If only everybody would…

Ahhhh, change management

[or, to ascribe its formal status, let's capitalize]

Change Management… How doth we love the sound of thy name? How many are the ways that we shall enshrine your virtues and purvey your countenance? How rich are the opportunities to spread your beneficence across a world that has lost its way in human foibles and trinkets?

Where, oh where, to start?

Well, first off, let’s refer you to our newly coined term: BureaucraSy. And

[because you're likely an executive who is just tooooo busy, important and, above all else, infallible to actually take any time gaining new knowledge]

let’s summarise – people experiencing frustration introduce fixes that don’t work but induce frustration in other people who then introduce new fixes that… over and over and over in an endless cycle of

[billable hours]

well-meant insanity.

And each one of the fixes is accompanied by

[cue parting clouds, rays of sunshines and heavenly host of angels]

a robust change mana… sorry… Change Management Plan.

Because those fixes are firmly rooted from the view of the fixer as to how people should work, not how people are working.

Let’s take as an example the introduction of document management systems that require fifteen fields of meta-data to enable cataloguing and retrieval of information. That’s how the system works, it’s a beautiful, perfect filing regimen – the intranet equivalent of the dewey decimal system – everything in its right place. Disciplined. Clean.

So, logically, that’s how every user should work, right? Right?

The project team runs ahead and builds the chang… Change Management Plan with that in mind, drawing up from/to scenarios, business case definition, executive alignment assignments, training, knowledge transfer, incentive/dis-incentive cycles, WIIFM statements, etc, etc, etc.

[oh, how we love you billable hours]

Except.

Take the average employee – let’s call him Bob – and accompany him home, ask to look in his sock drawer. Chances are it isn’t meticulously arranged by colour, material weight, rate of aging

[sock aging ratios can be made available at badconsultant.com for the right price]

nor will you find order in the t-shirt drawer or the shirt rail in the closet. Join Bob at his desk and ask to look at his e-mail. Chances are that his inbox is overflowing with many items out of date but not dealt with – if you’re lucky, Bob might use a folder structure to store old messages, or he might just be one of those people who copies himself on emails that he sends so they remain in his inbox, rather than making use of his ‘Sent Items’. Finally, let’s join Bob as he looks at his local drive, where he stores working documents. Chances are it’s chaos, absolute chaos.

But it’s a chaos that makes sense to Bob. That doesn’t mean it works, it’s just his reality and he knows how to work within it. It’s the way he is working.

Other, more organized people might take a look at Bob’s ways of working and scream in horror: “no-one should work that way!” Some might shower pity upon him. Others may even claim that there’s no way Bob could ever be a high performer with working practices such as his chaotic use of e-mail.

And they would, of course, be wrong.

But in the modern organization’s BureaucraSy, they would be able to make enough noise to the right people to justify a fix. And so the Change Management Plan would emerge for how people should work.

And everyone would be expected to change.

Every Bob and Bobette would be expected to undo their whole reality because there was a supposedly better way that they should work.

Wouldn’t it be better to invest the time, effort and

[billable hours]

emotional energy to listen to Bob and hear what would help him improve his performance and what gets in the way and then design the limited, minimal solution that he is already seeking – not the fix that tries to change his fundamental being?

Or in other words, how about we de-capitalize change management so we move away from:

“Everybody should… if only everybody would…”

to

“Where performance is blocked… somebody will be able to…”

Now, that’s a Change we could sign up to…

BC

I looked up and BOOM! Drive-by Collaboration!

A while back, your trusted adviser BadConsultant elucidated the madness of the Random Act of Leadership

[and boy-oh-boy haven't we seen a few of those in the intervening years?]

which has proven to be one of the most enduring

[legacy]

of our posts. Not a surprise to us, the RAOL is just so common that we all experience it at some point.

But as we were observing the artificial abnormality of the modern organization, we identified a sympathetic bedfellow to the RAOL, for which we now humbly

[yeah, right]

coin the term ‘Drive-by Collaboration’.

Here’s the thing. The modern organization built it’s mythology upon growth obtained through industrialized manufacturing, where people were akin to ‘human production units’ that could be added and removed much like plant machinery – people were just another part of the machine. Which was fine when industry was only about designing, making and selling ‘things’.

