Search results matching tags 'Organizational culture' and 'Leadership'

"Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" by John P. Kotter

jstengel — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:26:29 GMT

The author begins the article citing his experience with over 100 companies attempting to remake themselves, from General Motors to Bristol-Meyers Squibb. Successful change within these companies has ranged from very successful to total failure. Because of these experiences, it is recognized that change is in itself a process which contains a series of phases that must all be completed in order to produce satisfying change.

Kotter identifies eight phases or stages a company must successfully complete in order to obtain lasting change:

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency

Examine market and competitive realities for potential crises and untapped opportunities.
Convince at least 75% of company managers that the status quo is more dangerous than the unknown.
Identify and discuss crises, potential crises, or major opportunities.

2. Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition

Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort.
Encourage the group to work together as a team outside of the normal hierarchy.

3. Create a Vision

Create a vision to direct the change effort.
Develop strategies for realizing that vision.

4. Communicate the Vision

Use every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies for achieving it.
Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition.

5. Empower Others to Act on the Vision

Remove or alter systems or structures that undermine the vision.
Encourage risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.

6. Plan for and Create Short-Term wins

Define and engineer visible performance improvements.
Recognize and reward employees contributing to those improvements.

7. Consolidate Improvements and Produce More Change

Use increased credibility from early wins to change systems, structures, and policies undermining the vision.
Reinvigorate the change process with new projects and change agents.

8. Institutionalize New Approaches

Articulate connections between new behaviors and corporate success.
Create leadership development and succession plans consistent with the new approach.

In addition to the eight stages necessary for obtaining and maintaining satisfying change, Kotter also identifies corresponding possible pitfalls for each stage that can derail the change project all-together. The following are the eight major errors identified in the article that can halt a change project, or even destroy any positive changes made thus far.

1. Not Establishing a Great Enough Sense of Urgency

Underestimating the difficulty of driving people from their comfort zones.
Becoming paralyzed by risks.

2. Not Creating a Powerful Enough Guiding Coalition

No prior experience in teamwork at the top.
Relegating team leadership to an HR, quality, or strategic-planning executive rather than a senior line manager.
Companies that fail in phase two usually underestimate the difficulties of producing change and thus the importance of a powerful guiding coalition, groups without strong line leadership never achieve the power that is required.

3. Lacking a Vision

Presenting a vision that’s too complicated or vague to be communicated in five minutes.
Without a sensible vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing and incompatible projects that can take the organization in the wrong direction or nowhere at all.

4. Undercommunicating the Vision by a Factor of Ten

A good transformation vision is developed, but a single form of communication is used.
The head of the organization spends a considerable amount of time making speeches to employee groups, but most people still don’t get it.
Much effort is put into communication, but some very visible senior executives still behave in ways antithetical to the vision.

5. Not Removing Obstacles to the New Vision

Failing to remove powerful individuals who resist the change effort.
Communication is never sufficient by itself; renewal also requires the removal of obstacles.

6. Not Systematically Planning for and Creating Short-Term Wins

Without short-term wins, too many people give up or actively join the ranks of those people who have been resisting change.
Leaving short-term successes up to chance.
Failing to score successes early enough (12-24 months into the change effort).

7. Declaring Victory too soon

Until changes sink deeply into a companies culture, a process that can take five to ten years, new approaches are fragile and subject to regression.
Declaring victory too soon – with the first performance improvement.
Allowing resistors to convince “troops” that the war has been won.

8. Not Anchoring Changes in the Corporation’s Culture

Not creating new social norms and shared values consistent with changes.
Promoting people into leadership positions who don’t personify the new approach.

The article closes with the disclaimer that there are indeed other mistakes to be made, but these are the big eight when dealing with transformation. This is meant to be a simple guideline for the process, not an answer to any situation that occurs.

Citation

Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review OnPoint(March-April), 1-10.

What Do We Know About Developing and Sustaining a Culture of Innovation

jstengel — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:05:25 GMT

This article gives a brief overview of organizational culture including its definition, various models, and both qualitative and quantitative methods of studying an organization’s culture. The author begins by discussing culture in general and sites Hofstede’s early findings from research with IBM. She then talks about management research on specific dimensions of organizational culture (innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, individual and team orientation, and aggressiveness) and about a two dimensional framework of culture which looks at internal focus versus external focus as well as stability and control versus flexibility and discretion. Finally, the article explores both qualitative and quantitative methods of observing an organization’s culture and advocates for a combination of both. The author recommends specific assessment tools, consulting firms, and suggests overall, that outcomes of assessment be tied to an organization’s need for innovation.

