We learn from the hard times...

Organisational performance originates in leadership beliefs at every point in time, not only in times of crisis ... there are some amazing lessons to be learned in the current conditions, which we can take into our workplaces now and when we return to work.

What each and every leader, at every level, perceives to be ‘good', ultimately determines the conditions in which their people exist.

People have to be able to survive, to feel safe, before they can focus on the nuances of their performance, and yet, many of the beliefs we typically hold in business, which often look and sound like 'profit before people', create conditions in which people feel unsafe ... forcing them to focus on survival rather than performance.

To restate the point, for people to perform at a high level within a team, innumerous studies show a sense of physical, social and psychological safety is prerequisite.

Never has this been more obvious than in the current conditions, created by COVID19. We have all heard multiple news reports highlighting any 'boss' insisting their employees continue to work, quickly finding themselves on the receiving end of social disgust, disdain and disapproval (risking their personal and organisational reputation), while those rapidly changing their business model to protect jobs and serve those on the front line are applauded.

My question is a simple one. If we believe its of the utmost importance to put people's physical and emotional safety first in the current conditions, why not in normal conditions?

Slow vs Rapid change

In normal times, we are exposed to;

Other people (reports, peers and leaders), their plans, tactics, aspirations, ambitions and the targets, goals, KPIs and measures that follow, controlled, reported and guided by systems, technology, machines, facilities, markets, strategy, structure, process, procedure, policy, governance, bonuses and rewards, all influenced by politics, environment, society, economy and laws ... & CHANGE (to all the above, often all at once) ... for any number of reasons …

How we personally react to all of these things, and any changes made to them, determines if we compliment or contaminate outcome objectives … if we feel confident or insecure in achieving tasks... if we expect to be compliant to rules or committed to our leaders' cause... if we feel as if we are coping or we are drowning and stressed-out.

Without a pressing need to rapidly adapt, we (human brains) spend much of our time and effort defending what we are used to, even if it's not good for us. Psychologically this falls into many camps including collusion and confirmation bias, but is also a recognisable phenomenon in old sayings like "Better the Devil you know", "Don't rock the boat" and "Needs must when the devil drives".

This fear based, defensive psychological dynamic slows down our organisational change efforts enormously, extending timelines and cost in ways we cannot measure or imagine. It is SLOW change ... and it's what we're used to, so it's what we expect and accept... change to process through training, rather than change to the fundamental beliefs that approve of slow adaption to process.

However, when the need for change is clear and perhaps more importantly, that need for change is in our own interest (WIIFM), as it has become in recent weeks across the planet, everything is open to RAPID change and that change is readily accepted.

If the belief remains constant, much of what changes will also sustain in the longer term ... This is important to mention as sustainability has been a critical issue and constant challenge for most who have tried to get an organisation to work differently / better, particularly in recent decades.

Nothing is off the table!

Organisations are currently changing policies, strategies and working methods that have been 'The way we do things around here' (for generations in some cases) and they are changing them minute by minute on a daily basis.

The world of organisational change has been seeking the holy grail of leaders adopting a 'Lean' attitude for decades, but the answer has remained elusive.

Suddenly we are seeing people responding in 'Lean' (Agile) ways everywhere, at the highest and lowest levels ... not only are financial models and strategies that would otherwise be 'out of bounds', being rapidly adjusted, legislation is being passed to fund those out of work, while banks and mortgage companies are doing all they can to support cash flow concerns throughout the general populous, putting their own income on hold for the benefit of others.

This shift in belief has not just led to organisational change, but change for every organisation that shapes society ... and it's happened almost over night.

At a smaller scale, colleagues who rarely spend any time together are using technology to talk on a daily basis, in their teams, to ensure they are all OK and coping with isolation, as much as to talk about work... and in my circles, the work is still getting done! Some might argue, more work is getting done!

The cash benefit of care, compassion and concern.

It's not unreasonable to suggest, the organisations that do the best job of looking after their people through this will be the organisations that survive and prosper the most on the other side of it, with a boost to their reputation as a 'Good place to work'.

If the benefit of putting people first is obvious in the current conditions, it must also be obvious that we must make every effort to hang onto that awareness when we go back to the production lines, restaurants and airports ... just look at the speed of innovation that has followed a clear and consistent purpose to 'put people first!'

The same levels of innovation are possible when leaders make it their primary purpose to consider the emotional well-being of their people ... to make it a priority to consider how brains work and if people feel physically, socially and psychologically safe, when faced with conflicting KPIs, derived of divergent targets across departments, poorly communicated strategic intent, untrusted capex proposals and running multiple change programmes under different leaders, that don't share a common purpose, philosophy or approach to process, perpetuating confusion at every level of our organisations.

The level of innovative adaption we're seeing follow this common purpose (protecting people), isn't restricted to times of crisis unless that's where we choose to keep it locked away.

These observations also fit with my 'Change Management' model 'ADAPT'

Awareness, Desire, Ability, Performance Opportunity, Tracking.

We have to be Aware of what works and why. We have to want (Desire) that solution as the driving force behind our organisations, we have to have the skills to deliver it and we have to create the social and mental space (address issues of 'Locus of Control') for peoples brains to innovate. (Where we accept innovation is a mental process that, generally speaking, happens when brains are in Beta brainwave state). We then change what we track to support innovation (Continuous improvement), rather than tracking the things that ultimately repress improvement.

