JOBS – WHAT WE DO AND WHY CHANGE IS HARD

Let’s look at how people choose and remain in their jobs:

1. they excel at the required tasks;

2. they have a history of doing the work you’re asking them to do;

3. they enjoy their work;

4. they get a personal ego-satisfaction from doing their job well;

5. they have helped create the culture they are working within, and are comfortable with their tasks, their peers, and their social position;

6. they are respected by their peers;

7. they expect a certain amount of success from completing their job competently.

When people are told to do a diffe

Today, businesses are dealing with massive change issues spearheaded by new strategic initiatives around technology. So much is possible! We can demographically get into our customer’s heads, craft alliances that accentuate our creativity and negotiating skills, ask employees to deliver projects and new products in high-speed time frames, target audiences we never were able to reach before. But we’re in more turmoil now than we’ve ever been.

Because of the economy, the ability for technology to make our established job functions more powerful, and the new demands on integrity issues we’re targeting at Board levels due to Enron and WorldCom, we’re facing a confusion we’ve not had to deal with before now:

- we find ourselves having to develop new strategies and behaviors that we didn’t need to consider before, just to survive;

- our customers are more demanding than they’ve ever been and recognize that they hold all the cards;

- our products fall within the realm of commoditization and are difficult to separate from the pack, even though they are superb and unique;

- we face a world of almost unimaginable choice, making our products vie with competition we don’t know how to contend with given the contracted time-to-market that’s now possible;

- we’ve had to repeatedly rethink our brand, reposition our products, reorganize our employees just to stay alive;

- we’ve had to reconfigure the compensation packages – including bonuses, commissions, and benefits – to reflect the new types of business we’re now handling.

We’re getting agile and pro-active, creative and efficient. But we’ve neglected one piece of the puzzle. The most important piece. The piece without which we’d have no need for product or brand or compensation.

We’ve neglected the responsible, respectful care of our people.

PEOPLE

I believe that the word for this decade is Collaboration. People being with People. People deciding with People. People discussing, disagreeing, creating, aligning, resisting, fighting - all the things that flawed, unique individuals do together when asked to join each other toward a unified goal, for 40 or 60 hours a week.

Problem is, we’re don’t know how to do that well. We know how to do the strategizing and initiatives, the tactics and the implementations. But once we get to the Being rather than the Doing, we are stuck.

In terms familiar to sales people, we are very busy going from a traditional environment of telling people what we’re doing and what is expected of them, to the consultative approach of asking people what they want to do – and then telling them what is expected of them.

We don’t seem to have the skills to facilitate collaborative discussions in which people can figure out what they really need and how they should operate with others given their own unique values and beliefs, fears, needs, and requirements. We don’t know how to keep people motivated so when we ask them to change jobs or work assignments, they will remain happy and productive. And we certainly don’t know how to offer people a forum in which to create their own job, given the complex circumstances we’re operating under.

We just don’t know how to do the Being.

But if your best people don’t see themselves as doing important work, if they don’t have choices that fill them with self-respect and leadership potential and creativity, they will leave. What you’ll have left is the people that don’t care what they do, and are working with you just to earn their check, put in their hours, and go home.

JOBS – WHAT WE DO AND WHY CHANGE IS HARD

Let’s look at how people choose and remain in their jobs:

1. they excel at the required tasks;

2. they have a history of doing the work you’re asking them to do;

3. they enjoy their work;

4. they get a personal ego-satisfaction from doing their job well;

5. they have helped create the culture they are working within, and are comfortable with their tasks, their peers, and their social position;

6. they are respected by their peers;

7. they expect a certain amount of success from completing their job competently.

When people are told to do a differ

- we find ourselves having to develop new strategies and behaviors that we didn’t need to consider before, just to survive;

- our customers are more demanding than they’ve ever been and recognize that they hold all the cards;

- our products fall within the realm of commoditization and are difficult to separate from the pack, even though they are superb and unique;

- we face a world of almost unimaginable choice, making our products vie with competition we don’t know how to contend with given the contracted time-to-market that’s now possible;

- we’ve had to repeatedly rethink our brand, reposition our products, reorganize our employees just to stay alive;

- we’ve had to reconfigure the compensation packages – including bonuses, commissions, and benefits – to reflect the new types of business we’re now handling.

