Author Archives: shevat allon

Is OD hard to explain?

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In my last post on OD as a commodity, I received a comment stating that OD is  difficult to market, since it is hard to explain what OD actually does. In parallel, Change Management is far more “explainable” and user friendly for the client…..except that Change Management often does not deliver.

This comment deserves some elaboration.So this post will relate to the difficulty of marketing OD, and what I propose as a strategy to promote your practice.

I believe that OD is not a commodity and not marketable as such. Were OD to be a commodity, marketing OD would be easier. There are marketing experts who know how to package commodities and lessen “shelf time”. (Unsold hours are shelf time in the OD world). In many cases, these marketing experts succeed in perfuming the pig, passing off stones as pearls, as is the case with change management programs.

OD is a professional service and can be promoted as such. However, OD  has uncomfortable truths:

  • We cannot predict when an projects ends successfully.
  • We need to confront management all the time.
  • In some cases, we cannot work with the focal point with whom clients want us to work (HR).
  • Our output cannot be measured in KPI’s or by procurement folks.
  • You need a long term investment in OD to see results.

The above makes OD unmarketable in the traditional ways that professional services are promoted. So how do you spread the word and promote your practice?  Here are a few guidelines.

1-Do good work. This is by far the greatest thing you can do to promote your practice. The more “non commodity” OD work is, the more traction is created that will spread the word.

2-In OD, big is bad.Stay small to leverage your advantage and use your knowledge for clients. Experienced consultants need to spend their time with clients;  if the experienced consultants are running big businesses, their time is invested in teaching people who often do not meet client’s expectation.

3-Network with people you have worked with and maintain relationships. Look at your relationships like the only sales tool you have.

4-Price high. High prices sell-as long as you deliver value.

5-Stop trying to explain what OD is. Tell stories of what you have done, and have other clients explain the value you have brought.

To wrap up….this winter albeit a flu shot, I had a very violent case of the flu which knocked  the crap out of me, despite the fact that I am in very good shape. It took me a month to get back to my daily running. My doctor’s advice was not to focus on running, but focus on breathing exercises and stretching….then the ability to run will return-as it did. So…focus on doing great work and meeting people, and let’s put aside explaining our profession as a commodity.

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OD as a “Mature Commodity”-and how to deal with it

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Last week, I got a call from someone who asked me if I would like to “bid” for series of 3 workshops on post merger integration, which is one of my specialties.

She said, “I have heard that you know what you are doing, but please make sure that your bid is cost effective”. That was the gist of our short call.

This illustrates the bizarre and tragic productization of OD interventions:

1 Because “cost” rules as the “product” is seen as mature,the wrong service  is “ordered” in the wrong way.

2 The vendor ( OD) is blocked from influencing the definition of the problem and the proposed intervention because a “solution” in already being procured.

3 The client trades off a  (non existing) “product” with a cost to make a balanced decision. Neither parameter is the most relevant for the type of service that is needed.

This pitiful dynamic has developed an inevitable derivative of large consulting firms creating profit by providing new college graduates with a set of so-called products (and a slide pack to make it happen). The large vendor “clips the coupon” of repeatable scalable OD productized interventions.

The clients’ life is also made easy: the OD product is easy-to-understand, and comparable to other products of its kind. And any Gloria can manage the procurement process.

The only problem is that OD is not a product, and the provided product is a sham.

The best way to deal with this is to stick your guns. Be patient. If you know what you are doing, patience pays off.  A lot of my work has been procured when an OD product failed. When the gateway into the organization is procurement or  training, my suggestion is to back off and turn work down. Refrain from food fights with procurement, hoping to improve things later. Remain professional. stick to your standards, and do good work. The good work you do will get you more work.

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When Organizations turn into Jungles, what can be done? (revised)

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There are several components that can turn organizations into political jungles and cesspools of intrigue.

