Bad Manager

In their book Stop Managing, Start Coaching: How Performance can Enhance Commitment and Improve Productivity Gilley and Boughton highlight a few management misbehaviors:

• Failing to conduct performance appraisals
• Failing to provide performance standards
• Failing to delegate work assignments
• Failing to develop their employees
• Lacking patience with employees
• Criticizing employees rather than their performance
• Changing priorities and work requirements
• Creating paranoid working environments
  

Building Resilient Organizations

Resilient organizations are able to bounce back after times of adversity, surge forward in times of opportunity, and reduce risk as a result of their abilit to learn and adapt.

Resilient Organizations

View more presentations from Shawn Evans.

The Company Historian

The other day, while speaking at a conference, I met a person who told me that their "job" among other things was to be the company historian. I understand when organizations hire or have historians chronicle the trials and tribulations of their history, however, the company we were speaking about was ten years old and currently has about 75 employees. When I asked him to explain further, I understood just what he meant by the "Company Historian".

Joe is one of the longest tenured employees with his organization, as a result, he has worn many hat and witnessed a significant amount of change and growth. "At some point people just started asking me things like, where can I find . . ., have we ever . . . do we have a document that . . . how did that contract go with . . ." Slowly Joe became a gatekeeper to a quite a bit of organizational knowledge. At first his willingness to be the go to person for information was harmless, however, as the company has grown his role is now a roadblock to growth and development. Joe knows it, but he likes his role because as he explains it "at least I have some job security because not very many people know where all of the stuff is like I do!"

Job security aside, Joe is effectively routing a vital communication role through him, in the process unnecessarily slowing or even halting the process. Unfortunately gatekeeping is all too common in today's organizations. Instead of using his abilities to help promote company success, Joe wastes his time, and the time of his peers by hording information and processes.

Companies do not need a modified Dewey Decimal System, what they need is a method in which vital organizational intelligence can be created and stored so that everyone who needs access to the information can get it at anytime, without having to navigate through a gatekeeper. A newer technology is allowing organizations to start to catagorize, post, edit, and share information securly and confidentialy. The most famous Wiki is Wikipedia, however Wikis can be easily and effectively implimented in almost any organization that has a need to create, collaborate, and share information.

If you are interested in learning about the potential of Wikis in your organization please contact us and we can help you determine if this is a good option for you.

Now is the time to invest in your employees!

At some level, creating a workforce of actively engaged employees is as much about managing perception than anything else. Creating an atmosphere where employees FEEL valued can often create a culture where employees provide value. Although there are many, many ways in which an organization can manage perception, one of the most effective is to invest in employees' futures.

I would argue that NOW is the time to invest in the future of your top employees. WHY? Because the ROI on your investment today is worth much more than one year ago. Spending a dollar when times are tough is worth much more than spending ten when times are good. The perception capital that you will gain by investing in an employees' future today will pay dividends long after the current economic situation turns around!

Measuring Employee Development

A few months ago I was asked to provide an independent assessment of an employee training initiative. In speaking with the people in charge of the training efforts, I learned that they were aware of, and roughly using Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation.

They had created a typical "smile sheet" (an evaluation that asks if people liked the training - level 1) and managed to collect feedback from every training session. They did not, however, have a solid method for measuring whether or not the training sessions were actually moving people towards changes in behavior (level 3) and subsequently wholesale organizational change (level 4).

I decided to conduct my own assessment of the training efforts to determine to what level the training was leading to true development. Through a series of interviews, focus groups, and surveys I learned that the training was not leading to effective organizational change. We are working on that problem now.

There has been an interesting trend however. During the same time that we are measuring the effectiveness of the training, we are also looking at overall employee engagement. Like most organizations, this organization has about 20-25% of its employees who can be classified as highly engaged - - the rest fall into the categories of slightly disengaged, to fully disengaged.

Here is the kicker! During the latest engagement survey 72% of the employees ranked in the categories related to disengagement. At the same time, the latest training assessment shows that 72% of the employees are not moving past level 1 in regards to the training efforts. So, the same percentage of employees who are disengaged are also not gaining nor providing value from the training, in essence training dollars are being wasted on nearly 3/4 of the employees. This seems like common sense, however, there are rarely connections like this made in organizations and it could mean a tremendous savings in costs associated with employee development.

This is a study in progress - - I have added a few more organizations into the mix to see if the numbers are similar. I will report the results as the become available.

What is OD?

Here is a short PDF explaining Organizational Development.

What is OD?

Change, Change, Change

We have heard a lot about change during this election year. Heraclitus is credited with stating "there is nothing permanent except change." Change is fine to talk about on the election trail, the reality however is that the process of change within an organization can be a very touchy and tricky process. One of the services that we provide at Evans Organizational Development is assisting organizations work through times of change. Although we utilize a variety of strategies when working with change, one of most popular strategies is Kotter's Eight Step Method. This is a good way start to thinking about the change process and some of the complexities surrounding the process.

The 8-Step Process of Successful Change

SET THE STAGE

1. Create a Sense of Urgency.
Help others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately.

2. Pull Together the Guiding Team.
Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change—one with leadership skills, bias for action, credibility, communications ability, authority, analytical skills.

DECIDE WHAT TO DO

3. Develop the Change Vision and Strategy.
Clarify how the future will be different from the past, and how you can make that future a reality.

MAKE IT HAPPEN

4. Communicate for Understanding and Buy-in.
Make sure as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy.

5. Empower Others to Act.
Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so.

6. Produce Short-Term Wins.
Create some visible, unambiguous successes as soon as possible.

7. Don’t Let Up.
Press harder and faster after the first successes. Be relentless with instituting change after change until the vision becomes a reality.

MAKE IT STICK

8. Create a New Culture.
Hold on to the new ways of behaving, and make sure they succeed, until they become a part of the very culture of the group.