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Freedom, From Ear to Ear

4/30/2013

My best friend Amelia is an amazing parent. Amelia has always known how to both discipline and exhort her three daughters in very age-appropriate ways, to make sure they really understand the message and can own it for themselves. Just last week she found out that her ex-husband kept telling their 8-year old what a great swimmer she was and leaving her in the 5' end of the pool to go play with the 6-year old in the shallow end. "Honey, you're a great swimmer. You're doing fine," he'd say as he would walk to the other end of the pool. The little girl was receiving accolades and clearly being treated as more grown up than her little sister. She trusted her father; what could she do about the uncertainty she felt, not quite secure in water that was over her head?

How many of us have ever had the experience at work of being told we were something we weren't, or that we were capable of doing something when we were privately unsure? Susan's boss says, "You've really got excellent project management skills. I want you to run the new client project implementation. We kick off in two weeks." Yet Susan fears her 'project management' skills are nothing more than a semi-organized stack of post-its and an Excel spreadsheet that she scours through obsessively to be sure nothing is missed. Susan knows there are much more qualified people for the role, yet an opportunity like this could finally move her into a true leadership role. "Sounds good," Susan replies.

My friend knew the 8-year old, Stephanie, wasn't a great swimmer yet and certainly shouldn't be left alone in water deeper than she was tall, so Amelia took both younger girls to a free swim with the intention of giving them a placement test for swimming lessons. When Amelia asked Stephanie to take a couple of tests - e.g., front float, back float, front glide, back slide - Stephanie's face streaked with fear. She started screaming, "NOOOO!" and began flailing and hitting her mom, trying anything she could to get away.

"Susan," the boss says in his office a few weeks after the project kick-off. "I'd like you to pull Wayne in and have him under your wing while you're managing the project. I need him to really build up his project management skills. He doesn't know how to use Microsoft Project and doesn't have the skill set to calmly and methodically manage every element of a project like you can. He needs to know the systems. I want him to watch you and learn."

"Stan, there is no way I'm going to have time to babysit Wayne while we're in the midst of this project," Susan snaps very uncharacteristically. "I am too busy doing my full time job and your crazy client implementation!" She storms out of Stan's office, leaving him bewildered as to her unusual and unexpected behavior.

After some initial confusion, Amelia realized that Stephanie was unconsciously petrified of being found out: that she suspected she wasn't the great swimmer Daddy kept saying she was yet it was frightening to think of anyone proving it to be true. Without even realizing it herself, Stephanie was terrified and embarrassed of the disparity between what Daddy thought and what she feared might be true. Sure enough, Stephanie could not yet even do the front float with her face in the water. The jig was up; she felt so ashamed.

"And this actual being is such an embarrassing sight when viewed from the perspective of godlike perfection that he cannot but despise it. Moreover, what is dynamically more important, the human being which he actually is keeps interfering - significantly - with his fight to glory, and therefore he is bound to hate it, to hate himself." Neurosis of Human Growth, Karen Horney

This is where we pause in the work story. More often than not, our managers and leaders do not look beyond the metaphorical 'flailing' and 'hitting' to more deeply understand what's happening when we see uncharacteristic behaviors in our colleagues or employees. We may instead add the behaviors to our performance evaluation comments or chalk the people up to erratic and unreasonable. Yet we need to begin to develop our consciousness, making higher-order sense of our worlds rather than reactively beefing up our defensive instincts, so that we can help our people move from their own subconscious fears to a conscious level of functioning and communication.

Later that same night, Amelia sat her eight-year old down to draw her a picture. With Stephanie's colorful markers, Amelia drew a sad little girl, hands clasped, on the left side of the page with a simple, straight-lined arrow pointing to the comment, "You're a really good swimmer." The next iteration was a little girl with more of a curious expression, arms now down, with some thick, squiggly lines beginning to fill in the space between the girl and the words. The third and final iteration was a happy little girl - with a smile and arms open wide - with all of the space between the little girl and the comment filled up with squiggly lines.

Amelia lovingly and compassionately explained to her daughter that the sad face stood for the mismatch between what was being said about Stephanie and how she was being treated based on them (i.e., great swimmer capable enough to be left by herself in 5' of water) versus the facts (i.e., Stephanie was not yet able to swim and it was scary to be in deep water without her parent). Amelia then explained that each stroke Stephanie learned in swimming lessons was a squiggly line on the page, bridging the gap between her and the truth of being a really good swimmer. Each stroke she learned in swimming class was a stroke toward building confidence, skills, and abilities she simply didn't yet have today.

