Team Building Performance Improvement

Why do teams compete? Collaboration offers more positive benefits?

We often ask tabletops to discuss various real world perceptions after playing our team building exercises. Here are some thoughts of participants after playing, The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, which focuses on issues of inter-table collaboration and communications:

Why do teams compete when collaboration obviously offers more impacts and benefits?

• Evaluation and Reward Systems do not support it
• Organizational objectives are unclear
• Human Nature - we are competitive
• Past Experience precludes collaboration and has rewarded competition
• Lack of a Trust or Relationship with others
• It takes extra time and effort to do it
• Benefits of collaboration not supported by leaders
• Impacts and payoffs are not obvious
• Conflict may generate discussion of realities and produce creativity
• Teams do not have a history or experience with doing collaboration or generating better impacts by it

What did you learn about teamwork and communications from playing the exercise?

• There is a need for networking
• Small teams work better than committees / larger teams
• Someone needs to take on the role of team leader
• We must compromise individually and collaborate collectively to succeed
• Don’t dominate - listen to others views
• THINK COLLABORATION and Trust
• Share a common goal
• Share Ideas and Information
• Plan before Acting
• Have a division of labor and roles and think creatively
• Initiate support from others
• Have Empathy for others
• Identify others’ needs
• Be Creative
• Be a good listener
• Build on others' ideas
• Recognize Interdependence
• Move quickly, take some risks
• We probably have sufficient resources - use them wisely

In this game, most people do not ask for help, which also happens in the workplace. Why don't most teams ask for or get the active leadership of their managers?

• We are conditioned by education, bad experiences and culture
• Personality (we’re not proactive but quiet)
• We’re too involved in our own work and forget the existence of the "Expedition Leaders"
• We’re afraid of losing time, thus we suboptimize results
• We are really not clear of our roles or the Leader’s role
• There is a fear of losing Face (ego, insecurity)
• There is an assumption that not asking means we get all of the     praise and recognition for our good performance / ability
• “Us and Them” mentality -- Leader is not part of team
• No access to them - can’t get their time so why ask
• It’s not part of the rules of how we play
• Trust is the residue of promises fulfilled

Some Key Learning Points for engaging and involving people in performance improvement:

• Visions are critical for motivation
• Motivation occurs when people share risks, goals and objectives
• Teams are “naturally” competitive and processes must actively drive collaboration and cooperation
• Teams only reluctantly ask Expedition Leaders for advice.
• Leadership must clearly communicate with directness and honesty.  They need to be perceived as supportive.
• Justify the need for collaboration as it influences corporate profitability and improvements in systems and practices.
• Identify the mud that is bogging teams down and wasting resources.
• Insure that each participant knows his or her role on the team and their importance to the overall results -- make sure each team member feels that their efforts are of value.

How does this exercise and debriefing link to improving organizational results?

• Collaborative, overall effort is needed to achieve Company Goals
• Plan - Do - Check - Action
• Collaboration is essential
• Manage your processes with effective allocation of resources
• Do It Right The First Time - there are few second chances in reality
• Highlight the internal customer concept - we depend on each other
• All of us is better than Some of US!

The competitive aspect of the game:
How might it be harmful in an organization?

• Not sharing information for personal reasons will sub-optimize overall results
• Damaging relationships and trust
• Duplication of efforts
• Not utilizing resources in best or optimal way
• Sub-optimization -- Not seeing whole picture
• Undermining the efforts of others

Overall, competition is harmful because it is not maximizing company results or the performance by the largest number of people. Competition works for the competitive and not for everyone. Discussing these issues and opportunities in the context of collaboration and communications offers the chance that people may choose to behave differently, or at least be more aware of how they are influencing others in their workplace.

