Archive for the ‘transformational leadership’ Category

The best approach to implementing change is identifying your unique approach for each particular situation.  Even within organizations it is risky to have a one size fits all approach yet many organizations aim to have one methodology for all.

Take for example a sales division, this most likely will have a different culture from the IT department just based on the skill set, the type of work and environment in which employees work therefore the best approach is to define specifically what will work within an organization not the organization as a whole.

Here are 5 tips to get you started.

1.       The first is to understand the business context.  This goes almost without saying that you need to understand what the business reason is for the change, what are the business impacts both within the organization and externally and what is the goal and vision for the organization as a result of the changes implemented.

2.       What is the scope of the change, is it a new way of doing business, new technology, new markets, or a new organizational structure?  These are just some of the questions you need to ask as the impact will be on employees and other stakeholders and by analysing the impact you will understand begin to understand the scope of your change strategy.

3.       Once you have done this analysis you are ready to identify the best approach to implement the changes.  This includes the communication strategy which is nearly always about information, the engagement strategy which is about designing activities aimed at getting the buy-in and support of all levels of employees including the leadership team and then identifying the business measures.

4.       Implement the change strategy for all levels including the leadership team and assess continuously and monitor the success or otherwise of change interventions and alter as the need arises and continue to measure.

5.       Change should be seamless and become part of business as usual activities.  Where change processes fail is when they are labelled and treated as something happening over there and separate to the business.  Seamless integration into the new way we do business is the most difficult but necessary aspect of managing change so ensure that the engagement activities designed in step 3 are designed to become a new process so that behaviour changes.

Change management is difficult, stories abound of change strategies that fail, either due to lack of support by the leadership team, the inability to explain in very simple terms that mean something to individuals why the change is occurring and the miscalculation in timing of the change interventions whether they be key messages or engagement strategies.  To find out more about how to implement change and engage employees click here.

For transformational leaders, one of the best ways to create momentum to bring strategy to life is to connect employees with the customer experience.  So practically what does this mean and how do you do it?  What this means is that you are looking for opportunities that demonstrate the connection between the work that employees do and the impact it has directly on the customer – whether that be with an internal or external customer. For more ideas on how to do this click here.

Today we’ll explore a few case studies that illustrate how this can be implemented regardless of your industry sector.

Healthcare Sector Case Study:

The Objective:

This hospital wanted to cut costs whilst at the same time ensuring that its patients were not adversely affected by the changes.  The hospital was also a major provider of healthcare in a small community, so it was essential that its reputation of high-quality care was not reduced.

The Method:

The hospital wanted to ensure that its personal care remained at the highest standard.  So they sought feedback through focus groups, telephone surveys and directly contacting the carers.  Three key attributes in patient care emerged as the main contributors to patient satisfaction.  The hospital staff concentrated on improving these three areas while simultaneously reducing costs. Cross-functional teams were then established with employees who volunteered to take part.  An employee with strong project management skills was selected to lead each team.  They then presented management with a list of options to improve the experience of the patients, with details of costings and timeframes for implementation.  Agreement was reached on the changes and the senior management team ensured line managers were not barriers to the implementation.

The Outcome:

As a result of the changes implemented, patient satisfaction rose to 98%.  This significantly high score contributed to a great lift to employee morale and increased motivation despite the cost-cutting activities. Employees were directly involved in implementing the improvements, and a staff survey indicated greater levels of job satisfaction.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

STEP 1:

Identify whether your customer research can indicate top three factors that will have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction.

STEP 2:

Involve employees in the implementation of some of these changes.

STEP 3:

Measure customer satisfaction and communicate this to employees.  It will be an endorsement of their efforts and thus improve staff morale.

Media Sector Case Study:

The Objective:

This media organization was concerned that as it grew, the level of customer satisfaction varied considerably across the businesses.  The organisation wanted to dramatically improve its service levels and to become more customer-focused, but they also needed to involve employees in the process.

The Method:

The first aspect of the project was to survey employees in focus groups about what they thought the level of service was.  The survey highlighted interesting results:  most employees felt that red tape hindered customer satisfaction; half the employees commented that excellence in customer service was not recognized; and, a large number of employees felt that managers did not focus on customer satisfaction.   The focus group results highlighted the areas for improvement.  The first was putting together cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for eliminating red tape and improving customer satisfaction.  Then, the employees designed what they felt were appropriate reward and recognition for excellence in customer service.  And finally to address the issue of managers not being focussed on customer satisfaction they were integrated into the cross functional teams and had accountability for making them successful.  The approach was driven by the CEO and the executive management team.  It created a focus around customer satisfaction that permeated every aspect of the customer experience and was the main driver of the organization.

