Taking that a step further, Randy Ottinger, Executive Vice President (EVP) of Kotter International believes it’s imperative for all organisations to strive for disruptive innovation. By achieving innovation that disrupts the market, you will force your competitors to deliver their own disruptive change strategies in response.

According to Ottinger, at this very moment, there is a high probability either your organisation is disrupting other companies, or you’re being disrupted yourself.

The research tells us, that for an organisation to meet these challenges, it needs its workforce to become agile and adopt agile thinking. But what does an agile workforce and agile thinking look like? How does a workforce become agile? Is there an authority on workforce agility?

Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Our recent review of workforce agility literature, found limited research, with most focusing on the speed and flexibility of workforce agility from an operations perspective.

How do you create agility?

The research available concludes that an agile workforce is adaptive, flexible, developmental, innovative, collaborative, competent, fast and informative in nature¹. A study, conducted in 2008, on how to improve workforce agility, identified the following management strategies²:

• Foster a workplace environment that encourages autonomy and empowers employees to seek their own solutions, make decisions and take calculated risks.
• Provide clear expectations and direction to encourage confidence, which is critical for the development of agility.
• Establish a collaborative culture and provide opportunities for collaboration amongst employees and external groups, such as suppliers and customers.
• Increase role scope to provide a variety of tasks and responsibilities, which can be achieved through implementing matrix organisational structures.

Another strategy I would add is to establish and facilitate innovation forums – setting up innovation/problem solving teams (or events) to address specific organisational challenges and/or opportunities, assigning targeted roles within those groups and facilitating short, sharp workshops where the challenge is solved or opportunity progressed quickly to approval and implementation.

Essentially, if our workforce has these traits, our organisation is potentially agile enough to effectively embrace disruptive change, and generate disruptive innovation.

The Pace of Disruption

The definition of agility is the ability to move quickly and easily. Therefore, it’s important to respond to disruptive change or a competitor’s disruptive innovation quickly and decisively.

The fact that disruption tends to develop gradually over time is one of the main reasons market incumbents often don’t perceive disrupters as a credible enough threat to warrant a response, and are overlooked.

An article in the Harvard Business Review discussing disruptive innovation details the example of Netflix and how it destroyed Blockbuster³. When Netflix launched in 1997, its initial service wasn’t appealing to the majority of Blockbuster’s customers, who typically rented movies (primarily new releases) on impulse. Netflix customers could only access services online, and movies they wanted to watch were mailed to them via the postal service. This delay was certainly one of the reasons Blockbuster chose to ignore their competitor.

As new technologies allowed Netflix to shift to streaming however, the company became far more appealing to Blockbuster’s customer base. Netflix offered unlimited streaming of movies and television shows, for a monthly cost of what approximately two overnight new release rentals were at Blockbuster. In 2015, approximately 42.5 billion hours of streamed content had been consumed by its customers. By the fourth quarter of 2016, Netflix had a global subscriber count of approximately 86.7 million people, 34 million of those are from non-US countries. Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010 and by 2014, Netflix was worth $28 billion dollars, about ten times what Blockbuster was worth at its prime.

Finding the Balance

Ultimately, agile organisations manage change disruption and instigate disruption innovation at the same time.

In a recent book, published by Dr John Kotter, he describes this methodology as a “dual operating system”, which allows management to maintain structure and systems whilst simultaneously allowing the organisation ample opportunity to develop innovation opportunities.

Another Harvard Business Review article discusses disruptive change, and the importance of leaders being able to identify what an organisation is capable and incapable of handling⁴. Not all businesses will have the resources to both manage change disruption and instigate disruption at the same time. However, in order to keep up and thrive in today’s marketplace, it is imperative to find the delicate balance to achieve short-term financial results, and the agility to quickly seize new windows of opportunity. As Randy Ottinger explains⁵:

“If there is not enough management in the organisation, crucial breakdowns occur in the day-to-day operations. If there is not enough innovation, change do not occur quickly enough, your people can lose their passion, your products can become outdated – and worse, your business can become irrelevant.”

References

1. Muduli, A. (2013). Workforce Agility: A Review of Literature. IUP Journal of Management Research, Vol 7, No 3
2. Sherehiy, B. (2008). Relationships Between Agility Strategym Work Organisation and Workforce Agility. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. UMI Microform 3308333
3. Christensen, C., Raynor, M. & McDonald, R. (2015). What is Disruptive Innovation? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation
4. Christensen, C. & Overdof, M. (2000). Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2000/03/meeting-the-challenge-of-disruptive-change
5. Ottinger, R. (2013). Disrupt or Be Disrupted. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2013/04/03/how-to-lead-through-business-disruption/#4d0d413470b6

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As part of the 2016 AIPM Conference, a Gala Awards night recognised a range project management achievements, culminating in the National and Regional Project of the Year.

After winning the National Organisational Change Management category, Queensland Rail’s Rail Management Centre (RMC) project then went on to win the National and Regional Project of the Year Award.

As the Change Management Project Partner for the RMC project, Stockwell Bretton were recognised for their role in overseeing the challenging transition into the new centre, alongside the introduction of new equipment and updated operating procedures, while building strong local ownership for the change.

The RMC facility is immensely critical to public transport in South East Queensland, with more than 250 Queensland Rail RMC staff supporting around 900 passenger services, 800 kilometres of track and 150,000 customers each weekday.

