance they might have to the new ways of doing things.
 
4. Creating New Energy
 
Over time, people can get complacent. They may settle into a less-than-ideal pattern of thinking or behavior, and they need a bit of a transformation to refresh their enthusiasm and/or focus.
 
These kind of transformations will happen a little differently for every team or individual, but no matter what, it’s all about getting down the essential principles the company operates by, and getting everyone excited about their individual contributions – and the successes they can achieve as a group.
 
These are just a few examples that could necessitate the transformations that retreats provide. In any scenario that requires a large-scale change not just to the way employees operate, but also the way they think, transformation is essential.
 
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.

27 Aug 2015
Sticky Post By Posted in Leadership Articles, Organizational Change Articles Permalink

Leadership Follies – Don’t Call It A Program

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

What’s the best way to make sure leadership development, employee engagement, or any other people initiative will fail?
Call it a program. 
 
Programs are to employees with kryptonite is to Superman. They scream of formalized, over complicated initiatives that may or may not apply to the goals of the group, but must be followed to the letter. Things that are engrained in the culture aren’t called programs…they just happen.
 
Can you imagine (fill in the blank holiday) dinner at Mom’s being a program. No!

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE SURE THAT EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT DOESN’T TURN INTO ANOTHER PROGRAM:
 
LINK ENGAGEMENT TO BUSINESS OUTCOMES
It is vital that employee engagement (or any people program) be linked DIRECTLY to a business or organizational goal   Without that link, the idea of working on engagement will be akin to using the ab master that was bought at 2:30AM when watching an infomercial.  It sounds like a great idea.  Heck, it even has some science and data behind it.  But no link to business goals = no long term engagement

MAKE ENGAGEMENT PART OF THE CONVERSATION ALL THE TIME

Look for any opportunity to discuss engagement or maybe (gasp) to engage people.  Engagement should be at the forefront of senior leadership communication, part of the objective of every management training and the driving force of every new initiative regarding employees.  Engagement once or twice a year is similar to the new year’s resolution phenomenon.
 

“A New Year’s Resolution is something that goes in one year and comes out the other” – Oscar Wilde.
 
Don’t fall into that trap.  
 
MAKE ENGAGEMENT EASY
Employee Engagement the program is a long hard slog.  It starts with a survey that takes too long to fill out.  Then there are reports and data that are hard to decipher and take months (and months) to see.  Finally, there is some grandiose action that is to be taken based on said results that is supposed to target the “area of opportunity”.  In between there is a little training for managers and a lot of hand wringing to get people to take surveys and turn in action plans.  Why can’t engagement be easy?
 
• Keep the survey short
◦ Don’t have more than 20 questions.  Large unfocused surveys make people believe the organization doesn’t really know what its asking for.  Also, questions that are targeted on what is actionable by managers makes engagement real for everyone
• Get data back to managers and teams within a month or less from the time a survey is taken.
◦ Long periods of time between surveys doesn’t bode well for action.  It also makes people think there is something to hide.  Turn data around quickly to start the conversation
• Give managers constant training
◦ Set up training on a regular basis that managers can access new insight or tools about engagement regularly.  Also, provide a forum for them to share ideas with each other.
• Make action plans living
◦ Put action plans into a system that can be updated and is easily accessible.  Don’t put a lot of restrictions on them either.  Let teams do what they think is best.
• Take action at the organizational level right away
◦ Use aggregate data to put new programs or enhance programs right away and link it to engagement.  Its important for folks to see results right away.
 
What else can be done to shift employee engagement from a program?  How can we make sure that it doesn’t turn into “have to”?

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.

27 Aug 2015
Sticky Post By Posted in Human Resources Articles, Leadership Articles, Organizational Change Articles Permalink

Your Employee Engagement Isn’t Going To Work

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

“After five years of doing engagement, I’ve not seen a real impact.  The sad part is that I feel like I can predict the results before they happen,” stated a senior level executive.  He looked at me and asked, “Why do we keep doing this?”
 
As a former Gallup consultant, Employee Engagement is near and dear to me.  I have led engagement initiatives and witnessed the power of their impact on organizations.  Yet, far too often I hear this same concern.
 
There has been a great deal written about the power of employee engagement.  After the landmark study that launched employee engagement in Coffman and Buckingham’s First Break All the Rules, there have been hundreds of studies showing the impact of engagement. Every year all of the major employee engagement providers put out their annual “state of the state” regarding engagement.  Each year, there are many examples of companies leveraging engagement to be even more successful – Campbell’s Soup, Toyota, and Apple just to name a few.
 