The Outcome:

Over 150 ideas on ways to enhance customer satisfaction were received from the cross-functional teams. Nearly all the suggestions were implemented, which reinforced the support the organization had for the project.  Continued focus on customer satisfaction reinforced it as the key driver in the organization’s culture.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

STEP 1:

Conduct some focus groups and find out what employees think about customer satisfaction levels.

STEP 2:

Implement cross-functional teams for employees to address some of the issues raised in the focus groups.

STEP 3:

When designing a rewards and recognition programme, give employees the opportunity to indicate what would be a motivator for them.

Leadership communication is so much more than updating intranet sites, organising CEO forums, company blogs and sending out information via email.  The true value is in finding ways to engage employees by doing something differently and seeing the direct impact of the decisions and actions that they take at work.  For more case studies click here.

Trying to keep momentum going during long periods of change implementation is one of the greatest challenges organisations face.  This is especially true for major information technology system projects where significant engagement activity can take place during the design phase and the implementation phase but it is in the quiet of the build phase that momentum and engagement tends to lag. Here are some suggestions of what you can do to ensure that leaders as well as employees remain focussed on the changes ahead.

1. Implement team briefing.

Ensure that regular meetings take place with consistent messaging that incorporate change with business as usual activities. You can easily dovetail messages about the system changes and the reason why they are happening by connecting to the everyday business transformation that is going on.  By ensuring consistency in messages team briefing allows you to ensure the focus remains on change and most importantly the reason why.

2. Link to customer service feedback and measures.

There are some powerful ways of linking the customer experience to innovation and change at the workplace. Access to market research on the customer experience can be a great starting point for wider business as usual transformation.  The changes implemented are then measured for improvement in the customer research taken again six months later.

3. Connect with the wider business strategy.

What else is happening in the organisation, what is the bigger picture of what is changing and why and how will the system change enable some improvements in achievement of the organisation’s vision.   By always connecting to the why the rest of the story will fall into place and the momentum for change will continue because there is always something happening.

4. Identify what employees know about the changes.

Measure feedback via focus groups to find out what employees are actually saying about the changes, what they know, identify what they don’t and what they want to know.  You will only ever find this out by conducting the focus groups – questionnaires will not give you the answers you are seeking. Once you have this information it is easy to continue to plan your strategy to keep the momentum for change going.

5. Celebrate milestones.

It is important to keep reminding leaders as well as employees of the milestones in any change process and why they are significant.  By integrating the general changes in business as usual activities and the specific system changes, this constant recognition of progress will keep the focus on movement towards the desired business goals.

If you keep the focus on business as usual and integrate messages about change and the project’s achievements then all you need to do is a subtle shift in balance when you get into implementation phase after the quiet of the build phase of your Information Technology system change.  To have all the detailed information at your fingers tips on how to do this visit  http://www.marciaxenitelis.com/products.html and order all 3 products and save 10% on the purchase price.

One of the interesting aspects I find in the work I do with clients is the amount of vertical communication that takes place rather than horizontal communication.

With most topics we communicate it logically from the top – CEO down and we think that we’ve done a great job because everyone at the front line is understands how their roles connects with the organisation’s focus. And in most instances we have feedback loops to check whether the audience understands what we have communicated.

However I suggest that the real value in employee communication is the horizontal conversations that we often neglect. For more examples of what I mean by horizontal communication that demonstrates the enterprise wide story click here. This is what gives an enterprise life because the focus in how the sum of each contributes to the whole.

Instead of focussing on silos by division everyone starts to focus on the enterprise as a whole. Here’s an example of what I mean in this case study from the motor industry.

The objective

This organization decided to use videoconferencing to reach five of its major corporate offices. The objective behind the selection of this media was threefold.

Firstly, the company was introducing a new vehicle line, and wanted to spread the news on how excited the employees were about it to their dealer network. Although they could have chosen a newsletter or DVD to get this message across, it would not have been as credible as this choice. One of the main target audiences was a 400-strong dealer network, and the organization wanted them to see first-hand how enthusiastic the 400 employees at the business headquarters were about this new line.

The Method:

So an interactive link was established between these two groups. The opportunity was there for conversation and direct answers to any questions the dealers might want to put forward. Another key factor to the success of this approach was the installation of television monitors at the organizations’ other four regional offices, which enabled 400 more employees to be included in the dealer meeting for the first time. Although they were not able to communicate with the other two groups, they were able to experience the essence of the company and how it sells its product.

