Optimizing Corporate Change . . .

 

We are living in a world where change is happening so fast we hardly have time to learn one system or app before the next one is on the market.  One expensive/high-end piece of equipment or product can literally be out of date in less than 6 months. These changes are often costly to make and we have to learn how to integrate them in a matter of days.

CHANGE TAKES A TOLL . . .

But this environment of constant change takes its toll on more than our budgets.  It is increasingly more difficult on the hearts and minds of our employees.  Employers are seeing increasing rates of turnover and each turnover has far more cost attached to it than an empty seat to be filled. There has been a great deal of time and money spent to recruit, interview and then bring the employee up to speed regarding the culture of the company. There has been more time spent trying to help the employee fit his or her job description and then a good deal of time making changes to the job description so that the employee can finally settle in.  Once those adjustments have been made there are two or three other employees who have to make adjustments to cover what’s left over.  Often the employee is still unsettled and leaves without warning and we start the cycle all over again.  There has got to be a better way!

In his national best seller Managing Transitions, consultant and author William Bridges brings some powerful principles to light for us to consider. He recognizes that adjusting to change and doing it quickly has to be an integral part of any organization.  In regard to the employee he states . . .

. . . “employees in today’s organizations must do more than follow orders. People have to think for themselves, function effectively without close supervision, be creative, and go the extra mile for the customer.  People have to bring their hearts and minds to work.”

Bridges goes on to give us insight into the dynamics of change and turns our focus to the period of time he calls the transition. His insights are critical but he makes the assumption that our employees are all capable of responding to transition and change in the same way.  Even in the above quote he assumes that all our employees can come to the point where they can be creative and function effectively without close supervision.

At another point he states that at a certain point in the transition process, (what he calls ‘the neutral zone’), a company and the individual will either ‘compromise or lose a great opportunity’ if they aren’t ‘creative and develop into what they need to become and renew themselves’.

OPTIMIZE YOUR EMPLOYEES UNIQUENESS . . .

I believe Bridges is only partially correct.  He is correct in thinking that “the company” needs to be creative and develop into what they need to become and renew themselves. But to put that kind of pressure on the individual employee is unrealistic and can result in the loss of good people from the team.

Current research has shown that each employee has a unique set of “Core Motivational Drivers”  that must be understood and honored by the employer in order to bring the employee into a position where they can be a player as the company enters into that time of creative development and redefines itself.

These “Core Motivational Drivers” are unique and unchanging which means for example, to expect an employee who has very little creative ability to suddenly become creative because the company has to become creative is unrealistic and unwise.

 

OPTIMIZE PERSONAL SUCCESS TO OPTIMIZE CORPORATE CHANGE . . .

Lynn Taylor puts it this way in his book, “The Core Values Handbook” . . .

To the degree that a persons work is not aligned with their core motivational drivers, he will either:  fail, disrupt the situation, force a change or leave.

It goes back to Maslow’s premise that each individual has a unique unchanging set of characteristics.

Regarding his book, PEAK, Chip Conley states . . .

œI attempted to bring Maslow’s conclusions and prescriptions for implementation into business organizations in the twenty-first century.  It is my profound belief that by paying attention to man’s search for meaning and the impact of that personal pursuit of success, a great deal of momentum is added to business and personal lives.

The optimization of personal and corporate success is what we are all about at ExecuChart.