Management Archives - Enterprise Management Ltd

Leveraging Mindset to Increase HR Influence

While HR creates, implements and monitors people, processes and culture, HR frequently fails to win support from decision-makers. I know my proposals were often rejected or deferred. I felt stymied since I couldn’t predict what drove the decisions. It spurred me to pivot. I took three steps to improve my influence and my role.

My first step was to accept that logic alone regularly failed to be persuasive. I needed to understand the perspectives and realities of decision-makers. To learn about their priorities, I requested individual interviews with key decision-makers. In a listening mode, I heard their current goals, recent accomplishments, current priorities and decision-making criteria. I ended each meeting by asking what actions HR could take to help them achieve their goals. It opened a constructive dialogue.

The second step was re-defining my role. Instead of identifying myself as an HR leader in a business setting, I adopted the role of a business leader in HR. While this does not seem like a significant move, it broadened my thinking and placed the organization’s health as my top concern. I could do that by using my HR skills.

The final step was to identify current business goals. It was paramount I knew what drove decisions. Only then could I develop proposals that solved pressing business issues that would win support.

Since complexity, uncertainty and change rapidly altered business drivers, I needed a way to analyze fluctuating priorities. I applied a framework of six different goals or mindsets to discern critical objectives. The categories and definitions are:

The Inventing mindset targets the development of new ideas, products and creating new internal synergies and innovation.
The Catalyzing mindset focuses on meeting customer requirements, keeping existing customers, building the brand and besting the competition.
The Developing mindset seeks a robust infrastructure, effective policies, integrated systems and goal alignment.
The Performing mindset concentrates on improving process improvement, quality, productivity, cycle time and profit margins.
The Protecting mindset prioritizes an agile culture, developing talent, enhancing teaming, improving collaboration and fostering engagement.
The Challenging mindset targets sharing best practices, recognizing emerging trends, validating operational assumptions and seeking new alliances to ensure future success.

This goal-oriented framework clarified what drove decision-makers and enabled me to include their goals in my proposals. Combining goals was relatively easy, and the practice developed trust and established me as a valued team member.

However, goals are not static. Consider how quickly the coronavirus has impacted decision making. Therefore, it was essential to check for change. Using the chart below, I stayed in alignment with decision-makers.

Discovering ways to blend business and HR goals requires some creative thinking, but it delivers superior results. Let me illustrate some examples by mindset.

The Inventing mindset

Instead of the typical wishlist suggestion program, a new approach centered on quarterly presentations to upper management with the caveat that each presenter must provide a full cost and consequences analysis. This had the added advantage of giving immediate feedback on whether the suggestions were accepted, rejected or needed additional information. This approach substantially increased the quality, quantity and approval rate of suggestions.

The Catalyzing mindset

Call center training was revamped to ensure that key points were obtained and shared during the first call. As a result, customer satisfaction increased. Another program updated the reward and commission structure to align it more closely with existing strategic goals. A new sales training program was developed to foster consultative sales methods.

The Developing priority mindset

New promotional criteria required demonstrating effective coaching and change implementation. An innovative onboarding process incorporated business knowledge to support a cross-functional orientation.

The Performing mindset

An expanded dashboard with additional in-process metrics spotted issues and successes quickly. Exit interview data was shared in an annual report, which successfully identified areas for improvement. Multiple small improvements surfaced when team leaders asked employees to make a two-percent improvement. While the request was small, the results were significant.

The Protecting mindset

A rapidly expanding firm addressed major talent shortages by developing an internal program of training, coaching and shadowing that provided the needed talent. Improving the transfer of training resulted from team-based training. Intact teams attended a training session where they identified a desired change and developed a change execution plan. Team proposals were then presented to management for approval. Resistance to change evaporated since the team ‘owned’ the initiative.

The Challenging mindset

Recommendation for new structures and policies improved the track records for mergers and acquisitions. Also, best practices were identified, shared, and recognized. Team leaders were encouraged to ask, “what should we start doing and what should we stop doing” to discover opportunities.