Find our articles on organizations and performance

Benefits of Experiential Exercises in Organizational Development

We sometimes have the opportunity to debrief managers and trainers on the themes of team building and how using experiential exercises can improve organizational performance. After playing, The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, we received these responses from some of these groups:

What are some benefits of experiential exercises in training and management development?
•  Gets team members involved and actively learning
•  Speeds Learning and generates perspective
•  Can directly apply to real-world situations
•  We can take others’ roles and share their feelings
•  Fun - and is thus much more memorable
•  Makes us more open to other people and their ideas
•  It improves communications
•  It is easy to see our behaviors in our play so it is easier to discuss our thinking and rationale
•  It produces shared experiences
•  It stimulates thinking and reflection
•  It is much more memorable and engaging than lecture
•  We DO things, and then we discuss our reasons and ideas
•  People see themselves in the mirror
•  It increases power and impact of the key ideas

What are the costs of poor teamwork to our organizations?
•  Company objectives cannot be achieved
•  Increased Staff costs (unnecessary politics, poor internal communication, increased turnover and recruiting costs, increased training costs, poor internal relations, decreased morale, decreased trust / increased mistrust)
•  Increased Production Costs (time, increased waste, decreased innovation and efficiency, reduced quality, reduced productivity)
•  Reduced Profitability (loss of customers and image)

There is nothing better than candid responses from line managers and front-line staff when talking about real work issues in the workplace.

See more information about our different team building exercises on our website.

Improving Service Profitability by Engaging Employees

A 2009 Gallup study found that organizations with engagement scores (top quartile) had 18% higher productivity and 16% higher profits. While companies talk about engaging their customers and employees, many have taken cost-cutting measures or “job enhancement” initiatives that reduce employee morale, creating a demand for more work in less time. The number of "actively disengaged" workers has risen to as much as 24% in companies where layoffs have occurred. (Watson Wyatt's Employee Engagement Index)

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm. -- Benjamin Disraeli

Improving existing service quality demands a focus on meeting and even exceeding customer expectations. But it is nearly a universal truth that, “It’s hard to care for customers if you don’t feel the company cares for you.” A few employees will always go above the norm, but that is the exception.

One would logically assume that we know this. But there are issues of risk taking and perceived reward that come into play.

51% of executive respondents in a global survey occasionally or frequently bent organization rules to be more productive and 32% said they did so to make a quick decision, close a sale or retain a customer. (from Training magazine)

But recognize the flip side of these statistics. You wonder about the results from those who chose not to be responsive to customers or make decisions quickly!

It is important to create a strong and obviously committed management team along with a culture of engagement and involvement to recruit players for service quality improvement. Most people would rather just process and handle transactions than take the risk of making decisions that might result in their exceeding customer expectations.

When the economy improves, many studies indicate that a large percentage of current employees plan to leave – the grass does appear to be greener elsewhere for them. At this same time, companies may start to do things to retain existing customers as well as attract new ones. Expect workplace turmoil, as companies begin to expect new employees who have been conditioned by the old culture to keep their heads down.

Trust is the residue of fulfilled promises.

What to do (simple stuff, really):

• Build trust and commitment – lots of ways to address this.
• Clarify the missions and visions in real and honest frameworks, as these things affect employees.
• Engage or re-engage existing employees and retain new-hire- enthusiasm for the job.
• Create some sense of individual opportunity, but rely on intrinsic motivators as much as extrinsic ones.
• Provide for training and for personal growth. Use job-enrichment techniques to give people a sense of meaningful work.
• Communicate and encourage teamwork and collaboration. Build interorganizational commitment to shared goals and objectives.
• Create ownership involvement.

The tools for organizational improvement most likely already exist within the organization – it is not about inventing some new approach or doing some things that other people may have found successful.

The knowledge of what needs to be done can be found internally. People DO have shared, positive experiences and many managers have been and could be more engaging and involving. Allow the managers the freedom to involve and engage their people and to feel less exposure and risk for trying to make needed improvements.

We often have these "sheep" going in the wrong direction and sounding like, "Naaaaa. Baaaaaa" in the workplce. It has been my experience that the ideas already exist but not everyone is listening or working together. If people only had the chance to share them and trust others to act appropriately, they might realign themselves to shared common goals and objectives.

Most organizations have a tremendous built-in base of knowledge. Get the people working with you.

And, lastly, remember that Nobody Ever Washes a Rental Car so a feeling of ownership is critical.

