Groupsmith :: Building Community Inside Organizations

News and Comments from Eric

9 May 2008

Perils of storytelling

Earlier this week, I was at a conference when a close colleague and friend (let’s call her “M”) left all of a sudden. A friend of ours saw M racing out of the retreat center. He asked what was wrong, she said “I don’t want to talk about it.” When he told me what had happened, we were both puzzled. My next thought was “What did I do to offend M?” I wracked my brain, retracing our conversations, to see if somehow I had offended her. I couldn’t come up with anything, but for the rest of the evening, I kept wondering what had happened. Maybe someone else at the conference had angered M, and that was why she bolted and didn’t want to talk about it. I had seen her just 45 minutes before she left and she seemed fine, so I assumed that this transgression had happened during that 45-minute interval. And, M is not easy to offend, so whatever happened must’ve been a “humdinger.” As I worked to understand what had happened, my explanation grew more and more elaborate. Fast forward to today: I related this story to a coaching client to illustrate how easy it is to get carried away developing a story about what happened, especially when you have very little data to work from. In this case, there were just two pieces of data: (1) M left the conference early and (2) she didn’t want to talk about it. But, I didn’t let that stop me! I was able to “deduce” a whole narrative from those two facts. Think about how we often do this! This tendency to create stories can get in the way of understanding what really happened—to get the “rest of the story.” As it turned out, M wasn’t offended at all. The next day I found out that M had gotten word that her sister, who cares for their aging mother, had been in a car accident; M needed to leave immediately to get on a flight to go help out. That's why she left in a hurry.

13 April 2008

Team rescue

A few weeks back, I was attending a trade fair and stumbled upon the term “team rescue” to describe what I do with work teams (and larger units) who are stuck in conflict, poor morale or low trust. I found that people visiting my table really lit up when I used the term. They seemed to understand right away what I was getting at. Team rescue seems so much clearer and more precise than the alternatives, team building or team development.

But the term also has disadvantages. On one hand, team rescue implies a dire situation, while team building suggests less urgent training and preventative maintenance. (I do both.) Even more important, in the helping professions (like OD), “rescue” has a negative connotation. When you rescue someone, you do too much for them; you assume responsibilities that belong to them, like management of their relationships with other people. Rescuing is especially egregious when you try to directly manage (manipulate?) someone’s emotions or moods. Taken to the extreme, the person rescued becomes utterly dependent on you. So, rescuing is not good; it doesn’t help the client in the long run. The fact is people need to be personally responsible for facing up to their situation and making changes. When I take on a client, I work hard to establish these boundaries. It’s OK, of course, to ask for and receive help, just as long as the ultimate responsibility for taking action remains with the client.

Still, I’m mighty fond of that term “team rescue.” It sure did the trick at that trade show.

18 March 2008

Perspective is worth 50 IQ points

Years ago, a colleague at the city of Seattle introduced me to Alan Kay’s popular aphorism (“Perspective is worth 50 IQ points.”) and I am still constantly reminded of it. Interviewing a former client recently, I learned that one of the most important things I did for her was to help her “see” what was going on in her organization. She said that I helped focus attention on the underlying problems and issues. (She also said I “implicated everyone,” which she also thought was useful.) Basically, I brought to her and her colleagues a clear, systemic view of the situation—one that opened doors to do work that they needed to do. Using the perspective I brought, they were able to see things more clearly, take action, and get results.

10 March 2008

Relationship Repair

“Relationship repair” is the term a client recently used to describe what I did in her organization. I was able to help her to resolve differences between her and her peer, as well as between two sets of professionals who had been entrenched in a bitter, divisive conflict. This latter problem had been building for a while. (One side was convinced the only solution was to fire someone on the other side. One manager was so certain that needed to happen that she herself resigned when it became clear that I wasn’t going to recommend such a firing.) Despite all that, the parties were willing to sit down together, work through some difficult issues and feelings, and change how they work together. I find this work very gratifying: to help people to really understand each other’s concerns and needs—to unravel the conflict—and then work to design and create the future they all really want.

