Jan 28, 2017 - Culture can be measured and moni- tored just like any other aspect of your .... and Instagram. BELonGInG
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www.leaderonomics.com | Saturday 28 January 2017
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HE most difficult component of an organisation to manage is its people. Many change initiatives have failed because companies underestimated how critically the human factor can determine success or failure during a time of change. After weather, people are the most unpredictable element! In my involvement of doing cultural change initiatives, the people element is the most crucial factor to pay attention to. You must ensure they feel good and secure when you announce your new initiatives. They must be enticed to agree that management are doing things with them. If your organisation is planning to undergo a cultural shift, whether in a form of merger and acquisition (M&A), business process re-engineering, cultural transformation or any form of change, businesses must then have strategies to manage employee engagement during these changes. Such initiatives involve complex and multi-layered planning. In my experience, it is always easier to manage changes that are tangibly measurable, such as learning to operate a new machinery, IT system or production processes.
WHAT IS EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT?
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment employees feel towards their organisation and the actions they take to ensure the organisation’s success; engaged employees demonstrate care, dedication, enthusiasm, accountability and a result focus. Since human beings are emotionally self-serving, they need to be emotionally connected to how they can personally succeed “through” the organisation they work in. Putting their trust in leaders whom they believe can bring them success, play the fundamental emotion in their hearts. Based on a survey by Gallup (2011 – 2012) (Refer to Figure 1) on worldwide employees’ engagement, it is shocking to see only 13% of employees are engaged! Worldwide, about 63% of employees are not engaged while 24% are actively disengaged. In summary: Actively disengaged employees outnumbered engaged employees nearly two to one.
n Lily Lau is a trainer who aims to inspire people to reach their potential through self-discovery of personal talents. She is Masters Certified for Directive Communication Psychology and has conducted many trainings on this topic. To engage her for your organisation, e-mail people@ leaderonomics.com
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Engage First, Change WIll Happen By LILY LAU
[email protected]
This article is available at www. leaderonomics. com, where you can download the PDF version.
www.leaderonomics.com | Saturday 28 January 2017
Engaged employees work with passion and feel an emotional connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organisation forward. They are characterised as being loyal, committed and productive, and they deliver results. Unengaged employees come to work and do what is asked of them but have little energy or passion for their work. They feel no meaningful attachment to their job or company. They can easily be tempted by job vacancies elsewhere. Actively Disengaged employees are not just unhappy at work; they actively show their unhappiness. These employees demonstrate negative, uncooperative and sometimes hostile behaviours and attitude. They undermine their teams and company business. The above statistics and findings prove that not managing employee engagement during a cultural change
Managing people first can help smoothen any transition or change initiative Worldwide, Actively Disengaged Employees Outnumber Engaged Employees by Nearly 2-1 2011-2012 results among employed residents, aged 18 and older, in 142 countries and areas 2009-2010
2011-2012
Actively disengaged
27%
24%
Not engaged
62%
63%
Engaged
11%
13%
Figure 1. Gallup Survey on employee engagement (2011-2012). Source: Gallup initiative will guarantee the failure of the transition.
8 EMOTIONAL DRIVES
In Directive Communication Psychology, an area of psychology developed by Arthur Carmazzi, humans are motivated by eight emotional drives. They are: l l l l
l l l l
Love and Belonging – Connection from being with others, or with self. Security and Control – To maintain security and control in our lives. Diversity and Change – Having a variety and excitement in our lives. Recognition and Significance – Acknowledging of our virtues and achievements, being noticed. Achievement – The need to make progress in our plans, to finish things. Challenge and Growth – Learning, growing and personal development. Excellence – Self-satisfaction and pride in the things we do. Responsibility and Contribution – The need to contribute to others.
