Awareness Phase I

How I Learned to Grasp the Situation

Early in my career, following receipt of my MBA from The Ohio State University, I went to work for a large paint manufacturer. I had worked at this job for about a year and a half when I was called into my supervisor's office and told that my services were no longer needed. When I asked why, I was told that my job was being eliminated. I later found out that my boss didn't think I had the smarts to solve the problems facing the company. I had no idea what I lacked in "smarts," and I thought it was the company's loss, not mine.

I found a good job in human resources with a small company where I believed that my efforts were paying off because I had introduced several new programs and systems that people liked, and they told me that I had helped solve some of the problems the company was facing.

After two and a half years (by then I was four years out of school and twenty-eight years old), I took a new position working for a large chemical company. My duties were to record and track the company's organization and staffing charts. The company president at the time was a former army general, and he was big on "tables of organization." I have to tell you it was one boring job. For the life of me, I could not see how what I was doing had any impact on the performance of the organization. In fact, I thought it caused a drag on the company. Within about a year, the president retired, and a member of the principle owner's family took on the top position of CEO/president.

At this point, things really started to change; he wanted a new HR function for the company that showed interest in the development of human resources. This brought a new opportunity for me. I was offered the position of college recruiting and management development. I took on this job and expanded the company's college-recruiting program to a point where we were getting an acceptance rate of one out of every three offers. This meant we were bringing in a steady stream of talented engineers and chemists, thus providing a large pool of talented potential leaders. We matched these young graduates with the best-of-the-best senior leaders in the company to develop leaders for the top positions in the organization.

I kept working with the company, and ten to twelve years later, we found a large number of these people in key management positions. In the meantime, we had been busy conducting management development training programs designed to improve the performance of the present management, to prepare them for promotion to more senior positions. All of our management development activities and programs were based on the following guides for effective management:

• Build a strong organization by selecting and developing outstanding people.

• Follow sound organizational practices.

• Communicate to all levels within the company.

• Develop an atmosphere for creativity.

• Instill the importance of profits in the minds of all employees.

• Develop short- and long-range plans and strategies.

• Measure results against predetermined standards of performance.

• Keep the overall company point of view clearly in mind.

• Present a good image of the company to all employees and the public.

• Conduct business with integrity.

About eight years into my employment, my boss, the vice president of human resources, assigned me the task of assessing the retirement situation for the top leadership staff in the company. What we found in our study shocked the president. We were going to lose sixteen members of our twenty-five-member Management Advisory Council (MAC) within ten years! The following caricature drawing was used to awaken the sleeping giant:

The drawing was designed based on actual retirement data and actuarial death/illness rates. The remaining members of the MAC were all within five years of their normal retirement dates.

The drawing worked, and the organization and its leaders began to prepare Individual Development Plans (IDPs) for high-potential midlevel managers. During the next five years, most of those for whom we developed IDPs moved upward in the organization. However, much to our dismay, the older, talented managers, in whom the organization had heavily invested, were not moved upward to higher-level positions. Instead they were being passed over for the new, young college recruits. What a blow; we had poured millions of dollars into management development with little to no return on the investment. This failure led to the following conclusion:

Management development in a large number of organizations tends to be relatively ineffective — and in some cases a counter-productive process that, in fact, might be doing an immeasurable amount of damage to the organization. Oftentimes management development (MD) tends to be based on the notion that "if it's education, it has to be good." Usually in such cases the investment in MD produces results which are not measured and often turn out to be the opposite of those intended.

— An Organization Development Approach to Management Development, 1976,

Addison-Wesley

What I learned from this experience was to get people to grasp the situation by whatever means necessary.

After twelve years with the chemical company, I accepted a new job with a small chemical compounding company as the senior HR officer. I was probing around for a graduate program when I was introduced to the PhD program in organization development at Case Western Reserve University. Faculty and students told me that the field of organization development (OD) had the answers to organizational improvement because it used a systematic approach to change. I was convinced that this was for me, so I quit my well-paying job and entered the PhD program at the ripe old age of forty.