4 February 2008

TIME

Last week, I facilitated a meeting of sales managers drawn from all over the country. We were working on an important organizational issue—one that was affecting the bottom line. As sales managers, every minute spend in that meeting represented lost income—and yet, there they were. It was that important. And, we had an intense and productive meeting that I think will lead to real results. Unfortunately, not all clients are as clear about the stakes of a project. On more than one occasion, I’ve been asked to work on projects that didn’t seem to matter, and some of those I've pulled out of. These days, I try to ascertain at the beginning of the project if a client is really serious about doing it—to make sure it really matters. What are the business results you are looking for? Are they important enough to warrant the resources needed to fix the problem? One of the best indicators of commitment is how much time the boss is willing to spend on the issue. How personally involved is s/he willing to be? If it’s important, people tend to find the time. If it’s not, maybe the project shouldn’t be undertaken and consultant (me) not hired. No matter how difficult or damaging a situation, it’s better to leave it alone than attempt to fix it when you’re not serious about getting results.

3 February 2008

Why make it worse?

I was recently preparing to facilitate a high-stakes meeting in an organization (one you’ve heard of). The people had been involved have been in a dispute over a significant decision and now were trying to move forward. When I interviewed the players, it became clear that they were very polarized, and some people were even vilifying the “other side.” In other words, it had gotten ugly. One interested thing was that everyone felt betrayed by their opponents. When I explored that a little further, it became clear that that feeling of betrayal came not only from the decision itself but from how people felt treated. The losers on the decision complained about how the decision was handled, even though they now see it as a reality (and a few even embraced it). Interestingly, the people who prevailed in the decision felt betrayed by how the losers behaved afterward. Everyone felt betrayed, and it wasn’t over the substance of the decision. They felt they had been “dissed.” Naturally, people will disagree about various decisions and actions, yet what seems to have the greatest effect on people is how they feel they’ve been treated. If the decision is going to produce winners and losers anyway, why make things worse by vilifying and “dissing” one another?

11 January 2008

Best practice

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to listen to Randy Talbot, the CEO of Symetra Financial. He tells a very compelling, personal story of how Symetra was formed in 2004 after its parent company decided to sell off the division in 2003. It was an impossibly tenuous process—involving many suitors (coming in motorcades of limousines), big money, high risk, and all sorts of regulatory requirements. Yet, Talbot was able to successfully complete the transition without losing a single member of his executive team. I thought this was very significant and spoke volumes about Talbot’s style. When I asked him why no one left, he alluded to the relationships they had built together and also to weekly meetings in which they candidly discussed each other’s business; he implied that these conversations were not always easy or pleasant. It sounded to me that he and his team had done a lot of hard work and achieved a level of trust that proved essential when they faced the ultimate organizational crisis (survival). This is a great example of how a best practice (candid dialogue) helped the team face a sudden and dramatic challenge.

26 December 2007

Executive sponsorship

Many organizational change efforts fail for lack of a clear executive sponsor, someone who can marshal resources, focus people and drive the change. When I was younger, I thought that anyone, at any level of the organization, could fill this role. However, as I’ve observed (and participated in) both failed and successful change initiatives, I’ve noticed that one difference that stands out is whether a senior-level executive sponsor is actively involved. When there is, failure is “not an option.” When there isn’t, failure is almost always assured. I recently spoke with a colleague inside Washington state government, who has been running a change project inside his agency, but with little buy-in and even fewer results. In talking together, we realized that his first job was to approach the person who asked him to take on the project and get her to take on the role of executive sponsor. As the change agent, he can’t do that. He doesn’t have the authority. And neither does an external consultant (like me). Only a supervisor, manager, director or executive with sufficient authority can sponsor a project. That doesn’t guarantee success, but it’s absolutely necessary.