But, the sad truth is that there are many more examples where employee engagement is not having the impact that it could.
 

“The latest findings indicate that 70% of American workers are ‘not engaged’ or ‘actively disengaged’ and are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive. These actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. between $450 billion to $550 billion each year in lost productivity. They are more likely to steal from their companies, negatively influence their coworkers, miss workdays, and drive customers away.” – Gallup State of the American Workplace
 
I discussed why this is so with leaders and employee engagement practitioners. According to them (and my experience) there are three prominent reasons Employee Engagement fails to produce the results intended.
 
ENGAGEMENT NOT CONNECTED TO THE BUSINESS

Time and time again, Employee Engagement is brought into an organization with a great deal of promise.  Senior executives are sold on the notion that Employee Engagement is a panacea that will make their business better, faster, stronger.  That somehow, just by taking this magical survey

1. Employees will sing the praises of the company
2. Customers will line up to buy and will actively sell without compensation
3. Competitors will fall by the wayside
 
Either it is said and executives don’t listen or it is not explicit that just like the ab machine bought on QVC at 2 AM if engagement is not linked to impacting business or organizational goals it will be largely ignored.  Employee Engagement is a powerful measure that can anticipate the performance of an organization.  Unlike revenue or profit or compliance, it is a predictive measure of performance (get quote or link) IF IT IS LINKED TO BUSINESS OUTCOMES.  Just taking the survey, rolling out reports and doing action plans will do little in the long term to impact business results.
 
In order for engagement to have impact, employees can’t just be engaged they have to be engaged to something.  Prior to rolling out an employee engagement survey, there has to be work done to link engagement to some measure that is important to the business.
 

“Researchers studied 49,928 work units, including nearly 1.4 million employees. This latest iteration of the meta-analysis further confirmed the well-established connection between employee engagement and key performance outcomes:
 
• Customer ratings
• Profitability
• Productivity
• Turnover (for high-turnover and low-turnover organizations)
• Safety incidents
• Shrinkage (theft)
• Absenteeism
• Patient safety incidents
• Quality (defects)

Work units in the top quartile in employee engagement outperformed bottom-quartile units by 10% on customer ratings, 22% in profitability, and 21% in productivity. Work units in the top quartile also saw significantly less turnover (25% in high-turnover organizations and 65% in low-turnover organizations), shrinkage (28%), and absenteeism (37%) and fewer safety incidents (48%), patient safety incidents (41%), and quality defects (41%).” – Gallup Business Journal

 
Any of these measures can be linked to engagement because what impacts them the most is PEOPLE.  But without that causal link, eventually engagement will be a “program” that managers and leaders “have to do”.  There will be less and less emphasis put on it.  Eventually leaders will only give it lip service.  Then a new Employee Engagement vendor will be selected and the cycle will start anew.
 
HR IS ADMINISTRATOR, OWNER AND CHAMPION OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

HR is the very best place for Employee Engagement to “live”.  However, HR being its owner and champion is misplaced.  In order to ensure that Employee Engagement carries its required weight, the owner must be a senior leader from the business, preferably someone that is in charge of a revenue generating part of the organization.  It is impossible for HR to be administrator, facilitator, coach AND enforcer.  At some point those roles will be indistinguishable.
 
In order for Employee Engagement to be seen as a business initiative, it has to be owned by the business.  It also means they are accountable for its success.  But, a business leader won’t take on owning an initiative that isn’t tied to business outcomes they care about.  Hence the reason #1 is so important.
 
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IS AN EVENT NOT A MINDSET

The drumbeat from thought leaders in Employee Engagement is it cannot be a “once a year event”.  It is doomed to insignificance if the focus is on survey, report and action plan.  That makes it a program with checkoffs.  It undermines the most important part, conversation.  Employee engagement must be a mindset.
 

“Employee engagement will not thrive when it’s handled like an event. But when it is vigilantly cultivated and purposefully spread through the interactions between managers and employees, it becomes a way of working. It becomes part of a company’s culture.” – Shawn Murphy (@shawmu)
 
The survey and all that is part of it are only a portion of actually creating an engaged workplace.  It is not enough to talk about engagement or promote being more engaged.  Developing an engaged workforce takes ENGAGING THEM.
 
Employee engagement has been proven to improve organizational performance.  What is your organization doing to increase the impact of Employee Engagement?
 
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.

27 Aug 2015
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Employee Engagement Strategies – Give Employees The Accountability To Manage Their Own Engagement

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

Culture and operations are a little different for every company, and because of that, finding ways to spur employee engagement takes a unique and fresh approach for each individual business.

