LEADING THOUGHTS

Sweeping changes in the labour market over the past four decades have triggered “the disappearance of ‘workers’ as a political and industrial force, as a social and cultural category and as the concept that organizes our thinking about labour law and policy,” says Harry Arthurs, one of Canada’s leading labour law scholars.

In a recent speech to St. John’s College at University of Oxford, Arthurs listed a litany of tectonic forces: technological change, the shift in employment from manufacturing to the service economy, the “flexibilization” of the workforce, demographic trends, and globalization.

These developments have made employment more precarious, created conflicts or magnified differences among workers, undercut labour solidarity, and shifted the balance of power to employers.

As a result, people no longer define themselves as “workers” or as members of the “working class.” If they experience unfairness, Arthurs says, it is not as “workers” but as members of a disenfranchised group. “The common experience, the solidarity-building experience, of workers — in mines and sweatshops and dark satanic mills— is gone,” Arthurs says. “Gone too is the culture that reinforced that solidarity.”

The transformation of work has also rendered machinery of labour market regulation obsolete. Arthurs offers a number of examples.

“The shift from manufacturing to service jobs has revealed that laws premised on one sort of employment relationship do not necessarily produce the desired results when transplanted onto another.” Implication: Should labour legislation be drafted to take account of sectoral differences?

“Technology enables employers to respond to their customers around the clock, and globalization requires that they do so. But for employers to respond, employees must be available on at least a standby basis.” Implication: Should laws fixing maximum hours of work and requiring premium pay for overtime be changed to accommodate the employer’s business needs, or the employee’s needs for even greater protection against intrusion on his or her free time?

Arthurs says Western economies have three choices:

1. Adopt the perspective of human rights and the principles of freedom, dignity, and equality. “These principles ought to apply to people at work, no less than people at other moments in their lives,” he says.

2. See what can be done to bring more equity into the labour market within the limits of neo-liberal capitalism.

3. Try to resuscitate the labour movement or reinvent the labour movement.

Which one would you vote for?

If you’d like a copy of Harry Arthurs’s presentation, send me an email at Alan [at] AlanMorantz [dot] com

photo credit: Mohammad A. Hamama – A Socialist Blogger

Labour Relations, Uncategorized change, demographics, unions

Researchers at the Centre for Performance-Led HR (Lancaster U Management School) argue that organizational design is fast becoming a strategic capability, particularly for those organizations undergoing business model change. And where should that strategic capability reside? “For HR to be truly strategic,” they write in a white paper, “the function needs to develop the capability of influencing business model design at each level of analysis (industry value web, organisation value proposition, and component structure).”

In this video, the researchers make their case.

At the 0:38 mark, Paul Sparrow discusses what organizational design capabilities involve, and makes the distinction between org design and organizational development. He says HR is in the perfect position to marry the two.

At the 1:10 mark, Craig Marsh offers a series of questions that HR directors should ask of themselves around the need for leading the charge in org design.

At the 3:00 mark, he says HR directors need to think bigger, more broadly, and in a more integrated fashion.

Download the CPHR white paper, Integrated Organisation Design: The New Strategic Priority for HR Directors, here or send me an email at Alan [at] AlanMorantz [dot] com.

Org Design, Uncategorized change, Org Design, strategic hr, video

In the journal Global Business and Organizational Excellence, Stephen Wehrenberg offers an insider perspective on an enterprise change management initiative at the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard provides an interesting case study. It is admirably flexible when facing operational issues; leaders have to adapt to changing situations. But the Coast Guard is as rigid as they come when non-operational changes are needed.

Wehrenberg, director of HR strategy and executive development for the Coast Guard, offers a number of reasons for resistance to change: autonomy at low levels; accountability for results with less attention to process; high degree of leader turnover; and a feeling of “change saturation.”

Wehrenberg and his team designed a “stealth” strategy to build local participation and earn some wins in order to gain broad adoption at the unit level. They also adopted a portfolio change management approach to help senior leaders prioritize initiatives. And they employed the Project Change Triangle Assessment to evaluate strength in three areas critical to change: executive sponsorship, project management discipline, and change management discipline.

The change management process at the Coast Guard is ongoing so there is more to this case study that needs to be written. But it is still a worthwhile read for those planning change in large, culturally complex organizations.

