Why is Turnover a Serious Problem?

February 4, 2013 By Comments

  • What does it take to retain people in an organization?
  • What do you do to try to retain the best people?
  • What are your processes for getting the best and the brightest?
  • Who in the organization is primarily responsible for retaining employees?
  • What are the important elements of retention?
  • What are your concerns about retention in your organization?

Organizations are constantly struggling with attracting and maintaining the best employees, while trying to keep costs at a minimum. Not putting enough effort into retaining employees is a mistake that is made over and over again because the impact of turnover is not always directly evident. Organizations have seen that a poor economy does not mean quality people automatically come flooding their direction. Although most managers and leaders are aware that there are consequences of high turnover, many have not taken the time to view them all at once.

These include:

  • High financial cost
  • Survival mentality
  • Loss of productive time and quality of work
  • Poor customer service and organizational image
  • Heightened administrative time
  • Infected culture

The impact of turnover on an individual is also important to note, particularly if it is a problem that could have been avoided. Through turnover, individuals experience:

  • Loss of status and benefits
  • Disrupted finances
  • Wasted efforts
  • Burned bridges
  • Career gaps

At some point, myths in an organization will surface. Many people will believe theses myths are true. These myths can have detrimental effects. Ask these questions to help your organization tackle the serious problem of employee retention:

  • Are your employees recognized for their accomplishments?
  • Are they encouraged to set career goals?
  • Are they placed in projects or assignments that match their goals and help them grow in their career?
  • Are they challenged?
  • Is the training they want available to them?
  • Does their manager give them regular, honest performance reviews?
  • Do they feel supported and well balanced?
  • What do they struggle with?
  • What would make their work easier?

Summary

 

 

Managing people can be one of the hardest jobs in the world. Trying to meet the needs of and make a group of people feel comfortable and at ease, all while maintaining a productive environment, may seem impossible. But it’s not! Taking retention seriously can, in the end, be the best management strategy that you have ever tackled.

 

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Audio/Video Presentations, Career Development, Employee Performance, Resources & Tools Tagged With: ,

Organizational Culture and Its Role in Change

January 3, 2013 By Comments

The culture of the corporate culture of an organization is a factor to consider when instituting and managing change.  On an overt level, an organization operates along the lines of its belief and observable behavior.  Covertly, the organization is influenced by people’s collective assumptions.  Though the combination of these elements can be blatant or subtle, culture is a true part of organizational life that can be conveyed by a number of practices, including:

 

  • Oral and written communications, such as presentations and memoranda.
  • Organizational structure, as reflected by line and staff relationships.
  • The way power and status are defined both formally and informally.
  • What is measured and controlled, such as time and quality.
  • Formal policies and procedures found in employee manual and official communication.
  • Reward systems, such as compensation plans and supervisory techniques.
  • Stories, legends, myths, rituals, and symbols, such as company heroes, award banquets, and corporate logos.
  • The design and use of physical facilities, including how space is allocated and furnished.

During periods of major change, cultural boundaries are seriously strained.  While this has always been true, the increasing volume, momentum, and complexity of change in combination with the shifting demographics of today’s workforce are intensifying and the challenge of maintaining cultural cohesion is rising exponentially.  If an organization’s cultural environment is not managed well, people will feel that changes are coming at a greater volume, momentum and complexity than they can adequately assimilate.  These feelings hinder the process of absorbing change for many organizations.  Therefore a key element to enhancing resilience and minimizing the change of dysfunctional behavior is to actively manage the organization’s culture.

Your organization’s cultural traits must be consistent with what is necessary for driving new decisions, and/or those decisions will not be successfully implemented.  But the overlap between the existing behaviors, beliefs and assumptions and those required for your changes to succeed may vary greatly.  Whenever a discrepancy exists between the current culture and the objective of your change, the culture always wins.  The effective management of your corporate culture is an essential contributor to the implementation success.  It cannot be left to chance.  When facing an organizational culture that may hinder a desired change, your options are to:

1 Modify the change to be more in line with the existing behaviors, beliefs and assumptions of your culture.

2 Modify the behaviors, beliefs and assumptions of the current culture to be more supportive of the change.

3 Prepare for the change to fail.

Summary

You can’t change a culture without strong resolve from the top management and a wide-angle view of the situation. Developing a plan to implement a new definition of customer relations, for example, must include clear statements of vision (why the organization exists), mission (what it is going to accomplish), and strategy (how it is going to work toward its objectives).  Assessing the degree of consistency between the existing culture and the kind of culture needed to implement the change is critical to success of any new organizational focus.  If the existing culture is inconsistent with the behaviors, beliefs, and assumptions necessary for success, that culture must be altered or the effort will fail.