One result we're already seeing, is that the distance COVID19 has forced between us, has brought us closer together. Relations throughout teams and across hierarchical boundaries are improving for many staying in touch remotely ... and that's no small thing when you listen to the industrial psychologists of the past.

e.g. George Elton Mayo once wrote, “What social and industrial research has not sufficiently realised as yet is that… minor irrationalities of the “average normal” person are cumulative in their effect. They may not cause “breakdown” in the individual but they do cause “breakdown” in the industry.”

So what changed?

Belief! BTFA - Believe-Think-Feel-Act. It's as simple as that.

Everything we see in life pivots around our beliefs. i.e. the wiring and firing patterns established in our brain which determine our perceptions, priorities and all the other mental gymnastics which precede the individual actions and behaviours that precede team performance and profit - BBPP.

If you fail to change belief, you fail to change very much at all. But, if you are able to facilitate a paradigm shift in the minds of leaders, as we are witnessing right now, you can completely re-invent your entire organisation in a matter of weeks... as we are witnessing in any number of organisations right now.

A change in belief (about 'what good looks like'), has led to a fundamental philosophical shift in the world. Suddenly, what is more important than Profit, is People ... community, care, compassion and concern for each other is front and centre and the financial system is adjusting to reflect this overarching definition of good, promoted from Government throughout industry. Our normal purpose, our normal reasons why, have been knocked into next week by this pandemic and replaced with a need to protect life, to protect people.

We are pulling together as nations in ways we've never seen before, companies are changing what they make to ensure a supply of ventilators can protect the sick, shop workers are working behind screens and taping out areas to keep 2m apart to protect themselves and customers, while keeping the food supply chain operational.

The way people have been able to respond following this shift in belief, in response to a common enemy, which ensures we are deeply aligned to one primary objective (to stay safe), has to make us sit up and think about the effect our beliefs, our clarity of purpose and our levels of alignment (as leaders), have on everyone around us, in normal times.

Even with such an obvious lesson presented to us, I fear our normal ways of working are so deeply ingrained, many will miss the lesson and fail to recognise the social and performance benefits that follow a genuine interest in putting people first.

i.e. In the absence of fear and pressure to change, leaders, like most people, will default back to their own biases and world view. People (brains) do this, because it's a psychologically comfortable place to be for the individual. This is why it happens irrespective of how much such attitudes and behaviours can present a risk to the performance of the organisation.

It would, without doubt, be sacrilege to slip back into the mixed messages, conflicting KPIs between departments and misaligned beliefs that follow a focus on profit before people. We must recognise the benefits and amazing levels of performance we're witnessing in this crisis and realise this ...

We protect profit when we put people first, we do not protect people when we put profit first.

The power of Belief over behaviours, actions, reactions and performance has never been thrown into such stark relief as it is in the current climate. The only thing that has seen similar levels of alignment throughout society, as we're now seeing in response to the COVID19 Pandemic is World War.

It is a result of such alignment and a common purpose that we saw TPS (Toyota Production System) emerge from Japan, inspired by Taiichi Ohno and TWI (Training Within Industry) emerge out of the USA, inspired by George Elton Mayo. If you do your research, you can find it was Lilian Gilbreth and her work that had some influence over them both.

It was Ohno who said, "We must protect our people's precious energy'.

It was Mayo who said "“It was the psychological response provoked by an inclusive leadership style that led to productivity improvements, NOT the tools or methods themselves!”

And it was Lilian Gilbreth who said "Psychology of management, as here used, means, the effect of the mind that is directing work upon that work which is directed, and the effect of this undirected and directed work upon the mind of the worker."

The current situation presents an unprecedented opportunity to understand the observations of such great men and women, who achieved so much practically and to ensure we allow this wisdom into our approach to leadership when things get back to normal ... the potential benefits to organisations and society as a whole are immense.

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The thoughts above are my own, however, I was fortunate enough to start working with Grant Thornton in their Business Consulting practice about 15 months ago. I now work within the Operations team, and this provides me access to a combined team of c.140 specialists and one of the best operational consulting teams I've ever had the pleasure to work with.

In that capacity, I work with many leadership teams, offering a Free operational diagnostic, qualifying and quantifying improvement opportunities financially. We don't aim to move forward with support unless we can demonstrate at least a 3-fold ROI for our fee. Within that exercise, my team and I also run an 'Alignment' assessment (online) that I designed some years ago. This shows us where beliefs are divergent surrounding core cultural issues.

As a result of the diagnostic report, I'm often asked to run workshops that introduce the models mentioned above (BTFA, BBPP and ADAPT) providing a simple thinking framework for complex psychological issues and a new language to close the gaps in opinion, identified between shop-floor and top-floor... to start to build a 'Common Purpose' all are genuinely aligned to.

In these challenging times, the BC team are working extra hard to support a broad range of customers serving a broad range of markets and sectors address their 'burning platform issues', under the headings 'People', 'Customers and Suppliers', 'Operations' , 'Liquidity, Contingency and Claims', Technology' and 'Regulatory'.

If your organisation could benefit from guidance in any of these areas, to help you navigate the current conditions, please feel free to contact me (through LinkedIn), for a no obligation exploratory call. I'll then be more than happy to introduce you to the relevant people in the relevant departments within GT who can help.