But then, along came the late twentieth century: the internet, conspicuous consumption, lifestyle choices, the escape from the base of Maslow’s hierarchy

[for some of the world, at least]

and, over time, people began to notice that… erm… er… human beings are odd. They have aspirations. They don’t act predictably. They have a sense of fairness. They have energy that they choose to use positively or negatively. They form relationships.

The organization frowned a little, it’s furrowed brow couldn’t quite compute this weird species that didn’t act like machines.

And, because it’s the way things are in organizations, the search for ‘fixes’ for the ‘broken’ machines was on.

• Aspiration? Let’s create career tracks to leadership roles.
• Predictability? Let’s re-engineer processes and increase the BureaucraSy.
• Fairness? Let’s complexify pay based upon activities and ‘calibration’.
• Energy for good or bad? Let’s survey people to try and fix their ‘engagement’.
• Relationships? Let’s, like, er… rilly, rilly get people to focus on teamwork.

And thus every grouping of people in any context was suddenly a matter of team. Any hierarchical organization of working units was a team. Any random gathering of individuals in any context was a team. And team described ‘us’.

• CEOs stood up in front of a thousand people and said “you are a great team”
• Managers sat with their direct reports and said “when it comes to our team…”
• Endless multitudes of HR and OE professionals engaged in the debate of whether it truly was “a team or a group of people”

All of which set against the backdrop of the rise of the boomers, that was so clearly I-hiding-in-us-centric: surely we can find the answer to how to save the rest of the world from itself?

[can I hear you say kumbaya!]

Yup, if you had any sort of relationship at work it was grounded in ‘team’.

Another puzzle-piece of the modern organization myth was put in place: “We are a team”

[more recently enhanced to include the word 'diverse' - killing two birds with one stone]

Except.

The ‘solution’ didn’t match the ‘problem’.

A strong relationship is not a matter of team, neither are the best teams founded on strong relationships. And, with the square peg refusing to fit in the round hole, a weird reverse osmosis began to happen – suddenly relationships were enshrined within the confines of the team.

Being nice was more important than performing.

Consensus replaced urgency.

Activity replaced outcomes.

And everyone… EVERYONE… presumed they had a right to be involved in everyone else’s work whenever they wanted to and in whatever way they wanted to be involved.

So we saw the emergence of the Drive-by Collaboration

[DBC - can I hear you say acronym!]

where a ‘team’ is working to achieve an agreed output, moving against plan, delivering just enough activity to be deemed worthy in the end of year performance calibration exercise. All of a sudden, at a regular meeting, Joe pipes up: “Betty swung by my office yesterday and thinks we should re-gear the change management plan.” The room goes silent. Maybe Betty’s got a point. Maybe they’ve missed something in the change management plan. They quiz Joe, but he doesn’t have much more to add – apparently, Betty had a been on her way out to lunch and had just dropped in to mention the change management plan.

BOOM! – Drive-by Collaboration!

The team, not wanting to upset Betty because we’re all, like… one big team… undoes months of hard labor and sets the project back by two months.

No-one thinks to ask whether Betty has a right to an opinion, a credible base to challenge the plan, or the veracity of her judgement.

That’s the beauty of the DBC, it happens quickly, takes little effort on behalf of the DBC’er and creates major downstream impact for everyone else. And it damages the business.

But Betty’s happy that she’s been heard, the myth that “we are a team” is perpetuated, and nothing changes.

So that’s all right then.

BC

What can the Winter Olympics teach us about corporate abnormality?

So, the Winter Olympics

[or, more accurately to their rebrand, the Olympic Winter Games - as if the Olympics weren't brand enough]

are currently being staged in our favourite city in the world, Vancouver. And, this being all things BadConsultant, we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on what we can learn about corporate abnormality from said sporting occasion.

Right now, let us state for the record that this is not one of those pieces where we’ll try and make tenuous links between physical prowess and day-to-day work

[to us, they're as appropriate as animal metaphors]

besides, we’ve already covered a lot of that in “The Strengths Springboard – Is your organization ready?” Instead, we thought we’d share some less obvious observations and inferences. In no particular order:

It doesn’t matter how well organized you are, hydraulic systems can still screw you up. You can have the most coordinated, rigorously planned spectacle but at the end of the day, your physical mechanisms can undermine all of human ingenuity. So, while you can turn the floor into majestic orcas and, for a few moments, send a delightfully androgynous man flying through the air to the enlightening strains of Joni Mitchell, sooner or later an automatic door won’t open and your crystalline Olympic crucible will end-up a lop-sided tripod.

