Try lending a hand, not pointing a finger

What kind of manager are you? You really have only two options in today’s global workplace. The first one can be equated to the lion tamer in the circus. Is this a fair indication of your management style? If you still operate under the notion that your employees have a job to do. That they have a certain set way to do things and that each employee understands that their purpose is to follow in lack step your demands. As a manger, you firmly believe in command and control style of corporate hierarchy. Your predecessors handed down the command and control method, and you in the corporate tradition have followed the same path. Your assets do not need to know everything about the organization; just what you deem is necessary for them to know.

Toyota and the Toyota Production system has show us a path to a better alternative to the dictatorship model described above. Your responsibilities as a manager are to provide an environment centered on nurturing the human capital assets of your organization. Our responsibility is to be a leader not a manager. So how do we bring about this change to the organization?

We begin the process with the hiring and onboarding of new hires. We hire for attitude, not just skills. Jeffrey Liker in his book Toyota Talent describes a new hire at the new Kentucky plant where they hired an employee for the factory floor as a manager who had management skills from the retail market. Once they are onboard as a leader you are charged with the responsibility of educating them bout their job responsibilities, the corporate culture and the work environment. This education process also includes teaching them the skills to be successful in the new position.

Following the education period, it becomes your responsibility as a leader to be there as a support vehicle when problems arise. Trust me they will arise in the daily activities. Your role as a leader is to lend a hand to the human capital asset to guide them towards getting the support that is needed to make them productive members of the organization. We are not suggesting that you by lending a hand you should do their work for them. We are suggesting that you should act as a coach to help them on the path to full productivity.

John Wiley on their For Dummies site, define business coaching as the act of challenging and developing your employee’s skills and abilities. You still maintain your title as manager, however we have added a new path for you to take. We assume that the human capital asset has been brought on board and gone through the onboarding process. They have received that initial education process to learn what is expected of them in the workplace. The goal is to make them as productive as possible in the shortest possible time period. As with everything else in life, things don’t always go as planned. There are times when the initial education process is not enough. When life goes in another direction, then we are confronted with several options.

The first option is that we need to determine whether the problem is due a lack of skill. During the education process the human capital asset did not acquire the right set of goals to be a contributor to the team. It is in this scenario that you as a leader need to work with the FTE to gain those missing skills. It may mean sending them back into the classroom. It may mean pairing them with a mentor that can work side by side with them to get the new skills up to par.

The second option is that you have determined that the problem is not due to a lack of skill, but rather a mindset, which says, they just do not want to do the job. This recalls another type of coaching skills. It becomes your responsibility to guide them to another position within the organization or for the benefit of both parties, coach them out the door.

We are deep in a new paradigm. It is rapidly changing the workplace environment and conditions. While there are still organizations whose corporate culture demands that your human capital assets be considered as essentially chattel it is increasingly becoming a minority. The new paradigm suggests that we need to create a vibrant partnership with the entire organization and its components. It requires that instead of being the dictatorial manager, we consider the organization as one big family. This new view changes our roles. We need to take a cue from Toyota and work with our human capital assets to guide them towards being a fully productive member of the family. We do this by educating them regarding the position and then coaching them to make sure they get the skills to the level required to meet the voice of the customer. It also at times means that we must play the role of the tough parent and guide them in a different direction if that is what is beneficial for all involved.

The next time you have difficulties with a FTE, who is not living up to expectations, forget about pointing the finger. Instead lend them a hand to find the correct path for them within your organization. Change from the slave driver to the guide along the path to organizational excellence.

Need help making the transition? Ask us about our executive coaching options to help your organization excel. Contact us at dan@dbaiconsulting.

You can't see the picture if you are in the frame

On the way to the Veterinarian’s for an emergency run, we passed a church whose billboard stated “You can’t see the picture, if you are inside the frame.” The statement clearly applies to both our organizations and the dichotomy that exists in almost every workplace on the face of this globe we call earth.