 

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Audio/Video Presentations, Employee Performance, Resources & Tools Tagged With: , , ,

Synergistic Relationships

November 27, 2012 By Comments

Planned organizational change is one way to focus the magnificent energy of an organization so it can be harnessed for the good of all persons involved.  To harness all of this energy really requires a strong look at the relationships among the project’s key sponsors, targets, agents, and advocates.  These relationships can be viewed as self-destructive, static, or synergistic.  Self-destructive relationships consume more resources than they produce and the result of their joint effort is a net loss. Static relationships involve an even mix of unproductive, back-stabbing behavior and productive, team-oriented behavior. What is desirable is synergistic relationships where individuals work together to produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of their separate efforts.

Develop synergistic relationships

The two prerequisites for the development of synergy within a relationship: willingness and ability.  Willingness stems from the sharing of common goals and interdependence.  Ability is a combination of empowerment and participative management skills.

Empowered employees are those who provide true value to the organization, influencing the outcome of management’s decisions and actions.  The antithesis of empowerment is victimization.  Victims believe they are faced with a negative situation offering no alternatives.  In actuality, most victims face alternatives they refuse to act on because they view them as too expensive.   Empowerment represents both a person’s willingness to provide input to decision makers and an environment where that input is valued.

Empowerment doesn’t mean abandonment.  Setting the context for change means understanding what employees do and do not know. When it comes to change, people don’t believe in a new direction because they suspend their disbelief.  They believe because they are actually seeing behavior, action and results which lead them to conclude that the program works.

Without a concrete payoff, no organization is going to spend valuable time fostering good working relationships.  Achieving synergy can make change work, and the payoff is a successful business in an ever-changing world.  What gets managed, in harnessing the momentum of synergistic processes, is the human capacity to work as a team.  Managing the energy unleashed through synergistic teamwork is as important as managing any other valuable resource. To successfully implement it, there are four approaches you must adopt: strategize, monitor and reinforce, remain team-focused and update continuously.

1 Strategize.

People working within synergistic relationships realize the value of planning action steps that are specific, measurable, and goal oriented with specific boundaries.  Without such direction, you could not manage resources, determine priorities or ensure that individual activities are compatible.  Although managers usually initiate these perimeters, they need to be ultimately decided upon with the input of the participants.  Setting clear guidelines for what is expected, what is possible, and what is negotiable is absolutely essential in establishing the boundaries for empowerment.

2 Monitor and reinforce.

When making their moves, synergistic implementation teams must be able to oversee progress and offer solutions to any problems that develop. Caution must be taken not fall prey to an error commonly made in human relations—the belief that once a common goal is announced, all parties will perceive that goal in the same way and feel the same urgency to achieve it.  To sustain your change, you must apply positive reinforcement for appropriate behavior and progress, as well as negative consequences for inappropriate behavior or lack of sufficient progress.

3 Remain team focused.

Working with a synergistic team demands that the group remain sensitive to the needs of the individuals within the team, the team as a group and the organization itself.  It is not unusual for different levels of the organization to perceive and respond differently to an impending change.  It may seem natural to you that those who are more competent at a task should move ahead faster than others.  But that attitude fails to acknowledge that the change project’s progression was made possible because of the project’s original synergistic approach.  Success is based on the ability of the team to synchronize its moves with each other so that the team gains the maximum benefit.

4 Update.

Unstable environments produce constantly changing variables.  Reacting to these shifts in a manner that assist goal achievement requires a continuous updating of action plans.  Sometimes people don’t need to change; plans do.  When resistance surfaces, a synergistic team applauds the open dialogue and redesigns the plan as necessary.  It is the people and the process which need to be upheld.  The plan serves the people and the process.  Listed below are some basic skills to help encourage and support synergy in that processing.

Five basic skills that help foster synergy.