What do we learn? Things ain’t perfect, and the show must go on. Plan for perfection but don’t freeze when it doesn’t happen.

[and, as always, count on Wayne Gretzky to keep his cool]

People are more interested in stories than the facts. Apolo Anton Ohno heading off to Hollywood to dance with stars then returning to his sport (focus, achievement, the celebrity myth), Lindsey Jacobellis trying to win gold for the one she threw away in a moment’s adrenalized exuberance (redemption), the veterans Shen and Zhao capping a glorious career with gold (aspiration, completion, romance, olympian dream), and on, and on, and on. Very little mention of stats or specifics of performance

[oh, how much we miss the BBC at times like these]

and curiously little focus on the actors after the event – almost as if the story exists regardless of the actor. Just people, even the commentators, repeating the core stories.

What do we learn? Always focus on telling the right story; if you don’t, people will wrap their own story around you.

Who tells the story makes a difference. In the US, the Winter O… Sorry, Olympic Winter Games are being carried by NBC and affiliates only. The majority of talking head/anchor work is being carried out by the channel’s illustrious news anchors. And, as if we should be surprised, the coverage is very much more “newsy” than “sporty”

[so far, CNN hasn't claimed to be the 'best nordic-cross-ical team on television' and, mercifully, Wolf Blitzer has yet to wear lycra]

including a near predominant focus on only the US athletes

[though we don't think that's a factor of NBC]

and those in contention for the medals

[no chance of seeing the Jamaican bobsleigh team this year, except... No, they had a film made about them so there's a news angle in there...]

and very much geared to crisis reporting.

What do we learn? If you let the news media tell your story, they will present news based on crises and you will become a story of crisis. Get the right commentator up front and control your story.

Coaches watch performers. We cover this in The Strengths Springboard quite a bit, so won’t belabor it here, but while Shen and Zhao’s gold medal brought tears to our eyes, BadConsultant was struck most by their coach, Yao Bin, whose quiet absorption in his team’s performance was beautiful – his back story was as interesting as the skaters

[there you go,...story, story, story]

but it wasn’t even that… Put simply there was love, care and family in that coach’s gaze – how many of our managers look upon their own teams in such a way.

What do we learn? The best coaches love their teams – teach them to step into that love and own it responsibly.

We’ll keep a watch out for any other learnings, however will leave you with one final small thing from last night.

It doesn’t matter how meticulously you plan, organize and deliver upon a complex, multi-stranded endeavour, sooner or later you’re going to get blamed for the weather. And when you are, know that it’s because you’re doing a fine job of delivering the goods.

Go, Vancouver!

A bientot,

BC

Pity the bull

Pity the bull.

It has earned a reputation for aggression when it is merely seeking to protect its turf and herd.

It has been used as a term to define irresponsible, vertigo-less markets.

And somehow, it’s defecation has risen above all others as the definition of the worst smelling of the most smelly stuff on this earth.

[we wonder how the humble skunk missed out on such an honour]

A bull eats the same as a cow. A bull digests the same as a cow. A bull defecates the same as a cow.

Yet, while cow-pats are often a source of humour, bull-pats

[pucky, shit, scat, doings, leavings, crap]

describe derision, judgement and frustration.

How did this happen? How did global cultures assign such reputation to this one act of defecation?

To illustrate, let’s talk about bureaucracy… widely agreed to be the most commonplace BS on earth. Rules, processes, overseers, forms, stamps, logins, authorizations… All of it keeping the artificiality of the modern organization from splintering into a million random pieces.

But here’s the rub… whoever owns the madness doesn’t believe it’s madness. One man’s smooth running process is another’s bureaucratic bungling. One woman’s simple rule for expediency is another’s constraint of freedom. That’s how bureaucracies work – it’s the push-pull of best intent.

However, as both parties are working in an anomaly, neither can be satisfied at the same time and, being blind to the anomaly, they… guess what? Invent a new rule to deal with the previous rule.