Organizational Communications: The Mission -- In The Beginning

I came across this "story" (below) many many years ago and thought it was pretty representative of how communications can get garbled as things move up the chain of command.

There is almost always a gap between the views of hands-on workers and the Most Senior Management. As I like to say, the "View from the Front" is different than the "View at the Back."

Top management may think they know what is happening down in the organization but that is really a myth, unless they are doing things like MBWA (from Tom Peters, "Managing by Wandering Around"). Frankly, I have always liked that approach - talking to the people who are actually doing the work to see what they need to improve and to see how things are going.

So, the real issue is one of understanding the perspective of the employee and their view of the world and work. Engaging employees and enlisting their energies is very difficult if the level of understanding and trust is low. The gaps can be real!

So, here is a story about one way these gaps between organizational reality and the perspective of the workers can be shaped by management:

In the Beginning was The Vision
And then came the Assumptions
But the Assumptions were without Form
And the Vision was without substance.

And Darkness was upon the faces of the Workers
As they Spoke amongst themselves, saying:
"It is a Crock of Shit, and it Stinketh, badly."

So the Workers went to Supervisors and sayeth unto them:
"It is a Pail of Dung, and none may abide the Odor thereof."

And Supervisors went to Managers, and sayeth unto them:
"It is a Container of Excrement, and it is
so very Strong that none may abide it."

And Managers went to Directors and sayeth unto them:
"It is a vessel of Fertilizer, and none may abide its Strength."

And Directors went to Vice Presidents and sayeth:
"It contains that which aids plant Growth, and it is very Strong."

And Vice Presidents went to Executives and sayeth unto them:
"It promoteth Growth, and it is very very Powerful."

And Executives went to the President, and sayeth unto him:
"This powerful Vision will actively promote Growth and Efficiency
of our departments and our company overall."

And the President looked upon the Vision
and saw that it was good.

Thus the Vision became The Reality.

What we need to do is clarify the Visions for the hands-on workers to make it current and real:

This wording is available as a pdf file from our website, done up in a cute font, in both A4 and 8.5 x 11 formats. The colored images are part of the toolkits we sell for organizational development and employee engagement. Our team building games are generally focused around these issues of collaboration and communications.

See these tools at http://www.PerformanceManagementCompany.com

Big Ideas and Employee Engagement

Managing Big Ideas

– Some simple thinking on innovation and involvement –

Here is a surprise for you: Big Ideas don’t come from some special place, unless you consider the regular employees "special," which seems to be an uncommon thing in most organizations.

Ideas are not invented out of the blue and they sure don’t come from the top – the best ideas come from hands on people who are dealing with issues of customer dissatisfaction or have hands-on the systems and processes that are thumping and bumping along. Good ideas might also come from the managers, who are listening to issues of the employees getting the work done and who can synthesize those ideas into actionable items for improvement.

If you are trying to make improvements an ongoing business strategy – doing what I call “continuous continuous improvement” – you need to set the expectation that the status quo isn’t set in concrete and the systems and processes need constant updating. It’s what we refer to simply as, “The Round Wheels of Today are the Square Wheels of Tomorrow.”

One has to manage the trust and expectations downward while pulling the ideas upward. Gravity is found in most organizations, where people sometimes see ideation as simply more work. It is easier not to bother than to try to push ideas through perceived communications barriers. That is why we need to add some lightness to the scene, to add some helium to the idea bubbles and not simply allow the pin to hit the balloon and burst motivation and trust (this won't give you much in the way of positive impacts, by the way).

Most often, a simple concept operates: Ideas for improvement are meant to come from the top of the organization, where things are more clearly understood. We refer to this using a quote I will attribute to the novelist John le Carre – “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.”

Ideas from the top might be good, but they are often impractical and costly to implement from an actual dollar standpoint as well as from the point of the cost of human capital. Change pushed on people gets resisted and rejected.

If you want to actively engage and enlist people in improvement efforts, it is far simpler to simply ask them, in an ecological way, for their ideas. Employee engagement is simple to accomplish, if people know where they are going and feel that there is support for innovation.