Assessment tools:

Survey assessments
Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI)
Organizational Culture Index (OCI)

Citation

Aiman-Smith, L. (2004) What Do We Know About Developing and Sustaining a Culture of Innovation. What Do We Know Journal Review, 1-5 DOI

Building Culture Strategically: A Team Approach for Corrections

jstengel — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:18:28 GMT

The guide, developed under the Strategic Planning, Management and Response project, encompassed six tasks: 1) identify/develop a strategic planning model/process useful to facilities; 2) & 3) develop a strategic management model/methodology and strategic response model/methodology to be used in facilities; 4) prepare a guide to provide and train staff in their implementation; 5) develop a process for measuring the effectiveness of the models; 6) write a literature review encompassing strategic planning, management and response.

Initially, the project team surveyed all 50 states about work related to strategic planning, management and response, conducted site visits to four states, and conducted a literature review on strategic planning, management, and application. Survey highlights are briefly and quantifiably summarized in the preface. The models, developed by Carol Flaherty-Zonis, were pilot-tested in 2003-2004 at the Westville (Indiana) Correctional Facility. “Positive” preliminary findings were reported, although no quantifiable research results are presented in this guide. The literature review did not focus on historical research but briefly summarizes the tenets of 10 schools of thought on strategic planning highlighting the elements of each that factored into the Flaherty-Zonis model, named the Rubik’s Cube® Models of Strategic Planning© and Strategic Management©. A framework to provide facilities a method of implementing strategic change based on the models is provided along with definitions for all key concepts such as organizational culture, strategic planning, strategic response and strategic thinking.

The Rubik’s Cube® model assigns a purpose to each of the six sides of the cube based on both strategic planning (p. 8) and strategic management (p.9). The six “sides” of the cube are the following:

Setting the Stage (Side 1:Green),
Identifying Strategic Issues (Side 2:Red),
Charting the Future (Side 3:Orange),
Crafting Strategies (Side 4:Blue),
Bringing the Strategies to Life (Side 5:White),
Sustaining Change (Side 6:Yellow).

The process of implementing the model is outlined in five stages:

Assessing the facility’s readiness for strategic planning;
laying the groundwork;
planning and holding the kickoff meeting;
holding team meetings to develop responses to the Cube® questions;
drafting and finalizing the strategic plan.

An assessment inventory, termed the Organizational Culture Inventory®, is provided as an appendix (D) in the guide.

Tools: The above tool, Organizational Culture Inventory can be found at the following websites: http://www.leadershipassessments.net/assessment.htm & http://www.humansynergistics.com/products/documents/OCI_Sample_Standard_Report.pdf.

Citation

Flaherty-Zonis, C. (2007). Building Culture Strategically: A Team Approach for Corrections. J. McNaughton, National Institute of Corrections

"Organizational Culture and Leadership" by E. Schein

Donna Cooper — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:53:00 GMT

This book is a thorough and thoughtful treatise that provides a functional/structural explanation of organizational culture. Schein draws upon his broad as well as deep understanding and experience with organizational culture change. He also lays out foundational principles for understanding the dynamic interplay between leadership and organizational culture. First-hand, long-term experiences with different companies' cultures, change and leadership are offered to illustrate and help the reader knit a deeper understanding of his key concepts for understanding organizational culture, leadership and their intertwined relationship.

[Schein, Edgar (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, Jossey Bass Publishers]

The book is organized in three sections:

Part One: Organizational Culture and Leadership Defined;
Part Two: The Dimensions of Culture;
Part Three: The Leadership Role in Culture Building, Embedding, and Evolving.

Levels of Culture

In defining organizational culture, Schein describes three fundamental levels at which culture manifests:

artifacts;
espoused beliefs and values; and,
underlying assumptions.

Artifacts are apparent on the surface as behavior and tangible products of the group (e.g., language, the group's design of its environment, enacted rituals) and beneath these forms the climate of the organization represents the deepest level of cultural artifacts. Espoused beliefs and values, according to Schein, are shared ideals and theories which may or may not actually guide behavior. Finally, the author defines the core of an organizational culture as being the underlying assumptions that members tend to share and take for granted. The latter assumptions are reflexive and therefore generally unquestioned or unexamined. Schein finds that the alignment between espoused beliefs/values and underlying assumptions is crucial for the group to become mission oriented.

The author claims the primary dimensions of culture are external adaptation and internal integration and he depicts these two aspects of a culture as relatively interdependent. The external adaptation process consists of five steps in a loosely organized cycle:

Mission and Strategy;
Goals;
Means;
Measurement;
Correction.