  • Feigned commitments to the market used to “blame” people who do not meet numbers/release dates
  • Dysfunctional boards which manage various parallel “shadow organizations”
  • Competition between competing geographies for control of strategic products/roadmaps
  • Contradicting demands without top-down integration, such as “make the deal and be fully compliant”.
  • Overpaid, detached leadership while employees are policed by process and over fertilized with “engagement programs”.
  • Severe leadership gaps in “walking the talk”
  • HQ-field dynamics based on too much control or confusion

The behavioural aspects of this dysfunction manifest themselves as:

  •  Squabbling about roles and responsibilities
  • Obsessive redefining of process
  • Lack of trust
  • Partial transparency
  • Deteriorating teamwork
  • Blame-shifting email threads and finger-pointing as long as the equator

When the organization is so “zoo-ish”, pathological forms of HR tend to wow-wow and rah-rah employees and managers around slogans which obfuscate the challenges that the organization needs to address. For example, the lack of a long term commitment of employers to their employees is often coupled with engagement sloganeering. 

Overly commercial OD can add damage by developing OD packages that deal with the symptoms of the political zoo, (such as engagement packages) while what the root causes are left alone. In such cases, OD kicks itself in the ass by becoming a hand maiden of the system pathology.

However, there is good news. OD can dry up organizational political swamps, not via OD products, but rather by an OD process that focus on:

  • Identifying the reasons why basic survival instincts drive behaviour at all levels.
  • Classify what/is not in controllable to work on lessening the level of fear and anxiety that leads to reliance on such basic survivor instincts.
  • Gradual lessening of perceived threats to survival, basic on real change, not sloganeering.

Sounds hard?-you bet it is. But that is what professional OD brings to the table. Mais oui! 🙂 

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Manager as system integrator; employee as subcontractor.

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A system integrator drives independent component subsystems into a coherent and functioning whole. The emphasis here is on the word independent. I posit that in many industries, the art of managing is becoming more like the role of a system integrator working with subcontractors. I believe that this  inevitable trend has long term repercussions about training managers.

Here are two major reasons why managers will become system integrators:

1) The dwindling long term commitment between employer and staff.

Since many organizations can no longer offer their employees any stability nor take care of their staffs’ needs, employees are loyal first and foremost to themselves & their ability to be survive economically, wherever they work-with no specific loyalty to anything except their ability to make a living.

2) The political zoo that develops when jobs are scarce.

The work place has become a political zoo because of the scarcity of jobs. Employees act as sub contractors as opposed to members of a coherent integrated team, to secure their own survival. No one wants to be indispensable.

True, consultants and HR are pushing employee engagement programs; however the prognosis for employees becoming altruistically engaged is low. As employees focus on their own survival, they become less engaged with the company’s survival. They focus on their own personal survival.

Pretending that employee engagement is the issue is dysfunctional.

Developing managers is not about engaging employees as much as how to structure and manage work as a system integrator.

Preparing managers to be effective system integrators is far more effective than traditional managerial training which deals with solving yesterday’s problems.
Here are a few elements which may be included in refocusing the managerial role to that of system integrator
1) More “contract” based interaction and ways of payment
2) Emphasis on very detailed planning
3) Less to no everyday power
4) Contractor can and does choose to cop out so there are “alternative sources”
5) Make and buy decisions.

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You may want to build a contingency plan in case Employee Engagement fails

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From academic journals to blogs and Twitter, employee engagement is a hot topic.

Practical as well as fuzzy ideas and tool kits are available to get your workforce engaged; in short, the full Monty is at your disposal.

My suggestion both to management as well as to fellow consultants is to hedge your bets and make a backup plan about what happens if employees will no longer engage, as appears to be the case in several cases.

There are many reasons why employees are not as engaged as in the past:

  • employees know they will be “shot at dawn” at the drop of a dime to make the numbers look good;
  • engagement is often manipulated by management and HR to get more for less,
  • work processes totally dominated by technology subjugate employees to mindlessly “servicing the software”.
  • the virtual work place is not all that engaging; relationships are superficial as well as highly annoying and the work place has become a political cesspool.

Furthermore, it is clear in many instances that engagement which leads to loyalty may not be all that desirable to management, because management needs to pay more. So yes, the perception of engagement is “engage until you cost too much”.

So since people are not stupid when it comes to the skin on their ass, I believe employee engagement may become a thing of the past.

As engagement becomes passé, there needs to be a whole new set of assumptions about how to manage.

Two examples will suffice. I have a client who runs a wedding hall. 15% of his waiters can quit during work because they gets a Whats-app about a party, or some other happening! So there are more buffets and less waiters. And I also have a client has had to structure work so that churn will impact the firm less, following the introduction of a cost saving yet “dumbing” software.