  1. Establish prerequisites.  Build the motivation (common goals and interdependence) and abilities (empowerment and participative management) that are the foundation for synergy (within the established and agreed upon boundaries).
  2. Support permeability.  Help people express and be open to learning new ideas, perspectives, meanings, values, feelings, behaviors, and attitudes they would not otherwise accept or exchange.
  3. Encourage paradoxical thinking. Help people live through the frustration and confusion that occurs when they attempt to understand apparently contradictory ideas, viewpoints, feelings, or attitudes.
  4. Facilitate creativity. Teach people to value the integration of opposing views, causing a shift from “either/or” opposing relationships to “both/and” supportive relationships.
  5. Structure discipline.  Use the new, mutually supported concepts to pursue specific objectives, assign task responsibility and stick to the schedule until the change is fully accomplished.

 By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

 

 

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Audio/Video Presentations, Employee Performance, Resources & Tools Tagged With: ,

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

October 10, 2012 By Comments

 

Resistance to change is often reflective of energy devoted to closure attempts.  That is people are attempting to finish what they feel to be incomplete in the historical structure of the organization.  Providing some way for the organizational members to disengage from that history; to finish, at least to some extent, the past helps them to focus on the change at hand and the future of the organization.  The same could be said of an individual in the process of change.  The individual must be committed to the future and the new vision of the change being attempted.  This involves being willing to ‘let go’ of past ways of doing things and embrace the new plan.

Honoring the past, whether it is the past of the individual in change or the past of the organization in the throes of change, can be essential in order for a new change concept or program to be installed and accepted.  To move beyond the status quo often requires acknowledgement of what has gone before, even if the past was not necessarily good.  For many people to move on and ‘let go’ there must a reiteration of what has been done in the past which has allowed them to get to where they are now.  Once the past has been honored, seeing people’s responses on the change continuum becomes clearer.

In large measure, acceptance or resistance will depend on what people expect will happen.  Optimists are apt to accept change while pessimists are apt to resent them because of the “fear of the unknown.”  Not everyone in the organization will have the same view of change.  Some employees will have mixed or neutral feelings about the change.  Acceptance and attitude go hand-in-hand.  If employees like the manager along with the way that the change is introduced, the change will be accept and even welcomed.  If the manager is not respected, the change will probably be resisted.  Probably the most significant reason why people will accept/welcome change or resent/resist change is related to their participation.  Employees whose input is solicited about changes to be enacted are much more likely to work with management changes.

Points to Remember in anticipating resistance to change

1 Emotion cannot be countered by reason alone, but requires emotional reassurance.

2 Once trust is lost, it is very difficult to win back.

3 Criticism is not necessarily mere resistance; it may be well founded.

4 Once a program is up and running — working with communicated success— resistance will dwindle.

5 In overcoming resistance, prevention is better than cure.

Change is a process

Change proceeds along a continuum connecting the present to a future state.  To get from the present to the future, an organization or an individual must go through transition.  Understanding, encouraging, and guiding this transition from the present state to the future state is what change management is all about.

Present à Transition à Future state

Pain drives change. The two prerequisites for successful organizational change are pain and remedy.  Pain is a critical mass of information that justifies breaking from the status quo.  Remedy is desirable, accessible actions that will solve the problem or take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the current situation. Pain management provides the motivation to pull away from the present: remedy selling provides the motivation to proceed to the desired state.  Every successful transition from the present state to the desired state entails these two prerequisites.  For prolonged change, both elements must work together.  Orchestrating pain messages throughout an institution is the first step in developing organizational commitment to change. A case for compelling urgency must be built.  The pain of what people had/knew/cling to must be seen as greater than the price of transition.  The key to motivating any change is liberating the target’s resolve to change.

Eight stages of resistance to change

Much like the grief process many of us experience with the loss of a loved one, there are eight distinctive stages through which people pass when they feel trapped in a change they don’t want and can’t control.  These stages are: stability, immobilization, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, and acceptance.