As these examples illustrate, HR touches the whole organization and frequently is the only function that monitors performance across the entire organization. HR is uniquely positioned to promote both macro and micro contributions. Shifting into a trusted business partner role does not require an advanced degree, it stems from collecting data, recognizing priorities and formulating novel initiatives. It is up to us to pivot into a trusted business partner role and improve organizational outcomes.

Published with permission from https://blog.hrps.org/

About Author:

DR. MARY LIPPITT https://www.enterprisemgt.com

Dr. Mary Lippitt is an award-winning author of “Brilliant or Blunder: 6 Ways Leaders Navigate Uncertainty, Opportunity, and Complexity.” She founded Enterprise Management Ltd. in 1984 to provide leaders with practical and effective solutions to navigate the modern business climate using situational mastery. Dr. Lippitt is a thought leader and speaker on executing change, optimal leadership, and situational analysis. She currently teaches in the MBA program at the University of South Florida. Mary is also the author of Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters.

Perception Traps: Distortions and Deficits

Is seeing believing? It should not be. Our perceptions can be superficial and incomplete. Car accident witnesses describe the same event differently. Architects, security personnel and employees see the same office, but what registers with them varies significantly. We see through our filters without even recognizing that we employ a limited lens. Being conscious of our own perception biases improves teamwork, engagement, and results. It can also improve communication with others.

We must recognize that we register a narrow slice of reality because we rely on what we already “know.” We like observations that confirm our past experience. And, this means we miss the opportunity to identify what is new and what is possible. These perceptional deficiencies can be overcome in several ways:

1. We have a perception deficiency that is best addressed by asking others what they see. The picture above illustrated that there are multiple accurate interpretations of the same reality. Some may focus on the white vase, while others concentrate on the profiles of two people. Accepting that there are other valid points of view increases our ability to understand reality as well as ensure that we see all that there is to see.

2. We conquer perceptual distortions by keeping our minds open and rejecting all stereotypes. Labels gloss over distinctions. They also encourage simplistic thinking and an unwarranted belief that we know all that we need to know. Stereotypes also reduce cooperation and teamwork. Kierkegaard captured this reality when he stated: “Once you label me, you negate me.” When we attach a label to someone, we stop paying attention to them. Labels transform the other person into one of “THEM,” which is an impersonal, and usually less respectful, abstraction. Stereotypes blind us as certainly as if we were wearing blinders. An every day, and all too common, example is using age to assume competency. Can a person over 40 really know how to handle IT problems? The answer is yes. It depends on their training, continued development and experience not their age.

3. Distorted and fixed perceptions are dangerous. Our world is becoming more complex, integrated and agile, and that static points of view limit our ability to collect information and recognize patterns. Holding onto a narrow view means we make mistakes because our actions are based on incomplete knowledge. Convinced in our accuracy, we refuse to adjust our views or consider other options. Instead of listening to different points of view, we prefer to have others just agree with us. When others realize that our mind is made up, they stop sharing information since it becomes a waste of their time.

We get our eyes examined to ensure that we see clearly. We must also test our perceptions. For as Thoreau noted: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” We must continually test our perceptional mindsets before we accept what we initially see as all that there is to see.

About Author:

Dr. Mary Lippitt, an award-winning author, consultant, and speaker, founded Enterprise Management Ltd. to help leaders with critical analysis. Her new book, Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters was published last year with a Foreword from Daivd Covey. She can be reached at mlippitt@enterprisemgt.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/marylippitt/

Targeting What Matters When It Matters

Adopting a narrow or fixed perspective is both foolish and dangerous. My MBA students frequently and fervently embrace a single answer, but in their rush to provide an answer they overlook key aspects and alternatives. Experienced decision makers know to dig deeper to see all that they can to address what most important, rather than wasting resources on what appears promising or urgent. They know their role is to ask the right questions more than delivering an answer.