Managing Partner of Stockwell Bretton said it is great to be recognised in partnership with Queensland Rail amongst elite company and significant projects.

“There were many exceptional projects recognised at the National and Regional level and to win both our category (Change Management) and the Project of the Year at State, National and Regional level is a sensational result.

“The RMC project is a demonstration of how a collaborative and well considered approach to large changes can provide great results.

“We are grateful to Queensland Rail for embracing our open and proactive approach which provides the impacted staff with an opportunity to shape and support not just the change sequence, but also the long term operations.

“We were very lucky to be supported by strong leaders who helped us prepare and execute each stage of the transition using a ‘best for business approach’ that included capability, operational and cultural improvements”, Mr Bretton said.

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As described by Luke Beveridge, the General Manager of Football had given him a copy of the book and he was surprised at how the book used a simple story to provide a powerful message around confronting your fears.

The book was used as a central plank of their language and culture, inspiring the team to get out of their comfort zone, face their fears and a bag record-breaking premiership. Fittingly, the final page of the book spoke about running into the fire, which was really what they had to do when facing their much-favoured opponents in the Sydney Swans on Grand Final Day.

While it’s been a long time since I’ve considered trying to write a children’s story, it does remind me of the work we do to help clients create big, powerful, repeatable stories to get them through their most wicked challenges. These stories are underpinned and expressed through things that you can make use of in a lot of different scenarios, such as value and vision statements, corporate objectives and employee value propositions. These elements provide a way to anchor your stories and link your cultural drivers to highly visible elements.

I have seen some stories used to good effect within teams where mantras like “Good to Great”, Looks good, works well” and “Think One Team” inspire a focus on quality, commitment and achieving that extra 1 per cent. Each of these Mantras typically had a set of actions, messages, images and objectives associated with it that helped it to become a meaningful set of concepts similar to what you see in a good story.

In some other companies I have seen the history of the company, the pride in the products and the richness, scale or the diversity of the business form a highly motivating story. Equally, the service provided to the customer and the meaning in the contribution to the bigger, aspirational picture – when replicated across a business, tells a powerful and highly relatable story. In time, this type of story, if cultivated by the right leader and used in the right way can shape a culture and in turn, underpin a strong and sustainable focus on performance.

On the flip side, the wrong stories can tear a team or a company apart. Stories of division, entitlement, confusion and criticism can ensure that the ability to inspire a group internally or externally is greatly reduced. The same can be said for stories that do not hit the mark because their elements are too complicated, disconnected and not created in a way that connects with the people.

So, how do you build and nurture a story that can deliver you your fairytale premiership? These four themes are a good place to start.

1. Simple

Simple stories can be easily recalled, repeated and applied to many different situations. This is the distinct advantage that the kid’s book had in that it is inherently simple, but within its simple content you can draw many parallels and use its learnings in many different situations. The more detailed you get and the more specific you get, the less broad appeal you have. It also almost goes without saying that it’s hard to memorize a complex story, let alone tell it correctly.

2. Human

Building on the idea of a simple story, the next steps is to make it really relatable. A good story needs to connect with people at across many levels and areas, authentically. This means less jargon, less corporate speak and more human, emotive and well-grounded statements. Human stories are boosted by human imagery like faces, in addition to open and honest discussion that demonstrates real empathy and where possible, vulnerability.

3. Inspiring

Stories in this context have a purpose and more often than not they are in place to support an improvement or a maintenance if a great standard. Many teams and companies talk about achieving that “extra one per cent” and statements like this need to be supported by stories to make them applicable to the everyday. Stories also need to be inspiring to ensure they are attractive. Attraction is an important part of getting your people to commit that space in their crowded attention span, in addition to their memory. In a corporate sense, it’s important to, make sure that your high level corporate objectives can be broken down into meaningful chunks that people can relate to in their role. These chunks form part of the story that gives their everyday effort meaning and connection to the bigger effort.

4. Visual

Giving a good story a strong visual representation helps people to understand and recall the key concepts without using reams of text. This can be achieved through both using the right descriptions (like a good novel) and using great graphics such as infographics explaining a journey, genuine (non-stock) photography and clever sketched images that give a unique feel to the composition.

Wrap up

So, just like the western bulldogs – keep your eyes open for the right combination of concepts to help your team do something amazing. Remember, to test it well with your people and the more you can get your leaders to embody the story, the better the result will be.

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When John Guare wrote a play about the (at the time) impossible idea that all people across the world were only 6 degree’s of separation apart, little could he know that today in 2016 that number is closer to 3.5. I am a big supporter of the world community coming closer together due to all of the positive ramifications it has on industrial and technological advancement and a shared sense of community responsibility.

So why is it, in today’s society, that “Big Business” and the large corporates are still held up as being the premier measuring stick for organizational performance? Yes, they have the largest profits and revenue and are seen as the preferred option for cultivating thought leadership and technological advancement but what if we set aside the dollar aspects of what makes great organizational performance and focused on the impact to the world? What makes for successful organizational performance to the individual person? In todays society it seems to be moving more toward satisfying a social conscience need developed and cultivated through a shrinking global environment.