To get a sense for what drives real engagement (at real companies), I want to share some lessons that depend directly on “outside the box” thinking and a disruptive approach to typical engagement efforts.

You see the principles all over the place, but so many people ask me how they can actually use this stuff in their own businesses – here is the first of an irregular series of real life examples:
 
GIVE EMPLOYEES THE ACCOUNTABILITY TO MANAGE THEIR OWN ENGAGEMENT

The supervisor of a large manufacturing company in the Northeast told me how turning over the reins of engagement to his staff really made a huge impact on the team’s performance.
 
Here’s his story:
 
– The first year we did an employee engagement survey, we scored in the 13th percentile. I gathered my group together and asked them what I could do to help them be more engaged. They gave great ideas:
 
• Doing things together outside of work
• Taking some training classes
• Hearing directly from senior leaders on the state of the business
 
The following year, the employee engagement survey scores doubled to the 26th percentile. A great improvement, but still far below where I thought my long-standing employees should be.
 
In the following year’s meeting to talk about employee engagement actions, I did something completely off script:
 
I opened the meeting by saying how proud I was to work with them, and then I asked them what they were doing to be more engaged…
 
There was silence in the room. A gentleman who had been working with me for almost 20 years spoke up and said:
 

“I am more engaged when I learn more about what we’re doing, and research the industry myself.”
 
There’s something particularly remarkable about that: these are all front-line workers on a manufacturing line. They are not college students or recent graduates of an MBA program, but what that gentleman told me resonated with everyone…
 
So, I decided that this year, engagement was going to be their riddle to solve. Our action plan as a team was no action plan at all. The only thing that people were going to be working on was answering this question:
 
“WHAT AM I DOING TO BE MORE ENGAGED“

During each daily team meeting, someone was designated with answering this tough  question. The rest of the team’s job was to ask questions, give advice, and blatantly steal really good ideas. I asked one of my employees to take notes, just to capture all of the best ideas.
 
By the end of the first three months, we had over 400 ideas and actions noted!
 
My team was talking about how to be more engaged, how to learn more about the business, understanding more about the impact of what they did, and showing their passion more than I had ever seen. It was truly amazing!
 
By the time the next engagement survey was conducted, our team scored in the 80th percentile – a massive improvement.
 
But even more remarkable was that other teams in our area were beginning to copy our “non-action action plan.” People across the organization were becoming more engaged – not by the team taking action, but by each person owning their own engagement.
 
If that was the end of the story, that would be a pretty happy ending… But by the following year:
 
• Four of my front-line employees, who had never taken an interest in managing, learning, or really anything to do with the company, decided that they wanted to become supervisors
• A group of my employees started a new employee orientation program, utilizing the 1200-some ideas that were collected in that first year
 
The biggest lesson I learned about engagement was to turn the reins over to employees. Ask them to figure out how they could be more engaged!
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

While this might not be an exact match to your organization or unique situation, you can see how some creative thinking (and a willingness to collaborate within an organization) led to BIG results. Hopefully, you can use this as a starting point for making engagement “real” for your team.  Stay tuned, there are more of these practical, tactical engagement lessons on their way.

What engagement strategies have you seen work in the “real” world (and not just on paper)? Let me know, and I’d be glad to share your story!
 
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.

27 Aug 2015
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Best Advice Ever – Shut Up And Listen

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

A client recently asked me how I was able to understand them so quickly. She was curious about what advice I’d gotten that enabled me “get integrated so quickly”. I told her the best advice is ever gotten was –
 

“Shut up and listen. When you think you know, shut up and listen some more.” (Came from both my wife and dad at different times in life)
 
As a newbie employee, manager, leader, consultant or whatever one of the very best ways you can make a difference quickly is to listen. Yes, I know this isn’t blinding flash if insight.  It’s pretty commonsensical (yes that’s a word, look it up). But we don’t do it.
 
We’ve been taught to participate- share our thoughts or express our feelings. Somehow we’ve been led to believe that participating means making sounds come out of our mouths. But what if that is bull-cocky? What if we participated by mostly LISTENING?!?!?

The only way to really understand an organization, position, team or person is to listen to what to have to say. But it’s a special kind of listening. The kind where you:

•       Aren’t thinking of the next thing to say
•       Aren’t thinking about why they are wrong
•       Wondering when they’ll stop talking
•       Etc

Then, when you think it’s your turn to talk…shut up some more! Sometimes that will mean that you don’t say anything or wait until you are asked for input.
 
