One of our clients is currently facing cultural Groundhog Day; they find themselves living the same story day-after-day. Despite their good intentions to create change, the culture is one that has had a long time to develop, and they face several unique challenges:
First, they are a large and dispersed group. There are hundreds of employees with two major centralized workforces—and employees spread across the entire United States. These groups have very different focuses and little connection, and when there are interaction points you can imagine they experience misalignment and stress.
Second, there is a strong political power structure in place. This manifests in resistance to collaborate, dis-empowering beliefs about the ability to create change, and a sense that any initiatives that are undertaken may simply disappear if the power structure shifts at all. Not only that, but this organization exists within a larger context and they are at the whim of powers beyond their control.
Finally, there is an overwhelming amount of work to be done, with very tight deadlines, heavy oversight, and strong union involvement. It is therefore incredibly easy to abandon any attempt at improvement to focus on today’s work, sacrificing tomorrow’s improvement.
So, there are seemingly a lot of reasons to throw your hands up, turn back to your desk, and get today knocked out… right?
Actually, we believe that these are all great reasons to go to work today. As we are fond of saying, if you simply focus on working ‘in it’ without making room to work ‘on it,’ your fate will match that of Phil's (Bill Murray) in Groundhog Day. In fact, one could argue that his story is a perfect example of what you should epitomize in your culture: be who you want to be today!
You might be saying, “that’s all well and good, but what do I do?” Great question! Here are three steps our client has undertaken in attacking this issue:
1. The first step they undertook was an assessment to try and understand where they stood today. While many of the issues were ‘known’ they were not quantified. It is one thing to have heard from specific groups and individuals informally, but they knew they needed more data so they could craft a plan that would truly attack root causes and bring transformational change.
2. Following the assessment of their organization they decided it was time to engage their leadership team and managers to take the helm. While they believe that cultural change comes from “the top”, they know that involving the people who had direct contact with the team was critical. We agreed—change can be directed, but for it to proliferate they needed to source it from those who would be the strongest advocates. They created action teams, based on the concept of Tiger Teams, to conduct what we would call ALPs (Action Learning Projects). These teams were tasked with examining the results of assessment and developing initiatives to address the findings.
3. Once developed, the senior leadership team reviewed the initiatives and selected several for immediate action. Again, focusing on the concept that creating change leaders is critical, they convened their action teams to create specific, actionable implementation plans. Many of the items in focus were short-term, but the majority would require long-term focus and were aimed at transformational change for the organization.
To date this process has taken months, and the action teams are currently working towards delivery of implementation plans. Before you pause and say “that’s too long! I don’t have months and years to change!” consider this: while it is hard for them to see while in the middle of the process, we have watched this group grow in remarkable ways simply based on intentional action. Part of the change they are hoping for has already been created by driving a focus on improvement, empowering the people who would own the change, and active and lasting endorsement from the senior levels.
So, instead of waking up to the same day time and again, what can you do today to know your organization better, create action to address the issues you find, and allow those in a position of power to be the change you want? You will be surprised what a small shift in focus can do for your organization.
Alec Kisiel, Consultant, helps entreQuest's clients to grow and develop so they are able to recognize their full potential to effectively achieve remarkable results for their organizations and make a meaningful impact in their communities.
