We've featured the value of virtual teams in the past. Once seen as the poorer cousing to real teams, as technologies adapt, companies become more diverse and cultures merge, we see the real value that can be derived from virtual team. This article from HBR blog network, gives a great overview of how to do virtual teams well.
via blogs.hbr.org
We have just completed a two-parter on personality types (Myers Briggs and the Four Temperaments, and as if to complement that, Forbes have just published this article on the five personalities of innovators.
The Forbes Insights study surveyed more than 1,200 executives in Europe across a range of topics and themes. Using a series of questions about their attitudes, beliefs, priorities and behaviors, coupled with a look at the external forces that can either foster – or desiccate – an innovative environment, a picture emerged of five key personality types the play a role in the innovation cycle.
Are you a:
Movers & Shakers;
Controllers;
Star Pupil;
Experimenter;
Or a
Hanger on?
Read More here: via www.forbes.com
About us
Agents2change works with some of the world's largest companies on change and implementation issues. We regularly use personality frameworks for leadership, team and organisational development. If you’d like to know more contact us at: feedback@agents2change.com
In this mini-series, we are looking at the challenges of managing across a diverse range of geographic and cultural boundaries. We have already looked at the key writers on National Culture. Today we turn to organisational culture theory.
Probably one of the most extensive writers of recent years is Edgar Schein of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MiT) who has over the years provided much insight into the complexities of understanding and managing cultures within organisations. He introduced the concept of Culture as an iceberg, in that those things that are observable on the surface are but a small percentage of the issues that are occurring underneath the surface.
Schein describes culture as multi-layered. At the visible layer we see artifacts and symbols that represent culture, which in turn come from beliefs and attitudes. These all stem from basic assumptions that are deep-rooted and often held at the sub-conscious level. We don’t often think about how culture is expressed in organisations, and yet its influence is everywhere. From the organisational structures, to the brand identity to the communications and visual art observable within the office. It all speaks to the values and underlying assumptions of what this culture represents. Apple and Google are probably the best proponents of culture as a tangible asset to be encouraged and encompassed by all employees. Other headquarters such as banking and insurance, exude power and status messages to maintain status quo. One sector is about game-changing and the other is about the old order. Both are valid, just different.
Schein went on to describe Three Cultures that arise in distinct occupational communities. The Executive culture is about hierarchy and control. The Engineering culture is concerned with design and process. The Operators culture is concerned with the hands-on day-job, whether that be manufacturing or service based.
When we look at how global companies today are often a made up of many legacy companies that have come together through acquisitions, each with their own distinct history and culture, this therefore poses some challenges for the post-merger integration efforts.
What we at Agents2Change have found useful is some a cultural mapping exercise to help explain the key differences that occur across organisations. We will look at this in more detail in our next and final instalment in this Culture series.
What experiences have you had with cross cultural conflicts? Does this model help explain the reasons for those conflicts? Please share your thoughts or experiences on cross cultural management here, or email us if you would like to find out more about our work in this area at feedback@agents2change.com
In this mini-series, we will look at the challenges of managing across a diverse range of geographic and cultural boundaries.
We will revisit the writings of the key writers on Culture – Hofstede, Trompenaars and Hall and we will also look at some up to the minute examples of multi-cultural management challenges faced by some of the world’s biggest companies.
But first, let’s set the scene. A Spanish technology group has recently acquired a British IT company operating in a similar area. They both operate in the same market and offer similar technology, yet every attempt to merge, integrate or transform their processes to a common approach is failing. It is not that they don’t see the benefits of the changes, or even of working together more closely; yet any percieved attempt by one side to impose a process on the other is contentious. Sound familiar? Well this type of situation occurs in over 80% of post-merger organisations.
Often what is interpreted as resistance to change is based in a mis-understanding of culture and cultural needs of the legacy teams and organisation. Even in this example, if we look at some of the cultural markers defined by Hall's definiton of High and Low Context cultures, we find that Spain would fall more into high context cultures, meaning that more is interpreted from the wider reference points of non-verbal, historical and social expectations, creating a much smaller dependence on and trust in written communication. Britain, by contrast, falls into the low context cultures, which means that explicit forms of communication are preferred and expected and less value is placed on non-verbal or subliminal messages. Whereas one country would put much more store in face-to-face meetings to reach agreement, the other would not want to act without clear written agreements.