We’re getting agile and pro-active, creative and efficient. But we’ve neglected one piece of the puzzle. The most important piece. The piece without which we’d have no need for product or brand or compensation.

We’ve neglected the responsible, respectful care of our people.

PEOPLE

I believe that the word for this decade is Collaboration. People being with People. People deciding with People. People discussing, disagreeing, creating, aligning, resisting, fighting - all the things that flawed, unique individuals do together when asked to join each other toward a unified goal, for 40 or 60 hours a week.

Problem is, we’re don’t know how to do that well. We know how to do the strategizing and initiatives, the tactics and the implementations. But once we get to the Being rather than the Doing, we are stuck.

In terms familiar to sales people, we are very busy going from a traditional environment of telling people what we’re doing and what is expected of them, to the consultative approach of asking people what they want to do – and then telling them what is expected of them.

We don’t seem to have the skills to facilitate collaborative discussions in which people can figure out what they really need and how they should operate with others given their own unique values and beliefs, fears, needs, and requirements. We don’t know how to keep people motivated so when we ask them to change jobs or work assignments, they will remain happy and productive. And we certainly don’t know how to offer people a forum in which to create their own job, given the complex circumstances we’re operating under.

We just don’t know how to do the Being.

But if your best people don’t see themselves as doing important work, if they don’t have choices that fill them with self-respect and leadership potential and creativity, they will leave. What you’ll have left is the people that don’t care what they do, and are working with you just to earn their check, put in their hours, and go home.

JOBS – WHAT WE DO AND WHY CHANGE IS HARD

Let’s look at how people choose and remain in their jobs:

1. they excel at the required tasks;

2. they have a history of doing the work you’re asking them to do;

3. they enjoy their work;

4. they get a personal ego-satisfaction from doing their job well;

5. they have helped create the culture they are working within, and are comfortable with their tasks, their peers, and their social position;

6. they are respected by their peers;

7. they expect a certain amount of success from completing their job competently.

When people are told to do a diffe

We’re getting agile and pro-active, creative and efficient. But we’ve neglected one piece of the puzzle. The most important piece. The piece without which we’d have no need for product or brand or compensation.

We’ve neglected the responsible, respectful care of our people.

PEOPLE

I believe that the word for this decade is Collaboration. People being with People. People deciding with People. People discussing, disagreeing, creating, aligning, resisting, fighting - all the things that flawed, unique individuals do together when asked to join each other toward a unified goal, for 40 or 60 hours a week.

Problem is, we’re don’t know how to do that well. We know how to do the strategizing and initiatives, the tactics and the implementations. But once we get to the Being rather than the Doing, we are stuck.

In terms familiar to sales people, we are very busy going from a traditional environment of telling people what we’re doing and what is expected of them, to the consultative approach of asking people what they want to do – and then telling them what is expected of them.

We don’t seem to have the skills to facilitate collaborative discussions in which people can figure out what they really need and how they should operate with others given their own unique values and beliefs, fears, needs, and requirements. We don’t know how to keep people motivated so when we ask them to change jobs or work assignments, they will remain happy and productive. And we certainly don’t know how to offer people a forum in which to create their own job, given the complex circumstances we’re operating under.

We just don’t know how to do the Being.

But if your best people don’t see themselves as doing important work, if they don’t have choices that fill them with self-respect and leadership potential and creativity, they will leave. What you’ll have left is the people that don’t care what they do, and are working with you just to earn their check, put in their hours, and go home.

JOBS – WHAT WE DO AND WHY CHANGE IS HARD

Let’s look at how people choose and remain in their jobs:

1. they excel at the required tasks;

2. they have a history of doing the work you’re asking them to do;

3. they enjoy their work;

4. they get a personal ego-satisfaction from doing their job well;

5. they have helped create the culture they are working within, and are comfortable with their tasks, their peers, and their social position;

6. they are respected by their peers;

7. they expect a certain amount of success from completing their job competently.

When people are told to do a diffe

In terms familiar to sales people, we are very busy going from a traditional environment of telling people what we’re doing and what is expected of them, to the consultative approach of asking people what they want to do – and then telling them what is expected of them.

We don’t seem to have the skills to facilitate collaborative discussions in which people can figure out what they really need and how they should operate with others given their own unique values and beliefs, fears, needs, and requirements. We don’t know how to keep people motivated so when we ask them to change jobs or work assignments, they will remain happy and productive. And we certainly don’t know how to offer people a forum in which to create their own job, given the complex circumstances we’re operating under.