When we drive our cars, we do not rely exclusively on the view through the windshield. We check the side and rear mirrors and this expanded awareness ensure our safety. Relying on a single point of view, or past practice discounts alternate perspectives as immaterial or mistaken. Such a laser-like focus equates to wearing blinders. But the other extreme of trying to focus on everything equally produces confusion derailing achievement.

Not everything warrants immediate attention. The urgent should not obscure the important. Decision makers must make the right call at the right time for the right results.

We can access mountains of data but extracting information, detecting patterns, and understanding the implications requires critical thinking and analysis. Mining insights requires discipline rather than an advanced degree, an elevated IQ, or a lofty title. Critical and situational analysis is not rocket science, and it is not bestowed on just a few of us. What is needed is to develop the ability to ask questions and gauge current conditions before jumping to conclusions.

Decision makers at all levels must effectively scan their environment, extract key insights, discover alternatives, evaluate risk and target key issues. And that cannot be done relying on our memory. Most of us have a working memory (the number of things we can pay attention to and manipulate at one time) of only three or four items at a time (https://www.livescience.com/2493-mind-limit-4.html). Therefore, we must train decision makers to collect and gauge the glut of information in a systematic manner to avoid blind spots.

If we fail to see all that there is to see, we pay a high price. Consider Tide PODS. Procter & Gamble launched one of their most innovative products in 2012. The brightly colored packets have captured one-fifth of the laundry detergent market by 2018. Yet, that success has to be balanced with eight deaths and over 9,000 poisonings. Could that have been foreseen? Many would argue that the risk could have been identified since young children are attracted to vivid colors and shapes that they can hold. A risk assessment would have identified it as probably and severe.

Likewise, Boeing could have anticipated software problem with their flight-control system. How do we know this? Boeing offered their customers, at an additional cost, a Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) system enhancement to override potential malfunction in an angle of attack sensor. Given that 737 Max 8 cost over $100 million and the fallout from a failure, the decision to charge extra for the additional software was a major red flag demanding attention. That short-sighted decision combined with a reduced amount of pilot training combined to increase risk and cost the firm approximately one billion dollars. Tide PODS and the 737 Max 8 had foreseeable and overlooked dangers.

Decision makers need to focus on asking questions to know what to do and when to do it based on current relevant information. What questions are you asking to guarantee that your team can target critical issues?

“Targeting What Matters When It Matters” was originally published on 25 April 2019 in BIZCATALYST 360°.

Bridging Executive Team Conflict

One of my clients was entering a strategic planning process with a dysfunctional executive team. The team was stuck over how to plan for the future. The lack of harmony was attributed to perceived personal slights, pressure tactics, and lack of information. In this case, resistance and competition replaced collaboration and the chance for agreement was never established.

Background on the Team

My client, a newly hired president of an international firm, wanted to adopt a new strategy he had crafted by himself. His team of six vice-presidents actively resisted the plan. The client said that the vice-presidents were “just stuck in the past.” He believed they sought to limit his success and tenure since several had applied for his position. He wanted me to interview each team member to start a bridge-building process with a one-day offsite meeting.

The Beginning of the Bridge to Conflict

During interviews, the vice-presidents voiced objections to the president’s “go it alone” style and his lack of industry knowledge since he was new to the industry. The prevailing opinions were that he was grandstanding for the board and was not interested in working collaboratively. The fact that the president did not consult staff in developing the strategic plan was used as an example of his Lone Ranger approach. It was clear that the team was at an impasse. From the interviews, I also discovered, while there were entrenched positions, everyone wanted the organization to succeed. Therefore, I chose to focus on identifying shared organizational outcomes to shift the team’s focus away from personal suppositions to objective analysis. My goal was to engage them in a results-oriented search to discover a mutually acceptable plan for the future. Since the strategic plan was the official cause of the breakdown, it made sense to focus on strategy.