  1. Stability. This phase precedes the announcement of the change.  It represents the present state, or status quo.
  2. Immobilization.  The initial reaction to negatively perceived change is shock.  Reaction in this phase may vary from temporary confusion to complete disorientation.  Here, the impact of change is so alien to the person’s frame of reference that he or she is often unable to relate to what is happening.
  3. Denial.  This phase is characterized by an inability to assimilate new information into the current frame of reference.  At this stage, change-related information is often rejected or ignored.
  4. Anger.  This phase is characterized by frustration and hurt, often manifested through irrational, indiscriminate lashing out.  These emotions are typically directed at those in close proximity, who also are usually the ones most willing got be supportive, such as friends and family.  So it is not uncommon for those closest to the target to be blamed, criticized and treated with hostility.
  5. Bargaining.  Bargaining takes many forms.  At this stage, people begin negotiating to avoid the negative impact of change.  This point in the process signals that an individual can no longer avoid a confrontation with reality.  All earlier phases involve different forms of denial.  This phase marks the beginning of acceptance.
  6. Depression.   Depression is a normal response to major, negatively perceived change.  Likely symptoms here are resignation to failure, feeling victimized, a lack of emotional and physical energy, and disengagement from one’s work.  At this point, the full weight of the negative change is finally acknowledged.
  7. Testing.   Regaining a sense of control helps people free themselves from feeling of victimization and depression.  They do this by acknowledging the new limitations while also exploring ways to redefine goals; this makes it possible to succeed within a new framework.
  8. Acceptance.  People now respond to the change realistically.  But acceptance of the change is no synonymous with liking it.  It just means that the person is now more grounded and productive with in a new context.

Five key principles in the “Resistance to change” Pattern

Resilience is enhanced if you:

  • Understand the basic mechanisms of human resistance.
  • View resistance as a natural and inevitable reaction to the disruption of expectations.
  • Interpret resistance as a deficiency of either ability or willingness.
  • Encourage and participate in overt expressions of resistance.
  • Understand that resistance to positive change is just as common as resistance to negatively perceived change and that both reactions follow their own respective sequence of events, which can be anticipated and managed.

Summary

To manage change well you must use sober selling as your approach.  It is essential to divulge up front the real price for change.  The truthfulness in the selling process will not eliminate the disruption that the change is causing, but it will engender better trust relations with your fellow colleges in change.

Resistance is inherent to disruptive change; the only variables are how and when it is manifested and what is done with it.  Ambiguity is always accompanied by a resistance invoice.  You can pay early or late, you can pay for managing resistance or healing from resistance – but you will pay.

 

 

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Audio/Video Presentations, Employee Performance Tagged With: , , ,

The Five Step ADKAR Behavior Model

September 24, 2012 By Comments


Change management is a required capability for developing change competency. To build change competency, you must equip all levels of your organization with the understanding, perspectives and tools to make change seamless and effortless. The ADKAR model is great to assess where your organization is today relative to change competency and develop an action plan to move in that direction.

Managing change management as a change process is also a possible perspective to take with this model. This model can also apply to how well the organization responds to change in addition to determining how well a specific change process is going.

ADKAR model for organizations:

Awareness

The organization understands the importance of responding quickly and efficiently to internal and external pressures to change; the organization understands what change competency is and the associated business risk of not developing change competency; all groups understand the business reason and drivers for making this shift in culture, values, and skills.

Desire

All groups at all levels acknowledge that the ability to change is critical if the organization is to survive, and they are ready and willing to begin the journey toward change competency.

Knowledge

The organization has the base knowledge of what a change-able organization looks like and what skills and values are required; all facets of the organization have a basic understanding of change management theories and practices; each group understands its role in a change-competent organization.

Ability

The organization possesses and effectively utilizes the tools and processes to manage change; leaders, change practitioners and front-line employees have practice and coaching in being successful change agents and can routinely apply their knowledge and skills to realize change; barriers that prevent change implementation are readily identified and removed.

Reinforcement

The organization encourages and rewards successful change through its culture, values and initiatives; support of change competency is reinforced and resistance to change is identified and managed; change is part of ‘business as usual’.

Key ADKAR change principles:

1 Change agents must be conscious of both a sender’s meaning and a receiver’s interpretation.

2 Employee resistance is the norm, not the exception. Expect some employees to never support the change.

3 Visible and active sponsorship is not only desirable, but necessary for success.

4 Value systems and the culture of the organization have a direct impact on how employees react to change.

5 The size and type of the change determine how much and what kind of change management is needed. Just because a change is small does not mean that change management is not required.