This was the first time the employees had the opportunity to be a part of the organization’s “big picture.” Another reason for having the employees present was for them to hear the senior management’s speeches from their location. Therefore, the benefits of this operation were threefold: the dealers were able to feel and hear the employees’ enthusiasm for the new vehicle; the employees were able to see how the company communicated with its dealership to obtain maximum sales; and, the employees and dealers were able to hear the speeches of senior management.

The Outcome:

This approach is as example of a communication approach for companies that want to communicate the enterprise wide story and connect the dots for their audience. By demonstrating to employees the “other side” of the business, specifically marketing and distribution, all the elements that make this organization successful are clearly outlined.

No matter what size organisation the concept on communicating horizontally and not just vertically will make a significant impact on your organisations’ goals and achievements of the company vision. More examples of how many other sectors have implemented enterprise wide communication click here.

As I see it there are two ways to manage change within organisations.  One of those is to constantly communicate information about what is happening and to collect information to inform your change activities.  The other is to engage leaders and employees in the process of change so that communication takes place rather than information and you create a paradigm shift that the change process is owned by the leaders and employees in the organisation, not the change manager.

So here are a few examples of what I mean.  Let’s say as part of the change process you decide to undertake a stakeholder analysis.  There are two ways of managing this, the first is to get a template and circulate it via email and ask managers to complete it.  If they have filled out the form they will let you know who the stakeholders are, what their issues are likely to be, how they recommend they are communicated with and how frequently.  Another way of doing a stakeholder analysis is to use the same template but this time with the leadership group in the room facilitate a session where they have to discuss and reach agreement on all of the issues.  This is definitely going to create a more robust conversation and sense of ownership.  After the session as part of the signoff process you distribute the outcomes of the session via email and ask the leadership team to confirm via email that they are happy with the content of the stakeholder analysis. Both of these actions create a sense of ownership and responsibility that you would not have had if you used the first approach and just circulated the stakeholder analysis template via email or completed it by having brief one on one discussions.

Another part of the change process for any project is around risks and issues.  It would be easy for any change manager to sit down and complete on their own or with the HR manager the people risks and issues during any change process.  However you want the leadership team to own the people risks and issues, and even before this step to understand that there are risks and issues regarding employees and they should identify what they might be and what mitigation strategies they suggest.  And then after all of this they assign various members of their leadership team to have accountability to deal with the risk should it escalate as an issue.  So again if you facilitate a session with the leadership team to complete the risks and issues template you are creating another paradigm shift in thinking about their accountability for the change process to be successful.

And this is the difference, it is subtle but the results are significant. You will never achieve engagement with the leadership team for owning the people issues around change if you do all the work for them.  You need to get them thinking, talking, discussing, arguing and finally owning the people issues regarding change if you are going to have any level of real success.

As always I am interested in your comments and feedback about the approaches you have found worked in engaging leaders to own the change process in your organisation.

There are two distinct ways transformational leadership can engage employees; one is to inform employees about what is happening in an organization, the other is to engage employees in the process of change.  In this article we are going to highlight 3 case studies that demonstrate clearly the different techniques and approaches to ensure that your leadership strategies bring about transformation in your organization.

Transformational Leadership Case Study 1: At this telecommunications manufacturing plant, the company decided to involve employees in the organizational changes that were taking place.  The company is involved in high technology and has approximately 1,900 employees.  After a senior management workshop it was decided that a customer service change programme be developed. 

One of the methods introduced was the round table concept.  The communications team organised for 18 people from a specific area to have a 90 minute meeting with senior managers.  However, the key to the success of these meetings was that the employees did most of the talking and the senior managers, most of the listening.  The organization planned to learn from these meetings what the barriers were to success and customer satisfaction.  Over a 10 week period, 50 round tables were scheduled.  At the completion of this exercise, approximately one third of the total of the organization’s workforce were involved in the round tables.  Participants in the round table programme were selected from every employment level with a balanced representation of gender and race.

Patterns in the issues that were raised began to emerge and senior management began to take notice of what were to become the main elements of the customer service change programme.  What was critical with this approach was that soon after the round table program of 10 weeks, employees began to actually see their suggestions adopted, and changes taking place.  To supplement the face to face meetings with managers, a bi-weekly newsletter was produced.  Each issue was 2 pages in length and included a dedicated space for employees to make suggestions to managers for improvement in customer service.

Transformational Leadership Case Study 2: This hospital wanted to cut costs and at the same time ensure that patients were not adversely impacted by the changes.  It was also a major provider of healthcare in a small community so it was essential that the reputation of high quality care was not reduced.