Over the next few weeks we will take you on a cultural journey, exploring what continues to be the issues faced by modern management in multi-national organisations and what we can learn from the extensive body of knowledge that is already out there to help us navigate this tricky landscape.
Do you have any experience of multi-cultural management you would like to share? Or would you like to have a more detailed discussion on how we support multi-cultural management? Please feel free to leave your comments here. Or contact us at feedback@agents2change.com.
They may be essential to large, often global organisations, but corporate functions tend to have a very mixed reputation in demonstrating how they add value. In this mini-series we will explore the various aspects of Corporate Functions and the role they play in organisational performance.
Of course, life without them would be very difficult, as each performance or business unit would require its own suite of IT, Finance & HR skills, leading to expensive overlap in resources. Yet few would argue that life with a suite of functions to support them is plain sailing. So how can Functional teams regain their reputation as time savers and value adders to their organisation?
In this series we will explore the five key areas for achieving functional excellence:
Our first instalment later this week will focus on Leadership in Functions.
If you have experiences you wish to share, please comment here or contact us at feedback@agents2change.com
One cannot get away from headline after headline of panic about the impending public sector cuts and how (if you believe the papers) the world as we know it is coming to an end.
Optimism is probably the most important mental attitude to survive tough times; that, and a bit of foresight. A beacon of hope, on how to survive the tough times comes from Sunderalnd City Council. Recently profiled in People Magazine, it has an exemplary performance record and has the lowest council tax in its region.
Some of the things that stand out as unusual and inspired choices include:
Conclusions
Often organisation's response to a down-turn and cost savings is reactive and lacks any imagination or long-term thinking about preserving the inherent talent in the workforce. What stands out in this example is the inspired and original thinking, so often lacking. It shows the power of optimism, insight and commitment to facing challenges without losing sight of the value of your people.
To bring about radical improvements in how teams operate, it is important to focus equally on what they are doing and how they are doing it. Focusing purely on behaviour, without linking it to business process and performance leads to poorly focused development. Focusing on processes and systems without considering behaviours leads to unsustainable or poorly realized improvements. It requires a number of things to occur:
Engaging Leadership
Coaching and engagement is essential to sustainable change. Coaching allows for a frank and timely exchange of views about their leadership style and the interventions in a safe and confidential environment. It is only by having the space and opportunity to do this, that leaders can learn how to set the right tone and follow that through in their own behaviour, to maximize impact with their team.
Developing a team identity and goal
Bringing the team together to explore how they work together and how that can be improved is a powerful exercise in galvanizing efforts and overcoming resistance. A key output is a ‘team charter’ that articulates the goals (performance results), in-year milestones, dependencies and how individual roles will contribute to the achievement of those goals.
Defining Individual Roles
After defining the team charter, individuals then develop their own team role. It is defined in terms of contribution to team results, but also behaviours and team expectations of each other.
Defining Processes & creating service standards
Part of the challenge for teams is how to get a shared picture of the end-to-end process, the hand-offs and where performance might be compromised. By involving all team members in the process mapping and identification they buy-in to the improvements that are identified.
Creating a performance management framework
One of the big reinforcing tools to embed and then maintain new behaviours is a visual performance management framework. The team need to be engaged; not only in the data gathering, but also in understanding and responding to the data as it is reported. Performance dashboards can lead to lively team discussions, because everyone understands what is required and their role in achieving it.
Maintaining momentum
It is important, once the changes have been made, to maintain them. Leaders play an important role here in ensuring that weekly and monthly team meetings are given the priority that they deserve and that data is regularly reviewed. Praising good performance is just as important as highlighting and questioning poor performance.