“The Coast Guard Charts a Course for Enterprise Change Management,” by Stephen Wehrenberg; Global Business and Organizational Excellence (pp. 17-31, November/December 2009)

If you cannot find this journal is your local library, email me for a copy of the article at Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: KyleZOA

Org Development, Uncategorized assessment, case study, change, storytelling

Here is a nice six-minute story from Fabienne Munch, Director of Ideation at Herman Miller, about how she transformed and energized her 15-member team in the space of five months.

Stealing an idea from Google’s playbook, Munch gave members of her team $5,000 each to pursue an idea of their choice. There were three conditions: the project had to relate to Herman Miller’s mission; the staffers had to invite an outsider to participate; and they had to be open to the idea of pooling resources with their colleagues. At the five-minute mark, Munch talks about what happened next.

In the final two minutes, Munch talks about workplace trends that are informing how Herman Miller is designing work spaces.

Leader-Follower case study, change, ideas, incentives, motivation, Org Design, teamwork, video

You know the statistic: planned, management-implemented change processes suffer a failure rate of more than 70 percent. Why do change projects fail at such an alarming rate? Resistance to change, the role of the change manager in managing the process, a lack of participation due to top-down steering, organizational culture, the relevance of the goals of change. . . you name it.

Renate A. Werkman (Wageningen U) set out to identify generalized patterns of change in both private and public sector organizations, and to explain variations in those patterns. As a basis, Werkman used widely acknowledged characteristics of the change management process, trying to find interrelations and linking them to the context of the change project. Data were obtained from managing directors, line managers, staff members, employees, and consultants from 367 organizations differing in size, sector, and the type of change process.

Werkman found that there are five patterns among changing organizations, each with their own specific problems, characteristics, and change approaches that require different interventions. Here they are:

Innovative pattern. The most successful pattern shows that “a pleasant culture and leadership and pleasant work characteristics provide important conditions for the success of organizational change.” Change managers here pay attention to a thorough process management, providing clear goals, stimulating employees to participate, and refraining from using power. Found in: smaller, knowledge-intensive, industrial, and food-related companies.

Systematical pattern. “Employees are quite positive about organizational characteristics but there is some control orientation and political behavior.” Change managers here do not consider unilateral and participative approaches to be mutually exclusive, and they pay attention to the process of change. Found in: medium-sized organizations in the financial industry, regional and local governments, and healthcare organizations.

Unclear change process pattern. “Employees evaluate organizational characteristics rather positively, but they experience a lack of clarity about the ultimate purpose of the change process.” Restricted exchange of information and ideas generates limited support for change but change processes do not evoke tensions. “Either people just do not have a clue where to contribute, they trust change managers with the process or they are just not interested.” Found in: relatively small organizations in the IT sector and the service industry; can also be found in public sector organizations that are specifically working on development and innovation.

Skeptical pattern. Combines low change capacity with moderately high control orientation. “The large organizations here are characterized by mechanistic structures and bureaucratic control. . . There is little opportunity for interaction and the exchange of ideas in this pattern and therefore for participative strategies.” Found in: large government organizations and large public utility organizations.

Cynical pattern. Employees are very negative about organizational characteristics. “This negativity is reflected in the change process, which is, remarkably, being pushed through in a relatively unsystematic way by apparently solitary operating change managers.” Found in: research institutions, non-commercial service industry, and central government.

“The results suggest it would be wise for change managers to choose for a participative change approach and for a thorough process management,” Werkman writes. “Power strategies do not enforce compliance but evoke resistance.”

“Understanding failure to change: a pluralistic approach and five patterns”, by Renate A. Werkman; Leadership and Organization Development Journal (Vol. 30 No. 7, pp. 664-684, 2009)

If you cannot find this paper in your local library, email me for a copy: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: jtu

General HR change, public sector

Public agencies may be doing a good job at slashing waste using Six Sigma and lean techniques but they could be doing a lot better by focusing on the “soft” side: implementing a robust management structure and changing employees’ mindsets.

In the publication McKinsey on Government, consultants Maia Hansen and John Stoner offer a step-by-step approach to establishing the right infrastructure for a lean transformation (lean has been defined as strategy that focuses on eliminating waste, which includes all processes that do not add value to the final product or service).

Create a value-stream map that identifies where value lies in each step of the process. “Our strong recommendation . . . is to form a cross-functional team with representatives who interact with the process in a variety of ways and therefore see it from different perspectives.”

Get data to the right people at the right time. That means focusing on Key Performance Indicators that matter most and ensuring that the right people are viewing them.

Establish new roles to smooth processes. The lean initiative may be best served, for example, by creating a new coordinating position to boost efficiency.