Discovery of Mindsets

In my experience, many strategic discussions revolve around vague aspirational statements which offer encouragement but little direction, definition, or measures. This executive team needed to agree on something specific and measurable. My assumption was that strategic alignment would rupture the personal stereotypes, trigger discussion, and allow the team to critically assess alternatives. Therefore, in preparation for the off-site meeting, I asked all attendees to complete the Leadership Spectrum Profile® and review the generated report. The Profile examines six organizational goals and how they currently drive an individual’s goals and priorities. It also creates a common vocabulary for discussing advantages, constraints, and trade-offs among those goals. In addition, it focuses on existing circumstances and goals rather than past actions, offering an opportunity to explore facts and alternatives. The six situational mindset goals concentrate on:

1. innovation or being seen as state-of-the-art,

2. customer and growth focus,

3. seamless infrastructure and policies,

4. productivity, quality, and ROI,

5. change-ready engaged culture with strong bench strength, and

6. new trends, business models, and niches.

The team was asked to complete the inventory based on their assessment of the best strategic orientation. After completing the inventory, each member received a report on their goal orientation. A composite team profile without names was presented at the off-site and the composite revealed a split with six individuals in agreement and one with a different perspective. Offering the results without attribution enabled participants to identify their positions and kicked off a productive discussion of the strategic priorities. The six vice-presidents shared a common focal point on improving quality and internal processes. This point of view or situational mindset prefers evolutionary change, risk mitigation, and has an internal focus at this time. The president’s mindset targeted expanding the customer base and growing market share. This growth-oriented goal values revolutionary change, external focus and accepts risk for the opportunity for great rewards. After an open discussion, they each discussed the facts, events, observations, and evidence that drove their thinking about their priority or desired path for the future. During that exchange, the president learned that large corporate accounts were being lost and the vice-presidents learned that the board had mandated the president’s growth strategy to improve ROI. These insights defused some of the tension, but a division remained.

The Connection Between Organization Life Cycle Stages and Strategy

The next step was to connect the organization life cycle stages and strategy. While the group was not familiar with the organizational life cycle model (Lippitt, 2014), they recognized it since it mirrored their product and project life cycles. They also knew that different actions were essential at each stage. After defining the six stages of organization life cycles as Birth or Start-up, Growth, Stature, Prime, Mature, and Renewal stage, I asked each person to select their organization’s current stage. This discussion exposed the same split presented by the inventory findings. The president selected the Growth stage since it reflected his board mandate. The vice-presidents split between Stature and Prime. The tone in the room changed when they mapped their differing individual perspectives onto the organization life cycle model and talked about their reality. The group recognized the organization was past the entrepreneurial Growth stage with a respected brand and well-established policies. The firm was moving into the Prime stage where the focus revolves around process improvement, quality, and ROI. The premise that market growth was the only way to improve ROI was debunked.

Bridging Differences

The vice-presidents shared many additional internal issues that were unknown to the president. Problems, including quality issues, information system failures, and staff shortages, were undermining productivity, morale, and quality. As the president absorbed this key information, he understood his staff had rejected his fast growth strategy since the loss of major accounts stemmed from operational flaws rather than competitive factors. While the president had assumed that the vice-presidents were driven by personal motivations, he now realized it was due to current circumstances. His demeanor changed. He listened and learned what was holding the organization back from the success everyone wanted. He also realized that before the organization could grow, they had to halt the hemorrhaging of major accounts. It did not take long before an internal improvement strategy targeting operational flaws was formalized. The team agreed, when this strategy was achieved, they would develop another plan based on newer vital needs.

Conclusion

Once they agreed on their goal priorities, the executive team estimated the financial impact of the lost accounts on their bottom line. They developed a pitch for the Board that showed the importance of addressing quality. They also agreed a new strategy would be presented after quality concerns were addressed, and that the next strategic thrust might be market growth, assuming the situation warranted it. The president’s presentation to the Board highlighted the fact that getting new customers and then having them leave due to operational shortcomings not only wasted marketing efforts but also impacted the brands’ reputation. After all, dissatisfied customers not only stop using the firm but also spread their negative experience with others. The Board accepted a “build it and they will come” approach to meet current challenges and improve ROI. A once dysfunctional team coalesced around a shared reality and the need for results. Personal attributions were superseded by shared common results-oriented goals.

