Welcome
Welcome to the latest issue of Bringing Work to Life. In the last three
issues we explored:
·
Confronting one of our fears as leaders in “Facing Our Greatest Fears:
Public Speaking”
(http://www.elsdon.com/sept__oct__2004.htm)
·
Bringing meaning to our work lives, the benefits to each of us and to
our organizations, in “May You Live All the Days of Your Life” (http://www.elsdon.com/august_2004.htm)
·
Seven key aspects of the organizational and business drivers for
workforce development in “Opening the Door for Workforce Development” (http://www.elsdon.com/july_2004.htm).
This month we explore an important worklife survival skill in “Finding a
Fit”
Worklife Survival: Finding a Fit
“This was one my best work
experiences. We had a great team; we moved right past our competition,
I was learning constantly. What a contribution we made!” Contrast
these words with the following: “If only I had looked deeply into the
organization three years ago, before I joined, I wouldn’t have accepted
their offer. These last three years at work were awful. I was glad to
leave the organization. Thank goodness that is over.” You may find
both examples in your past work experience. In one case you were
energized, fulfilled, realizing your potential. In the other case you
were anxious and frustrated. Why the difference? What can we do to
find that place of meaning, fulfillment and contribution?
On the surface this might seem
simple. Know yourself, understand the organizations you join, make sure
there is a fit and jump right in. It sounds easy. But we stumble
frequently, so that simplicity is misleading. Here are some tips to
help find a right fit and avoid those bad experiences. To find a right
fit we need to know what actually goes on in an organization – the real
scoop, not the public posture. The first step is to be clear about our
own values and what kind of environment works well for us. There are
assessment tools available, such as Values Driven Work and Career
Anchors, which can help with this. We can also review our past work
experiences and from those experiences identify the kinds of environment
that fit well and those that don’t. Once we are clear about our own
values then we can look for a match with a prospective organization.
How do we find out what is
really going on in that organization? We can start by looking at how
the organization presents itself, for example in the annual report or
other publications. However, while this may give some clues it can be
misleading. The serious corporate misdeeds over the past few years show
how easy it is to present a façade. Indeed most organizations claim to
value employees in the annual report, few deliver. One more effective
approach is to apply the principles of behavioral interviewing to probe
the organization. This is a reverse of the behavioral interview we use
to assess job candidates. It is based on the understanding that the
best predictor of future performance is past behavior. So an
interviewer using this approach with job candidates probes for examples
of past behaviors in key areas. We can do the same with an
organization. Here’s how it works when probing for organizational
values.
We take our key personal values
developed from assessments or life experiences and probe for examples in
the organization of a fit or disconnect. This may sound a bit fuzzy.
So let’s give it some structure and put into that structure questions we
might use to probe for organizational behaviors. We can use four broad
values categories to frame the culture and values in an organization (or
you can create your own). These are the four: leadership style,
workforce relationships, strategic focus and pace, and organizational
flexibility. We can then create more specific aspects within each of
the four and create questions to probe for related behaviors. Some
examples follow.
·
Leadership style
o
How decisions are made – for example, independently, by consensus, or by
pecking order
§
Tell me about the last major
decision made in the group. How did you go about it?
o
How information is shared – openly or on a need-to-know basis
§
What was the last quarter’s
financial performance? How did you learn about it?
o
How recognition is practiced
§
What was the last significant
accomplishment by someone in the group? How was it celebrated?
o
Whether the organization is more formal or informal
§
When did you last see the CEO in
the cafeteria?
·
Workforce relationships
o
How people relate to each other – cooperatively, competitively, or
collaboratively
§
Tell me about an example of a
recent conflict with someone from another department. What happened and
how was it resolved?
o
How people relax and have fun
§
Tell me about the best social
event at work this year.
o
How individual development is valued
§
How were you supported in your
personal development by the organization last year?
·
Strategic focus and pace
o
How innovation and efficiency are integrated
§
What was the last new business
idea that came up in the group? What happened to it?
o
Exploring the external and internal focus
§
What was the last significant
problem with a customer? How was it addressed?