So they sought feedback using focus groups, telephone surveys and also contacting the carers.  Three key attributes in patient care came up as the main contributors to patient satisfaction.  The hospital staff concentrated on improving these 3 areas whilst still reducing costs. Cross functional teams were established with employees volunteering to take part.  An employee with strong project management skills was selected to lead each team.  A list of options to improve the experience of the patients was presented to management with details of costings and timeframes for implementation.  Agreement was reached on the changes and the senior management team ensured line managers were not blockers to the changes. 

Transformational Leadership Case Study 3: The main objective of this strategy was to educate staff in reading and understanding the company financial statements and how they directly related to the work that they were doing.  The other minor objective was the need for employees in other departments to understand how what they did impacted on the remainder of the organization and the bottom line.

Employees from all areas were encouraged to review the company books and financial statements.  An extension of this policy was to talk with all employees in groups and discuss what the figures meant, specifically how they related to the work that they were doing and then to the big picture of the organization’s profitability.  The strategy was more than an attempt to educate the workforce; rather it focussed on action plans when the budgets and finances were off course for their particular area.  The staff would then look at their operations and how they could do things differently to remedy the situation.  This method included training on understanding financial reports, which has the benefit not only of learning how to read the financial statements of the organization but also what action the team in each department could take to change the financial outcomes.  Copies of the financial statements were distributed to employees once there was recognition that they would understand what was being conveyed. By understanding and teaching employees the direct relationship between their work and the financial results of the organization they are more inclined to understand the message.

Finally the role of leaders during transformation is to ensure that all employees have understood the key message and that it means something to them.  Change Management is all about using a variety of methods and techniques to ensure that no matter how complex, long term or risky the message is, the desired outcome for the organization will be achieved. Employee engagement and transformational leadership are uniquely connected and by combining the two outstanding results can be achieved.

If you are involved in a leadership role then you already know that one of the most important aspects of how successful you are as a leader today is measurement of your effectiveness on business outcomes.  But so much of that measurement is focused on the amount of engagement with teams rather than the quality of that engagement and the link to business outcomes.  So here’s what you can do as a leader.

 1.         Every organization conducts market research surveys.  These surveys typically measure customer satisfaction levels across services and products provided by your organization.  Sometimes they even ask questions about competitor products and services.  Organizations then take that information and work towards improving the rating they received by introducing improvements to services, products and information.

 Most organizations have a human resources department that usually conduct a staff survey annually.  This survey typically includes questions about communication within the organization, understanding the corporate vision, satisfaction with employee benefits and training and so on.  What I suggest is that organizations include a supplementary survey of just 10 questions at the end of this survey.  And these questions should be framed by selecting key questions from the customer survey and asking staff what do you think customers think about X?  These 10 questions in effect become your engagement measure.

 2.         Typically the result demonstrates disparity between what customers think and what employees think customers think.  Once you have the difference measured between perception and reality then you have the opportunity to commence dialogue about with your employees about what customers really think.  Most importantly it allows you to design transformational leadership strategies specifically to target that business issue.  So now you have a business issue and know the key messages for your leadership communication strategy.

 3.         One year on when the customer survey is conducted, you ask the same questions and again do the same with the staff survey.  What you seek to find is that the measure of the perception staff have of what customers think and what customers actually think have moved closer together and towards the organizations desired outcome.  This becomes your business measure of whether you as a leader have engaged employees.

 4.         This information is important because your ultimate aim in transformational leadership has to be to create the “Aha Moment” for employees.  The “Aha Moment” is based on information that challenges the employee’s belief about an aspect of the business.  The information that suddenly helps employees say, “Now it makes sense”, “Now I understand”, “Now I can do something about it”.  It is only once you see this gap close between what customers actually think about an issue and what employees think the customer thinks that you have a measure that demonstrates your transformational leadership strategy has been successful.  If the gap still exists then the design of your strategy is flawed in someway.

 5.     Finally, it is important that you measure employee communication tools such as readership of your staff magazine, access of the intranet and other tools.  However the only way to impact perceptions of the value of those tools is the contribution to an organization against business outcomes.

 This approach to measurement is low cost.  The investment in the human resources staff survey and the marketing departments’ customer research is already locked in.  You are simply adding 10 questions to the end of the human resources survey based on the marketing questions.  The engagement strategies are generally low cost because they involve people, not tools.  By this I mean that employees are involved in doing something differently to bring about change in an organization.  The staff newsletter and other information tools already exist, all you do is tailor the articles to reflect the main focus of your transformational leadership strategy.  This low cost yet highly effective approach will ensure that you can measure your strategies against business outcomes.