The fact that any individual who is passionate about their ideas and beliefs these days has an opportunity to almost automatically connect with like-minded people and publish their thoughts and ideas on a global scale through the click of a button has the potential to redefine the way we look at doing business and creating employee satisfaction. I’m not talking about the incessant Instagram pictures of Saturday nights degustation menu, nor the retweeted ramblings of a reality TV “star” but rather truly world and community changing idea’s and philosophies. Should we be looking to employee’s to enter a global stage of thought leadership rather than inserting them into a cog like structure within (as an example)the big four (banking or otherwise).

Of course the Big Four exist to make a profit, that is their remit and are renowned for their work because society still rates profitability as the cornerstone of success. But in today’s closely connected world surely we should be looking to measure Organisational Performance through more than just dollar figures and number of partners.

So lets just dream for the moment, dream of a world which based success upon the betterment of fellow humans, animals and environments rather than dollars and acquisitions. A world in which any individual, either representing a business entity or their own interests would devote their time and talents to ensuring that all of the negative and abhorrent visions now streamed to us all daily could become a thing of the past. What if social responsibility became the new currency?

Organisations would benefit from their ability to understand and address society’s deficiencies and conflicts through applying their human capital and thought leadership to working through such problems. Teams and individuals would focus away from looking to solve a 12-18 month issue for business and focus on providing solutions to poverty, animal cruelty, illness and healthcare and environmental concerns. There would be a new world order in organizational performance, where the “Big Four” would be made up of organisations such as World Widelife Fund, Greenpeace, Unicef and Doctors Without Borders.

This is not a new idea by any means. Already the large corporates seek to give back in small ways to the community but in this globalized environment we find ourselves there requires a mindset shift to accomplish great change.

An example of some of the steps towards realizing this mindset is the work of Professor Muhammed Yunus and Saskia Bruysten. Based upon Nobel Peace Prize Laureat Professor Yunus’ work towards creating a world without poverty, they developed the ideology and later business entity of “Social Business”. The premise of Social Business is defined through its seven principles:

1. Business objective will be to overcome poverty, or one or more problems (such as education, health, technology access, and environment) which threaten people and society; not profit maximization.
2. Financial and economic sustainability.
3. Investors get back their investment amount only. No dividend is given beyond investment money.
4. When investment amount is paid back, company profit stays with the company for expansion and improvement.
5. Gender sensitive and environmentally conscious.
6. Workforce gets market wage with better working conditions.
7. …do it with joy.

This type of mindset takes a step towards a higher level of corporate responsibility, away from the fundraisers and volunteer days Big Business already involve themselves in.

So whilst it may not be mainstream anytime soon, in a world in which we are being brought closer together, sharing each other’s and the planets misfortunes and concerns, perhaps it is time to rethink the way in which we define organizational performance and focus more on how we can perform more effectively on a global scale.

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Darlene Quirk is one of our youngest consultants and she is writing a set of articles that profile her view on the areas that we work in every day. With a fresh perspective and an eye for opportunity, Darlene’s articles will provide valuable reading for young professionals looking to make sense of their environment and connect theory to practice.

Within every organisation there is a set of behaviours that form a shared culture, a culture which more often than not can determine the success of a company.

I have experience first-hand how a healthy corporate culture not only retains valued employees and reduces human resource costs, but it also secures a positive reputation among employees and customers. I have witnessed how this can have a flow-on effect to other teams within a department, thus creating an all-round improvement in the organisation’s morale and enthusiasm.

Culture is also a big driver of success and this is becoming more commonly recognised today. At first glance, some may consider success is due to a company’s corporate strategy, operational discipline or business models. While these elements are certainly important, culture is now being recognised alongside these traditional elements as a key driver of performance.

As difficult as it is to define corporate culture, it is even more complicated to change it. This is because culture in a workplace can be heavily influenced by the original beliefs of the founder or early leadership. This influence can persist for an extended period of time beyond changes in the organisations leadership or structure. Therefore, making changes to corporate culture is ultimately asking a workplace to change its attitude, behaviour, beliefs and traditions – traits and characteristics which may have been in place for many years.

Without a doubt, there are work environments where toxic culture can drive adverse and pessimistic behaviours within teams, which in turn deters high performing staff and prohibits business from reaching its maximum potential. Through my experience, I have witnessed how unhealthy work culture can manifest from merely one or two unhappy employees to impact an entire group. Fortunately, I was in a position where I could nip this in the bud quickly by having some open and honest conversations with the employees and getting to the root cause of their behaviour. However, in most circumstances, it’s not that simple. So, how can you make a difference in this space without bringing attention to the fact that there could potentially be a problem? Below are my tips on how to influence culture in the workplace:

• Lead by example; and demonstrate the attitude, behaviour and beliefs that the company wants to portray. Because leading in a way that agrees with what you say, translates your intention into reality.
• Recognise employee accomplishments, valuable contributions and say thank you. We all want to be recognised when we do well, this is human nature; and employees expect to be acknowledged when they excel in the workplace. A small gesture, such as a thank you, goes a long way when it is sincere.
• Take a proactive approach to avoid overworking top performing employees. We’ve all been there; in an environment when we are overloaded with work, yet expectations remain the same. It’s difficult to maintain a positive work environment in such circumstances and it’s easier to rely on the employees you know you can always count on to get the job down. However, tread carefully, as this is where toxic culture can sometimes fester. Encourage staff to work together and share the workload where you can.
• Cultivate coworker relationships. Strengthening workplace relationships encourages employee engagement; however this can take time and effort, but the reward will be an increase in team morale, employee engagement and increased attendance.
• Practice and encourage flexibility. This is not a new concept, and there are boundaries; however flexibility in the workplace recognises staff as more than just a resource, and can assist in improving quality of life thus increasing productivity.
• Provide constructive feedback and have real conversations with employees. I used to make a habit of collecting my printing from the other side of the office. Not only was this an opportunity for me to step away from my desk, but it also provided me with a chance to strike up conversations with staff I passed by – to merely see how they are going. This usually starts off around home life or the weekend, and then flows onto how they are managing with work. It doesn’t take long before such conversations develop into feedback sessions, informal at that, however enough to provide encouragement to an employee, boost morale and show that you care. Such engagements need not take up much of your time. As it only takes a few minutes to touch base, and have a candid conversation.