The lesson learned from my work experience in industry is quite simple; I realized that good ideas are easy to sell, but implementing them in real-life organizations requires scientific skills. After returning to school, I learned how to make successful changes at work and in my personal life.

Back to School Phase II

Back to School: Learning How to Learn

After fifteen years away from the books, I jumped in with both feet and started back to school. What a shock! I had given up a high-paying job, with two kids and a wife to support, and in addition, I had to pay my own tuition. Many of my friends told me that I was crazy and that I would never make it, either financially or in successfully completing my degree. Thankfully, my wife went back to work part time, and I had a friend who helped me get onto the lecture circuit so that I could make ends meet.

Being back in the classroom was a trial, but once I got into the swing of things, it became an uplifting experience. I was opening up my mind to new ideas, thought processes, and knowledge about how to change myself and how to help others change. A couple of things lodged squarely in my stubborn brain:

First I realized that real, sustainable change depends on whether or not the people required to make the change buy into the change. People make change work because they see how it will benefit them and their fellow employees.

Second, I learned that making change that sticks and works to improve organizations must be skillfully understood and designed based on the nature and character of the change. You had better have a clear picture of what and why you want to change before you design an intervention.

Being back in school offered me the opportunity to develop relationships with many thought leaders in organization development, including the likes of George Odiorne, Chris Argyris, Frank Friedlander, and many others. What an enlightening experience it was to design change processes with people like Bob Golembiewski, Craig Lundberg, and others, all founding experts in change management. In addition, I got acquainted with many practitioners who claimed to be on the cutting edge of change. In one case, I was invited to participate as an instructor in a large change project working with a well-known change expert.

I learned an interesting lesson from a so-called change expert who, for the purposes of this writing, I have named Brock Fielding.

Story 1 — The Legend of Brock Fielding

Brock Fielding was a consultant who became enamored with a problem-solving program he had designed, and he sold this same prepackaged program to each of his clients regardless of its impact on the client's organization. Brock believed that his ideas would work for everyone. He never tried to find out what the client's real needs were, and he gave no thought to testing the viability of his program. He was the embodiment of the old saying: "When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat every problem like a nail."

In the not too distant past, Brock Fielding had an enlightening experience. Brock, like many change practitioners, had entered the field of organizational development (OD) with an educational background that wasn't related to organizational change. He graduated from a large Midwestern university with a bachelor of arts degree, followed by an MBA, and finally by a PhD in recreational management.

His first job out of school was as a city park recreation specialist with the Parks Department of a small Ohio city, but he soon became disenchanted with the lack of advancement opportunities. A college buddy of his, Porter Black, had become a recognized change agent, and he encouraged Brock to look into the field of organization development. Porter told Brock that if he was interested in OD, he needed to attend a national conference where he could "meet the folks" already in the field. Porter also recommended that Brock attend one or two seminars so that he could learn the basics needed to help organizations improve their human relations. These actions, according to Porter, would enable Brock to help clients enhance the work experience for the people in their organizations. Brock was assured that improving employees' work lives always leads to better, more productive organizations.

Brock attended a national conference where he met many change practitioners who gave him advice on how to get started. In addition, he completed two one-week-long workshops and was presented with a Certificate of Satisfactory Completion, which authorized him to practice change management in all types of organizations.

Soon thereafter, Brock quit his job with the Parks Department, printed new business cards identifying himself as Dr. Brock Fielding, Consultant in Organizational Change Management, and hung out his shingle. The first few years, he struggled to make ends meet. Then one day, after completing an outdoor event with a small client, he had an awakening. It dawned on him that one of his programs, a one-day training session he called Engaging in Change (EIC), really excited people. He decided to focus his practice on this program because people seemed to love it.

Now, Brock was no dummy. He had done his homework and based his program on a viable hypothesis:

If you engage people and seek and use their ideas to build commitment, it leads to their support of change, which in turn results in the organization becoming more productive.

Brock was encouraged to continue selling his Engaging in Change program because he got rave reviews following each event. He concluded that since people liked it, they would use it.