As leaders, we have the opportunity to sit with people and - using their 'markers', that is the language or tools they use - help them understand where they are today and where they have the opportunity to go. And most importantly, tell them how you're going to help them get there. What are the cues Stan might look for? What might he start paying attention to? What shifted recently? What changed? What questions can he ask? Amelia knows Stephanie intimately as her mother, yet how can Stan watch for patterns in the workplace to better learn what makes Susan tick, and what ticks her off?

We need to move from head-in-the-sand to heart-of-the-matter to address people's insecurities, and that includes everyone with whom we come into contact (including ourselves!). What we think may be arrogance or insubordination or resistance may just be the adult version of flailing and hitting in the pool because we aren't even aware of the fear of 'being found out' and rather only know the sensation to which we then react.

Stephanie's eyes widened with wonder as she watched the strokes stretch across the page. She could see it. She could now see how she could get from the painful and scary incongruity of the sad face to the confident, capable happy face. So much so that she grabbed the marker out of Amelia's hand and started to make the smile on the smiley face even bigger - from ear to ear! "Mommy! I'm going to be really happy when I know all those strokes!" Stephanie had suddenly made the picture her own.

When we work with our people in this way - in open, clarifying, compassionate communication - we have the opportunity to give them the greatest professional gift they can receive: freedom. We can help release them from stories we as leaders have told them - and help them release themselves from some of the stories they've been telling as well. Whether we start by drawing them a picture on a white board, carving a roadmap into a piece of plywood in the warehouse, or coding a smiley face simulation on our MacBook Pro, we give our colleagues and employees the opportunity to find the freedom of congruence.

Stephanie is now loving her swimming classes and doing very well. She's building her abilities and knows it. No longer afraid of perceived limitations, she is comfortable admitting what she doesn't know, eager to replace it with real skill. Her confidence is building. No doubt someday soon she will be in the 5' end of the pool all by herself, and her dad will again say, "You're a great swimmer, Stephanie." Yet soon she'll be able to reply, "Thank you. I am a great swimmer!" And no doubt she will have a smile from ear to ear.

After several deep, challenging, and rewarding discussions between Stan and Susan, they both discovered that Susan really was interested in excelling at project management. Susan was also able to share her aspirations for a leadership role. She enrolled in the Project Management certification courses and committed to sharing with Wayne what she was learning along the way. Susan knew that by teaching the materials to someone else, she would also be deepening her own learning. With some financial investment for certification training and time investment to better coach and mentor Susan, Stan was pleased that he was a part of healing an incongruity while at the same time gaining two project managers who were finding great satisfaction in their new roles and contributing great value toward a key client project. No doubt Stan will soon say, "Susan, you're an excellent Project Manager." And she'll be able to reply, "Thank you. I am an excellent Project Manager." And no doubt she'll be smiling from ear to ear.

Here's to the freedom of congruence for each of us, from ear to ear.

The Story of the Stained Glass

4/17/2013

Some of you have asked me about my choice of images for my website. "What's with the stained glass?" you’ve asked. I thought we were talking about aligning strategy, performance & rewards. Great question and the simplest answer is: complexity. The paradox of order and disorder - one of the hallmarks of complexity theory, as I discuss in a previous post - comes into play when I speak of alignment in what Joshua Cooper Ramo refers to as the new 'revolutionary era.’ In a nutshell, old ways of thinking simply don’t cut it anymore. Alignment means something very different today than it did not that long ago.

When I talk about alignment today, I think fluidity and movement. I think non-linear. I think creativity. I think agile. And, paradoxically, I think deep infrastructure. I think strong lines. I think core. The stained glass images represent this paradox for me. The images are a creative representation of my thinking on how alignment lives and moves in the 21st century, and while alignment remains pivotal to organization success, we must be willing to break away from some of the linear thinking of the past. Towers Watson said it well when they stated in a 2012 report, "Companies are running 21st century businesses with 20th century practices and programs."

Performance & Rewards is an area in which old thinking abounds. Fixed salary grades, stagnant job descriptions, and annual performance reviews built on static objectives are just a few examples of antiquated programs developed in a time where hierarchy was revered and organization was analogized to a machine. I understand why they still exist; in past lives I've helped create and maintain plans that include these very elements! There are legalities and financial constraints that we simply can't ignore. However, the go-to solution is new wine in old wineskin. Folks, the wineskin is seriously leaking.

