For years, Dr. John Scherer prodded me to write a blog (and a book), and thus any request from my friend John comes to the top of the pack.

In my previous post, I pointed out some of the contextual features of the environment in which OD operates; John Scherer has asked me to elaborate.
I wrote “rapid change is just even  getting faster, making organizational change inhumane; this has grown the business of “change management” and shrunk available business for more classical OD types.”

Elaboration:

1) In medicine, some tumours are inoperable.
2) In law, while anyone can be defended, the legal profession  realizes that in some cases, defending someone is a mere formality.
3) Paramedics who arrive at a massive  terror attack (like Dolphinarium attack in Tel Aviv) first choose who needs to die, so that available paramedic resources are used to save lives.

Now, lets move from the metaphor to the case at hand.

1) OD needs to operate in a playing field where our profession (with its humanistic basis)  is relevant. Not all organizational changes meet this criteria.

2) Rapid change which dehumanizes organizations should not  be the domain OD; dehumanizing change is the domain of a defanged HR (which has lost its way) and  Change Management, which has a ready made productized template for everything under the sun. OD has no value for an organization which undergoes 3 mergers in a year. Similarly, when a Board tells a CEO to close a US based R&D center with 600 people in 2 quarters and open a new R&D center in Bangalore “whilst keeping customers and staff happy”, OD has nothing to offer. This type of brutal change is best handled by HR managers like  Gloria Ramsbottom.

3) OD cannot be effective in all change situations. OD needs to be able to say “not in our domain”-and this will make OD far more effective and far more respected. When we peddle our wares in very rapid and inhuman change situations, we make  mockery of who we are.

4) OD is applicable to changes where OD can be loyal to its humanistic roots; not all clients suit that bill. Furthermore, change which is too fast and too brutal is  out of the ballpark or playing field on which we play.

Best wishes for the new year.
Allon
שנה טובה ובריאה לכולנו
אלון

In a previous post, I stated that OD did not have the appropriate skill set to drive the strategic process single handed.

In the same breath, I stated that business developers and Heads of Strategy are equally unequipped to drive strategic processes single handed.

So what is the value added of OD to the strategic process? Here are the top 3 things I believe OD brings to the table in strategic planning.

1) Strategic planning focuses on technology, markets and beating competition; at best there may be some time devoted to “do we have the organization to support the strategy”. The truth is that any business strategy not linked to an organizational strategy is useless. And the organizational strategy does not support the business strategy, it is a sine qua non of any coherent strategy. OD forces this issue at all times, in order to prevent a business strategy being developed which is divorced from delivery capabilities.

2) Strategic planning has an intense political undertone since players try to maintain their own personal power base in any new strategic direction.  OD plays a major role in building a process which circumvents this enormous obstacle.

3) Organizations have “mega bugs” which  impact the operations of the firm: e.g., wrong assumptions, too little room for dissent, too much infighting, R&D too weak; Sales over empowered to make promises which cannot be fulfilled…..whatever. The list is long.

Very often, these very mega bugs contaminate the strategic process, and the strategic process replicates the mega bugs instead of removing them. (Armies strategize about  “more fire power”; peaceniks strategize by hallucinating about non existing boundary conditions, religious folks always conclude we need to pray more.)

The most important role OD has in strategy is to work to ensure that the existing bugs in the organizations’ basic assumptions are laid bare and discussed so they have less contaminating impact on strategic planning.

Opening comments:

Before reading this post I suggest you read the short post called The Dumbing of OD which outlines the slow descent of OD in the last decade. And, to get the most out the following post, you can acquaint yourself with Gloria Ramsbottom, the HR manager we all love to work with.