Taiichi Ohno, the creator of the Toyota Production System, charged his managers with standing in a circle and observing the organization in real time. If we take Ohno’s charge in to consideration what we find despite the functional area, each is asking for a seat at the partner table. The difficulty is that each looks at the partner table from its own unique perspective. Sales and marketing proclaims that they deserve that seat because they bring in customers to the business. Accounting/Finance proclaims that despite sales role, they are the ones who need to be at the table because they control the spending that keeps the organization afloat. Research and Development says wait a minute; we are the only ones who deserve to be at the table because the success of the organization is dependent on the innovations that they bring to the market. Production says no they are the true party that belongs at the table because they make the products that the customers purchase. Human Resources says that if it is anyone who deserves to be at the table it is them, as they are the gatekeeper for the introduction of talent to the organization to fill staffing needs.

The problem is that each looks at their entitlement to be at the partner table from inside their particular picture frame. When asked to look at the bigger picture the tendency is to reply that is not my job. In order for the organization to sustain itself, to thrive, to be the market leader that reply is the proof they are looking at the picture from inside that frame.

The business world of the 21^st century requires every function learn the language of business. They need to understand how each function plays as part of the whole jigsaw puzzle. They need to understand that each and every function within the organization is interdependent on the rest of the organization. Sales and marketing creates the market for our products, which requires manufacturing to build the products. Research and development creates new versions of the products to which sales and marketing takes into the field. Accounting and finance works with manufacturing and Research and development to determine the pricing level we need to be at for the organization to make a profit. Human resources need to understand that their effort to introduce human capital assets to the organization is part of the effort to create a viable organization. If HR understaffs the organization, manufacturing will not be able to produce the final product on the customer’s schedule of need.

The final picture of the organization becomes clear only after we take ourselves out of the frame we call our silos. The real empowerment of the organization comes when we change the culture of the organization away from the silo mentality and move toward a totality of organizational DNA as Ohno asked their managers to seek out as they observed the organization. The final picture becomes clear when everyone is respected for what they bring to the organization and the mood of the organization changes to one of we are all in it together.

Look the future and take yourself out of the frame and truly look at the total organization and what the new normal requires all of us to achieve in order to be strategic in focus, central focus on the needs of our customers and alignment with the mission, vision and objectives of the organization as a whole. We can no longer remain inside the frame, we need to constantly see the whole picture.

REady to empower organizational change? Only if I don't have to resign she said

I recently had the pleasure of talking to the members of the Mobile, AL chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management. Prior to my presentation, during the networking opportunity I walked the room stopping at each table and asking whether they were ready to go back to work and empower change in their organization. At one of the tables I stopped at, I received the response “sure as long as I don’t have to resign.”

We can’t remove the organizational inefficiencies unless we empower the organization to change the corporate culture. Many of our peers hold the firm belief that if we change the culture we are automatically going to reduce headcount. Like many others before me I would highly suggest that, unless your organization is in the process of filing the paperwork to go Chapter 7 and close your doors this change we are discussing is NEVER about the reduction in headcount.

Your customer is making life miserable by telling you that their demands are not being met. The first idea that comes to mind is that someone does not know how to do their job, so lets get rid of them.  The problem is that the root cause of the obstacle is more than likely not the individual but rather than the process involved. All too often our processes have built in elements that are the direct cause of the problem.  In order to correct this environment, we need to empower your organizational elements to make the changes to meet the customer demands.

The corporate journey we call process improvement is rooted in the awareness that we have placed in our processes added steps that no one has agreed to pay for. Consider this scenario from one of my 2-day seminars. A participant tells me that in the course of hiring an individual the job description is reviewed and approved three times.  On the face of it, this is not a problem. In fact it could be a good thing to ensure that we are all on the right page through the hiring process. What the participant was trying to tell me was that the job requisition was reviewed and approved by the same person three times.