Who we are
Agents2Change has an unblemished track record in delivering significant improvements in key business results: profit; production; reliability; safety; to large scale process industries. Our team of highly experienced consultants have the knowledge and skills to help you tackle the most daunting of behavioural change agendas informatively and effectively. For more information, comment here, or email us at: feedback@agents2change.com.
Many companies and leaders are struggling to find ways to engage with their workforce and bring about real dialogue. The whole task seems rather daunting and no matter how hard they try, leaders can often feel remote and out of touch with their people. Maintaining this remoteness can risk losing the commitment and energy of those people who are real stars; the ones that add real value to the business. Leaders might not even know who these people are, or what it is that makes their contribution so special. They may not know the role they as leaders might need to fulfil in order to keep these people engaged and contributing.
Todays leaders know the importance of communication, but they need to be innovative and creative in how they do this. Finding ways to get two-way dialogue going and maintaing it is key in our fast moving world. Along with the roadshows, regular communications and the management-by-walkaround methods, new technologies offer a whole host of new possibilities.
Salesforce.com did exactly this (see overview from HBR here) . By developing a Private Social Networking tool ‘Chatter’ (a secure mini-blog site, very similar to Twitter) they were able to facilitate dialogue between the top executives of the company and the 5,000 employees in an annual management meeting. The result was an instant response from staff to ideas, and instant understanding from Executives of what issues were concerning their people.
New technologies give us the potential to bring leadership accountability and transparency into much sharper relief. They offer low-cost, real-time ways of collaborating across disciplines & geographic boundaries. Whilst this cannot replace the good old fashioned face-to-face engagement, they can go a long way to enhancing it and lengthening the impact and influence of those meetings, especially in complex, multi-channel, matrixed, global organizations of today.
Have you got experience of using new technologies to engage your workforce. Would you like more ideas on how to engage and energize your workforce. Contact us here, or email us on feedback@agents2change.com.
In his book Leading Change, John Kotter mentions 8 reasons why change fails. The first four could all be categorized into what we would call the political dimensions of change. These include:
And if you had to distill all of these reasons down to one key theme, it would be ‘lack of senior buy-in’ to the change. Many change initiatives fail because the senior team have failed to agree and commit to the change required. This is often not driven by capriciousness, but rather engrained patterns of behaviour that become difficult to crack. One such example was a global financial provider whose executives were Chief Executives of their own divisions but had a loose federal membership to the Group. This meant that they could act at times in a way that was unhelpful for the Group, if it met the short term needs of their own business; and they often did this. When times are good this sort of combative competitiveness can be tolerated and even encouraged, but what about when the need for change is imperative and survival depends on the group strength? When Agents2Change was working in just such a situation our main focus was understanding and managing the expectations of these senior stakeholders.
A good start is to use a tool such as the Stakeholder Analysis Matrix. This allows you to see how much power the stakeholders have over the transformation program and how much interest. The two are not the same and need to be measured in different ways. Those that have the most power and the least interest are probably the most important to understand; failing to manage their expectations could prove disastrous.
Some good tips on managing stakeholders
Do a map of all your stakeholders and their needs. Don’t limit this to your senior players, but widen the map to include your staff, key customers and key suppliers.
Identify and understand their needs and requirements from this change. If it is not easily identifiable, take time to check this with the respective parties. A small amount of investment now could save a lot of time later.
Tailor communications to the particular needs and interests of your stakeholders. Don’t opt for a one size fits all approach but think about what might be the concerns and questions for each key stakeholder group and address this in your communications to them.
When holding project and progress meetings think about the stakeholders needs for each agenda item and how best to present the information to address this. Ensure meetings are geared toward informing your stakeholders or getting them to commit to a decision; if the agenda items do not do either of these two things, ask yourself - should it be on the agenda?
Always record the decisions and discussions that have taken place and share these with the wider stakeholder group. Sometimes one stakeholder group can believe that their needs are widely shared or agreed upon. Sharing decisions and issues across groups helps them to see the competing expectations that have to be managed and the role that they can play in helping you to do this.
We’d love to hear about your experience of change so please post a comment here or email us on feedback@agents2change.com.
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