Align interests to drive momentum. The McKinsey consultants like gainsharing arrangements to embed the concept of continuous improvement, build morale, and sustain enthusiasm.

Hansen and Stoner also offer suggestions on how to change employee mindsets.

Get staff to focus on the consumer. This may be a challenge for a public agency with no competitors, but a good technique is to have employees follow a customer through the entire process of interacting with the agency/employer and to experience bureaucratic frustrations.

Break down silos. Make sure units know what other units are up to or create shared metrics to help units better understand shared goals.

Inspire employees to overcome risk aversion. The public sector may be allergic to performance measurement and risk but managers can change that perception. “Managers should thank employees for trying new approaches,” the authors write, “and focus on solving problems rather than assigning blame for mistakes.”

A Leaner Pubic Sector, by Maia Hansen and John Stoner; McKinsey on Government (Number 4, Summer 2009)

photo credit: Toban Black

Public Sector, Uncategorized change, lean, Org Design, public sector, six sigma, strategy, teamwork

In this video interview with The McKinsey Quarterly (biz journal of McKinsey & Company), Stanford U Professor Robert Sutton talks about how, in tough economic times, leaders/supervisors experience the “toxic tandem.” On the one hand, people in power tend to be oblivious to the needs and actions of people with less power. On the other, subordinates are hyper vigilant; they closely watch the boss for cues and clues as to what is really going down (“Am I next on the chopping block?”).

I presented the ideas to a group of executives. And this guy walks up to me and he starts describing his executive vice president and how one of the secretaries walked up to him and said, “When are the layoffs going be?” And he says, “What?” And then she went to explain. She said, “Well, it’s an ‘interesting shoes’ day for you.”

What this guy has a reputation of doing is he can’t look people in the eye when he’s upset about stuff, so he would always be looking at his shoes. They were saying, “The boss is having ‘interesting shoes’ day.” So from just the fact the guy walked around not looking anybody in the eye, she went straight up to him. So that to me is a pretty good sign he was oblivious to that, right?

The antidote for the toxic tandem, says Sutton, is prediction, understanding, control, and compassion. “Prediction”: Give assurance where you can and don’t overpromise. “Understand”: Make the effort to clearly communicate  the situation in ways that people will understand. “Control”: Give people a measure of control over the way layoffs happen. And “compassion”?: Have a heart, buddy.

As for dealing with the psyche of those who survive layoffs, Sutton says the key is fairness. “When they see that it’s fair,,” he says, “they are more likely to stay loyal, suffer less psychological damage, and also feel more guilty and work even harder to help you.”

Link to Bob Sutton’s excellent blog

Leader-Follower, Uncategorized change, communication, Leader-Follower, sutton

A good argument can be made that the key reason a new initiative fails is employees’ perception that their organization is not ready for change. If that’s the case, what can change agents do to get employees to believe that the organization is indeed primed and ready? Researchers Inta Cinite and Linda Duxbury (Carleton U) and Chris Higgins (U of Western Ontario) developed an empirically-tested diagnostic to do just that.

As a basis, the researchers started with the concept of PORC, “perceived organizational readiness for change.” Developed back in the 1970s, PORC defines employees’ belief that the organization not only can initiate change but also engages in practices that will lead to successful implementation. They then developed a way to measure PORC in public sector organizations, based on research from five organizations that had initiated transformational change. Projects included a shift in the strategic direction toward a higher degree of transparency, a shift from a command and control management style to one that was based on employee empowerment, a change in reporting relationships, and two organizational restructuring efforts.

This is what they came up with:

“Organizations that want to be perceived by their employees to be ready for change should pay close attention to the behaviours of their leaders, change agents, immediate supervisors at all levels, organizational practices around the change, and how these practices impact people’s daily work.” The researchers suggest that managers who have direct reports should be well equipped to communicate change to their staff and provide the necessary support.

“Organizations are judged to be not ready for change due to poor communication practices when employees perceive that the outcomes, benefits and reasons for the change are not well explained and when employees do not understand the vision behind the change.”

Employees’ perceptions are also informed by the impact the change is thought to have on
their work. They will remain skeptical of change if: old duties are not phased out when new ones are assigned; they are discouraged from saying ‘no’ to work; and they are assigned heavy workloads that hinder them from getting involved in the change initiative.

Measurement of Perceived Organizational Readiness for Change in the Public Sector, by Inta Cinite, Linda E. Duxbury, and Chris Higgins; British Journal of Management, Vol. 20, 265–277 (2009)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: Auntie P

Public Sector change, communication, public sector