Sources

Dewey, J. (1910). How we think. Boston, MA: Heath & Company.

Greiner, L. (1998). Evolution and revolution as organizations grow. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https:// hbr.org/1998/05/evolution-and-revolutionas-organizations-grow

Janis, I. (1991). Victims of group think. Political Psychology, 12(2), 247–278.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Lippitt, G. (1982). Organization renewal: A holistic approach to organization development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Lippitt, M. (1999). Leadership Spectrum Profile® Inventory. Retrieved from https://www.leadershipspectrum.com

Lippitt, M. (2014). Brilliant or blunder: Six ways leaders navigate uncertainty, opportunity, and complexity. Palm Harbor, FL: Enterprise Management Limited.

Pink, D. (2005). A whole new mind: Moving from the information age to the conceptual age. New York: Riverhead Books.

Using Checklists and Statistics to Get in Sync With Reality

I was recently struck by my seeming lack of perspective on global developments while reading Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–And Why Things Are Better Than You Think. My only consolation was that I was not alone; 95 percent of the people held the same views, according to the author, statistician Hans Rosling.

One of the questions I missed was according to Rosling was: In the last 20 years has the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty:

Almost doubled
Stayed approximately the same
Almost halved

Would you be surprised to learn of Rosling’s claim that extreme poverty has been cut by almost 50 percent? I was. In fact, I barely considered option three. My preconceived ideas, my repeated exposure to tragic news stories and, to be honest, my reliance on outdated facts led me to conclude that poverty had almost doubled.

While I am in good company since almost everyone was mistaken, the fact is both comforting and disturbing. It means most of us are out of sync with our current reality. Why is this? The causes include: (1) our assumption that we already know everything we need to know, (2) a tendency to expect the worst case is the most likely outcome, (3) a proclivity to reduce issues to two simple options and (4) time pressures.

If you are not convinced of the extent of this problem, consider another question: Which statement do you agree with the most?

the world is getting better
the world is getting worse
the world is getting neither better nor worse

The correct answer is A, according to Rosling, and the data that he uses to support this contention includes: significant increase in literacy, agricultural yields have increased, more people have electricity, more groups are allowed to vote, child cancer rates have improved, access to potable water has grown, more girls are in school, and technology has spread widely to less developed nations. Many of us failed to see this program. We seem to see the world as a glass half empty, rather than half full. Moreover, this notion creates fear derailing critical thinking and analysis.

What we know “for sure” is rarely entirely accurate. Sometimes our knowledge is obsolete, and at other times it is incomplete. To understand our current circumstance, we must stop thinking we know more than we do and start asking questions to fully understand all the issues enabling us to examine the facts critically. Critical thinking is vital as we confront rapid change and complexity. It exposes misconceptions, while also producing wiser more rewarding decisions.

Knowing that we infrequently update our knowledge and overlook information that does not conform to our pre-existing assumptions , we need new tools. Deploying a checklist has proven successful in medicine, aviation, litigation, and construction not because of ineptitude or ignorance but due to inherent cognitive flaws. Instead of being a constraint, checklists free our minds to concentrate on critical aspects, prevent small mistakes and save time. Now it is time for leaders at all levels to develop, share and use checklists to stay in sync with their current reality.

The book cited here is: Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Roennlund, (2019) FACTFULNESS: ten reasons we’re wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think. [London: Sceptre Publishing]

About Author:

Critical and Strategic Thinking Builds Agility

Leaders say they want to boost creativity, critical thinking and agility to improve performance and manage change. Research studies confirm the accuracy of those statements. Who wouldn’t want their staff to be quick on their feet, display ingenuity, offer critical insights, or make effective strategic choices? However, there is no consensus on how to boost agile thinking or increase brain capacity beyond the standard 10% utilization. Read More

Top 4 Mistakes Women Make in the Workplace

The road to the C-suite is littered with well-meaning, well-qualified workers who never quite get there. So what is the difference-maker?