The process improvement journey consists of three stages that work interdependent of each other. We begin by seeing the problem. The customer, whether internal or external, tells the organization that we are not meeting their expectations. We can envision how the unhappy customer feels the problem. As stated previously we see the problem as a process issue not a human capital issue. The second stage is that having recognized the problem, we need to feel the impact of the problem on all the stakeholders in the process. What is the direct impact of us not meeting the customer demand both in the immediate and the future time views? The final stage is that of creating the new normal.

It is the new normal that I want to concentrate on in this blog post.

The new normal or the new corporate culture requires that we look at all the aspects of the organization. We must understand that the human capital asset’s role extends beyond an expense item. We now must understand that they are a vital part of the organization. This continuous process improvement journey will free up some of them but not to move them out the door. Rather, since we no longer are dealing with silos, they can be retrained and moved to other parts of the company where there is a need for additional human capital assets. This reallocation of resources can lead to small changes in the process delivery model, which will enhance innovation within the organization.  The manager’s role also changes in this new normal. They shift to a coaching model, in which their responsibility is to help his/her human capital assets gain the necessary expertise to fulfill their work space or they coach them to gracefully exit the organization.

When we say gracefully leave the organization we do not mean to reduce headcount or to offer early retirement to an employee. Rather we mean that in the coaching process the FTE makes it clear that they can’t function in this new environment and so the suggestion is made that they might want to look at opportunities outside of the organization. The new normal or culture model only works when everyone is on board with the changes. When everyone in the organization sees the problems, feels the problem and changes the way we do things to create the new normal.

So to my peer in that audience in Mobile, we are not suggesting that you resign your position. We are not suggesting by empowering you to bring organizational change to your organization that you have to exit the organization. We are however suggesting that in order to empower organizational change you need to look at the organization with a new set of glasses. You need to look at the organizational culture from a view of total employee engagement. It is from that perspective that you will empower the organization.

Kevin Duggan of the Institute for Operational Excellence tells us that operational excellence is clear when each and every employee can see the flow of value to the customer and fix that flow before it breaks down. This is the new normal.  This is an example of a new organizational culture designed not to push human capital assets out the door, but rather for the organization to climb to a new plateau based on continually looking for ways to empower a new horizon based on the change management techniques that is demanded by the new normal.

If I only had a brain says the scarecrow

The news wires of late have been filled with stories one after another of NFL players involved in some form of domestic violence. Listening to Roger Goddell’s statement last week added to the feeling that something in this picture was missing. Like many organizations the NFL preferred their bottom line to what was morally and ethically right. Consider the reports from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding the $17,000,000 they have collected in fines for a wide range of charges including retaliation and sexual harassment.

How many times have you watched the classic film the Wizard of OZ and heard the scarecrow sing this Harold Arlen (music) and E.Y. Harburg (lyrics) song? The news conference Mr. Goddell conducted and reading the EEOC RSS feeds since January 2014 seems to lead me to the thought, that today’s business leaders need to be singing this song to themselves because a CEO is not using their brain.

For way to long we have been brought up to believe that the shareholder’s interest are paramount to the health of the organization. Everything we do and everything we say is directly attributed to whether or not we are providing a return on their investment back to the shareholders. If someone notices that we are doing something that could put the organization in a bad light, management tells us to just let things lie as they are. A human capital asset believes that they have been wronged; they complain but end up being punished for trying to rock the boat. But times have changed and the view has widened to include shareholders and stakeholders.

It is time we wake up to the importance of human capital to the value of our organization. Organizations are supposed to be like their second family. We do not tell them in our communication pieces and the annual reports as how important they are to us and then turn our heads to wrongs being done to them in the name of shareholder return on investment. When we turn our heads away from the wrong treatment of individuals because it may look bad for our shareholders we tell the human capital that they are second-class citizens.

