What makes “change” probable to possible in organizations?

Following are the assumptions that drive the remaining section of this article.

• In the consumer space, research (Gallup poll, Forrester, Gartner, HBR, top consulting firms) indicate that the businesses are willing to do anything and everything to learn and understand their customer behavior for their SOW (Share of Wallet). Which is fair enough.
• Organizations are making huge investments to engage and empower employees, initiating new strategies to implement “culture transformation”, “organizational development”, “change management”, etc., to attract and retain talent. This is fair enough too.

If you have noticed carefully, “Listening to People” is common to both the endeavors in consumer space and business space to be successful. Arguably, “people” are the same in both the constituents but they think, act and behave differently, through their activities/actions, social interactions, time and space. If, people behavior is different, it mandates that the methods must also be different, to learn and understand their respective audience, to serve better. Let’s examine, if the methods are indeed different in reality.

• Marketers are using advanced technologies to know their “customer behavior”, via predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, connected devices, social media, etc., to delight their customer, so that they can become repeat, loyal and hopefully advocates.
• Organizations have deployed latest/greatest and the most expensive technologies to facilitate employee self service and also help with attract and retain talent.

Undeniably “technology” is playing a vital role helping people at work and personal. But what I disagree with, is the application of technology and its inability to capture emotional inhibitors or accelerators and the influence of instant gratification or reward (what’s in it for me?), more so at work place (or business world) than personal. Continuing with the assumption that technology has its limitations to reinforce the confidence and trust among employees to express openly and freely, from a leader’s vantage point lets try to decipher the puzzle, asking:

• Businesses have a high degree of “servitude” approach towards their customer/consumer, but does it hold true within their organizations (teams, business units, etc.,)?
• Did you identify (continuously), the most critical factors for employee success, motivation, engagement and alignment? In other words – what turns them on to come to work everyday, other than the PAYCHECK:)
• Do you find that your employees are not comfortable with the idea of giving/receiving feedback, because of fear factor or lack of transparency, or unable to connect the dots to new leadership initiatives/strategies, which again connects back to what they are doing currently and/or may be different in future?
• Is it analysis – paralysis situation, dashboards that are most probably giving the details of lagging indicators but not the leading indicators?

I think, it is not just enough for me to disagree on something and rest my case. Therefore, following are few ideas I recommend, that could act as pointers to resolve the issues, if not fully atleast it would be the first step as you embark on “transformation” journey.

• Given the subjective nature of roles and responsibilities of an employee in an organization, it may be very hard to define the metrics. However, this is not impossible either and let’s come to a consensus that this is a “must”. Because, “what cannot be measured cannot be improved”, as simple as that. One way, to define the metrics, is by asking relevant questions from the audience of interest. In this case, start your journey with a focus on listening to Individual Contributors or Frontline. This is not so difficult to implement, because there are great tools to automate the exercise but it requires, shear willingness to act upon.
• Celebrations/accomplishments (or) problems/issues/concerns deserve attention NOW, not at a later point in time. So, ditch the annual, quarterly or monthly reviews or surveys. Institute continuous feedback culture that is easy and simple to give/receive and please don’t forget to include your external partners (vendors, customers and clients), because the very meaning of teams is “group of people”. Current technologies are great at generating reports and meeting compliance standards. What if we start thinking about the end user and his/her experience to facilitate this exercise?
• Minimal to no need of fancy charts and graphs, as long as the results can be interpreted with meaningful insights will suffice.

As a leader of your organization, it is imperative to ask the question what makes today’s and future work force excited about coming to work everyday with the same passion and vigor that you possess? I bet the motivation and rewarding factors are dynamically changing with time. But to adapt to these changes, perhaps one needs to first identify the symptoms, to diagnose. For that again “Listen”, because its so powerful.

I strongly believe that, every leader must instill a culture of deeper meaning among employees to make them understand the “PURPOSE”, “ROLE” and “WHY BUSINESS EXISTS” at all levels of the organization and most importantly communicating it clearly and regularly to their employees is very important in order to gain their trust and confidence. By doing so, employees will start believing that the senior leadership is truly interested in employee voice and values their contributions. Then the change is unstoppable and it is a magical experience to witness the real “culture transformation”. Probably this is one of those unique journeys without a destination, and there shouldn’t be one, because it is a continuum!!!

Thank you!

Shashi R

*Comments, likes, dislikes much appreciated!