Each of these is based on a human psycho-emotional need. While each of these drivers is present in everyone, they do not have equal importance for every individual and are achieved in different ways by different individuals. Also, every individual has a different order of importance for these eight drivers. We are constantly responding to these drivers – sometimes in positive ways and sometimes in neutral and negative ways. The order of priority for these drivers within us can change with time, based on our environment, experiences, and especially traumas. These drivers can also be cultivated, either positively or negatively, by our environment, culture, parents, teachers and peers. By understanding the eight emotional drives, we can analyse human behaviours such as why some people are motivated and don’t mind going the extra mile whereas some are calculative and will only do things if they know they can get something in return, and others are just not bothered. Let’s take a case where a person is highly engaged. We assume his top three emotional drives are Challenge and Growth; Diversity and Change; and Achievement. His current job requires him to expand a new market for a product he is selling. He will find it exciting because he gets to travel and explore new areas. Being an achiever, he will strive to achieve targets. On the contrary, if this person is put in an environment where there is no
learning and his work is routine, he will feel bored and probably end up being a mediocre performer. Over time, his motivation level drops and he becomes disengaged. Engagement will happen when the environment supports the emotional needs the person is looking to meet. Whether at work or at home, every individual will look for emotional fulfillment through their actions and behaviour. Being uncooperative or disagreeing can also be a way to fulfil an emotional drive. From that person’s perspective, he feels like he has achieved or has been recognised, albeit in negative ways. People who are not engaged or actively disengaged therefore behave in a negative manner to satisfy their needs. Under normal circumstances, their actions and behaviours will not support the change or the direction the company is aiming for. In our process of facilitating culture change, we identify the positive and negative key influencers within an organisation. Both are equally powerful and can play the leading role in either supporting or preventing change. We work with the positive influencers to multiply the engagement effect. For the negative influencers, we assess whether the problem stems from a matter of attitude or skill. If it stems from attitude, we analyse their emotional drivers to find the root of the mismatch that leads towards the negative influence. If it is a skills issue, wherein the individual does not know how to manage or deal with certain matters, this is treatable by breaking the relevant psychological barriers and providing the right emotional support and guidance. We believe in the power of positive
Belonging / Love Connection from being with others or sense with self
Control / Security
Recognition / Significance
Greater ability to maintain security in our lives
Acknowledgement of our achievements gives us a true sense of significance
Diversity
Challenge / Growth
Wanting more, having variety
The opportunity to achieve and to grow
Achievement
Excellence
The need to make progress in our plans
Self-satisfaction and pride in things we do
Responsibility / Contribution The need to contribute Figure 2. Eight Emotional Drives © by Arthur Carmazzi / Directive Communication. multiplication wherein the right dynamics increases engagement over time. A small positive action can lead to a similar reaction and spark a bigger reaction and so forth. At the same time, the chain action and reaction will require good leadership role modeling to support the effect. There are, however, cases where the negative key influencers are beyond rehabilitation. If termination is not an option, we recommend assigning them to isolated roles that minimise interaction with co-workers to keep such individuals from negatively affecting others. The application of Directive Communication Psychology to manage organisational change may sound complicated. Once you embark on it, however, you see how it is about being conscious and raising awareness of how you affect others within the group and how others affect you through team dynamics. Ultimately, if you are engaged, you will want to share and engage others too. That’s the start of change.
DIRECTIVE COMMUNICATION PSYCHOLOGY As individuals affect and are affected by each other in specific work and personal environments or culture, Directive Communication Psychology establishes an awareness at the emotional and decision-making base, optimising the way people interact with each other in organisations, teams or groups. Developed by Arthur Carmazzi, it enables individuals to positively direct enthusiasm and action for themselves and the people around them. It exposes individuals to the mental, emotional and physical triggers that will lead to improvement in their quality of life and out of work. We recommend Directive
Communication Psychology be used to improve employee engagement programmes. The process encompasses: l Understanding how every individual interprets their perspective of the world – how we genetically process information based on our brain make-up l Understanding of individual encoded assumptions and rules of engagement – to determine why we act, react or don’t act l Understanding of human emotional drivers – why we do what we need to do l Understanding of group dynamics and how you affect and are being affected by one another – how we do what need to do.