Recognize that your exemplary performers are already doing things differently than everyone else.

There are no simple answers. And there are also a lot of ways to get this done. The key: simple, ongoing communications focused on listening to ideas to solving problems and improving the workplace.

A Thought on Innovation and Making Progress

"Don't Just DO Something, Stand There."

This statement, above, describes the action that we have been teaching as a basic tool of innovation and change since the early 90s. Too often, we are so busy pushing and pulling the wagon, just like always, that we do not step back and look at things from a displaced perspective. Once we do, we can see that things are rolling on Square Wheels while the cargo of the wagon are round rubber tires.

Very often, people who perform better than others -- the exemplary performers of any organization -- will already be doing things differently than the others. The round wheels in so many situations are already identified and tested and implemented and refined. But the majority of the people, and especially the poor performers, just keep on keeping on and doing what they have always done and their Square Wheels remain in place.

Innovations can occur quite naturally. Some of us are nearly always looking for ways to do things differently so that it is easier. Tom Gilbert expanded on a framework of "laziness" back in the late 70s in his book, Human Competence. I have always liked that concept: Because we are naturally lazy, we will always be looking for the easiest and most efficient way to do things.

Why not look for the downhill route instead of pushing and pulling the wagon uphill (and sometimes through the mud)?

By involving and engaging people in the identification of the things not working smoothly and through the sharing of best practices and round wheels, we do a better job of engaging and involving the workforce. Engagement is a key to motivation and sustaining high performance. Or, putting the Round Wheels to use!

Issues of Ownership and Engagement

Nobody Ever Washes a Rental Car

This is an overview of Square Wheels® Newsletter #2
on Issues of Ownership and Engagement

click here to access the entire newsletter as a pdf file

Do you wash your rental car?

Ownership is about active involvement and engagement and generating a sense of personal and team commitment. It clearly shows itself in Customer Care when the individual does more than you expect and positively surprises you – the behaviors that build customer loyalty. It shows up everywhere.
 
But, Nobody Ever Washes a Rental Car!
 
Well, not precisely, because 5% will for various reasons. But the idea should stimulate thinking about engagement and involvement needed in every work place.
 
Ownership is a key factor in why unmotivated people often succeed after they quit and then become business owners running their own companies. It is also why some managers generate much higher workplace performance than others. Ownership is the magical process whereby workers turn from spectator sheep into motivated and engaged tigers -- It is because they care about things.

It is not easy, since there can be a lot of issues of trust and clarity of mission and competition and alignment as well as interpersonal problems. But all of them can be addressed in a pretty straightforward manner, by giving people a stake in the action as well as gaining their active involvement. More thoughts in the newsletter.

Coaching and the Parallels to Running Whitewater Rapids, Part 2

The Whitewater of Coaching Improved Performance

(Part Two.)

Okay, so let’s talk about these as they relate to improving competence and results in the workplace as these ratings relate to coaching. Obviously, some situations are much easier and less risky than others, with the more difficult ones requiring more thought.

Class 1 situations are pretty simple and have a high likelihood of a positive outcome. You do not need much preparation and planning and you can get this done relatively easily – you can float through these types with little emotion or adrenaline. An example might be a new employee who you are coaching on how to use the software or a database they need for doing their job. Or, a new process is introduced and you are spot-checking quality or completeness of the work and have a few comments to one of your people about specific improvement. You will seldom find yourself “swimming.”

A Class 2 situation might be one where the person has been doing the job for a while and thinks that they understand all sides of the situation and how fast they need to work, but the reality is a little different from your perspective. They might be at the old work standard rate while you need them to perform more efficiently.  You may not need to collect any information other than an example or two and there is not a lot of emotion or reaction predicted. This is the kind of discussion that you might want to have away from the workplace but not one of those held in a closed-door office.

But you definitely want to think things out first and not go in unprepared. You might want to check the information against other data or another person just to be sure. It is possible that you will have to move a bit out of your planned channel to get to the end of the situation.