The words we use are often words on management and OD are often from a managerial perch. (History is written by the victor)  However, from a non managerial point of view, is engagement the right word to describe what management is looking for? Perhaps, in some cases; in other cases management wants self sacrifice at low cost without a mutual commitment. Sounds like a “pleasant hallucination” to me.

I believe that we are migrating to a model of employee as subcontractor. I see that all around me in terms of attitude and mindset, albeit not yet in structure. In such a reality, focusing on outdated Pravda-like campaigns to raise employee engage is not the brightest idea around.

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On organizational leniency

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Case One: Einat comes to work late 15 minutes a day; her lunch break lasts longer than anyone else’s. No one has ever said a word.

Case Two: This month, Ori ordered a $40000 spare part circumventing Supply Chain. He does this from time to time. His boss emails him to “try to avoid” this type of behaviour.

Case Three: Zeev always waits till the very last minute to order his plane tickets, so that he will have a more expensive ticket and thus be eligible for an upgrade. Since Zeev travels a lots, nothing is said.

This post is a short case study on organizational leniency, IE, showing more tolerance than expected when things do not go well.

All government agencies are very lenient towards their employees; unionized shops can breed a type of leniency which leads to decay, and crony capitalism breeds a great deal of leniency which leads to economic catastrophes. In this post, I am NOT referring to the above types of examples.

Rather, I am referring to organizations in the private sector which are not unionized and where there is no crony capitalism, yet nevertheless leniency is displayed in the face of gross malfunction.

The case I will describe is the unique leniency of Israeli organizations.

A-What does this leniency look like?

1-The reticence to fire people unless absolutely necessary. Although this norm has changed since 2008, Israelis hang on to excess people much longer than North American organizations would.
2-“We are all guilty” syndrome. In other words, individual accountability is downplayed and to use an Americanism, it is very rare to “hold someone’s feet to the fire” due to an error. The ownership of malfunctions is very obtuse.
3) Working around a problem instead of fixing it.

B-Reasons for leniency

1) Having been the victim of aggression for so many centuries, there is a tendency internally not to “pin” anything on anyone and scapegoat.
2) There is a deep belief that if an organization is not lenient, creativity and commitment will wane.
3) Because life in Israel is very challenging, there is an expectation not to “throw people to dogs” just because of a work related error.
4) For many centuries while scattered all over the world, we learnt how to learn the system and “work it”. It was not our system. There is still lingering unwillingness to “be the system”.

C-Value of the leniency

1) More risk taking at work
2) Better team work
3) Lots of creativity

D-Damage of the leniency

1) Due to lack of consequence, there is corrosion of responsibility and accountability
2) The development of a “so what” attitude in the case of inappropriate staffing
3) Corrective action takes a long time because things need to get very bad to end the lenience.

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When creativity is applied inappropriately.

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I live in a country with a very high level of creativity; there are thousands of start-ups in Israel. Many have performed exits and probably no one reading this post has not been exposed to Israeli technology (Waze, Viber, eg.)

The starts ups are fuelled by massive creativity, lack of discipline, lack of process, all of which enables looking at problems differently. Anyone who has ever worked or visited corporate Israel knows that meetings go on and on, with endless digression and associative thought, often resulting in either great solutions or total chaos.

The value of the creativity is innovation; the price of the innovative mindset is the lack of scalability, and the inability to solve simple problems, because simple problems requires routine. In other words, there are severe  limits to innovation if inappropriately applied.

In the last few days, there is an illustrative example of the inappropriate application of creativity.  Israel suffers from a horrendous housing shortage. Many politicians have attempted to solve this issue, but  very few politicians have ever suggested building more houses. The assumption is that via changes in taxation, this housing problem can be “outsmarted”. And of course, it cannot be. There is a SIMPLE supply and demand issue. But that’s too simple!

In the end, more houses will need to be built, yet this very obvious solution will be implemented only when every other alternative has been applied.

This  small example illustrates innovation, inappropriately applied. The housing shortage will continue due to a refusal to do the obvious. When inappropriately applied in business, poor use of innovation means loss of control, due to inability to scale via doing the obvious.

While I do follow politics, I have no personal political involvement whatsoever, and this post should not be misunderstood as taking a political stance.

You can follow me @AllonShevat

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Corporate culture cannot bridge acute cultural differences (revised)

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It may appear well defined corporate culture can serve as a bridge over the stormy waters of acutely different cultures in the global organization. This is not necessarily the case.

