Leadership and Self-Deception

A book by this title caught my eye ten years ago. The publisher is the Arbinger Institute. It came along with a powerful video detailing a case study from medical archives where established and well known medical practitioners had problems accepting the findings of a junior member. Why? They were stuck in their thinking, trapped inside the box, so to speak. The trap would not let in fresh data and breakthrough findings.

We have seen similar situations elsewhere, during our careers. Self-deception comes in many shades and forms. I am sure that the reader will recall from his own observations many such examples. Here are three that I would like to share:

1. A successul organization, led by a charismatic leader, runs into major profitability obstacles in its operations. The leader, surrounded by his most loyal and trusted underlings, began to explore solutions. One of the key people suggested an approach. Because of the team dynamics, little discussion followed as to the merits or limitations of the suggested remedies. Unquestioned, the solutions became the panacea for solving the profitability issues. When someone ventured contrasting ideas or doubts, he was soundly ridiculed and/or seen as a non-team player. The problem with the solution was that it did not fit all situations and that those responsible for implementing it did not know how. The solution proved unworkable and simplistic. The issues were much larger than anticipated. Yet to this day, the players recall this case as a tremendous success. Self-deception? Indeed!

2. Years ago, I was facilitating a team building session for an executive team composed of 13 members in a remote part of Minnesota, in a resort located near a beautiful lake. The session was engaging and quite interesting. The issue was poor revenue results. Of the 13 players, one was a quite participant, the rest very outspoken and loud. The quite member seemed more intent on listening than talking. He was in charge of product development. His colleagues were critical of the products coming from the development group and they were sure that poorly designed products were the culprits. After listening for two days to finger pointing and shouting, I felt that I was losing control of the group as a facilitator. In desperation, I turned to the quite member of the group and asked him for his view of the problem. In a quite voice, he responded as follows: Hey guys, it looks like the products you are asking me to develop are not the products that customers want. Wow! The rest is history! The finding was way too late to save them.

3. One of my friends and an esteemed consultant had been engaged in a 5-year culture change program in a high tech company. The CEO was keen on imbedding a set of values and culture characteristics that, in his view, would advance the strategy of the company. It was customary to review progress along this journey and congratulate one another about the tremendous progress made in the culture change journey. The CEO was the champion and advocate, and he was a formidable spokesperson. His exuberance created a reality that senior members felt obliged to accept, although quite remote from the facts on the ground. The consultant, my friend, got trapped in defending his approach and the client's views. People who were not supportive were labeled as misfits, old fashioned, command and control types who missed the significance of the intervention. Soon the specter of the "culture police" permeated the organization. Discussion soon was stifled, people began to go through the motions without conviction. The CEO and the consultant, to this day, defend the intervention as very successful. In my view, they are self-deceiving. One proof: once the CEO left the organization, the culture project was terminated and the consultant fired.

I am sure that you can add to the list many examples from your own experience.

The message here is that we all must be vigilant. It is easy to go along so as not to appear contrary. It is easy to construct a reality that we are all comfortable with. It is easy to go places where nobody wants to go in the first place in the name of teamwork. It is easy to not rock the boat and just ride along -- often toward more turbulent waters. It is easy to stick to what we know because what we do not know scares us. It is easy to live in the past or in our imagination because reality might scare us.

There is a great need to dialog inside organizations, free from perceived or imaginary reprisals. Dialog expand our data points and hopefully lead us toward a better, perhaps more informed decision making.

Enjoy the journey along the learning curve! Avoid self-deception -- a big obstacle to a profitable ride.

Brilliance by Design

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Annual Summit event sponsored by the Ken Blanchard Companies -- purveyors of world class leadership development programs. This conference showcases client companies' application of the Situational Leadership methodology. The venue was the La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California -- a beautiful Spanish colonial set of buildings nestled in the wooded section of this lovely California town -- approximately 15-20 miles North of San Diego.

During the conference I attended a short workshop led by Vicki Halsey, author of the book "Brilliance by Design". This book is an "how to" book -- on how to create learning experiences that connect, inspire, and engage participants. A must-have skill set for leaders and consultants.

Adult learning is an interesting discipline and one that captured my attention many years ago. In fact, I toyed with the idea of attending the Ph.D. program at Columbia University in the early '80's. Unfortunately, my work schedule did not permit me to do so, but I have never lost the passion for the subject.

Workshop design, in particular, is an important skill for organization development practitioners. Much of what they do involves the use of workshops for data collection, analysis and problem solving. I have attended one too many workshops that were poorly designed and ineffective. Some, I might have been personally responsible for. Not proud of that, though! I have struggled over the years to design workshops that connect, inspire and engage clients. But without solid training, I foundered along.