And in that way the feeding cycle goes on:

perceived unnecessary constraint – frustration – new counter constraint

If that sounds like a recipe for indigestion and constipation, well

[it's no wonder executives are so bloated with hot air]

that’s the experience of most workers in most corporations.

But none of that explains why we blame the bull. After all, generally bulls are pretty constipation-less creatures

[if you don't believe me, take a walk down Wall Street and listen to the justifications for excessive bonuses]

and freely spread the joy.

BadConsultant contends that this is an act of avoidance and denial because no-one wants to admit the reality. The feeding cycle of bureaucracy only has glorious, individually diverse humans to blame – most of whom live in a delusion that their own s*** doesn’t stink. And so… We blame the bull.

Avoidance and denial, rarely pretty to see in action.

All that said, so far we haven’t heard

[PETA]

a bull complain about this, so we can only assume that, while we pity the poor bull for this misrepresentation, they don’t have a problem with it. In fact, they may even enjoy the notoriety.

For this reason, this morning, we officially introduced a new spelling of the word BureaucraSy.

[BureaucraSy: Now with Baked in BS!!!]

Until it smells like roses,

BC

ps: we are very surprised that cows haven’t raised an equal treatment claim about the use of BS…

pps: thanks ConsultingGrad for the jump off point!

You’re like who, exactly?

A little while ago, we wrote about the recent

[gimmick]

trend for ‘leaders’ to search out their authenticity. When that quest is coupled to a corporate communications function… well the result was never going to be pretty.

[we will use the term 'authority figure' for leader here on out - not only because it's more accurate, but also because it doubles our word count - and eventual fee]

Here’s the deal:

• The authority figure wants to create an impression of what he is not
• The professional in the communicator knows they need to support the authority figure in creating that impression
• But the writer in the communicator just wants to describe the leader they wish the authority figure was (but isn’t)

Surprisingly, everyone wins – because they all draw upon stereotypes to express themselves. And the funny thing about stereotypes is that… well… er… we all have them – and I don’t have to agree with anyone else about what mine means to me. We can choose the same stereotype and take away very different meanings.

So, for example, the authority figure, having read enough books to know that ‘Change Management’ is a big thing these days

[NOTE: it is very important to capitalize words like Change Management so as to add import to your sales pitch - you may say you should capitalize it in order to... wait for it... capitalize upon it]

and wanting to be authentic, knows that they need to create an impression of welcoming, leading and thriving in change.

The professional communicator goes looking for role models of change.

While the writer draws upon probably the most over-used quote about change because it gives them a warm and tingly feeling all up and down their spine:

“You must be the change you want to see in the world”

Which was Ghandi – and the authority figure, professional and writer know that there was a movie about him by Richard Attenborough, so he must be a role model. And in one fell swoop, the authority figure’s inauthentic authenticity has been tagged as being Ghandi-like, gaining perceived personality by association.

[and, BTW, do we even need to mention that most corporate authority figures are baby boomers? They LOVE Ghandi. For them, Ghandi is like MLK without the race angle...]

Everyone celebrates and goes home with the comfort blanket of having survived another day.

Except.

There was only one Mahatma Ghandi

[and, yes, the Brits just started a football chant]

yet how many corporate authority figures have been likened to that one-off?

We’re guessing tens of thousands. Not to mention all the wannabe professional climbers who buy into the myth.

So, if all these tens of thousands of mini-Ghandis

[and he was kinda short already, so you know that they're likely to have REAL Napoleon complexes]

are being the change they want to see in the world, then we have to presume that the change they want to see in the world is to not change anything at all.

Which is why BadConsultant tends to snigger out loud when authority figures get called leaders.

So, with all that in mind, we wanted to provide more reasonable, rational and, above all else, authentic words to describe the average authority figure:

“[...] was not a man who accepted the hand life dealt him. In his mind, boundaries were as much mental shackles as physical restraints – and he was not a man to be hemmed in by tradition, especially when a few audacious risks here and there could be balanced against huge personal and political gain. As someone who was starting out with more ambition than real influence, he needed to work his way up the hard way – by earning vast sums of money to fund his political goals. For that he needed a success on the scale of Alexander the Great, an achievement that would ensure his name echoed… in tones of hushed reverence, something that would quell the doubters and win him the position he felt he deserved… “

That’s actually a lift from the book ‘Boudica’ by Vanessa Collingridge, describing the young Julius Caesar. In BadConsultant‘s experience, this is much closer to the reality of authority figures: working hard, pulled forward by ambition, taking risks that are in their own manifest self-interest. All of which tied to expectation of entitlement to the big job.