Influencing culture in a workplace is not an easy feat, however with a combined effort from management and leadership staff, results will ultimately follow. The key is persistence. No matter how busy your workplace gets, take the time to maintain focus on your culture. Make a conscious effort for culture to be a priority and lead by example, because without a healthy culture, there isn’t a healthy brand.

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When I made the transition from being a “doer” within the workplace to leading teams, the question I found myself asking was how do I identify individuals in my team who are potential leaders to help me get the job done?

In a culture where managing change has become a necessary element of day-to-day business for leaders and managers, I feel it is important to recognise those who will influence their peers and help drive transformation within an organisation. Not only will these employees assist in times of transition within workplaces, but they too will deliver results and help you as a leader support continuous achievement of business objectives.

From my point of view, leadership is about developing your people and encouraging them to grow; to take on the right level of workload, at a pace they can handle. Leadership behaviours I cherish are personal character, attitude, and the ability to make decisions and be inspirational to others. Something I learned early on in my career was that although leading and managing people go hand-in-hand, leadership does not depend on the type of management methods and processes used. Instead, I believe that leadership revolves around the way a leader uses the methods and processes in place and leadership leverages attitudinal qualities that sit above the management processes. In summary, I believe that strong leaders need to be good managerial operators but the real value comes from the emotive stuff.

Guiding potential leaders is very different to leading the doers. First and foremost, potential leaders are generally high achievers, rising stars with the smarts, ambition and hunger to dream big and make it to the top. This is why leaders are required to support and encourage people to lead themselves. To fuel the inspiration and vision, and build on the confidence staff require to lead themselves. Consider this, if you want the best from people, they must first believe they are capable of more, and then that giving more matters. Secondly, make clear requests for meaningful outcomes. Leaders who entrust others to deliver results, develop similarly cultivated leaders, so I encourage you to challenge your people push their limits and learn from their efforts.

Potential leaders are typically well versed with workplace systems and processes, as well as the organisation structure and existing culture. They have conviction and are passionate about their workplace. They are also aware of the organisation’s strengths—and, more importantly, weaknesses, as this allows them to make improved and more informed decisions.

Specific behaviours which can assist in building potential leaders include leading by example, as well as listening more and speaking less. Within this area, a key element is the ability to recognise and enable subordinates who are more accomplished, knowledgeable and experienced than you are in their specialised area of responsibility.

Leaders are not defined by their job titles. Many get their opportunity when someone in a senior position recognises their spark and drive, and helps shape their development. I have experienced this first-hand whereby senior staff pulled me aside after a meeting requesting me to elaborate on comments I had made. By sharing my viewpoint and opinion directly with senior decision makers in a candid environment gave them an opportunity to observe why I was so enthusiastic about a particular topic, idea or decision.

Furthermore, it was during a time of reflection after my encounter that I realised a great lesson had been learnt. That lesson is to include all your big thinkers in a room at once to solve your most wicked problems, irrespective of position and title, otherwise you tempt the possibility of big ideas getting “lost in the shuffle” of upward approval processes.

Therefore I encourage leaders to take a closer look at your team and identify the players who are potential leaders that you can count on to help you get the job done. Let’s inspire, empower and motivate our potential leaders; and make a difference in employee attitude, performance and ultimately the organisation’s success.

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The results were stunning. In many cases, the middle managers were receiving double the amount of email when compared to their leaders and they had a whole lot less time and resources to manage the requests and directions that those messages contained.

This led to a targeted piece of work that provided planning and education tools to help middle managers see and prepare for upcoming events (such as results briefings, performance reviews and budgeting), in addition to training around communications and prioritization skills.

The other critical aspect to this work is the management of leader expectations in terms of both scale of items to manage and capability to deal with it. The tough part of being a middle manager is that often you need to have the strategic perspective of the leader but you also need to keep your operational “management” focus which is about getting the job done on time, on budget and in a way that keeps your frontline teams happy.

For this reason, I always take a great interest in the capability and duties of the middle management layer when assessing the health of any organisation. This critical juncture between strategy and operations is often the point where projects can succeed or fail and often the time is not taken to really engage and enable these people. The crazy thing is that these people will be leading your organisation in the next 5-10 years and if you don’t give them the support and capability to make things work well in your company, they will be well positioned to step up with one of your competitors.

So, with this challenge in mind, here are some tips on how to empower your middle managers, particularly when things are changing and you need their help the most.

1 – Understand the situation through a blend of analysis

Like my former client, you simply can’t rely upon anecdotal data to understand how much your middle managers need to process and how well they are able to receive, process and pass on critical information. So, have a closer look through a simple survey and follow this up with some workshops with a good cross section of your people that focuses on challenges and solutions.