A Class 3 situation should not be your first coaching experience, since some degree of planning and preparation is generally helpful and you may want to rehearse your moves prior to floating into the river. You should have some skills in changing the direction of the conversation, since the rock (an excuse) might necessitate some maneuvering. You may find yourself out of the current (in an eddy) where making progress is not possible until you re-enter the main flow.

In these situation, you will want to scout the rapid first, maybe discover the kinds of previous discussions and difficulties management may have had with the individual as well as look at performance data, training histories and other materials. Once you’ve run these kinds of rapids a few times, your skill level increase generally is very helpful for keeping discussions on track, keeping emotions at a manageable level, and being prepared to “roll” back up should you find yourself upside down.

One can generally self-rescue from a Class 3 rapid but it may require a bit of swimming and life preservers and helmets are required! Just thinking about a Class 3 situation is enough to generate some level of adrenaline, but good planning and some solid skills are generally all that you need.

Class 4 coaching situations are best done when you have solid Class 3 skills. Redirecting in the heavy current of sideways distractions and some up and down boat movement, even a waterfall or two, is important to navigating successfully. You most definitely want to check out the rapid before paddling in – and it is often good to watch others run these kinds of situations in order to develop a set of strategies and tactics that will allow you to be upright at the bottom.

With a strong roll, you will be able to move from being upside down and back into a controlling mode when things go wrong but you will need to precisely handle yourself so that you do not flip over again right away. Self-rescue is most difficult and you should be able to stop the conversation, take a time out for getting your breath, before you reenter the fray. This takes both knowledge of when and how to pull out of the mainstream and into an eddy (slow moving calm place) as well as when to reenter the flow – skills not easily learned but that come with practice.

Liken a Class 4 Coaching Event to a performance improvement discussion with the workplace’s Union Rep or someone of similar perceived stature in your workplace. The situation is one that is manageable, but you do not do this as your first try after your training class. And you want to be sure that the risk and the reward are comparable in nature before venturing in. Getting water up your nose and bouncing your limbs off the rocks while cascading downstream is not the most pleasant situation. At the same time, looking back upstream after successfully negotiating a Class 4 Coaching Event is a for-sure confidence builder and proof that you have developed some fine skills.

Cautionary Note: Running the rapids is a workplace endeavor; do not try running these rapids with your spouse or children! They have a tendency to be able to move the rocks around while you are in the current, creating unexpected hazards that are difficult to manage.  

Classes 5 and 6 – Realize that these situations will exist in the workplace. An example might include coaching your boss’ boss about what they need to do differently or trying to initiate a major new process improvement amongst a group of long-term workers that may reduce their numbers. Generally, one can hear a Class 5 or Class 6 rapid from a long distance away by the roar it makes as water cascades in major falls, pouring over large rocks and creating large unpredictable waves.

Lava Falls or Crystal Rapid on the Colorado are runnable rapids that you can actually hear echoing through the canyon a mile away; they sound like a freight train without the whistle and you get goose bumps on your arms and the hair on the back of your neck starts to stand up long before you are close enough to even get out of your boat to go scout them. It is impossible for someone not to realize that they are there and that they represent a very special situation.

Like the big water surfers at the North Shore of Oahu during Pacific storms, there are people who LIKE to play in these monsters and deal with the ensuing chaos. But they are near-professional in their skill levels, real experts with many years of practice and often with great personal coaches in their own histories.

Being in superb physical condition with good reflexes is also a great help in boating, and probably relates to how you need to be prepared for some of the more serious coaching situations. Consider training and planning for your improvement opportunities based on the difficulty of the predicted waves you will encounter.

Lastly, recognize that people do have fun running rivers!

PMC sells a variety of simple to use but powerful training and development tools to trainers and consultants worldwide. Visit our websites for more information. One example is this illustration, which can be used for coaching because it sets up a conversation about "things that are not working smoothly" with the understanding that "Round Wheels are already in the wagon." It avoids the emotionality and feeling of being attacked in a performance improvement discussion.