It is the achievement and personalized power motives writ large.

And, though he doesn’t get mentioned much in modern organizations, there’s much more Caesar to the reality than Ghandi. But in our politically correct world, naked ambition is now a no-no

[slightly-veiled ambition, however, is just fine and dandy]

and conquering others is, like, sooooo not something we do any more

[pay no attention to the Iraq and Afghanistan behind the curtain]

so no authority figure, professional communicator or writer would dare to even consider using Caesar as the touch-stone for exemplary leadership.

Wouldn’t it just be easier for all involved, instead of opining and searching for the elusive

[read: absent]

role-model leader, to celebrate the Caesar within?

Wouldn’t it be more… erm… authentic?

Or would it risk uncovering the embarrassing truth that even then, when compared to Caesar, the authority figure is little more than a young boy playing at ‘Romans’?

Have a wonderful day,

BC

Best and Brightest… or Dumb and Dullest?

Back in a previous life, BadConsultant sat in a room with a group of managers and individual contributors, scoping work to assess which competencies consistently drive performance – the intent being to develop a foundation for sourcing, selecting, placing and developing those competencies.

If you haven’t done such work, the method is straightforward – line up your whole population

[metaphorically, of course]

from lowest performing to highest performing then look at the consistent differences in competency at each end of the spectrum – what do the best do consistently well that the worst don’t and vice versa. Find a way to assess for those differential competencies and you’re all set.

Simple.

Except…

One of the managers suddenly stated the myth: “But we only hire gold standard.”

And, in that mythology, gold standard employees couldn’t be deficient in any competency. In short, for this manager, despite his experience and the reality that faced him everyday, in terms of this exercise, everyone was an outstanding performer. The room began to nod and within minutes the gathering consensus to progress the work was lost as the seemingly impossible conundrum was elucidated and crystallized: how can we differentiate between perfection?

BS, of course – BadConsultant knew it then and told them so – not least of which because he’d hired the manager in question and knew that he was far from gold standard, having only just scraped through the hiring process. If we only hired gold standard, then he was a pyrite.

[in fact, the people who were most vociferously FOR doing the work were our true gold standard]

Years pass and we see the same symptoms play out today. Poor performers not dealt with, high performers not celebrated, annual performance reviews that serve compensation ‘calibration’

[because position in norm-curve pecking order has been proven so conclusively to be a great motivator... Oh, wait... no it hasn't!]

rather than development, managers blaming the system, employees blaming the system… and the resulting culture of averageness that does ‘just enough’ to keep a shareholder revolt at bay

[and keep the executive bonuses flowing]

In the interim, of course, we’ve tried imbalanced scorecards, we’ve tried unnatural selection, we’ve tried engagement… And none of it has made much of a difference because the delusional myths continue, including our subject today: “we only hire gold standard”

Frankly, no you don’t.

[and you know it... we'd be happy to submit a statement of work to show you the manifest ways you are deluding yourself]

You, like the rest of us, put out a spec that’s just enough to filter out the no-hopers, but with standards that aren’t set to filter-in only the elite. The longer your position is open, the more likely you are to compromise on who you hire, telling yourself all the time that the deficit can be made up through development. If you interview a group of awful candidates, the least awful will be your hire simply because you don’t want to admit you just wasted all that time, energy and resource for no payback

[bizarrely, you'll find members of your team arguing vociferously for unqualified candidates - shouldn't be too much of a surprise... do we need to point out that hiring crap employees is one way of ensuring you aren't last in the culture of averageness?]

All of which brings us back around to that scoping meeting all those years ago. Were we wrong in our intent? No. Were we wrong in our proposed method? No. So why didn’t it work, and why isn’t it working for you right now?

We asked the wrong people. Or, more accurately, we asked the wrong question of the wrong people.