Main points:

1. The dumbing of OD may either be cyclical or a terminal illness brought on by the economic model and context which treats the human resource as spare parts.
2. To deal with the effectively, it is important to set one’s expectations properly-what can, and cannot, be achieved in the present economic paradigm. Many OD folks go berserk and have plans to “change the world”. I suggest minimalistic and achievable goals, “the size of a lizard’s tail”, a term used by the Israeli poet “Rachel”.
3. No models-only projects. No fads-only solutions.
4. Whoring gives a bad reputation; avoid doing activities which brand you as such, even if financially pressed. Positioning yourself has a price.
5. When dealing with procurement, ensure your direct client is with you and that he/she represents you. Do not speak to procurement alone.
6. Price yourself high. I know this sounds theoretical but it is not; when you charge a lot you have the time and bandwidth to deliver real value. When you lower your prices, you are too busy and all we end up doing is dishing out pre packaged crap.
7. Be firm up front; you and the client define together what the problem is-no “order taking” from Gloria.
8. Find people you respect on line or off line to talk about these issues. We all share the same reality.

“As the results for Q3 pour in and looking in Q4’s revenue projection, it is clear that a reduction is force is immanent. Please prepare a list of the bottom quartile”, wrote  EVP HR Gloria Lemieux to all senior managers-by text message!

Mike Shapiro, Head of Deployment for Europe and Asia Pac, called all his area presidents and conveyed the grisly message. Deming Li (Head of China, Taiwan and Korea) sent Mike an email, cc’ing all his direct reports, that corporate HR should take care of employees and not lend a hand to cutting jobs from overworked engineers which will result in less people doing more work.

Mike was livid when he read De-Ming’s email; two weeks later in a meeting in Singapore, Mike asked Deming for the list of names, and De-Ming stormed out of the meeting and flew back to Shanghai.

However, in parallel, Deming’s HR clerk, Sally Ngai-Lam Xu, was providing Gloria with all the data and names that were needed.

Mike wanted to remove  De-Ming for “immaturity” and a consultant was brought into the picture. Deming explained to Allon that the Reduction of Force is completely justified but De-Ming needed to show his people that he was “protecting them”.

Allon sat with Mike and explained the role of the leader in different cultures.

Mike (from Billings, Oregon) told Allon: “Listen, this is not an issue of anthropology; it is a question of managerial maturity.”

Harold is Brit who is managing a global team. Harold is no stranger to global organizing; in his previous role, he managed the European Division of the company for which he worked.

Now,  Harold manages the Global  Sales Force of a US based firm which sells home-diagnostic stress kits. Harold is meeting with a consultant today “because either I need to learn something, or I need to replace my staff; because I am angry all the time”.

Harold pointed out the last 6 cases where he found himself aggravated

Frank from Boston is very gung ho, spewing false positives about the product in internal meetings. In a recent discussion about some of the products limitations, Frank said,”Guys, let’s just focus on believing in ourselves”.

Carlos from Buenos Aires rambles on and on and on. He has a serious problem “staying focused” and by the time he finishes talking. Harold does not know what he is talking about.

Oya from Tokyo is always trying to get out of meetings “because of a client commitment” . Harold wonders what is amiss because Oya is not selling anything yet his expense account is sky high.

Menashe from Israel argues all the time. Even if Harold makes a comment about the weather, Menashe will correct him.

Gloria, his HR business partner, is brainless and highly motivated. She and Frank are always initiating “team building” enabled by cooking or horseback riding. Furthermore, Gloria is very non discrete and serves as her master’s voice.

Morris from Perth is constantly blaming HQ. Even if there is no parking, Morris will attack the ignorant folks in HQ, who know nothing about Australia.

Morton, a Sales Manager from Maine, knows how important relationships are;  he studied at an Ivy League school; his class mates are in key positions in many industries and on several occasions, doors have been opened and introductions made which enabled big bucks to be made. (Morton’s boss pays big bucks to lobbyists in Washington. Morton loathes corruption he often encounters in Russia, the Mid East and South East Asia.)

Chan (m), a scientist turned entrepreneur now living Beijing, maintains a vast network of relationships with people he knows, knows of, and trusts to different degrees. Into these trustful relationships, he plugs in his business and personal decisions. Relationships are the key and almost sole enabler of doing business and getting things done. (Chan looks at his relationships like Morton looks at his net worth.)