The key is the willingness to lean into this new idea of alignment in our ‘VUCA’ world (i.e., volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) as opposed to attempting to control it. It’s not for the faint of heart! Hence the necessity to build up your organization’s core – core mission, core competencies, core processes (communication being at the top of the list), core structure, core value proposition – while remaining agile and responsive to the broader environment.

There are ways we can begin to incorporate new thinking - a new way of aligning people, performance & rewards to the business strategy - into the way we do business and empower our talent. I have mentioned changing the dialog in previous posts, and this is a great opportunity to practice. One place to start is 'both/and' thinking. For example, we need to evaluate performance and maintain a feedback loop AND we have changing objectives throughout the year. We have a finite pool of rewards dollars AND our headcount continues to increase.

Rather than battling over which to address - which is often a welcome yet dysfunctional distraction from the issues at hand - we own that both are the reality and we start the conversation there. Get people in a room together who don’t normally get in a room together. Highlight the tensions and discuss them with openness and curiosity. In this way, you begin to strengthen your organization's core and build capacity for new ways of thinking and communicating. In essence, you create your own story of the stained glass.

Reason 10: Reward System Influence on Change Efforts

4/10/2013

We have arrived at the tenth and final reason in Dr. Ed Lawler's list of ten reasons for combining and leveraging the complementary competencies of Compensation and Organization Development (OD) (see Lawler 1981). Reason #10: Reward System Influence on Change Efforts speaks more broadly of the total rewards initiatives (compensation, benefits, recognition, etc.) and how they can influence the effectiveness of organizational change efforts, both big and small.

With regard to reward systems - the entirety of the total rewards programs within an organization - change efforts may start from a point other than pay (e.g., management structure in a reorganization). And it is critical that reward systems become a key element of the change strategy to increase the likelihood of success.

Organizations at large are systemic in nature and by nature, and therefore implications of change efforts on the reward system are inevitable. More specifically, when reward systems are included in and align with the change strategy, the more positive the implications, the greater the employee adoption of the change. The more negative the implications are toward an employee's rewards, the greater the resistance.

"...whether the desire is to change the culture or change the organization chart, the simple act of making a change requires a review of compensation and rewards for possible implications. At a minimum, rewards strategy should always be included in the change effort framework."

Rather than a "Case in Point/Cut to the Chase," at this point I would like to take a step back and take into consideration these ten reasons for combining and leveraging the disciplines of Compensation and OD:
1. Pay Can Influence Organizational Effectiveness
2. Pay is an Important Cost
3. Pay is a Problem
4. Pay is Important to Individuals
5. Pay Policy and Pay Practice are Malleable
6. Pay Systems and Institutionalization
7. Pay and System-Wide Change
8. Pay is Visible and Tangible
9. Pay is a Systemic Factor
10. Reward System Influence on Change Efforts

As one might classify qualitative data by codes and themes in a research project, I see a few key themes surfacing as I review the series:

- First and foremost, pay - compensation - touches everyone in the organization. There is little within an organization that has as far a reach or as emotional an impact as employee compensation.

- Second, compensation is important. It's expensive, it's meaningful, and while it may or may not be the primary motivator for certain employees, it still provides the means for living at a desired standard.

- Finally, compensation is systemic and embedded within the relationships and connections inside an organization. So whether the desire is to change the culture or change the organization chart, the simple act of making a change requires a review of compensation and rewards for possible implications. At a minimum, rewards strategy should always be included in the change effort framework.

I have enjoyed entering into this conversation with you, knowing it is simply the tip of the iceberg. Although future conversations will take different twists and turns, my point of view is deeply grounded in the importance of bringing these disciplines together to improve the dialog around increasing organization effectiveness and building the capacity to successfully address our greatest organizational challenges. I look forward to continuing the discussion.

Reason 9: Pay is a Systemic Factor

4/1/2013

We are winding down our first blog series, grounded in Dr. Edward Lawler’s book, Pay and Organization Development. We have reached Reason #9: Pay is a Systemic Factor. If I were to pick a 'favorite’ of Dr. Lawler’s top 10 list, this would be it.