Because the question we were really asking, the one that hooked out the myth, was: if we found an objective way to assess your competence to make a difference in business outcomes, how would you stack up?

And, with denial being so clearly rooted in knowledge, the folk around the table knew the answer – which is why our gold standard were for the work and our pyrites were loudly and declaratively against the work.

Now you see some of BadConsultant’s method: spot the symptom, identify the myth, rename it to reality, and then look for the breakthrough.

Stop for a minute and see if you can think of the breakthrough in this situation…

[or, if you're an executive who hasn't got time to do their own thinking, read on immediately - we wouldn't want you learning, after all...]

Measured business outcomes at the individual and team level. Or in other words:

Through objective measurement of business outcomes, we see how everyone stacks up – now what’s making the difference?

See how simple that was?

[of course it wasn't, we're just highly competent at what we do]

And by turning it that way:

1. The true gold standard get to see their names at the top of the list, gaining recognition and comfort that their talent is hitting the mark
2. The pyrites aren’t able to hide behind their own bluster – and have a vested interest to improve, knowing that they are being monitored
3. It is clear, by measurement of outcome, what you care about and what matters to the business – a huge symbology for all involved, which will ripple beyond the room within hours.

And that’s before you even start sourcing, selecting, placing and developing for competencies that make the difference.

Now, if you were only measuring outcomes at the individual and team level

[hahahahahahahahaha]

but that’s another post completely.

Until we three meet again; in thunder, lightning or in rain,

BC

Who’s the happiest?

Hmmmmmm… BadConsultant was just noodling on some long-standing, proven research that small business owners experience both greater pressure and higher levels of happiness with their work than corporate

[slaves]

employees. This research holds strong in most geographies and cultures.

Yet, the majority of the US workforce still chooses to stay constrained in corporate employment. Still builds resumés

[or CV's for the latinate among you]

to seek the next rung on the corporate ladder. Still compromises individual strengths for the square hole of the holy job description.

Got us thinking.

We’ve written many times about the artificial thing that is the modern organization, most fully in ‘The Strengths Springboard – is your organization ready?’ and, as BadConsultant turned over the small business research, that word – ‘artificial’ – kept sticking out. Per the dictionary:

Artificial

1. made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural : her skin glowed in the artificial light | an artificial limb | artificial flowers.
   • (of a situation or concept) not existing naturally; contrived or false : the artificial division of people into age groups.
2. (of a person or a person’s behavior) insincere or affected : an artificial smile.

[self-congratulatory pat-on-the-back for using the right word - yay! great job!]

Says it all, really doesn’t it?

Large organizations are a construct of the 20th century, and definitely made/produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally.

[At this point, some bright spark will pipe up that ancient armies weren't from the 20th century - to which BadConsultant will retort that people should watch less Hollywood and read some books - the Romans? Pretty well organized. Visigoths? Not so much. Remember the victor writes the history books]

Typically as a copy of something natural. Hmmmm… Organismic, mechanistic, matrix, lattice, hierarchy, global, worldwide – we are always, ALWAYS using metaphor to try and liken the organization to something more natural.

Artificial division of people – that one’s easy: staff, line, management, workers, leadership, committees, unions, teams, thought leaders, brown-bag lunch party organizers.

Insincere or affected.

It was this last one that got us thinking in connection with small business owners.

Think of the myths you hear within the average modern organization

[and if we have to tell you why modern organizations tend to a culture of averageness, you haven't been following along]

in fact, let’s focus in on the annual performance review…

No… Let’s not do that – it’ll take way too much space and deserves a post

[or seventy-two]

all to itself.

Let’s bottom line – worker who has spent the majority of the year on busy-ness not business, justifying their lack of results by just how much pressure they’re under, manager commiserating and putting in for a higher rating than justified in order to keep worker happy. The illusion of pressure repaid by the illusion of happiness. All of it ‘insincere and affected’.

While there is speculation that small business owners feel happier because they have control and the buck stops with them – both of which are valid and supported in psychology research – BadConsultant is happy to suggest that a good deal of happiness comes from not having to maintain a false, insincere persona all the time.

Look around yourself. Really look… How much energy is being wasted to maintain the illusion of pressure and the illusion of happiness?

Adieu,

BC