Now let’s get this straight. There is a lot to be said for providing a shared context, shared values and a common set of behavioural guidelines. However, in order to ensure that this culture is not administered inappropriately, it is critical to ensure that the limitations of the culture are acknowledged. Paradoxically, it is only when these limitations are recognized that the corporate culture is most effective.

Here are some examples of behaviours which cannot be changed by one shared culture.

  • When a culture prefers discretion to transparency, discretion will reign.
  • When age dictates seniority, younger managers will not be respected.
  • When delegation is seen as abdication, managers will be centralistic.
  • Where loyalty to boss reigns supreme, teamwork in the western sense will falter.
  • When people prefer relationships to process, process will remain “on paper”

Even if elevators, screen savers, bulletin boards, management training sessions, and other “enablers” push and promulgate such artifacts as transparency, teamwork, delegation,  process adherence, the impact of these efforts may be negative, because the culture quickly becomes a theocratic dictate. How does this happen?

Instead of acknowledging the limitations  of corporate culture, the corporate culture is often positioned like tenets of a religious creed by over-zealous HR managers and training staff, and then shoved down (or up) the appropriate body orifice of the staff with the passion of a CFO making budget cuts. This breeds deep scepticism and cynicism.

I work in the most acute diversity one can imagine and come from a very diverse personal background. My experience has taught me that deep relationships, cultural humility and a global mindset are as important if not more, than a set of artifacts in addressing the cultural differences in global organizing.

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What is a Global Literacy? (updated)

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In the spirit or brevity, I have put together a very short list of components which constitute “global literacy”, i.e., the ability to be fluent and effective in the acutely diverse global workplace. This list is based on my observations of highly effective managers in the global work place.

  1. Understand where other attitudes and behaviour different from your own come from due to an awareness of the limitations of your own culture
  2. Non-judgmental about how things get done
  3. Ability to build personal trust to transcend differences
  4. Ability to mitigate the imposition of your own cultural preferences. (like: be open)
  5. Behavioural and attitudinal flexibility to work with people and teams whose major shared domain is that they are different
  6. Ability to shelter global staff from corporate absurdities whilst inculcating central values and behaviours which cannot be compromised/

This is the focus of ALL the coaching/consulting that I do with teams and individuals who need to acquire global literacy. My experience is that very little falls outside this list.

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Organizational Development in Special Situations. #3 “Support Centre” for Organizational Life

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Posted on March 8, 2014

This is the third of 3 posts to illustrate that OD is not passé.

While others have cannibalized some of what OD used to do, and organizations do not value people as much as before thus weakening OD’s value proposition, there are special situations where the added value of OD is outstanding.

The first situation I described was  New Product Introduction. The second  post related  to use of OD to relay intent in cases where cultural obstacles prevent dialogue.

This post will examine in brief OD practitioners greatest added value: as a “support centre” helping people think and act in organizational life.

The essence of this support is working with managers on their understanding of their cognitive/emotional organizational assumptions, serve as a reality check for  perceptions of organizational  meaning and context, “think through”  alternatives of action,examine the management of risk/opportunities and work on issues stemming from organizational politics.

Here are some of the reasons why many Organization Development practitioners do not provide  this service.

  • OD practitioners have not all been trained to do so.
  • The misplaced focus of OD practitioners  on OD products has detracted from the ability to focus on less structured  support for  “thinking”.
  • It is very hard (impossible) to market  this service.
  • Providing this type support does not create scalable revenue. Senior OD people cannot delegate this type of work to new college graduates and clip a coupon. It simply cannot be done. So this type of work means that the senior OD practitioner need to continue to consult, not manage.
  • The results of this type of work cannot be measured, thus creating a battle between the OD consultant with the organization’s procurement  department and the Gloria’s of the world.

Nevertheless I believe that is where the value of OD is.

On a personal note, when I look at the types of people I work with well, they are/have been highly intelligent people who seek out “someone smart” with whom to talk. I have never worked well with someone who wants a product. For the life of me, I do not even know what an OD product is, although I see all the “brush salespeople” peddling them all over the place.

To conclude this series….is OD passé? In Hebrew we use a double negative: לא ולא which means absolutely not (no and no). While the use of OD is less universal than it was, OD is highly applicable in special situations with the right clients.

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