Category: Relationship building

Trust is one very key enabler to success

shersh

Executing Organizational Change is neither simplistic nor easy. It requires we, as practitioners, not assume success. Whether the change is at the individual, group, department or enterprise level, no matter what the change is, there is always an underpinning of empathy and observation we must maintain as we address the health of the organization.

One of my clients asked that I build a Change Management strategy and plan, for a new product rollout that had been in the works for a while. Just build the plan. It should be straight forward.

As I attended various team meetings, as part of my engagement assessment, I found a whole new story. Teams and individuals talked freely and secretly to me about miscommunication between themselves and the senior executive team, and mis-direction between middle management and the teams on the ground. Digging deeper the level of trust between employees and management (their words) was very low due to the many mis-steps made by the executive team through, for example, a lack of effective, consistent and professional delegation and communication.

A lack of trust is bred as employees begin to see a lack of fairness and justice in the workplace based on their expectations and their realities. This lack of trust raises a number of concerns, for example:

.increases conflict among employees

.decreases engagement, loyalty, productivity and quality of work

In my little story I stopped my planning and worked with the organization to execute programs to improve trust, before, they started effecting change.

Some of many actions included:

.Improved communication at all levels – encouraging transparency and two way dialogue

.Ensured open policy and procedures were available to manage disputes thru facilitation, coaching and mediation

.Identified and modified the organizational process touchpoints ( from initial talent scouting, hiring and beyond) to ensure consistent messaging on engagement, leadership, communication and dialogue among all employees

With those actions in the works, my impossible mission became possible, though, admittedly, still not easy. Trust is critical.

Seymour Hersh

The age of civility has lost its way -a manifesto?

shersh3 Comments

Where are you Ann Landers???
Please help.

Our use of technology has moved us apart physically and emotionally. At the same time our use has increased the volume of data that can be  and is created/shared while lowering its intended quality.  The phrase “don’t call us , we’ll call you”, once used to manage the volume of phone calls/emails  received has now permeated our daily interactions with customers and suppliers in general.

Permeated to such an extent that:
.we do not actively  call Customers & Suppliers
.we do not follow up or provide feedback
.we do not manage expectations over time

Of course this attitude has similarly affected the relationships between managers/supervisors and their staff.

Lack of civility has created a lack of professionalism. The longer this goes on, the more the new attitude becomes a habit, a bad habit,  the higher potential the skills of connection  will be lost.

Bottom line, this has to stop.

I would like to suggest a policy with training and performance metrics be developed and implemented throughout all organizations who communicate.

Below is the start of  The Civility Manifesto. I will make this first cut succinct instead of waxing eloquently over pages and pages.  Please add change delete . Send me your thoughts.

All customers, suppliers, employees will be treated as Customers.
Customers are to be served.
Customers are human beings, just like you.
Customers  need  to communicate, and be communicated to on a timely basis.
Customers do appreciate a human voice, human face and a handshake.
Customers have expectations, perceptions, assumptions, emotions
Customers are all good people.
Customers need timely feedback, good or not as good, in order to self manage their own expectations, perceptions, assumptions, emotions  and self manage how they will relate, respond to You, Your team, Your organization.
Customers expect to be respected, just like you do.
A telephone call to a Customer, for example,  can take less that 30 seconds to complete, including a clear meaningful voice mail.

If each of us took 30 seconds to make that clarifying, expectation managing, information giving call, what impact would that have on our joint success, whether measured in revenue, time, or quality.

what are your thoughts

Seymour