6 The “right” answer is not enough to successfully implement change.

7 Change is a process. Employees go through the change process in stages and go through these stages as individuals.

ADKAR model for individuals:

Awareness of the need to change

Desire to participate and support the change

Knowledge about how to change

Ability to implement new skills and behaviors

Reinforcement to keep the change in place

To put these principles into practice, two change management approaches are necessary: the employee’s perspective and the managers’ perspective. Managing change from the employees’ perspective is called individual change management. Managing change from the managers’ perspective is called organizational change management.

Individual change management is often overlooked by many change management models. Individual change management includes the tools and processes that supervisors use with their employees to manage individual transitions through change. This employee-oriented component of change management is the critical ingredient that allows a project team to:

1 Help employees through the change process

2 Create a feedback loop to business leaders and identify points of resistance

3 Diagnose gaps in communications and training

4 Implement corrective action

Summary

The most powerful change management strategies combine organizational change management techniques with individual change management tools to create a robust, closed-loop process.

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Audio/Video Presentations, Employee Performance, Resources & Tools Tagged With: , ,

What Is Human Resource Development?

July 31, 2012 By Comments

Human Resource Development (HRD) is a practice that combines training, organization development, and career development efforts to encourage improvement of individual, group, and organizational performance. Its purpose is to enhance employee performance/productivity, which leads to employee and customer satisfaction and an increase in the profitability of the organization.

The Four Basic Sections of HRD

HRD is comprised of four basic sections: personal development, professional development, performance administration or management, and organization development. Each section will differ in significance from one organization to the next. The significance of each section within an organization may depend upon the extent of the organization’s focus to improve human resources. Personal and professional development concentrate on the growth and development of the individual, while performance administration or management and organization development place their focus on a whole system approach to the effectiveness of the organization.

Personal Development

Personal development can be defined as the development of new knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) that enhance one’s current job performance. The attainment of these new KSAs may be the result of formal and informal learning events, but most often informal, on-the-job, embedded learning is responsible. Personal development is a short-term path to enhancing performance, which results in a lower level of organizational enhancement.

Professional Development

Professional development places its focus on the identification of individual interests, values, and abilities needed to develop KSAs for future employment. Professional development can include both personal and organizational endeavors. Professional Development is more long-term than personal development. It can have more of an impact on organizational efficiency because employees can take advantage of ongoing development opportunities. Professional development is more long-term than personal development. It can have a greater influence on organizational efficiency because employees are presented with ongoing developmental opportunities that increase levels of competency.

Performance Administration or Management

Performance administration or performance management is an approach used to improve organizational performance. Its goal is to assure that the right individuals have the KSAs that support their jobs both effectively and efficiently. Performance administration or management is used to analyze gaps in performance within the organization as a whole and identify interventions effective in bringing about the desired performance. Performance administration or management is often used to bring about short-term return on investment (ROI) needed by organizational leaders to demonstrate their personal leadership success.

Organization Development

Organization Development can be defined as recognizing, creating and implementing a solution to an organization’s weaknesses in performance through team effort. The desired result is a shared enthusiastic attitude toward accomplishing new and existing circumstances or events. The organization’s weakness in performance may be contributed to a procedure that is ineffective. The recognition of this weakness may become apparent through constructive criticism received from clientele or through the inability to maintain competitiveness. The weakness, once identified, should be subjected to a company meeting to solicit ideas for its elimination/improvement. Organization development provides the highest level of organizational efficiency. It requires a more comprehensive performance analysis to identify difficulties and other factors affecting results.

Summary

HRD is the integrated use of training, organization development and career development efforts to improve individual, groups and organization effectiveness. HRD helps to develop key competitiveness that enables individuals in organizations to perform current and future jobs through planned learning activities.  HRD also helps to manage various work groups within organization, motivation issues and manage changes in the organization. HRD ensures an alignment between an individual and the organization’s needs.

 By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Develoment

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Audio/Video Presentations, Career Development, Employee Performance, Resources & Tools Tagged With: , , , ,

Five Steps to Reaching Consensus

July 6, 2012 By Comments

Consensus allows each team member to have an equal influence in the decision-making process.  It represents the best thinking of the team, and all team members support the outcome.  Some team members may not agree with the particular decision, but every team member fully and freely supports the decision once it is made.