We were given a complimentary copy of the book. I am reading it as we speak, and I have already found much to learn and apply. I recommend it. It easily written and it is chuck full of examples, tables, questionnaires, and hints. It is published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, California. It costs a mere $ 18.95.

Tsunami and Change

I have been transfixed by the television images coming from Japan. After an enormous earthquake, the strongest in the recorded history of Japan, a huge tsunami wave washes away to sea buildings, cars, trees, and people. At last count 8,000 people are dead and another 12,000 are missing. The nuclear reactors near the epicenter did not withstand the tremblor. The cooling chambers were ruptured leaking the protective water surrounding the nuclear cores. Radioactive vapor continues to escape in the atmosphere; concern is high that explosions may occur if attempts to cool down the reactors prove unsuccessful.

The Japanese word tsunami means, I am told, catastrophe. There is no better way to describe the desolation, devastation, and human suffering resulting from this mammoth event. Hopelessness, despair, powerlessness, and broken dreams! All in a short in a matter of minutes.

In a remote small town of Tunisia, a lonely and desperate man immolates himself after an arbitrary confiscation of his vegetable cart. This sets off a spontaneous chain of human tsunamies across the Maghreb and to the Middle East. A subsequent insurresction topples the long standing dictator of Tunisia. Soon after the tsunami spreads to Egypt where valiant freedom fighters stand down Mubarak, their strong man of 30 years. Ripples from the change wave reach Jordan where the King swiftly moves to right some injustices. Turmoil soon after erupts in Bahrain and Yemen. Skirmishes are also reported in the Eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia. Unrest in Lybia quickly follows in the eastern province, and spreading quickly West to other cities.

Most, if not all, of these hot spots are still smoldering, with an uncertain conclusion. One cannot stand by and watch helplessly as these events unfold in front of our eyes. Something powerful and beyond explanation is happening. The human spirit, it seems, is alive and well, yearning to be free, eager to pursue happiness.

It has been reported that there are 100 million people in migration in the world today. Men and women who have left their homes in search of work. A human wave stretching across the globe. A wave larger than most countries' population. About 12 million are currently stranded in North Africa looking for ways to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in search of a better life.

Victor Pinero, a colleague that I met years back in Venezuela and later again in California, wrote a book about a tsunami type of change he saw happen in his native island of Curacao. His book went by unnoticed. He re-issued his updated book following the tsunami disaster in South East Asia a few years ago. Victor tried to bring to light the consequences of large scale change inside our organizations. Again, his book went mostly unnoticed.

During my long career, I have seen several organizational tsunami. They are all different, of course, but they also have something in common: a catastrophic event that shakes the organization off its foundations. Some organizations survive, but they are for ever changed. The catastrophic event might be the firing of a charismatic leader, the loss of a major source of revenue, the quick advent of a replacement technology, or an ill-conceived merger. As a result, careers are swept away, prospects destroyed, fortunes lost, and dreams shattered. Human suffering follows for years to come. The wounds might heal but the scars will remain.

I am reminded that we live in a world of uncertainty, a world full of unknowns, a world with hidden tsunamis -- some manageable, others beyond our scope. Although we long for predicability and safety, we are destined to live on shaky ground.

Hemingway said that "life breaks you but makes you stronger in the broken parts". As I reflect on these events, I pray that this is the case for our brothers and sisters in Japan. I pray that this is also the case for our brothers across the Maghreb and the Middle East.

Job Design -- A Lost Science?

In my last blog regarding employee engagement, I introduced the notion that an important (but not the only one) factor to consider is effective job design. One of my blog followers wrote to ask that I say a bit more about this topic.

Job design know-how is an important part of the HR professional toolkit. Without it, it is difficult to understand, let alone to do, organization design. Sadly, most HR professionals do not have the working knowledge and expertise required to carry out these two critical functional assignments -- the hard side of HR. I do not recall seeing either course in most HR curricula that I have perused in the past 10 years. What seems to be in vogue nowdays is the softer side of HR.

My view has been for sometime that it is sheer folly to rely on just one side of the HR equation (hard or soft). Effective HR management work requires knowledge and experience in both sides. The lack of the hard side will break us while the emphasis on the soft side will make us more successful. Two sides of the same coin. One is not better than the other, they are both essential.

Back to job design. Its roots go back to the industrial revolution and the industrial engineers who pionered it. It all started with job analysis -- the study of the time and motions needed to complete an industrial task. The engineers' orientation was to find ways to fit unskilled people to the requirements of emerging mass production. Right just before and after the WWII, industrial psychologists got involved in a series of experiments designed to humanize the workplace. Assembly line work, while generating the desired efficiencies, took a huge toll on people's motivation, organizational attachment, and job satisfaction. These experiments gave rise to a new approach that tried to balance the technical needs of a job with the human side of the provider, more elegantly named the socio-technical approach.