§
How much time are you spending
in internal meetings this week?
o
Balancing short term and long term needs
§
What targets do you have for the
group three to five years out?
§
When was your last crash
project? What happened?
·
Organizational flexibility
o
How easy is it to move
§
When was the last time someone
in the group came from another part of the organization? How did that
happen?
o
How the organization supports family obligations
§
When was the last time you had
to take time for a family commitment? What happened?
o
How open is the organization to change
§
When did you last propose a
significant change to your responsibilities or approach? What
happened?
Let’s look at an example.
Jennifer is a senior director of human resources. She is exploring a
potential move to an organization closer to home. In reflecting on her
past work experiences Jennifer concludes that she fits well into an
organization that particularly values:
·
Her participation in decision
making
·
Open sharing of information
·
A relaxed atmosphere
·
Continued personal learning
·
Generation of new ideas
·
Time flexibility to address
family needs
As Jennifer prepares for her interview, in addition to reviewing how her
capabilities and accomplishments might meet the needs of the
organization, she also develops questions to probe for the
organization’s values in these areas that she has decided are
particularly important to her. These questions probe for examples of
decision-making processes, information sharing, degree of informality,
support for individual development, receptivity to new ideas and time
flexibility. As a result the interview enables Jennifer and her
interviewer to gain a clearer understanding of each other. They can
strengthen the basis for their respective decisions and increase the
likelihood of a successful match or acknowledge a lack of fit.
This is important because while it is possible to bridge skill gaps, for
example through training, it is not possible to bridge gaps in core
values. We can avoid the anguish of a poor fit that can create tensions
inside and outside the workplace and derail a career. Instead we can
move closer to expressing our full potential within an organization that
values and appreciates our contribution. Try this approach next time
you are interviewing or when you are conducting informational
interviews. Finding that right fit is central to “letting the beauty we
love be what we do” (Rumi).
The Employment Scene
It was Leonard Cohen who sang: “Love the country,
hate the scene.” And for many that might capture the current employment
situation. With stellar productivity growth in the U.S., much talk
about offshoring and a continued sluggish employment recovery we might
ask if the U.S. economy has undergone a fundamental restructuring. Are
the heady days of the late 90s when the unemployment rate was down to
around 4% likely to return? Today the unemployment rate is at about
5.4%. Has the link between economic growth and employment
fundamentally changed? In Affiliation in the Workplace (Praeger, 2003)
we showed a strong historical correlation between changes in Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and changes in unemployment rate.
Strong economic growth translated to strong declines in unemployment
rate and vice versa. How is that holding up currently? The following
chart shows recovery from the economic recessions in 1970, 1991 and
2001. (The recession in the early 80s took a different form and is not
comparable.)
From this chart we see each of the three recoveries
following a similar pattern. Moving from the left of the chart to the
right, there is at first a slight reduction in the rate of change of
unemployment in the 1970 and 1991 recoveries. This abruptly shifts as
we move further to the right as economic growth picks up and there is a
sudden and dramatic shift in unemployment rates. Particularly
significant is that the 2001 recovery tracks the pattern of the two
earlier recoveries in the third year. The line is displaced slightly
upward on the graph by the third year indicating slower employment
recovery. However, the similar patterns suggest that restructuring is
relatively minor. When we couple the employment trend with a
demographic trend of slowing birthrates and lower participation in the
workforce as the population ages (as shown in the following chart), we
can expect future labor shortages.
This underlines the critical importance of
building a strong bond of connection and affiliation within an
organization. Such a bond is built through leadership practices that
honor each person as an individual, that support options and choices,
that integrate both the need for organizational performance and
individual development and that foster cooperation and collaboration.
Quote
“Reaching goals is fine for an annual plan. Only
reaching one’s potential is fine for a life.”
Max DePree, Leadership Jazz:
Upcoming Elsdon Organizational Renewal (EOR) Events
·
Building Affiliation: Workforce
Leadership in Action. HR Southwest Concurrent Session.
