Thoughts on Management Development - February 2006

A Coaching Failure?

A recent coaching assignment did not turn out as expected. The coachee, a business development manager in a high technology firm, was in need of some “independent guidance”. Andrew was certainly confused and somewhat demoralized. After a number of years with the company, and feeling comfortable in his job, he was looking forward to promotion. Suddenly, a new boss, an outsider who took the job to which he had aspired, came on the scene. A newly installed appraisal system gave Andrew some feedback from his new boss which surprised and alarmed him: he needed to be more persuasive and charismatic; he wasn’t getting the best out of his people.

Working with Andrew over several sessions, a picture began to emerge which could relate
his personal style and his recent experiences to the behaviour for which he was being criticized. Much of his difficulty was the result of reduced self confidence.

Together, a plan of action was agreed with Andrew. He would meet with his boss to ‘clear the air’; he would take specific steps to aggressively advance several key business projects which had been assigned to him. Over the next couple of sessions, Andrew became quite upbeat and pleased with the progress he was making.

Wanting to understand the degree of fit between Andrew and his job, it was decided to conduct a Thomas International assessment. This is a relatively simple measure of the four styles which account for 80% of the behaviour at work. Andrew, having taken his profile,
agreed that it was quite accurately descriptive of him. His boss, meanwhile, prepared the Human Job Analysis which reflected the behaviour patterns thought to be essential to success in the job.

Unfortunately there was a poor fit between Andrew’s profile and his job profile. Andrew and the client were briefed that while the fit was not ideal, he had, in fact, been in the job several years, and, by most accounts, had achieved a fair degree of success. Could the company manage around Andrew’s style of working? Could Andrew adjust his behaviour to better match the company’s expectations?

Shortly after the completion of the assessment, Andrew had a meeting with his boss. The outcome was a mutual decision which resulted in Andrew’s resignation form the company. As a coach, one is always disappointed not to see a coachee achieve splendid new results in his/her job. But in this case, it is most likely that both the company and Andrew will be happier and more successful going their separate ways.

Tackling Culture Head-on

Why is it that some companies seem unable to deal with a corporate culture which is working at cross purposes to the company’s objectives? For example, a financial services company’s explicit strategy for winning new business accounts is to be: “flexible and innovative in dealing with our customers.” Yet, this company has an ingrained history of being risk-averse and policy-driven. Will saying: “Be flexible and innovative!” be enough? A new employee took the instruction at face value, but she rapidly learned that this wasn’t the ‘right way’. He boss told her: “We go by the company policy!”, and her colleagues were full of stories about how people ‘got into trouble’ when they didn’t follow the (largely unwritten) policy.

Often, key people within the company – particularly HR people – will be aware of this conflict. But they are frequently unable to address the situation. There could be several reasons for this:

• Senior management is unaware that the culture is working against their intended strategy. Frequently, senior managers become insulated from what is going on in the company, and there is a strong tendency to believe that their (idealized) picture of the company is actually true. They are surprised to find that it is far from true.
• Senior management may become aware of the counter-productive culture, but they fail to understand that changing the culture is primarily their responsibility. The management team of a large retail company recognised that their company culture was very task oriented, while what they wanted was more process orientation. They, as a team, however, were unable to shed their fixation on short term results and fire-fighting (their own task orientation).
• Senior management may recognise the problem, but they believe it to be a ‘long-term issue’ which is not amenable to more rapid correction. The usual consequence of this is a failure to bring to bear the necessary corrective resources (including their own HR staff).

Is a counter-productive culture a ‘long-term issue’? How can it be tackled? It is indeed a long-term issue if it is not clearly identified, and a comprehensive action plan put in place to change it.

The tell-tale signs of a counter-productive culture include:

• A high level of job dissatisfaction, low morale, and high turnover
• Continuing failure to meet agreed targets
• Lagging productivity and higher than expected costs

While each of these symptoms may have a cause other than a counter-productive culture, each of them should prompt the question: “Could our culture be the problem here?”