Executive coach and consultant Dr. Mary Lippitt has worked with hundreds of leaders, from Fortune 500 executives to top Pentagon officials, and she’s conducted research on thousands of people to study how they make choices. Read More

Stages of Conflict Impact Decision Making

By Mary Lippitt | February 3, 2015

Conflict Stages Impact Successful Group Decision Making

Recently, I resigned from a volunteer Board of Directors due to protracted and unproductive conflict. The Board suffered from heated verbal exchanges and deep-rooted personality conflicts, which diverted energy and stymied decision making. This experience seems all too common among groups. The American Management Association sponsored research, reported that middle managers spent 20% of their time resolving conflict while executives spent 18% of their time dealing with conflict. The AMA defined conflict as a breakdown in decision making mechanisms.

This situation extends beyond volunteer Boards of Directors. All types of executive and leadership teams experience conflict that leads to inept decision making practices. Whether it is repeatedly rehashing a past decision, keeping an issue “under consideration” for prolonged periods, withholding information, or permitting cliques to form the result is often ineffective communication and action. These dysfunctional behaviors can stem from a conviction that divergent views originate from personal agendas or self-serving intentions.

This personal lens blurs objective analysis that would make conflicts easier to resolve. Professional experience, including different educational backgrounds, typically produces distinctive conclusions on the best course of action. When unique ideas are first examined through a rational lens, creative resolutions are revealed and collaboration is enhanced. A focus on content encourages exploration for common ground, while personal stereotypes inhibit consensus.

Stages of Conflict

We all recognize that conflict can be constructive, as well as destructive. Initially, conflict can generate benefits, but in later stages a negative spiral can result. These stages can be depicted as moving from rational examination of content into personal labels. The following depicts the progression in the stages of conflict:

During the first two stages of conflict, difference over ideas and goals, innovative proposals and initiative can emerge. In these instances, differences are viewed as productive brainstorming and as steps to discovering new alternatives. Starting with an objective analysis of the idea produces better solutions, improves teamwork and reduces time required to make decisions. However, when conflict is attributed to personality or values, the likelihood of a promising outcome fades and the issue becomes a matter of who wins and who loses. In these situations, positions harden and creative problem solving vanishes.

The illustration above reflects the increasing breadth and depth of conviction when issues are viewed personally. Like the iceberg that the chart resembles, what is below the surface is the most dangerous. Just like the Titanic on its mad dash to establish a world record for an Atlantic crossing, when we jump into making characterizations we lose.

My decision to resign from the Board grew from personal conflicts, which are hard to repair. Perceptions, rather than thoughtful analysis, drove the board’s actions. People did not have the opportunity to “make their case” as accusations of hidden agendas, attempts to settle scores, the use of power plays, and rampant insecurity replaced fair consideration of ideas. The Board’s effectiveness suffered as many of its members elected to view conflict from a personal lens.

If you currently serve on a team, remind your team that divergent views are a constructive step toward excellence. The benefit may not be more effectiveness, but you will avoid wasting your time in unproductive exchanges—and retain your membership.

Also published at http://bizcatalyst360.com/conflict-stages-impact-successful-group-decision-making/

Cultivating a Culture of Engagement

The childhood fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk leads us to believe that it is possible to toss out a handful of magic seeds and instantly garner overnight success. Leaders trying to implement a culture change within their organizations may mistakenly believe this same kind of “magic” is possible. Unfortunately, organizational change through cultivating a culture of engagement requires more deliberate actions over a longer period of time. Past cultural transformational efforts, such as six sigma practices, visionary transformations, or various other change efforts, proves the case. Depending on the research study, the success rate of these change efforts varies between 9% and 30%. Even the high end findings are not very encouraging. It is clear that wishing for change and implementing it are very different. Read More