Transforming the Employer-Employee and Employee-Customer Dynamics. That's what Matters.

?We talk endlessly about how we must change how we “do” strategy. I certainly go on and on about how we must fundamentally transform the whole strategy management process – formulation, execution and learning and see them as more holistic, dynamic and adaptable, rather that sequential and static.

I have also grown to recognize that transforming how we think about strategy management in isolation is pointless, without also fundamentally altering how we think about structure, enterprise architecture, culture, and how we relate with the external environment and stakeholders, hence my Adaptive Strategy Management in the Age of Uncertainty Framework and Methodology. See https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/age-uncertainty-requires-fundamental-organizational-james-creelman/

But the more I pondered this, the greater the realization that it’s not about rethinking strategy, structure, etc., but rethinking how we think.

Organizations are simply groups of people coming together to work to a common goal – deliver a product or service to a customer (be that in a commercial or not-for-profit setting). So, what really matters is what the group “thinks” and how that resonates with the thinking of each individual employee.

Lessons from the Pandemic

While going through the “joys” of the pandemic – lockdowns, other restrictions, and a total disruption of our lives – it became clear to many that when we emerged on the other side, much would change, we just didn’t know what that would look like.

It has some similarities (in a vastly different context) with how the end of World War 2 impacted the United Kingdom. Winston Churchill had led a Conservative dominated governmental coalition through the greatest was in human history. Yet idolized as he was, Churchill and his party lost the 1945 general election to Labour by a landslide.?People didn’t want things to return to being how they were in 1939. A great transformation took place – the birth of the National Health Service, extension of the welfare state, nationalizing of many industries, as some major examples.

Post-pandemic there has also been a sense of the need for transformation, which is perhaps one reason why we are seeing so much regional conflict right now (Ukraine, Taiwan, etc,) as the old guard try desperately to return to how things once were.

Organizational thinking and dynamics

Let’s turn our attention back to organizations and the ongoing (and still unclear) transformation in thinking and dynamics,.

Remote working, powered by technology and especially once we got our heads around Zoom calls, became the norm for many and we liked it, as it made clear the potential for ways of working that enabled more time with family, friends and for other pursuits, rather than the daily trudge into work and back and many unproductive hours at our desks.

Most employees now want the flexibility “forced” onto them and their employers by the pandemic. Although there is a a recognition that regular face-to-face meet ups with colleagues in important for bonding and better reading non-verbal communication cues, but this can be done as easily in a bar as in a meeting room (and oftentimes much more productively!!).

But many organizations and its managers resist, as they are still beholden to the diktats of Frederick W. Taylor, et, al – if you can’t see them, they won’t work. Workers are naturally lazy.

Well, sorry, but that style of thinking just doesn’t cut it anymore. Organizations have the best educated and most knowledgeable employees in history, and they don’t want to be treated with distrust anymore – and aren’t accepting it. Note how many staff have simply left the traditional workplace, because they don’t want it and won’t have it. So, we have massive job shortages, scratch our heads, and wonder why.

The employee-employer “contract” must be ripped up and rewritten.

There has also been a noticeable shift in the employee-customer relationship. People came out of the pandemic less tolerant of poor service, such as having to wait in line for eons and worse, waiting on the phone for hours while their “important” call gets though to a call centre. They are also becoming more demanding of individualized services and solutions. Again, they do not want to return to the way it was back then.

Front-line service workers are becoming increasingly stressed by customer demands and not being able to provide adequate service due to having to follow strict organizational procedure and policies.

?Increasingly I overhear staff saying to customers, “Look I know this isn’t good but it isn’t our fault, it’s the stupid company rules and/or the fact that the managers are idiots”.

I have been told several times recently by a staff member that things are bad because their managers don’t know what they are doing (although I imagine they are just doing what their own bosses tell them what to do). Keep in mind that employees are customers outside of work.

So, we also need to tear up strict rulebooks of customer-facing policies and procedures, while maintaining proper governance oversight. Smarter minds that mine will figure out what that will look like.

Employee and customer dissatisfaction and disengagement will increase sharply, at least in the majority of organizations who don’t “get” what’s going on. But don’t worry, they will throw even more billions at employee and customer engagement programs – which won’t work of course.

Parting Thoughts

The “thinking dynamics” will extend to how we relate to partners, suppliers and other stakeholders – and even competitors.

But at the heart of organizational transformation is understanding the new post-pandemic employer/employee and employee/customer dynamics and adapting appropriately and effectively.

No new framework or latest consulting “solution” will fix that.

Ends

James Creelman is Director of the UK-based Cardinal Management Consulting and an Associate Director of Strategia Worldwide. His available for consulting, training, or research support in Adaptive Strategy Management in the Age of Uncertainty.

James can be contacted on +44 7933 575340 or?[email protected]