Furthermore, the above process steps are enacted within any organizational culture through a pecking order (artifact) that ramifies power and ideologies (espoused beliefs) that ramify meaning. The latter mechanisms are factors that primarily influence how integration occurs within a culture.

Schein provides several types of typologies (e.g., participation, corporate character, intra-organizational typologies) for diagnosing and understanding a given organizational culture. Assessing and addressing an organization's cultural alignment is the critical job of leadership according to Schein, who sees leaders as the chief architects and builders of organizational culture.

The last set of chapters in the book stress the hand-in-glove relationship between culture and leadership. Schein describes and explains organizational culture as being semi-plastic, with motivational thresholds wherein particular aspects of the culture unfreeze or freeze, depending on the developmental (i.e., early growth, midlife, mature) stage. Depending on the skill and resources of a leader, Schein suggests they can operate upon the culture like a glass-blower does upon glass, using timing and deeper understanding of the medium to mold innovative new alternative designs.

Tools/Knowledge Objects/Resources/Contacts etc.

Edgar H. Schein, Ph.D., Sloan Professor of Management Emeritus, MIT. email: scheine@mit.edu

"Fostering a Performance-Driven Culture in the Public Sector" by Risher

Donna Cooper — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:20:00 GMT

The role of culture in organizations and hands-on management practices that support performance as a cultural priority within the public and private sectors are the focus of this author.

[Risher, H. (2007). Fostering a Performance-Driven Culture in the Public Sector. The Public Manager, 36(3), 51-56.]

Mr. Risher furthers our understanding of organizational culture by citing the simple definition by T. E. Deal: "the way things get done around here;" and the more academic definition by Charles Hill: "...the collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with contacts outside the organization. The culture dictates the beliefs and ideas about what kinds of goals members of an organization should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior organizational members should use to achieve thee goals..."

Risher notes that while performance (or pay for performance) has been an on-going priority in the private sector, the public sector has been slow to adopt that priority for, among other reasons, fear of significantly changing the culture. A case in point is the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, which in 2001 initiated a program for performance improvement that was met with significant resistance by employees.

To counteract such resistance, Risher recommends assessing the on-going culture as it impacts employee performance via surveys, focus groups or interviews.

He also summarizes a multi-dimensional management practice, which fosters performance, and came via the author's own research and a study by the London School of Economics (LSE) and McKinsey & Co. (Dorgan, et al, 2005). The eight-pronged approach to performance involves:

Leaders as Champions - key people across the organization need to advocate and explain why the new strategy is needed and how it will affect people;
Work Link to Mission - feeling their work is integral to the success of their employer and understanding the mission are general concerns of employees;
Performance Tracking and dialogue - tracking it over time, taking corrective measures and broadly communicating results keep employees involved and attending to performance;
Cascading Goals - being able to see the "big-picture" regarding goals at each level keeps employees engaged at all levels of the organization;
Investment in Talent - investing in and promoting qualified personnel and development of individual talent support performance goals;
Recognition and rewards - strategies that recognize and reward high-performing employees should be both fostered and evaluated now and then to ensure they are serving the needs of the organization;
Manager Accountability - managers need to be committed, trained and reinforced in helping employees improve performance, and manager performance should be evaluated regarding these goals;
Employee engagement - research performed by Gallup and others shows a correlation between emotional commitment to the success of the company and an employee's high-performance level; surveys help reveal employee engagement.

In conclusion, Risher notes that the aforementioned research confirms the obvious: "Well-managed companies perform better." The author also suggests that agencies should focus on the day-to-day practices of middle managers and supervisors to foster a performance culture rather than the OBM focus, which was on management systems in relation to performance of the overall organization.

Tools/Knowledge Objects/Resources/Contacts/Etc:

Dorgan, S. J., Dowdy, J. J., Van Reenen, J., & Rippin, T. M. (2005). The Link between Management and Productivity: London School of Economics.
Risher, H., & Fay, C. (2007). Managing for Better Performance: Enhancing Federal Performance Management Practices: IBM Center for the Business of Government.

NIC Supervisory/managerial/executive competencies

joeb2665 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:46:05 GMT

Hi, Everyone,

Does anyone have or know of a 360 or self-assessment based on the NIC managerial and supervisory competeinces?

Thanks.

Joe Brodnicki

TN Dept of Correction

Succession Planning

joeb2665 — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:48:16 GMT

Hi,

Has anyone had any experience with succession planning and management?

Thanks.

Joe Brodnicki

TN Dept of Correction