If you can, complete some targeted and polite observations alongside and run some background analysis on effectiveness of your channels, including open and ‘conversion’ rates (to borrow a sales term). All of this data can be cross checked with your existing data on employee engagement and customer satisfaction to understand where some challenges may be affecting the middle manager and the people they intend to support or service.

The important thing is to engage them early and explain why you are having a closer look and how it will help them.

2 – Be clear on what’s required and how they can make it happen

Part of the challenge for middle managers is that the busy environment they work in can mean that they don’t have time to properly connect with the strategy and apply it to their work and team direction. For this reason, it’s critical for the leaders to discuss strategy or changes with this group and ask them to explain what it means to them and how they can apply it to their business operations. This type of exercise can highlight where there are disparities in their understanding and where the methods you are using to explain the strategy or the change could be improved. Don’t be precious about this step, have an open and proactive conversation that means you are getting the feedback now and not after your initiative has fallen flat.

The outputs from tip 1 and 2 can help you understand if your performance pipeline is really defined or it is open to organic interpretation. While organic activity can be helpful, you want to know where things are clear and where they could be further explained and from a workflow perspective, enabled. As Stephen Drotter says in “The Performance Pipeline”, when people show up for work, they should know what is expected of them and what standards should be met. “Management practices commonly used now don’t deliver role clarity. In fact, many practices confuse rather than clarify”.

3 – Proactively offer development to help them step up

You may have a standard development path in place for leaders in your company but it’s worth considering how much it develops capability to support big changes, to deal with ambiguity, to communicate well and to use healthy prioritization to keep the emphasis on the right elements. Many leadership programs will include elements around resilience, decision making under pressure and dealing with conflict, but I would encourage you to consider where recognising and knowing how lead big changes fits into their development. Sometimes it needs to be fast tracked when you know a big change is coming to ensure the capability is fresh and functional.

4 – Improve your communications flow and reduce their inputs

From a communications perspective, it is always worth looking closely at where the pinch points are in an organisation and where the messages need to help to flow through in a meaningful (and less onerous) way. Help can come in many forms and typically applying a mix of analysis (including process and policy review), coaching and channel or product optimization can make a big difference.

The other critical action is prioritizing your middle managers inputs, or asking them to limit the information from sources that will disrupt their workflow. If you consider that anything coming in is an input that is planned or unplanned, things like email can cause endless distraction and disruption. I have seen way too many middle managers subscribe to every update, alert or report because they feel they need to know everything, despite their inability to process all that they receive. This is particularly prevalent when people are micro managed by executives (as they always want to be prepared to avoid retribution). So, identify critical inputs, ditch the rest and schedule a set time for viewing and responding to them. As much as possible, make the majority of the day about outputs as the higher value typically comes from them. This shift requires leadership support that recognises overloads and supports the higher value action.

5 – Shift the ownership

As I always say, if you want it to work, they need to own it. This can be tricky to embed as we have recognised how busy these people can be in operations but it will transform their involvement from delivering on a directive to ‘me making this work’ on a local and global scale.

If you think about the way you approach something that has someone else’s stamp all over it compared to your own, the difference is enormous.

The challenge here is providing real opportunities to take ownership every day so that when a big change rolls around, it’s not a new behaviour and your people are ready to step up and own the next big thing.

Stockwell Bretton loves playing in this space and will soon have change leadership and middle manager communications development modules ready for use. Get in touch if there is something we can shape for your team through benjamins@stockwellbretton.com

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But suddenly your Star Employee stops shining so brightly. Maybe they are having more absences, are unable to carry their usual workloads, manage competing priorities, or the quality of their output has dropped. What’s more, they no longer seem happy and engaged with either their work or their colleagues. Or worse, despite no obvious change in attitude or workload, your Star Employee unexpectedly resigns; you suddenly find yourself the ‘dumpee’ in a workplace breakup, left pondering what went wrong. Moreover, you are faced with the challenge of determining how you will be able to replace such a vital asset who possessed innate skills unlikely to ever be replicated.

Herein lie the issue with Star Employees; there seems to be a perception that, although great while they last, the lifespan of a Star Employee is finite (and in some cases short at best).  What’s more, it seems that there is a belief that the exact qualities that make them a star also predispose them to an inevitable burnout out; this issue an unavoidable by-product  of great performance to be dealt with when (rather than if) it happens.

Contemplating why Star Employees burnout (beyond the overly simplistic notion of being ‘overworked’), I realised that Star Employees share a strikingly similar trajectory to actual stars; in fact they seem to mimic stellar evolution almost perfectly, from point of discovery and growth through to (seemingly unavoidable) workplace ‘death’. More so, I realised that to really understand why Star Employees burnout (and hopefully avoid it) we need to focus on the journey rather than the outcome; how can their process of growth result in burnout at the end.

Let me explain.

Identification and Growth of a Star

Introductory astrophysics tells us that the way a Star grows (after already forming into mass) is through consumption of particles and matter from within its environment. The Star attracts this matter and fuses it to its core; the particles consumed providing additional mass (increasing the stars size) and energy which the star can burn (allowing additional ‘shine’). In this way a star is heavily dependent on its environment because if the environment does not possess enough matter for the star to consume, or if the star is deprived of matter because it cannot compete with a bigger and brighter star in its vicinity, the star’s ability to grow is limited.

