Business Change Management

“Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.”—Thomas Edison

Much of the first 15 years of my career was spent implementing brand new initiatives and cleaning up existing operations. Whether it was improving a department’s effectiveness, implementing new software or combining departments following a merger or purchase, I wanted to lead the process, or at least play a significant part. In other words, I am a self-proclaimed change agent, easily bored by doing the same thing over and over.

“The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.”
—G.K. Chesterton, Author

Your emotional health is as important as your physical health, if not more

Most leaders I work with are aware of the importance of their physical health, particularly the importance of eating nutritious foods, exercising and treating their physical injuries and ailments. Most of them, however, pay little attention at all to their emotional health.

Recently I wrote two blogs on many hospitals' oft-broken call centers, entitled "Five Steps To Help Fix The Sorry State of Hospital Call Centers (Part One) and (Part Two), highlighting the extensive research Simon Associates has been conducting in this area. What we found was that call centers with ongoing problems show symptoms of a culture that hasn’t adapted to the outside world and the requirements of today’s patients.

Our Guest Blogger, Cheryl McMillan, has written a very illuminating blog about a similar subject: a retailer's customer service (or lack thereof).

If I asked you to name someone who is emotionally immature, who comes to mind? Maybe it’s an adult acting like the kid throwing his phone in this Nationwide commercial. Hopefully, that's not you!

How do you receive new ideas? Leaders know that ideas are crucial for innovation and improvement, but ideas don’t just magically appear. They live right now in the minds of your employees. Wonder why you don’t hear more of them? Maybe you are doing something that kills your staff's ideas before they can be explored or even verbalized.

Why do we often not see what is right in front us? Recently I've been working with several clients that could grow by leaps and bounds if only they could "see" the business opportunities that are right before them. All they need to do is open their eyes, open their minds, and re-define the way they and their people think about what they could offer consumers that they're not offering right now.

As a Guest Blogger for Simon Associates Management Consultants, I recently wrote about my experiences as an Enneagram Type 8, then found myself struggling with writing a second, follow-up blog. I finally realized that what I was experiencing was not typical writer’s block but the result of my Type 8’s natural defense mechanism: denial.

What is a defense mechanism? 

A defense mechanism is a protective, psychological strategy whose function is to keep us within our own comfort zones. It is primarily triggered in uncomfortable or difficult situations in an attempt to reduce our anxiety or uncomfortable feelings.

The purpose of a defense mechanism is to maintain our self-image, and each Enneagram Type has a different one. In my case, my defense mechanism keeps alive my self-image of “I am strong and not weak.” Typically, our defense mechanisms operate automatically and unconsciously. Unless we are in observer mode, we aren't aware of when they are active.

One of the many things that I love about being a CEO Coach with Vistage International is the challenge. I challenge my members to be better and they challenge me right back!

I was only 26 and excited about my new role as Controller. As a first-time manager, I was driven by a desire to be a leader who both listened to, and acted on, my employees’ problems. In fact, I encouraged everyone to bring me their unsolved problems. One after another, I resolved them and felt like I had nailed this management thing. “What was so hard about being a boss?” I wondered.

Recently I have been working with several clients that need to change their organization’s culture while changing their market positioning and in some cases, while expanding globally. Some of the recurring challenges I’m seeing often follow this kind of decision to become a different type of company. In today's business environment, companies are frequently ready to shed some of their controls, rules and top-down management. Indeed, they want to become more innovative with greater empowerment for their staff and more decentralized decision-making processes.

Clearly, it is time for more creative solutions, particularly ones from the field, as business leaders realize that the best ideas often come from their own employees and even their customers. And while these forward-looking values and behaviors sound like the right ones to be pursuing, the ability to let go of the old and actually enable the new is not that easy.

Our Guest Blogger, Cheryl McMillan, has written a great blog that might help you think about how to re-tool decision-making strategies, increase empowerment and move away from a controlling culture in ways that still reflect your company’s core values. We hope you enjoy the following blog. If you try these ideas, let us know how they worked!

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Common CEO Mistake: Being Unclear About Decision-Making Authority

Do you ever complain that your direct-reports don’t make enough decisions on their own? Do they ever complain about your micro-managing? In my work with CEOs and their Sr. Executives over the last 10 years, I often see that the boundaries and authority for decision-making are blurry or non-existent.

Imagine that Sue is COO at ABC Services Company and reports directly to the President, Fred. Over the last couple of years, a technician, Frank, has made several errors, causing several thousand dollars of rework. Believing that it is her responsibility and authority to hire and fire, Sue terminates Frank, who signs a severance agreement. Fred hears through the grapevine that Frank has been fired and was offered a severance agreement well above the company’s standard. Fred is appalled by Sue’s judgment. Doesn’t she know that he must approve all terminations and severance agreements? Sue is furious that Fred is meddling in her direct area of responsibility. Without clarity on specific types of decisions, these situations are guaranteed to occur.

In any typical organization, there are 3 basic levels of authority:

• Someone makes a decision and doesn’t inform others.
• Someone makes a decision with input from others.
• Someone makes a decision and informs others afterward.

This table illustrates how these types of decisions work for a CEO and COO:

Dwight Eisenhower allegedly said, “The chief executive only gets the hard decisions. All the easy ones are made by people below him or her.”

To ensure that happens in your organization, you can create a list of decision-making authority levels using the codes described above. For example:

To create further clarity, you can use these decision codes to clearly state authority levels for decisions that are not specifically listed.

For example, assume Sue approaches Fred with a decision that he wants her to make. Frank could say, “That is a Code 4 decision. You make it and I don’t need to know about it.” Or, if Sue is unclear about a decision, she can ask Fred, “What is the decision code on this?”

Think about the hundreds of decisions that are made in your company every day and what’s at stake. Can you afford to be unclear about your authority levels? What benefits would enhanced clarity bring to your organization?