I am very excited about the direction Organization Development and Change is heading; that is, toward more of a complexity paradigm and post-modern networked reality, and away from a purely open system model. To me complexity and networks make more sense than simply a factor of inputs, transformations, outputs, and feedback (yes, I’m oversimplifying).

"If someone half way around the world can link themselves to Kevin Bacon in six degrees or less, how much more connected are people in one singular organization or industry? And if you change the job title, the job duties, the function one oversees, or an organization chart, you've likely affected many employees you wouldn't have even considered, including their compensation and classification."

Rooted in the physical sciences, complexity theory speaks to the tension of paradox: order and disorder, stability and instability, and organization and disorganization. It speaks to the edge of chaos – the edge of this tension – as the space where transformation actually occurs. The trick is: we as human beings are prone to rely heavily on our limbic ‘fight or flight’ system and must be willing to dance the difficult dance of discomfort, anxiety, and ambiguity in order to succeed in allowing transformation to occur at the edge of chaos. Meg Wheatley, the Sante Fe Institute, and Patricia Shaw are three great sources for more information on complexity.

Network theory is equally as fascinating and speaks to the myriad of ways in which we are all connected, whether through greater or weaker influence, whether more strongly or more loosely connected, or whether through nodes or neighbors. Remember the ‘Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon’ game where no matter what, you would find yourself no more than six degrees separated from Kevin Bacon? For example, my former hairstylist did Michelle Pfeiffer’s hair, Michelle Pfeiffer was in Wolf with Jack Nicholson, and Jack Nicholson was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon; hence I am four degrees from Mr. Bacon. This party game stems from network theory and the ‘small world’ experiment tried back in the 1960s by Stanley Milgram to show that the world really isn’t as big as we make out to be. (Check out Duncan Watts' Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age.) In essence, we change one element of the system and many others will change because of it. It’s a world where we can only control ourselves, yet we must live with the consequences of everyone else’s decisions.

Consider there is much more to both of these, yet for now the point is: what does complexity and network theory have to do with Compensation and Organization Development (OD)? A lot, if you ask me. If someone half way around the world can link themselves to Kevin Bacon in six degrees or less, how much more connected are people in one singular organization or industry? And if you change the job title, the job duties, the function one oversees, or an organization chart, you've likely affected many employees you wouldn't have even considered, including their compensation, career trajectory, and classification.

Case in Point: Employee Services happened to mention in a meeting I was in that they were working with OD and the Logistics Administration (LA) department to dramatically change the organization structure. They wanted to increase responsibility for a certain subset of Logistics Administrators, moving them to a more customer service-oriented role. LA wanted to create a better career path for its employees - fair enough - and had thought they found a way to do it by just shifting a few things around. My colleague believed he had another satisfied customer; his smile suggested, "Where's the ribbon so I can tie it up in a bow?"

Cut to the Chase: Fortunately for all of us my colleague did mention the changes underway, because what they thought was a simple modification to some job descriptions and boxes on an org chart became a potential Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) nightmare. What surfaced was not only that the new positions would be Non-Exempt, but the old positions should have been all along. The job duties had previously been described as Exempt (read: inflated), and the truth was suddenly coming out since it now served them to position the new Customer Service Administrator job as 'higher level.' I told my colleague he needed to 'untie the bow' and work through step-by-step with OD, LA, and Compensation what needed to occur to first and foremost ensure legal compliance, and simultaneously meet the business needs. We then had to discuss the implication of the Product Administrators, a separate group seemingly unrelated yet for years had mirrored the LA group structure, pay levels, and FLSA classifications. Pandora's box was quickly opening.

Pay is systemic. We change one thing in an organization, even if it seems completely benign or is noneconomical, and it can change many others - from individual pay levels to titles to office space to culture. As Lawler (1981, p. 8) states, "pay systems in organizations are closely linked to the following major aspects of organizations: superior-subordinate relationships, job design, organizational structure, organizational climate, management training and development, information and control systems, performance appraisal, and management philosophy or style." I am guessing readers can add to this list. In a nutshell, both Compensation and OD are well served and highly encouraged to come together to discuss change efforts at their onset so that the more complete story is told, and the fundamental issues are addressed using a planful, robust methodology that takes this complexity and network of connections into consideration.

What examples do you have that illustrate the systemic nature of pay?

Freedom, From Ear to Ear

The Story of the Stained Glass

Reason 10: Reward System Influence on Change Efforts

Reason 9: Pay is a Systemic Factor

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