By CAROLYN TAYLOR
[email protected] I often notice a surge in questions from clients and friends around a particular topic. Right now, it’s measuring culture. What is it? And how do we do it? Culture metrics are an essential part of the culture change journey. They are the only reliable way to know if your culture improvement efforts are working, to see how far down the road your organisation has come. They are also the most tangible way in which you can report back on this journey to others. Are you someone who is under pressure to figure out how to do this in the best possible way? Then here are some pointers:
UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEASURING AND DIAGNOSING
The what. The goal of measuring culture is to accurately observe changes over time, compare the results of one business unit – or employment level, team, or country – with another, using the best possible tool. Quantitative research results (statistical data collected by measuring things in a structured way) often answer the question “what?” and can provide you with data on how that “what” changes over time. The why. The goal of diagnosing culture is to understand why your culture is the way it is so that you can implement ways of improving it. Diagnosing culture is best achieved through qualitative research (non-statistical, unstructured and semi-structured techniques such as interviews or group discussions). Diagnosis answers the question: “What is the cause of this?” I’ve found that when an organisation tries to use the same tool to achieve both goals, one or the other will be compromised.
Four Guidelines for Measuring Organisational Culture DISTINGUISHING CULTURE FROM ENGAGEMENT
Your engagement score is not a proxy for a culture score. Engagement is how people feel about working in your company. Culture is the patterns of behaviour that are encouraged, discouraged or tolerated. For example, there’s no evidence that the employees of Volkswagen or Wells Fargo were not engaged at work. However, we now know that there were serious risks in the established patterns of behaviour in those organisations. Good culture surveys won’t ask how people feel about things; they’ll ask questions about how people are expected to behave in the day-to-day operations. Good culture surveys seek to find out what’s truly valued around here.
Engagement is how people feel about working in your company. Culture is the patterns of behaviour that are encouraged, discouraged or tolerated. THERE’S NO ONESIZE-FITS-ALL CULTURE
Like a corporate fingerprint, your culture won’t be the same as someone else’s. The type of culture you want to create will be dictated by your unique business imperatives. Trying for a single score measure – like what an engagement survey provides – will often sacrifice bringing to light the true complexity of a culture, or revealing the areas which require improvement. Many culture surveys measure generic components of ‘good’ cultures. These are good because they give you international norms, but not so good because they don’t take into account specific culture goals. If, for example, customer-centricity is a goal of yours, then you should be measuring that in depth. Yet, a lot of culture surveys won’t allow you to do this. I’ve found the very best culture metrics will combine various factors into a personalised dashboard.
FIND YOUR KEY BUSINESS INDICATORS
You can measure observed behaviours, or you can measure the business indicators that those behaviours will produce. Say your culture goal is collaboration; what business impact will an increase in collaboration produce? Maybe it’s more cross-selling, or less duplication of effort, or perhaps an increase in transfer of best practices? Ask yourself, how can we best measure these? Culture can be measured and monitored just like any other aspect of your business – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You need clear definitions and distinctions, some curiosity and a dedication to building the right measurement dashboard for your unique goals. How will you measure your culture?
Here are four guidelines that you can use to measure culture: l l
l
l
Measure behaviour and values, not feelings. Accept that to change your culture, you will need to do qualitative research. Build a dashboard that also includes business indicators of your particular culture in action. Measure your unique culture goals rather than, or as well as, generic “good culture” measures.
n Carolyn Taylor is one of the world’s foremost experts in organisational culture change and the CEO of Walking the Talk. She has run workshops with 50,000 leaders, worked alongside 200 culture change journeys, consulted on 15 mergers & acquisitions, coached 60 CEOs and worked in 35 countries. She is also the author of Walking the Talk: Building a Culture for Success (Random House). To engage with her, e-mail us at editor@ leaderonomics.com