That’s it. Listen a lot. You’d be amazed at how much you can learn just by listening. It’s a powerful tool (great TED talk by Ernesto Sirolli regarding the power of this)
 
You’ll be able to craft proposals, solutions and ideas that are met with acceptance because – YOU KNOW HOW THEY THINK and you might even care a little about them.
 
So remember, stop talking and listen.  

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.

27 Aug 2015
Sticky Post By Posted in Human Resources Articles, Organizational Change Articles Permalink

Healthy At Work

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015
When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no “I’ll start tomorrow.” Tomorrow is disease. ~Terri Guillemets
 
There’s a growing trend in companies across many industries to help employees of all ranks focus on personal health. There’s plenty of talk about “wellness at work” in terms of insurance premiums, posters hanging in eating areas, discounted health club memberships, and other fairly “surface level” nudges toward making healthier choices – but what are they really doing?

The reality of food at work

Picture the last birthday in the office, the last company cookout or potluck… what kind of food was served? Cake? Donuts? Cheese dips? Pizza?

Most of the standard “work party” fare is about as far from healthy eating as it gets, and yet the company focused on “healthy choices” doesn’t make a peep about it!

For all the talk about healthier employees, most companies leave the actual responsibility in the hands of the employees themselves – and while that’s just fine (there shouldn’t be RULES against eating fatty foods or not getting enough exercise), a company concerned with the health of its workforce should at least be leading by example, and rolling “wellness goals” in with other company goals.
 
When food is coming out of the company coffers, why not make it a healthy meal?
 
What about a focus on wellness education? There’s an awful lot more to healthy living than just diet and exercise.
 
Linking Employee Health to the success of the Business 

To help root these ideals in reality, companies can look at how employee health affects business goals. Healthy employees are less likely to miss work due to illness, and because healthy choices often carry over into home life (improving the health of children and other family members), health-focused employees are also less likely to miss work to take care of an ill family member.

According the CDC, obese employees show a more than 50% increase of missed workdays when compared to “normal-weight” employees. These statistics apply to both men and women.
 
Not only are healthy employees more likely to be at work, they are also more likely to be productive (and in high spirits) when they are there. A team of healthy employees will likely work together better, and maintain a less stressful work environment as well.
 
From an owner and shareholder perspective, healthy employees reduce insurance costs, and health programs can function as great incentives for prospective employees.
 
So what to do

Companies can work with their staff members to help them make healthy food and exercise choices, provide an environment for health education, and even work as a support system for maintaining healthy lifestyle changes. Let employees include health goals with other annual business goals. Track progress, offer encouragement, and make sure employees know how important the health of the entire organization truly is.
 
Again, all of this rests on the individual choices of each staff member (and healthy choices should not be required, nor should health be tracked if and employee doesn’t request it), but by creating a landscape where health information, healthy food, and open dialogue about the benefits of health-based decision making are readily available, companies can nudge employees toward improving their health – and everyone benefits!
 
Are you making health a priority?

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.

27 Aug 2015
Sticky Post By Posted in Human Resources Articles, Organizational Change Articles Permalink

Do Your People Programs Have A Purpose?

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

Seems like organizations after organization roll out people programs to drive….engagement? Career development?  Honestly, it’s a little unclear. Organizations are masterful at developing business strategies. MBA courses are dedicated to it. But what about people programs? What is the seamless connections between them?
 

There is no doubting that happier, more involved employees yield numerous benefits, but it seems like too many companies are pursuing these goals as an afterthought (or as part of jumping on a bandwagon) instead of including these efforts into their overall business goals.
 
In the end, the driving force behind all people programs should be “how does this drive gaining/retaining customers?”  Each program needs to be linked to an organizational outcome. Yes there are organizations that are exceptions to this , like Southwest. But the majority of organizations putting out people programs with no tie to the business doom them to being:
• An afterthought
• A nice to have
• Another thing to do
• What to do when you have “free time”.
 
Initiatives that aren’t integrated into the business of the business don’t make people’s top priority list. “How do we increase employee engagement” Question after question are posted on LinkedIn.  There are beautiful solitons and TONS of data that point to why engagement is an awesome thing to drive. Yet, it’s not a focus still. Maybe it doesn’t have to do with engagement tool but where engagement  fits or is positioned.

To create a climate of universal adoption and enthusiasm for people programs, wouldn’t it be wise to frame them in a way that satisfies the interests of shareholders, managers, and employees alike?
 
It’s pretty clear how this can be accomplished: tie the benefits of people programs into quantifiable business results – how will engaged employees increase productivity? How will career development help attract and retain customers?

