You are frustrated! The leadership team is not effective, or the training programs you designed are not building the skills the organization needs, or teams are not delivering results and/or achieving goals. You have spent money on high-priced consultants and launched internal change management initiatives and marketing campaigns. It has not worked.
What can you do next? Consider the following three shifts to take control.
Shift Strategic Focus from Macro to Micro.
You probably have a macro-strategy with a mission (why we exist), a vision (where we are going), and goals (what we will focus on to achieve our mission). You hoped to inspire large groups of staff to action.
But…it is not working.
Shift to a micro-strategic focus by identifying a small group of colleagues (between 5 and 25 people), that care. They believe and live the mission and vision daily. They do not have to be convinced to work hard to achieve the organization’s goals. Once identified, get them together and describe the behaviors needed for success. Use the following questions to frame your discussions:
- What do we need more of (behavior, resources, skills, etc.)?
- What do we need less of (behavior, resources, skills, etc.)?
- What do we need to start doing (economic, strategic, operational, behavioral)?
- What do we need to stop doing (economic, strategic, operational, behavioral)?
Shift Mindset Focus from What’s Wrong to What’s Working.
You probably have employed traditional data collection and analysis techniques to get to the “root-cases” of the problem. Consultants have interviewed team members and presented their findings in elaborate PowerPoint presentations and offered potential solutions.
But…nothing has changed.
Shift your focus to what is working. The reality is we operate in a “VUCA” world – an environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. The variables are too numerous to isolate one cause or magic bullet. Instead use “Positive Deviance” concepts and approaches.
Positive deviance is an approach to behavioral and social change. It is based on the idea that, within a community, some individuals engage in unusual behaviors allowing them to solve problems better than others who face similar challenges, despite not having additional resources or knowledge. The term initially appeared in the nutrition research literature in the 1960s and was popularized in the book The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovations Solve the World’s Toughest Problems by Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin. (LINK)
Use your core team to discover positive deviants in your organization. Then observe them to discern what they are doing that makes them successful despite the odds. Interviewing alone is insufficient because people are often unaware of why they are successful or what they do differently from their peers. You must observe them in their environment. Finally, create ways for the positive deviants to disseminate and share their insights with others to change behavior from the ground up, versus mandating change from the top down.
Shift Motivational Focus from Rewards to Support.
You probably have an elegant, well-thought-out pay-for-performance system. You hope it will motivate the desired behavior, cause teams to collaborate, and trust each other with the carrot of increased merit pay, bonuses, and stock options.
But…it does not work. It ignores what researchers and science knows about motivation – extrinsic incentives lead to poorer, not better, performance unless the tasks are simple, repetitive, and require little cognitive skill.
Instead, pay people fairly, then shift your focus to supporting colleagues. Step 1 is to pay people fairly. Don’t give me any excuses – you know what fair means. At a minimum pay a living wage for your geographic location. Better still, pay people appropriately for their industry, geographic location, years of experience and skill level. With this taken care of, focus on supporting the three things we know motivate people: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink introduces autonomy, mastery, and purpose as motivation factors (LINK).
Give people more control of what they work on, how and when (autonomy). Use resources and time to support staff getting better at the things that matter most to their job (mastery). Reinforce the mission of the organization and connect it with individual worker values and goals (purpose).
Bottom Line
When you are stuck and things are not working, get back to basics. Start with people that care, focus on positive deviants that have beaten the odds, and support intrinsic motivation.