Neta (m), a Head of a large Business Unit from Tel Aviv, knows that the dreaded Israeli bureaucracy and red tape surrounding purchasing and supply chain, can kill his business. Luckily, Neta has a very strong relationship with Elad, supply chain/procurement manager. Elad and Neta studied in the same high school and run together at the gym. Neta and Elad trade “do me a favour-s” all the time,using relationships to work around the system. (Neta does not trust the Americans who “work-to-system” since systems fail more than relationships).

Often, managers ask my why people from certain cultures are reticent or refuse to escalate issues via email/phone call when appropriate.

Let us  take an example.

Tada from Chang Mai is a product manager for Product Q 4 in Asia Pac. Recently, a leading VP from HQ returned home with a long list of issues to be fixed. Tada had shared the list of  concerns only after having been asked. Let’s see why Tada never escalated  before he was asked.

1) Tada prefers harmony to conflict. Tada believes that conflict or bad feelings need to be avoided at all costs because these unpleasant  states are almost irreversible.

2) Tada believes that the role of his boss is to know things and act. If he does not know, he should know. If the boss does not know, he should ask. If the boss does not ask, it is not  Tada’s role to tell him and “upset” him or disrespect him.

3)  Tada believes that maintaining hierarchy is more important than resolving specific issues.

4) Tada believes that he will be “stick out as a trouble maker” is he escalates, and while escalation may solve a specific issue, his  reputation within the organization will be tarnished.

Corporate HQ is not happy about the expected 8 month delay of an upcoming critical product. There is fear that a window of opportunity will close in the next quarter, which may render the product irrelevant.

In a lesson learned exercise done by an outside consulting firm, the report said “ there is too little transparency between development teams, located in San Francisco, Tel Aviv and Beijing. More transparency and better team work between the teams will drastically accelerate development”.

The truth is that transparency between the development teams is not the issue; there is fierce competition between the teams on who will be blamed for the obviously hallucinatory  overly aggressive commitments which were made to the market. The fact is that the delay will be 2 years, not eight months! (The external consultant never got it).

San Francisco based team members have “placed the résumés” on the web, to bail ship. In the meantime, they claim they are “waiting and waiting” for the Israeli designers to translate business needs into product architecture. The Israelis claim that the “business needs as described by the SF team are empty platitudes”.  In Beijing, developers who are supposed to be designing building blocks for the product are fooling around  on Facebook all day, whilst providing progress reports on non existing building blocks.

The external consulting firm not see the  root cause of the dirty politics as a derivative of the  hallucinatory commitment to the marketplace. The external consultants were too ideological about the need for transparency and team work in global teams. The external consulting firm worked with a productized OD model on “how to succeed in global development”. The consultant had 3 years experience. His last project was improving supply chain issues in the frozen meat industry. The consultant has never travelled outside of the US, yet the firm for which he works is “well-branded”.

Bill manages a cutting edge development team based in Durham N.C., Amsterdam Holland and Haifa Israel. The team is working on Version 21.1 to be released in 3 weeks

A crisis in India has arisen with version 19.5 and 3 engineers need to fly to the client. This will be tremendous wear and tear on the other members of the development team.

Hank (Holland) said this pressure reminded him of a joke and proceeded to tell a very off colour joke; naturally, Chicago based Nancy White, EVP HR jotted this down as an urgent “actionable item” for her upcoming 1/1 with Hank. After the joke, Hank  said that the decision to bend over backwards to accommodate the Indian customer was “idiotic”.

Hadas (f) from Haifa criticized Mike for “poor judgement”. She then lectured for 20 minutes on priority management and “what I vud do if I was in your shoes”. She then  asked Bill: “Have you fallen on your head”? and “Are you crazy”?

Bill was flabbergasted at the pushback. He expected is team to perhaps disagree with the decision yet commit to make it happen.

Which is exactly what was happening, except Billy-boy did not understand it. Hank’s bluntness and Hadas’ lecture and verbal pushback had nothing to do with what both will DO.