Square Wheels® One

Square Wheels® is a registered servicemark of Performance Management Company © Performance Management Company, 2008

Note: Scott began rafting on the Chattooga River in 1975, shortly after the movie, Deliverance, (Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight) was filmed there. Progressing from rafts to canoes to kayaks over the next 20 years, he spent about 5 years in serious pursuit of big water and high adrenaline, running most of the big waters in California and elsewhere and having run the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River on 3 occasions. Scott fully understands the implications of, “The older we get, the faster we were” and therefore limits his whitewater to much more manageable levels these days. He is a skilled coach and occasionally teaches an effective course on confronting poor performance, a skill level past one of coaching – the real Class 5 and 6 stuff.

Coaching and the Parallels to Running Whitewater Rapids

Some thoughts on the Rating of Difficulty

Some people feel that running whitewater rapids in a kayak is a lot like coaching difficult performers. Sometimes the rapid is an easy one that you can just float through without a lot of preparation or even much observation. In other cases, where the water and the “drop” is a bit more difficult, it may make sense to get out of the boat, walk along the shore and take a look at what you are about to encounter so that you can plan a route through with the highest likelihood of success.

In the case of very difficult whitewater, you may want to have a good deal of information about the situation available, have a plan for other observers to share their thoughts on how to succeed and even have a plan for someone to throw you a rope if things get really tight. And sometimes scouting that rapid is in order so that the difficulties can be avoided or responses can be planned.

So here is how rapids in a river are rated insofar as difficulty:

Class 1: Easy.
Fast moving water with riffles and small waves. Few general obstructions exist and all obvious and readily missed. Risk to swimmers is slight; self-rescue is easy.

Class 2: Novice.
Straightforward rapids with wide, clear channels which are evident without scouting. Occasional maneuvering may be required, but rocks and medium sized waves are easily avoided, if desired, by trained paddlers. Swimmers are seldom injured and assistance, while possibly helpful, is seldom needed.

Class 3: Intermediate.
Rapids with moderate, irregular waves which may be difficult to avoid and which can swamp an open boat like a canoe or flip a kayak. Complex maneuvers in fast current and good control in tight passages is required; large waves may be present but may be avoided. Strong eddies and powerful current effects can be found, particularly on large-volume rivers. Scouting is advisable, especially for inexperienced participants. Injuries while swimming are rare; self-rescue is usually easy but group assistance may be required to avoid long swims and water up your nose!

Class 4: Advanced.
Intense, powerful but predictable rapids requiring precise boat handling in turbulent water. Depending on the character of the river, it may feature large, unavoidable waves and holes or constricted passages demanding fast maneuvers under pressure. A fast, reliable eddy turn into quiet waters may be needed to initiate maneuvers, scout rapids, or rest. Rapids may require “must-make'' moves above dangerous hazards. Scouting often necessary the first time down. Risk of injury to swimmers is moderate to high, and water conditions may make self-rescue difficult. Group assistance for rescue is often essential but requires practiced skills. A strong roll is highly recommended.  

Class 5: Expert.
Extremely long, obstructed, or very violent rapids with drops that may contain large, unavoidable waves and holes or steep, congested chutes with complex, demanding routes. Rapids may continue for long distances between pools, demanding a high level of fitness. What eddies exist may be small, turbulent, or difficult to reach. At the high end of the scale, several of these factors may be combined. Scouting is recommended but even this may be difficult. Swims are dangerous, and rescue is often difficult even for experts. A very reliable roll, proper equipment, extensive experience, and practiced rescue skills are essential.

Class 6: Extreme and Exploratory.
These runs have almost never been attempted and often exemplify the extremes of difficulty, unpredictability and danger. The consequences of errors are very severe and rescue may be impossible. For teams of experts only, at favorable water levels, after close personal inspection and taking all precautions. After a Class 6 rapid has been successfully navigated many times and routes and strategies become known, its rating may be downgraded to Class 5 and the difficulty is actually lessened and the required “moves” become known.

In the next post, I will describe how coaching situations can be matched up to these ratings, and how the strategies for running white water rapids can be useful in planning and executing these coaching sessions.