(HR
Southwest,
http://www.hrsouthwest.com)
o
October 7, 2004, Fort Worth Convention Center, TX
·
Becoming Career Fit in Turbulent
Times. Project Management Institute - SF Bay Area Chapter Meeting
Presentation
(Project
Management Institute SFBAC - San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, http://www.pmi-sfbac.org/index.phtml?menu=other_page&menu2=51)
o
October 21, 2004, Courtyard Marriott, San Francisco, CA
·
Global Issues Forum.
International Career Development Conference (ICDC) Panel Discussion
(International
Career Development Conference - Career Assistance.
http:///www.careerccc.com)
o
October 27, 2004, Sacramento Convention Center, CA
·
Opening the Organizational Door
for Career Development. International Career Development Conference (ICDC)
Concurrent Session
(International
Career Development Conference - Career Assistance.
http:///www.careerccc.com)
o
October 29, 2004, Sacramento Convention Center, CA
·
Building Employee Commitment in
a Growing Economy. 56th Annual California Groundwater Association
Convention and Trade Show Concurrent Session
(California
Groundwater Association Events, http://www.groundh2o.org/events/events.html)
o
November 6, 2004, Silver Legacy Resort and Casino, Reno, NV
·
Staying Career Fit. San
Francisco State University
o
November 11, 2004, San Francisco State University
About EOR: Our Value Contribution
We enhance your workforce, leadership and organization by:
·
Using proprietary approaches to understand workforce and leadership
challenges
·
Creating tailored action plans and solutions to strengthen workforce and
leadership practices
·
Building individual capabilities and contributions
We enable you to focus on external results and building value, confident
that your organization and leadership are operating at peak
effectiveness.
Our Mission
To support your organization by enhancing performance, productivity
and effectiveness through revitalized workforce relationships and
leadership practices.
Our Approach and Values
We tailor our engagements
to the needs of each organization with a process designed to surface
critical issues, identify root causes, build effective solutions,
monitor progress and implement.
With a scope that ranges
from system and organizational interventions to work with individuals,
our focus is on the heart of the relationship among the individual, the
organization and the community. We believe that organizational and
community prosperity are built on enabling each person to fulfill his or
her potential.
Our Services
We work with individuals and groups in your organization to drive
performance and development for both the short and long term. As result
people will choose to work in your organization and will prosper there.
We bring solutions when you need to:
·
Reverse declining revenues and performance
·
Revitalize your workforce
·
Stem the loss of key talent
·
Redirect your organization to new areas
·
Stop losing customers or market share
·
Penetrate new markets
·
Combat aggressive competitors
·
Handle major change
·
Break down communication barriers
·
Energize your leadership team
·
Successfully build on an acquisition or merger
Our proprietary services include:
·
State-of-the-art tools to take the pulse of your organization and then
move to action
o
Web enabled systems
o
Experts to gather and analyze information, moving your organization to
action
·
Individual leadership coaching to give you world class leadership
capabilities
o
Leaders who know themselves and their aspirations, build their
capabilities and become catalysts developing others
·
Workshops to build interpersonal skills in your organization so that:
o
Communication is timely, concise, accurate and personal
o
People listen to each other
o
Negotiations are quick and effective
o
Differences create rather than destroy value
o
Teams move forward, get results and quickly commercialize new products
and services
o
People understand and link their motivations to your organizational
needs
o
Your teams understand what it takes to create a committed, energized
workforce
o
People use their time well
·
Systems that make it easy to drive performance and build capabilities
by:
o
Linking objectives throughout the organization
o
Strengthening key competencies
o
Making sure you have the bench strength where and when you need it
o
Giving people tools to take charge of their own careers, development and
have a major long term influence on your organization
·
Proprietary simulation and modeling techniques that let you explore how
to maximize the value of your workforce
o
Move from guessing what might happen to looking in depth at the
financial impact of different approaches