Taking the mystique away, job design is a decision making process that tries to balance, on one side, the job designer's CHOICES in work design with, on the other side, CONSIDERATIONS for people. What are the choices? They are the tasks, activities, functions included in a person's job vis-a-vis the aspirations, skill set, and orientation (considerations). The designer can based on this analysis enrich a job by increasting its variety or enlarge a job based on individual needs and capabilities. This approach has taken hold in the more recent times whenever technology permits it. It is quite difficult to customize jobs in mass production or automated functions, but rather feasible in service or high tech industries for example.

Now, let me dispel some faulty assumptions. Job descriptions are not to be confused with job design. They are an expression of how management sees a particular job. The same can be said for position descriptions or role descriptions. Their uses are also different. Job descriptions are useful for salary survey work, by enabling us to calculate job worth in monetary terms. Role descriptions are useful for clarifying responsibilities, accountabilities, and authority. Position descriptions are functional descriptions of specific jobs in a job family. Job analysis tries to map out how people spend their time, how important what people do might be in the scheme of things, and the relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform them. It is a great tool for activity pricing and for eliminating wasteful efforts. Job analysis is also essential to solid needs assessment.

Increased employee engagement depends on the fit between the person and the job. Experts in employee engagement warn us that engagement is not the same thing as satisfaction, and I agree. But I posit that job satisfaction is a pre-condition. We all know that happy cows do not yield more or better milk. But we know, on the other hand, that unhappy cows will gore you, run away (turnover), or quit cooperating.

Research on employee retention suggests that people stay because they like the work they do and the context in which they do it (company, industry, location, etc.) Employees leave, on the other hand, principally because they have better opportunities, do not like their supervisor, find company policies wnating, or are dissatisfied with the work climate or work location. Two totally different sets of reasons!

In todays's world employees expect involvement and participation in those decisions that affect their job or livelihood. Management on the other hand expects compliance and flexibility. I believe that this is a fair exchange. Don't you?

A big subject to address in a short blog. I hope that I have contributed to the discussion.

Employee Engagement

Last month I visited Brazil for the second time the past year. I met with four different consulting firms on behalf of a company on whose board I serve. One of the recurring themes during my visit was employee engagement. It is a hot topic and many world class consultancies such as Hewitt, Hay, Gallup, and my old alma mater Louis Allen Worldwide are scrambling to respond to this market interest.

It is my view that fostering employee engagement is the core work of HR functions. In today's fragile economy, competitive advantage is elusive since other firms can pretty much copy your products and emulate your service offerings. However, no one can really copy how your employees feel about your company. Research has shown that organizations with better employee engagement perform better on a number of critical measures, e.g., profitability, customer retention, etc. Engagement means going the extra mile to achieve company goals. It is the extra that affects the competitive advantage.

Research on employee engagement suggests that what drives it varies from company to company, so there are no universal remedies or across the board solutions. What drives it in your organization might be very different than what drives it elsewhere.

We have made many advances in measuring and analyzing employee engagement, but we are in the primitive stages when it comes to targeted interventions. Consultancies seem to know less about how to improve it than they know about measuring it.

The source of implementation wisdom comes from the day to day experience and know-how in job design, carefully architected reward systems, effective leadership practices, and human resources policies and programs. HR departments need to step up and lead with properly configured strategies and programs. You cannot improve employee engagement with training programs, communication blitzes, or focus groups. Sure, these might help but they alone will not sustain change and improvement. It is not the job of consultants to do this. Most consultants lack the knowledge in the fundamentals of human resources management. It is not their mantra. Most make money by being good diagnosticians, not treatment specialists.

Treating the intervening variables may give the illusion of progress, but addressing the causal variables is where the honey is, so to speak. The former is akin to treating the symptoms. Unfortunately, this is where most effort goes in, in my view.

What are your ideas and successes in this area? Are you willing to exchange them? Enjoy the journey along the learning curve.

Job Satisfaction and GDP

I recently traveled to the Middle East. As it is my custom, I always buy the latest issue of the "Economist". In the November 27, 2010 I read an intersting article in the finance and economics section entitled "The Joyless or the Jobless".

The article introduces the topic by discussing briefly the 2006 notion by professor Richard Layard from the London School of Economics arguing that unhappiness was a bigger social problem in Britain than unemployment. The professor went on to point out that more people were claiming incapacity benefits because of depression and other mental disorders than were on the dole (welfare).