Once a ‘culture culprit’ is suspected, it is essential to get a clear picture. For this picture to be taken accurately and credibly, an outside resource is essential. Any employee, well intentioned and competent as s/he may be, is invariably affected by the culture and cannot survey that of which s/he is a part.

There are several methods by which a counter-productive culture can be clearly identified. First, it is essential to clarify the desired culture: that is, the culture which will best support the company’s strategy. Nearly always, this involves a workshop with the top management team. The Royal Academy Values Set can be used to characterise the culture is terms of its important elements and their comparative strength. This values set consists of fourteen elements, each of which consists of a polarity: for example – ‘people-driven’ vs. ‘systems-driven’.

Alternatively, in a workshop, values are identified and plotted on a grid of strength of the value vs. its impact on the business, positively or negatively.

Once the discrepancies between the desired values and the actual values have been identified, these discrepancies should be prioritized by the management team. There is usually a tendency for the management team to prepare an action plan which amounts to delegating responsibility for correcting the discrepancy. Delegating culture change doesn’t work. A knowledgeable, experienced facilitator should confront the management team, and help them develop an action plan which, first and foremost, includes specific, measurable changes is their own behaviour. In order for such an action plan to be effective, it is important for the management team to receive objective feedback on the actual progress realised.

So, while it is true that corporate culture can represent a formidable barrier to the desired level of success for many companies, it is also true that culture can be brought inline by an experienced management team and the right resources.

Leader or Supervisor or Doer?

Several clients have said that they are not satisfied with the performance of their first line managers/supervisors. In many cases these first level managers were professional, clerical or hourly people who have performed well in that role. When a supervisory role opens up, they tend to be the ones who catch management’s eye, and their promotion follows. In most cases, there is nothing wrong with this.

Arguably, the selection process could be made more robust by measuring the fit between the person and the job via a Thomas International assessment (see ‘A Coaching Failure?)
But even when the person-job fit is good, there can be difficulty. In many cases, the new manager has had no formal training for the role of management. They have no accurate vision of what it is to manage people effectively. Often, their ‘role values’ which drive their behaviour are ambiguous. And, critically, they lack the requisite skill set.

For clients who face this dilemma, I can offer of seven or more half-day development workshops for newly appointed or inexperienced managers. Each session, which covers a specific topic such as Decision-Making, Delegation, or Accountability, is highly interactive. Facilitated discussion, group and individual exercises are the principal learning vehicles. The content of the workshops can be tailored to suit the needs of individual clients. These management development workshops can be accompanied by individual coaching, where this will help to accelerate an individual’s progress.

Team Troubles

Teams are an essential element of structure in nearly any business, and, whether a team works together ‘all day, every day’ or meets only quarterly to make essential decisions, its effectiveness matters greatly. Teams that are ineffective can exhibit traits like:

• Continuing inter-personal conflict
• Slow or ineffective response to change
• Inability to manage disagreements
• Failure to add the expected value
• Haphazard implementation

What are some immediate responses to ineffective teamwork? Frequently, the team leader is changed, or a ‘trouble-maker’ is reassigned, or the team is given a dressing down for their performance. While these actions are necessary, they are rarely sufficient. Experience demonstrates that ineffective teams are ineffective in large part because they don’t understand the root causes of their poor performance, and haven’t the tools to put things right.

There are, in fact, a wide range of tools for measuring the effectiveness of a team, and for identifying the root cause of its difficulties. Once the root cause(s) are clarified for a team, it can begin the process of improvement. Sometimes individuals need to change their view of the team and their behaviour towards it. Sometimes a team needs to clarify its purpose and how it adds value. Often a team will not have an appropriate process in place to guide them as they work together. Frequently, teams do not adopt essential values, such as ‘share accountability’ and ‘strength through diversity’.

A good facilitator/team coach can help an underperforming team understand the root causes of its difficulties, and place the team squarely on the road to rapid improvement.