Thinking about this situation critically and you may start to see the similarities between Stars and Star Employees. Much like their stellar namesake the way in which a Star Employee is identified is through their ability to ‘consume’ tasks from their environment and deliver positive outcomes. The more tasks (matter) they take on the more the perception of them grows within the organisation, both amongst management and colleagues. Concurrently, each of these new tasks provides them opportunity to develop new skills and experience which facilitate personal growth.

The importance of this growth pattern is that it highlights the way in which an organisation can actually facilitate the development of a Star Employee. While there is no doubt that some people will have a stronger innate drive than others, all employees are dependent on the opportunities they are provided. When placed in a task-dense environment your employees are able to better demonstrate their ability to manage high workloads; competing priorities; and deliver strong outcomes – all Star Employee characteristics.

But, this is also where your Star Employees can be a curse to your organisation. Much like stars who are required to compete for matter, focusing on loading up your Star Employee because it is the easy (and fulfilling) option (for yourself and your Star) actually limits your ability to realise the potential for additional Star Employees within your organisation. More importantly, the tendency to over rely on one (or a few) of your employees also feeds the process of “burnout”.

You see, one of the most critical things for both Stars and Star Employees is balance. For every new piece of matter or task taken on Stars are required to draw on their internal energy to achieve the desired outcome. With actual stars, the heating of the core to integrate new materials is widely offset through the physical energy that is contained within the matter they are consuming, allowing them to maintain equilibrium. However for your Star Employees the benefits of consuming extra matter (tasks) are much less tangible. Sure they get the additional experience and skills but these higher workloads do not actually provide a physical energy pay off.

Destabilisation and ‘Burnout’

This is where things become interesting. Going back to astrophysics a fascinating detail about Stars is that they do not stop consuming nearby matter even when they become off balance (that is using more energy than they are gaining); if there is matter in their vicinity they will continue to consume. The end result is that eventually their primary energy store will deplete to a point that they will start to consume more of their own matter to continue their process of acquisition; the end state self-destruction.

Star Employees are exactly the same. With a benchmark set Star Employees will continue to take on more tasks to fulfil both their personal expectations and those of the workplace, regardless of whether they are already overextended. Of course, this is not a problem over the shorter term but for the longer term, once the energy stores are depleted your stars will start drawing on alternative ‘energy’ stores (I’m not talking pharmaceutical stimulants here but in some instances this may be the case). For example, your Stars may start drawing on time as a perceived source of energy such as working long hours and weekends to achieve objectives. They may also ‘save’ energy by reducing the amount of effort they put into any given task which allows them to spread this energy across the multiple deliverables that they are trying to manage; the unintended consequence often a reduction in the quality of output.

This use of additional ‘energy’ sets a fast track for self-destruction. Just like actual stars who start to burn away at more than their central energy, the drawing on external ‘energy’ sources by your Star Employees prevents opportunity for them to top-up their energy stores. Short of stopping what they are doing (which Star Employees are unlikely to do as they are often perfectionists and/or fear performance management), your Stars will eventually run out of energy resulting in inevitable collapse.

Like Stars, Star Employee collapse can present in two ways; the ‘supernova’ (or burnout as it is referred in the business arena) where warning signs such as reduced output or increased absences are noted until eventually the individual explodes completely, the remnants of their work being pushed onto other employees while the organisation figures out what to do; or ‘brownout’ where no warning signs are evidenced, like flicking an on/off switch, everything is great until your Star Employee implodes and goes dark.

Regardless of whether an employee suffers burnout or brownout, it has devastating effects for both your organisation and the individual. However, the more insidious nature of brownout makes it a much greater risk to your organisation; the lack of warning signs provides limited opportunity for you to proactively address the issue. That said, coming back to the actual stars we may realise that addressing issues once warning signs are present may do little to prevent collapse. You see, by the point you are noticing issues the employee is already well into their destabilisation cycle.

Let’s take the common approach of getting your staff to have “a couple of days off” when you notice signs of overwhelm as an example. While this is a great first step, the embedded nature of the energy imbalance cannot be counteracted by a short period of time; they have moved beyond just needing to top-up central energy stores, they actively have to stop the fusion of work energy expenditure into all facets of their life. As such, rather than preventing burnout this approach, if engaged once warning signs are evident, is likely to just delay the inevitable.

Don’t take this to mean that burnout is unavoidable – it isn’t. Rather, when it comes to all employees balance is the key. While you will never be able to completely control the rate of effort an individual invests (or the way in which they manage their energy) the following may help in promoting enhanced equilibrium:

1. When assigning tasks it isn’t about the number of items but rather the energy investment tasks require; ensure high energy demanding tasks are more equally spread across your organisation.
2. Ensure that expected benchmarks are realistic; setting them against someone’s peak performance is setting them (and you) up for failure. Recognition and reward of achievement above satisfactory performance will inspire your staff to continue to strive for more, allowing you to achieve better outcomes anyway.
3. Build an environment where it is okay for people to ask for help or identify when workloads are unachievable. Your employees need feel comfortable that they can broach this subject with you without fearing negative consequences.
4. When someone does highlight that they are struggling don’t automatically reduce their workload completely. Employees gain a lot of self-motivation (and self-worth) through their ability to be able to deliver positive outcomes. Even though done with the best intent, choosing to not give them important projects because they have highlighted issues may result in feelings of failure at the individual level. These negative perceptions could increase stress or prevent your employees from seeking help again, therefore increasing risk of burnout anyway.