Before too long, Brock began to make a name for himself. His practice had really taken off, and he was attracting a growing client base. Then one day he received the following letter:

Dear Dr. Fielding:

My name is Charles Clausen. I am the Plant Manager of Render Parts Company — a supplier to major automotive manufacturers. My plant is located in Finley, Ohio. I just returned from a conference where I heard about your work and would like to talk to you regarding running your one-day EIC session in my organization. Please call or email me if you are interested.

Sincerely,
Charles Clausen

Brock wasted no time in calling and arranging a visit to the plant. Clausen told him he had discovered, while attending an automotive conference, that American workers in Japanese-owned facilities were highly productive and happy because they worked in teams and small groups. He asked Brock if training his 120 supervisors in the Engaging in Change program would be a way to develop teamwork in the workplace. Brock assured him that the EIC program would result in happier employees and increased plant performance. Clausen was sold, and he encouraged Brock to submit a proposal.

Brock was delighted; he was doing quite well financially, but he could smell the big contract. My goodness, he thought, 120 supervisors x $250 for the one-day session = $30,000. In addition, Render Parts Company has ten other plants to which I can expand my program, provided I do well in Clausen's plant.

With no hesitation, Brock agreed to write a proposal with a deadline for completing six one-day sessions. With twenty supervisors in each session, he could train all 120 supervisors during the plant's two-week annual changeover shutdown period. True to his roots in the recreation industry, he scheduled the training offsite in the local city park. The training was completed on time, and a high percentage of the 120 supervisors expressed satisfaction with program. A large number said they would apply the team concept with their employees. The word spread throughout Render Parts Company, and five of the company's other ten plants expressed interest in having him conduct his EIC program at their locations.

The supervisors in Clausen's plant returned to work energized and began to apply the simple formula that Brock had taught them:

Engaging Employees + Seeking Ideas = Building Commitment = Productive Organizations

The plant supervisors, as they had been taught by Brock, frequently pulled small groups of workers off the production line to talk to them about working smarter and increasing production, and they required all workers to come in to work twenty minutes early twice each week for EIC sessions. After three months, they calculated that they had about 50 percent employee involvement. Then one day a brusque announcement was issued by the company's management (not Clausen): "All EIC activities are to cease immediately!"

The announced reason for this abrupt cancellation of EIC activities was the identification of some interesting metrics in Charles Clausen's plant:

• The plant's efficiency rate had dropped 15 percent.

• Union grievances had increased 40 percent.

• Employee tardiness was up 30 percent.

• An attitude survey reported a sharp decline in worker confidence in management/supervision.

Overall, the company estimated that Clausen's plant had sustained a $1 million loss during the previous quarter, and top management blamed the Engaging in Change program. There was no attempt to look for other causes that might have affected these numbers.

The word soon spread to the company's other locations, and Brock's involvement with Render Parts Company was abruptly terminated. Oh well, he thought, I made a good buck, and there are plenty more organizations out there that I can tap.

The Rest of the Story

Brock's program was cancelled in all of Render Parts Company's plants. Some were abruptly discontinued just days before training was scheduled.

In one plant, they had expanded the program to a two-day session, which was cancelled at the end of the first day with no explanation. The information about the performance results in Clausen's plant sent a chill down the spines of all of the plant managers.

Brock managed to keep his practice alive, but word of his experience at Render Parts Company started to get around. New contracts dropped sharply, to a point where he had only two or three programs scheduled during a three-month period compared to as many as four per week in good times. Brock began looking for a permanent job in some organization.

An Early Lesson in Grasping the Situation

This Clausen project clearly failed, but what made this a good learning experience for me was that, for the first time, I was on the delivery side of training. In my past employment, I had hired trainers to teach people things I thought they ought to know, with little or no regard to whether or not they needed training, and with no thought about whether or not they were receptive to training.

Witnessing Brock in action clearly taught me that just standing in front of managers and supervisors, telling them how to become engaged in change, with not the slightest idea of whether or not they needed or wanted to be engaged in change, was futile. It was like talking to a blank wall. The only time I got the sense that participants were engaged in the process was when they were playing a game, like Desert Survival; then they would perk up and show some interest. The evaluations they completed were always good, probably because participating meant getting away from their daily routines, and critical evaluations tell management that the training isn't working.