The five steps to reaching consensus are:

  1.  Gather information and ideas.
  2. Protect individual viewpoints/promote positive intent and mutual respect.
  3. Base decision on objective information as much as possible.
  4. Blend and integrate ideas to arrive at a decision that everyone can support.
  5. Measure the final outcome by how well it meets the team’s (not individuals’) interests.

Guidelines for Arriving at Consensus

  • Avoid using the majority rule, averages, or coin flips.  These quick decisions are not representative of consensus.
  • Avoid rushing to agreement before everyone has had a chance to express opinions.
  • Encourage honest expression of opinions, even if they conflict with the prevailing discussion.
  • Move from “either/or” choices to “and/but” options.
  • Guard against groupthink.

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Career Development, Employee Performance Tagged With: ,

Training ROI Calculator

June 19, 2012 By Comments

 

Assessing Training Effectiveness

Assessing training effectiveness often entails using the four-level model developed by Donald Kirkpatrick (1994). According to this model, training evaluation should always begin with reaction to the training (level one), and then, as time and budget allows, should move sequentially through learning, transfer, and results – levels two, three, and four. Information from each prior level serves as a base for the next level’s evaluation. Thus, each successive level represents a more precise measure of the effectiveness of the training program, but at the same time requires a more rigorous and time-consuming analysis.

The Fifth Level of Evaluation

Kirkpatrick’s four-level model, however, does not require a specific cost savings to be ascertained. To obtain a true return on investment (ROI) valuation, the cost savings of the training program are compared to the cost of implementing the training program. According to Phillips (2005), this process moves Kirkpatrick’s four-level model to the next level. During the fifth level of evaluation, Level 4 data is collected, converted to monetary values, and compared to the cost of the program to denote the return on the training program’s investment..

ROI Calculation

The ROI formula, according to Phillips (2005), is the annual net program benefits divided by program costs, where the net benefits are the monetary value of the benefits minus the costs of the program. Phillips (2005) ROI formula is as follows:

ROI (%) = Benefits – Costs x 100 ÷ Costs

As an example, let’s assume that the benefits of a project management training program, isolated from other factors occurring within the organization, are $350,000.
Let’s also assume that the total cost of the program is $125,000.
The net program benefits are $350,000 – $125,000 = $225,000.
Following the formula above:
ROI = $225,000/$125,000 (1.8) x 100
ROI = 180%; thus for every $1.00 invested, $1.80 is returned after the costs of the project management training program are recovered.

ROI Calculator

The ROI Calculator is designed to help you calculate the ROI of a training program.

Summary

Most organizations view the process of measuring ROI as requiring too many resources. It is perceived as difficult, time-consuming, labor intensive, and expensive. Nevertheless, if the worth of the chief learning officer (CLO) and the training function are to be demonstrated, some process must be utilized to establish the value of learning at the corporate level. Evaluation determines the worth, value, or meaning of a training program, and whether or not and to what degree evaluation is performed determines the worth, value, or meaning of the CLO. CLOs would be jeopardizing their value to an organization if they are not equipped to provide the heads of an organization with evidence of a training program’s success.

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

Resources

Kirkpatrick, D. L. (1994). Evaluating Training Programs. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Phillips, P., & Phillips, J. (2005). Return on Investment (ROI) Basics. Alexandria: ASTD Press.

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Employee Performance, Evaluation, Instructor Resources, Resources & Tools Tagged With: , , ,

Teams and Conflict

June 8, 2012 By Comments

Conflict Defined

Conflict is defined as the belief that if you get what you want, I can’t get what I want.  Conflict occurs primarily for one of two reasons:  1) different interests or 2) the same interests, which are in conflict.

Conflict in Teams is Inevitable

Work issues and personality differences guarantee that almost any team will experience at least occasional friction.  However, a team can make a choice between conflict that is destructive or conflict that is healthy and leads to growth and innovation.  The goal is a win-win situation based on common team goals.

Teams that both manage and resolve conflict will benefit and see increases in productivity.  Conflict is constructive when it:

  • Leads to unity of purpose and collaboration
  • Leads to better decision making
  • Produces necessary change

 Healthy Conflict

An apparent absence of conflict may be a sign that a team is functioning ineffectively.  It is essential that the team and the team leader be comfortable with conflict.