Most importantly remember, that for all employees, their environment is key. Rather than focus on maximising the benefit from your Star Employees focus on creating an environment that is conducive to balance and growth for everyone. This will not only allow you to ensure the longevity of the top talent in your organisation but may also support other employees in realising their star potential.

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This is an interesting question, because it’s such a subjective issue and one person’s version of resistance can vary greatly from another person’s view of reasonable debate and conjecture.

The first thing I ask people to do is to quantify the resistance and outline what they have done to proactively manage it. What you often find, once you proceed further down this line of questioning is that you’re starting to unpick a cultural issue that was active before the change occurred but was further exacerbated by the intensity that the transition activities brought to the team or individual.

With this is mind, it is worthwhile having a set of defined steps to apply when planning for significant change and considering the resistance that you may encounter. The following ten steps are a good place to start for both your planning and implementation stages.

1.    Leverage your ground work

If things have been going well and you (the leader) have been on the scene for a while, hopefully you have some goodwill to leverage after the efforts you have made to understand and connect with your team and stakeholders. While we don’t always have this luxury, this supports the need to get on the ground and form strong relationships and build shared ownership in your organisation as soon as you are in a position of leadership. You never know when you will be asking your people to change in a way that potentially scares them, so wherever possible, see if you can’t be on the right terms with them before this happens.

2.    Understand your environment and the impacts of your changes

Needless to say, your environmental scan and impacts analysis at the front end of your change program should give you (the leader) and your change team a good understanding of the setting, the impacts and where you are most likely to encounter resistance. This will allow you to shape your communications, stage your planning and proactively reach out to reps from the impacted areas to gain their guidance and ongoing support as you put the change plan in motion.

3.    Be objective – don’t overcook it

It is critical to keep bias out of your assessment of resistance, which can be a tricky thing given there may be a personal history associated with the people resisting, which does not allow you as a leader to be objective. In this type of situation, I suggest involving a peer leader, team or a trusted adviser to gain a fresh view on the situation and what it really means. Doing this can also help demonstrate that you recognise that the issue needs some fresh thinking and that those resisting can benefit from the wider consideration discussion (where it’s polite to do so).

In my experience I have often found some resistance descriptions to be over-cooked in that they sound much worse than they really are. This may be due to long term differences or an inability to constructively connect with the issue. Again, this can be helped by obtaining a neutral view, but also through quantifying the concerns through things like risk analysis, benchmarking and mapping the concerned business processes (to keep it objective).

4.    Seek out resistance and embrace its energy

Resistance itself is a cause for disruption and this can actually be an asset for your change program. There is also merit in adopting the mantra of keeping your friends close and your prospective enemies closer to understand your risks better. So, why not use your reach, your communications and your team discussions to hone in on resistance (current or expected) and latch on to it early. It’s important to note that when you find it, don’t try and crush it, but rather, show that you want to understand and work with those involved. There is also huge benefits in empowering the loudest objectors to have a constructive voice in your program. If you can make it work to get them involved, they will amplify your reach and help create advocates in other areas of resistance. Granted, this is tricky business, but even if you empower the nay-sayers as your ‘devils advocate’ representative in the future, it does build their ownership and it helps you to bring your energy back to the core program.

The benefit of this proactive approach is that it shows; one that you care and; two that you are open to different perspectives, which is a critical part of maintaining the right team settings (see item 10).

5.    Admit mistakes if they occur

Taking the time to consider an issue and admitting mistakes, if they did occur, is priceless in terms of building trust and staying open to innovation. As a leader you must remain at the right level and provide every opportunity for your program to be led by the business so in the long term, the people of the business own the change. Showing you are human and that you can learn from them is a big step in maintaining this level.

6.    Intensify support

Where you can see that the resistance is being driven by some type of deficiency, you need to move quickly to intensify support for that area in a highly visible manner. Whether it be a lack of communication flow, a capability deficit, a process issue or a systems constraint, there is no better time to use your resources to support a better long term outcome. I would caution here that sometimes the solution will fall out of your scope as a change leader and you will need to call on your stakeholder partners to see you can broker a deal that is in everyone’s interests without stressing out your Project Manager (who must manage their scope appropriately).

7.    Move quickly and be decisive

The worst thing you can do around resistance is not pay attention to it, or let it run for an extended period. By letting it run on you are actually fueling the situation and empowering other areas to take up a similar issue or behaviour. So, the idea is to move quickly, strategize, negotiate, support, communicate and move forward. There will certainly be situations where you can’t keep everyone happy and the important thing here is to avoid trying to keep compromising on all sides. As leader you will gain respect from doing four things:

• Listen and understand;
• Investigate options collaboratively;
• Make a clear decision and make sure everyone knows what it means;
• Move forward without giving it further oxygen.

The final step is critical as it shows strong leadership to back yourself, while demonstrating that a good mix of inputs have been used to make your decision.

8.    Empower your leaders to act

Your leaders, at all levels, need to understand how they can act quickly to manage resistance. First and foremost, they need the information and capability to address the issue as they see it, while aligning to your shared vision.