 Our FTE’s wake up in the morning and have a fight with their significant other. Our FTE gets into a road rage situation on the commute to work. These and many more such situations are brought into the workplace. Now with a wide range of bring your guns to work the hard feelings can spill over into the office. It is high time that our CEO’s understand that the real center of consideration is not the shareholders but the stakeholders. It is high time that our CEO’s use their brains to understand the our organizational extended family includes the FTE’s and their significant others and any offspring. When our FTE’s get caught in situations like Ray Rice it reflects back on the organization as well as the parties involved. It puts into play how we define ethics and morality. It reflects on the organization as to whether we walk the walk and talk the talk.

One of the last remaining contracts we have with our human capital assets is to provide a safe workplace environment. We have a moral and ethic responsibility to ensure to the utmost of our abilities that the wrongful action of the FTE’s and their families does not spill into the environment we call home. The vast majority of CEO’s that I have encountered are well schooled; they have just forgot the school of common sense. They have forgotten about how important our FTE’s are to the organization. We need to demonstrate that violence against another person, unless it is in your own self defense, will not be part of the organizational belief system.

How to become the critical HR leader you are meant to be

Human Resources are at a critical crossroads in today’s global marketplace. One route leaves HR where it has predominantly been from the days of National Cash Register. We are primarily charged with being the corporate fireman. We are there as the organizational administrative policeman. The downside is that you then are perceived as being a commodity or a mediocre part of the organization. The result being the functional manager’s feel they could very easily do without what you do. If you are happy in this human resource role, all the power to you. And I would suggest, that you ought to go out and get yourself a wall calendar and mark off the days until you most likely are out of a job. There was a time and a place for HR to only play this role. But that time has come and gone.                 

The other route leaves HR as the critical HR leader that you were mean to be. However to reach this goal requires a change in your cultural perspective along with that of the organization. It requires a changed mindset which recognizes HR as the gatekeeper of the successful recruitment of human capital assets which are necessary to propel the organization both  from an innovation and sustainability  outcome. So how do we get there?

HR is not the organizational “warm and fuzzy” as someone posted recently on LinkedIn, but requires the HR leaders to have a knowledge of the entire organization. Think back for a moment to the days when the family gathered around a card table and constructed those annoying 1000 piece jig saw puzzles. We have one of those puzzles to put together in the present.

Every day we as HR professionals create new policies and/or procedures to handle problems that confront the organization. Our policies and procedures represent those 1000 puzzles pieces.  Combined as a completed puzzle they create a picture we call an organization. In our organizations the finished puzzle is how all the pieces fit together.

HR can’t be the gatekeeper of that effort if they only understand the HR piece. We will never get the puzzle completed if we stick to the mentality of “that is not my job.” Living within functional silos adds to the stress of the organizational operations. It is critical that we as HR leaders learn the language of business. How do we present to management the necessary data to establish the impact of our actions on the organization?

By presenting creditable, verifiable evidence-based metrics we can show the impact of HR on the organization. By presenting data points that show Finance how we are meeting the financial goals of the organization and still meeting the talent needs the financial management of the organization begins to understand our roles within the organization. By presenting data points that show Purchasing that we able to deliver our result-oriented services and still get the biggest bang for the dollar we can meet the mission of the purchasing department. By presenting data points to sales that show that our actions have established a basis for advancing their efforts in the field in fulfilling the voice of the customer, the business development management sees that we are partners in their sales efforts. Our discussions with their clients can help identify the traits the customer seeks from the staff members they deal with leading to better job descriptions.

There is a methodology that has been around since the 1980’s to discover the viable solutions to the operating obstacles within the organization that crosses all boundaries. This methodology is called by many names ranging from continuous process improvement to six sigma problem solving method. This adult version of what you covered in your high school science classes lays out a clear roadmap to resolve these issues. Each of the steps is based on verifiable creditable metrics. The ultimate outcome is the completion of the organizational jigsaw puzzle providing everyone with an understanding of their roles within the total organization.

Want to learn more about this methodology, join us April 16-17,2015 in Orlando for a intense two-day seminar to show you how to speak the language of business. For more information visit httP;//dbaiconsulting.com/achieving-hr-excellence-through-six-sigma-seminar