If they aren’t directly helping the business operate, what’s the point? Or rather, if people programs are helping the business, why aren’t they treated like it?

Regardless of the program, these same questions can be asked. There needs to be a direct link between a given program and a desired result.

Simply improving engagement is not a result in and of itself; it’s the means to a result like higher productivity, more effective collaboration for creative projects, increased communication for better conflict resolution, etc., and even these effects need to be tied back to reducing overhead, retaining customers, or increasing product value.

Ask yourself, what is the actual, tangible purpose of your company’s current people program? 

If you can’t tie it back to a company-wide goal, you just might be wasting your time.   

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.

27 Aug 2015
Sticky Post By Posted in Organizational Change Articles Permalink

Who Am I Going To Eat Lunch With?

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

It’s a familiar sensation to us all: those “first day of school” butterflies in your stomach, that anxiety of being a stranger in a new place without a good idea of how to fit it. The classic image is the lunchroom on the first day of school as the new kid – where are you going to sit? Or more importantly, who’s going to let you sit with them?

Even if you don’t have that literal “lunchroom” experience at a new job or fulfilling a new role, the sentiment and feeling is still quite common, and it’s something we can all relate to.
 
As leaders, we have to remember that this phenomenon happens every day! When new employees come in for the first time, when seasoned employees take on new responsibilities, or even when veterans deliver presentations or address large groups – those nervous feelings can still be present, and it’s our responsibility to show support and inspire confidence.

While we can’t (and shouldn’t) take away anxiety completely, and we can’t simply “do it for them,” we can try to create and environment that accepts new people with open arms, is forgiving of embarrassed and anxious behavior, and functions to offer the “new kid” a seat in the lunchroom.
 
It’s important for people to get through these experiences because they are necessary for growth and overcoming fear, and they have to do so “on their own” to a certain degree. This does not mean, however, that leaders can’t offer guidance in this regard when preparing people for new careers or new responsibilities.

Offering support works wonders for minimizing feelings of nervousness. With a little encouragement and a vote of confidence, people will feel, even though they may be afraid, that they have what it takes to succeed. Confidence is the principle lesson here, and people gain much needed assurance when they know someone has their back.
 
A true leader isn’t afraid of admitting to weakness, and showing the would be “new kid” that you (and nearly everyone else) has experienced this kind of “first day” anxiety will help put them at ease – or at least understand that it’s perfectly normal, fairly expected, and can be overcome.
 
Are you that kind of leader?

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.

27 Aug 2015
Sticky Post By Posted in Leadership Articles, Organizational Change Articles Permalink

Clinging To The Past

Sticky Post By On August 27, 2015

Somewhere along the way, most of us developed some kind of identity. Whether it was through a social group, and achievement, an activity, or any of a number of possible avenues, people tend to have a certain framework for how they see themselves.
The same can be true for companies – somewhere along the timeline, an identity was established, and just like people, that sense of identity has a way of perpetuating itself.

While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, what happens when that identity is challenged, or needs to change?


Far too often, an identity is held so closely that it becomes a barrier to progress and growth – but why? What are people so afraid of?

For some, it might be some sense of past glory, of holding on to a time when they felt on top of the world, and the thought of facing a new reality is too much to bear. For others, it may be a sense of embarrassment, that they’ve established themselves in a particular way, and they assume that they will be frowned upon by their peers for deviating from familiar patterns.

These social shortcomings can be reflected throughout a business as well, when those in leadership roles feel that they can’t change a company’s identity for fear of scrutiny or refusal to admit that times have changed.
 
But change is akin to growth for both businesses and individuals. Adapting to new circumstances, moving into new markets, rolling with the punches, and rising to challenges are all part of the process. When companies (and the people who operate them) are not willing to adapt, they are stunting themselves and any potential for progress.
 

Changing parts of an identity is scary – and understandably so. It takes courage to admit that you didn’t have it all figured out, that your old ways aren’t necessarily applicable today.
 
We have this tendency to hold onto our past selves as if it were some kind of lifeline, instead of seeking to grow into the realities we face moving forward. This is both counterproductive and counterintuitive. For the strongest identity (for both individuals and brands), we can’t be afraid to reevaluate and restructure to reflect our current understanding of the world.
 
Is there a more admirable identity than being adaptable to change?
 
The lessons learned and characteristics formed in the past are certainly an important part of any identity, but clinging to them too closely does little but make a relic of a person or company, and leaves absolutely zero room for improvement.

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.

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