This means you need to test your communications often, discuss issues with your leaders and let them drive the steps to manage any expected resistance. I recommend enhancing your leader’s capability around leading change through targeted training and getting regular feedback on their level of comfort in managing their local change issues. You may need to provide strategic guidance later, but by empowering the local leaders to act in the first instance you can speed up reactions and help cement a productive working relationship (in that area) for the future.

9.    Communicate around issues, share and celebrate solutions

Communications throughout this process is pivotal as it helps you stay ahead of the rumour mill. Remember that people will fill gaps with their own version of the truth and this means that you lose your chance to connect people with the truth, or, you just have to work a lot harder at it. By maintaining open in your communications style, using a wide mix of channels and communicating frequently, you can keep your people up to speed with progress, issues, analysis and agreed solutions.

I would recommend maintaining a direct channel (with the local leader) to the people or team where the resistance was an issue to demonstrate ongoing understanding of their needs, to keep them involved (ownership) and to ensure the program does not encounter a future avoidable issue.

10. Maintain the right team settings

The final tip is to ensure that during your change program you pay particular attention to the team settings for your own immediate circle and those of your team members.

A healthy team setting relies on a shared vision, participative safety, task orientation and strong support for innovation. These four elements can ensure the team are focused on the right thing, feel comfortable speaking up, have clear tasks to keep them moving forward and they know they can suggest a better way if they see one.

So, all told, there is a lot you can do before, during and after a significant organisational change to manage and minimise resistance.

If you would like to know more about this topic, or you have an issue that you would like to discuss, feel free to contact me on benjamins@stockwellbretton.com

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Let’s be clear, Micro management is horrible. A throwback to the indelicate approaches to business and management popular in the 80’s and 90’s, it truly only illustrates a lack of decisive leadership and communication skills on behalf of management. Likewise it does not improve performance. It creates an atmosphere of dread and mistrust with the employee base as well as alienating people for the sole purpose of a managers need to feel involved and in control.

However, a new insidious approach to maintaining control over employees has emerged in today’s business. It seems to me far worse than micro management as it has the ability to impact a group of employee’s, sometimes entire teams….. without their knowledge. I call this new water boarding of management (because it does amount to a form of torture) “Cocoon Management”. It seems particularly prevalent in the professional services, where building internal relationships and creating a “personal brand” is essential in getting ahead.

The premise of cocoon management is quite simple. Employees are isolated within their function/ service line/ group by a segment of management. This means that the employees have no visibility or contact with:

• Other functions within the organization
• Decision makers within the organization
• Decision makers on the client engagement side
• External parties

Imagine, if you will, a microcosm state in which a group of employees is placed under which all information, decision outcomes, performance requirements and feedback is controlled by a singular or small number of managers. This can create a vacuum of misinformation which feeds an environment of helplessness on the employee’s part. When in place cocoon management:

• Prevents the employee from being involved in and understanding wider strategic decisions;
• Misaligns outcomes required for employee deliverables as key messaging is controlled by one party;
• Can falsify the messaging and performance outcomes of employees to senior management; and
• Raises the perpetrator into a position of perceived trust as they are seen as the only outlet to promote an employee’s best interest (similar to “Stockholm Syndrome”).

Like Stockholm Syndrome, cocoon management can force an employee to “express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.”[1]. If the employee or groups of employees feel that the management in place has their best interests at heart, they will take their word on any perceived feedback coming from external to the cocoon as gospel, regardless of any conflicting messaging of its content.

This is, of course, a dangerous proposition for the employee. Oft times in these situations, without an ability to explain or elaborate on any work or outputs delivered, the employee can be made the scape goat for delivery failure. Communications delivered by the creator of the cocoon can lead the employees to make the wrong decisions or be perceived in a negative light. In this way the perpetrator of the cocoon is free to pursue their own agenda with little regard for the impact it has on the individual employees and their career aspirations.

So how do you identify a potential cocoon situation and how best to avoid it? It is quite simple. There are three steps to take in order to prevent being cast into this environment:

• Do you have direct contact with senior management or a line of communication with the decision makers? If you do not then make a point of creating one. Spend time, even just a coffee occasionally with the leadership in your function. Join internal project teams which both interest you and serve a purpose of bettering the company. This way you will have an opportunity to show the senior leaders who you truly are, not based on one person’s assessment.
• Are you involved in your own professional development reviews? Rather than rely on one person to speak on your behalf in relation to your performance, take control and be involved in those discussions. If your organization does not allow that (after asking the question why) seek out a champion who is unrelated to your direct management who can feedback on performance review processes and where necessary speak to your ability to deliver.
• Do you have an avenue for checking the accuracy of the messaging coming from direct management? If the direction and feedback being delivered to the employee is coming from one source this is cause for concern. Reach out into the organization to test the accuracy of statements made or direction given. This is not to openly question your supervisors’ ability or understanding but with anything in life, understanding more than one point of view will more often lead to a truer path.

Fortunately, this approach to management seems to be in its infancy but it does present a unique problem for those who are unlucky enough to find themselves in such a situation. Understand the management environment you work in and never apologise for creating a network for yourself, as this will save you the heartache of being lost in a cocoon.

[1]  de Fabrique, Nathalie; Romano, Stephen J.; Vecchi, Gregory M.; van Hasselt, Vincent B. (July 2007).“Understanding Stockholm Syndrome” (PDF). FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (Law Enforcement Communication Unit)76 (7): 10–15. ISSN 0014-5688. Retrieved 17 November2010.

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