Thoughts on Teamwork and Engagement – Part 2

This is about some ideas and solutions around people and performance and it is about Teamwork and Collaboration!

Typical recommendations about what to do tend to go along the same lines, like these Top 10 Drivers of Employee Engagement Globally (from TowersPerrin, 2009):

1. Senior management sincerely interested in employee well-being
2. Improved my skills and capabilities over the last year
3. Organization’s reputation for social responsibility
4. Input into decision making in my department
5. Organization quickly resolves customer concerns
6. Set high personal standards
7. Have excellent career advancement opportunities
8. Enjoy challenging work assignments that broaden skills
9. Good relationship with supervisor
10. Organization encourages innovative thinking

Note that the above says little about how teamwork, and especially cross-functional or interdepartmental teamwork, can help involve and engage people in shared goals and missions.

Yet we know that people working together – actively engaging with others to focus on accomplishing an important result – is a very strong motivator of individual performance and something which generates collective engagement. Peer support is a powerful driver of accomplishment, so doing things to generate more acceptance and a shared mission among people can be really helpful. Corporate team building is a missing ingredient in many organizations work process improvement strategies.

What is surprising as well as disappointing is that 42% of US HR executives – today -- still have “reducing headcount” as their top priority!  (from Deloitte’s Talent Pulse, July 2009) We hear this in reading about the lack of senior management support for recruitment efforts, for example. We see it in the way training for workplace improvement is budgeted.

“Improving organizational performance” was not even on the list of things to do! Yet 65% of these HR Execs are highly or very-highly concerned about losing high-potential performers in the year the recession ends and many see it now (26%) and many employers have done NOTHING to plan for when the economy recovers and few HR execs seem to understand the negative impacts! (Deloitte)

Companies are spending on new hire training to get them up to speed on systems and processes. Little is being spent on workplace improvements and little is being done to involve people in generating ideas for improvement. The former National Association of Suggestion Systems is now the Employee Involvement Association (http://www.eianet.org) and the website was copyright 2006 and no meetings were listed on their website. It still exists, but there does not appear to be a LOT of activity around involvement and improvement.
Collaboration generates better ideas as well as engagement

Employers need to demonstrate to the workers that people are important in their organizations and that it is important that people feel part of the team. Pay and all those other attractors are important, but as attractors. To generate performance, people need to feel that their efforts are appreciated and recognized.

The real leverage comes from improving teamwork and collaboration between departments. That is where lots of improvements in overall effectiveness can be found, but capturing these opportunities and implementing change and improvement is difficult as well as political, in many cases.

Interdepartmental Collaboration is an oxymoron – two words that do not go together well.
Interdepartmental Collaboration is an oxymoron in most organizations

Today’s organizational complexities make it very difficult for even highly effective leaders to motivate people and effectively implement improvements with team involvement. It takes team perspective and alignment to get things done in most cases. But pressures to produce will often lead to tops-down initiatives driven into the workplace – behaviors known to generate resistance and a variety of other negative impacts.

What to do? Here are a few ideas:

• Discover some initiatives that support inter-disciplinary or cross-functional teamwork and engage people in a vision and focus on accomplishments.
• Ask people to define what inter-departmental initiatives might have significant performance improvement impacts.
• Identify the key steps in implementing results and develop some form of checklist of critical activities. A variety of these exist but the best will generally come from an analysis of the key steps taken in the most successful previous successes in your own organization. Each culture is different and there is no silver bullet in terms of how things get done within each company. The best predictor of future success is the successful past behavior.
• Minimize the perceived risk of involvement and allow the activity to generate peer support and recognition
• Provide for a variety of intrinsic motivators. Do not just rely on extrinsic ones.
• Look for a myriad of ways that management can show support – both the managers of the group as well as the managers of the managers. Get lots of recognition for the activity of trying to improve.
• Look to manage the roadblocks and anticipate the problems that they might have in implementing changes.
• Find some budget for support. Don’t allow financial needs to delay movement forward, since momentum and enthusiasm will be lost.

What are YOUR ideas about making these improvements?