With the advent of the economic crisis, it seems that this issue has fixed the problem. The jobless now outnumber the joyless -- there is nothing like a decline in GDP to make everyone aware how much this peculiar metric matters.

Professor Layard has long argued that GDP is overrated as a gauge of a country's well being. Once an economy reaches an income level of $ 15,000 per person, he goes on to point out, economic growth ceases to contribute to happiness. He cites, as an example, that although the average US income is more than Denmark's, there is no evidence that Americans are happier than the Danes. Professor Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson from the Whaton School at the University of Pennsylvania question their colleague's conclusion since they were unable to find a significant statistical proof in the satisfaction test of the proposition.

Academics differ on the value of happiness in policy making. Their disagreement is rooted in the political orientation of those making it -- for or against.

The Declaration of Independence in America mentions happiness as the uneniable right of every person to pursue it, and not by the government to make it its policy. If people know what makes them happy, but do little to pursue it as a goal, there is nothing that the government can do about it.

Studies at Cornell University by professors Daniel Benjamin, Ori Heffetz and Alex Rees-Jones, and Miles Kimbal from the University of Michigan show that, in their study, 70% of respondents would be happier to earn less money and sleeping more. Likewise, almost 2/3 would be happier earning less money and living close to their friends, rather than more money in a city of strangers.

These findings suggest that money is not everything.

But ask people what they would choose as opposed to what would make them happy, and their answers may surprise us: 17% of those who would be happier sleeping more and earning less would still choose the higher paying job. 26% of those prizing short commutes over low rents would still opt for the cheaper home; and 22% of those who value closeness to friends more than higher pay would still move to where they can make more money.

Money may not buy happiness. But why take the chance?

Sobering thoughts about a subject of regular discourse amongst HR professionals. Don't you think?

Enjoy your journey along the learning curve.

Reflections on the Role Of HR

HR as a function has been searching for an identity for more than 50 years.

When it was called Personnel, senior management's expectations were more modest. The expectations were often expressed in functional terms: staffing, compensation, training and development, safety, employee relations, employee services, in some cases labor relations, and personnel research.

HR's effectiveness was assessed with cost measures e.g., cost per hire, cost per placement, cost per training hour, benefit costs per employee, revenue per emplyee, number of grievances, turnover rates, compa-ratios, accident frequency and severity, etc. It was a simpler world.

Once the name was changed, senior management's expectations became more demanding. Organization development, team building, flat structures, job design, coaching, and other soft topics emerged. New measures (additional) emerged: retention rates, engagement indices, climate surveys, culture surveys, team effectiveness, 360 assessment, etc. Not all HR practioners were prepared for the change.

Talk began about partnering with rather serving management. Lofty notions, but many wondered how, some still do.

But changing the name does not mean that we are changing anything. Senior management continues to be critical of the HR function and its contribution to the effective operation of the enterprise. A survey conducted by my consulting firm showed that 90% of the CEOs we contacted were dissatisfied with the quality of their HR function. In the same study, 90% of the CHROs were satisfied with the role they played in their organization.

Change comes from a new set of skills and preparation coupled with meaningful changes in policies and practices. It does not come by changing our job titles or what we call our department. Being a partner is not what you call yourself, rather it is how your partner interacts with you.

In my view, CEOs are responsible for the culture of the organization. HR can surely help, but ultimately, the tone and leadership come from the top. HR, on the other hand, is responsible for the organization's climate, and here there is much HR can do to influence the organization's climate through appropriate policies and practices that are consequential to the desired climate.

As a practitioner and head of HR, I saw my role as the champion of a climate that fostered engagement, that motivated staff to go the extra mile, and that made work a satisfying and rewarding experience.

I suggest the review of HR policies and practices with an eye for any perceived or actual barriers to the desired goal. Many of the barriers, I have found, are built by the administrative processes. Policies intended to reward people could become colossal dissatisfiers because of the many loops people have to go through to implement them. Streamlining these policies by taking out non-value added steps could smooth the decision making process.

There is a tendency in HR to do the same thing over and over expecting better results. Einstein suggested that this is insanity. I am sure you will agree.

There are practices in HR that do not add value and should be eliminated. There are policies intended to control when no control is really needed. There are policies that keep things moving and policies that slow or stop progress. I suggest that the latter be removed. There are policies that might be important for regulatory purposes but are quite useless from an operating point of view. These should be kept to the minimum required for compliance. There are policies that set limits on creativity and decision making. They should be liberalized, in my view.

HR is not a police department; in today's world, it might be better to encourage a culture of self-analysis, of periodic lessons learned critique, and a culture that encourage conversation rather than stifling openness and candor.

Realistic? I believe so! What is your take?