We just don’t know how to do the Being.

But if your best people don’t see themselves as doing important work, if they don’t have choices that fill them with self-respect and leadership potential and creativity, they will leave. What you’ll have left is the people that don’t care what they do, and are working with you just to earn their check, put in their hours, and go home.

JOBS – WHAT WE DO AND WHY CHANGE IS HARD

Let’s look at how people choose and remain in their jobs:

1. they excel at the required tasks;

2. they have a history of doing the work you’re asking them to do;

3. they enjoy their work;

4. they get a personal ego-satisfaction from doing their job well;

5. they have helped create the culture they are working within, and are comfortable with their tasks, their peers, and their social position;

6. they are respected by their peers;

7. they expect a certain amount of success from completing their job competently.

When people are told to do a diffe

JOBS – WHAT WE DO AND WHY CHANGE IS HARD

Let’s look at how people choose and remain in their jobs:

1. they excel at the required tasks;

2. they have a history of doing the work you’re asking them to do;

3. they enjoy their work;

4. they get a personal ego-satisfaction from doing their job well;

5. they have helped create the culture they are working within, and are comfortable with their tasks, their peers, and their social position;

6. they are respected by their peers;

7. they expect a certain amount of success from completing their job competently.

When people are told to do a different job, to accept and operate some technology that you’ve decided to sanction, they are no longer doing the specific job they hired on for. Add this to their inability to have a say in the governance or in the choices or in the implementation style, and you’ve got people with an attitude.

Several years ago, I did a job for a well-known windshield replacement company. The sales manager felt his group could be more efficient if they called their prospects semi monthly instead of visiting them monthly to give them donuts (That’s right. Donuts.). He believed that by asking them Facilitative questions, like, "How do you choose which company to work with? And what would we need to do in order to earn a bigger piece of your business?" he could improve revenue.

Revenue began increasing immediately, with commensurate increases in pay for the reps. As for the change in customer contact, those customers that wanted donuts got them delivered; those that wanted visits got them every other month, with bi-weekly phone calls. Customers were asked for their favorite choices, and accommodated according to a collaboration between the company’s initiatives and the customer’s requests.

And the sales reps all put in their notices on the same day. They gave the management an ultimatum: put us back into the field or we’ll quit.

The problem? They had hired on to be field reps, and now they saw themselves as telephone reps. They LIKED seeing prospects daily and delivering donuts, even if they only saw 25 people a week versus the hundreds that they spoke with on the phone. They LIKED being in their cars in traffic 8 hours a day. They HATED being at a desk, on the phone, making 40 calls a day. That’s not what they took their jobs to do.

So the company fired the manager that brought me in, hired a supervisor who liked donuts, and put the sales reps back into their cars.

No one had asked the reps what they wanted to do. No one helped the reps align their criteria around what was best for the clients or the company. No one collaborated with the reps to discover some sort of win-win outcome that would meet the goals of the company and the reps and the client and the management.

WHAT COMES FIRST? PEOPLE? OR INITIATIVES?

Managers understand that without people there’s no company. Figuring out how to support the people in a way that keeps them delighted and creative is the larger problem.

We tell ourselves we are thinking about our people: we might meet with them to tell them what we’re doing; we might ask for their input before we do what we’re going to do anyway. But how often do we wait to do what we think we need to do in order to include them in a decision, or change our decision because of the input?

I recently interviewed the CEO and President of The Container Store, Kip Tindell, and asked him how he gets decisions made in his company:

"Decisions don’t need to happen right away. As you shed more and more light on something it becomes more and more clear. If there is minority disagreement, we’re delighted to stop, research more, and shed more and more light, and sometimes there’s a good reason for it because there is stuff we’ve not seen and the minority is right. Much of time we can achieve immediate unanimity and those decisions are rarely wrong.

"But dissention is a signal to recognize that something is wrong. More time is needed to find out what’s wrong if a couple of very bright knowledgeable people find something missing. We go for unanimity. Otherwise we might junk the whole idea."

Kip goes to his entire management team to get buy in. Difficult to do? Maybe. But what are the consequences?

Before I go into how to create a collaborative environment, I want to take a