  • Constructive conflict indicates that the team is engaged
  • Challenging positions and ideas prevents the team from having dominant members push through their ideas
  • Many team leaders fear conflict and squelch it before needed ideas surface

 Five Styles of Handling Conflict

  1. Competing – Win-at-all-costs attitude
  2. Accommodating – Yielding completely to others
  3. Avoiding – Withdrawing from confrontational situations
  4. Compromising – Striving to meet a mutually acceptable solution
  5. Consensus – The highest cause common to both parties wins

Regardless of what style(s) are used to address conflict there are some basic preconditions to successful resolution.  They are: 

  • Concern for mutual gains and understanding that helping others meet their interests can help you meet yours
  • Creativity and always having a Plan B in mind;
  • Being flexible on solutions and firm on interests
  • Separating people from the problem

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

 

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Audio/Video Presentations, Career Development, Employee Performance Tagged With: , ,

Today’s Teams

June 7, 2012 By Comments

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

There was a time when “team building” was all the rage.  Each team spent a great deal of time, energy and effort clarifying goals, developing a team charter and establishing operating principles — that is, working on the process of being a team as much as any task itself.

Frankly, there is much less time for this in today’s work world.  While most work is still accomplished by groups of people, these groups do not have luxury for as much self-examination. 

It remains essential however, that each member clearly understands the goal.  Teams also need a designated leader to ensure that progress is timely and that the goals are achieved.

Is It a Team or a Work Group?

Teams used to have one leader that directed the collective work of the group.  Now, more teams are cross-functional, short-lived and project-based.  There is not always an appointed team leader. 

The team leaders are less certain of their roles, as various team members contribute their area of expertise.  The important task of team facilitation now falls to the team leader.

Whenever a group of people work or play together, they form a team. 

Purposes of teams:

  • Solve a problem
  • Improve a process
  • Design or create something
  • Perform one or more tasks

ASTD Executive Survey

Of 230 companies surveyed by the American Society for Training and Development’s Executive Survey (ASTD) (Work Teams That Work,” Training and Development. Anthony R. Montbello and Victor Buzzotta.  March 1993, pp. 59-64):

  • Seventy-seven percent agreed that teams increased productivity.
  • Seventy-two percent agreed that teams improved quality.
  • Fifty-five percent agreed that teams reduced waste.
  • Sixty-five percent agreed that teams improved job satisfaction.
  • Fifty-seven percent agreed that teams improved customer satisfaction.

Definition of Team

In the new economy of information, work groups have heightened interdependence and the need for outside knowledge, input, and help.  This means that individuals need to work together effectively to get things done.

A team is two or more people working jointly to accomplish a task(s).

In a team all members:

  • Are aware of the “unity” and striving to achieve the same thing together.
  • Have the chance to learn, contribute and work with others.
  • Have the ability to act together toward a common goal.

Reasons to Implement Teams

  • Enhance information processing
  • Increase sense of ownership and commitment to quality and output
  • Improve feeling of morale
  • Learn how to work together better
  • Gain a broader perspective of the company’s purpose and how day-to-day tasks support this purpose
  • Provide solutions and ideas from the front line
  • Complete projects more swiftly
  • Solve problems that affect more than one area
  • Anticipate problems before they arise
  • Develop solutions that benefit the company as a whole
  • Increase the ability of team members to solve their own problems

Humans have an innate need to belong and be a part of something, as evidenced in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (in which belonging is the 2nd item in the hierarchy after basics of food and water).  As long as formal structure doesn’t fulfill these needs, informal teams will exist.

Informal Teams

In some cases, informal groups can make a positive impact.   However, in other cases they can be counterproductive, such as when group behaviors undermine company goals.

Why Informal Teams Form

Doing a job is only one part of people’s needs and offerings.  There are also social and emotional needs and informal groups develop to meet these needs. The level of influence (i.e., control) an informal group has on an individual is directly proportional to how well the group meets that individual’s social and emotional needs.

Summary

Team members today barely have time to complete their work, let alone spend extra time on things such as defining a group process.  This makes it even more important for individual contributors to know how to participate fully on a team right from the start.

Whether teams are officially put in place or not, groups will form.  It is human nature.  It is better for the manager, department, or company to control the forming of groups (by establishing teams) and to provide a clear purpose and focus for each group.

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