Northern New Jersey OD NetworkRetaining Employees in the Upturn:

Restoring Trust

Newark7 May 2010

Kate Sweetman

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1. “I don’t know how long our employees can keep working this hard before they start to burn out – and leave.”

2.“We survived the recession, but now our people need to focus on hope, not fear.”

3.“Fire fighting is one thing, but what we really need is sustained good will and engagement – a culture of positivity and collaboration.”

4.“We keep losing women at the executive level. Why can’t we keep them?”

What’s your situation?

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•The sun revolves around the earth •Animal species never change •Tomatoes are poisonous •You have to wait an hour after eating to swim•Humans can’t fly to the moon •Telephones are only for talking and listening

What do these have in common?

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• What’s going on with our multi-faceted workforce • What kind of leadership meets their needs• How this understanding translates into skills and behaviors individual leaders must have

In this session, we will address:

Goal: improve retention and release discretionary energy

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What’s going on with our employees?

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•56% of workers are dissatisfied with work-life balance•55% … with their sense of achievement from work•54% … with the way that their skills are being used•52% … with their ability to gain new experience•51% … with their pay

With thanks to First Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham, and

Manifesto for the New Agile Workplace by Tony DiRomuldo and Jonathan Winter

The single greatest factor in engagement is level of trust in immediate boss and yet in 32 countries surveyed recently…

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Is 2010 really so special?

Trust in what? In whom?

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Generations

Phase of life

Motivators

Personalities

Origin

Gender

Communities

Competition

The Economy

Technology change

What else?

This is why it is so confusing…

“Knowledge is doubling every three years, and that interval is getting shorter” – UC Berkeley

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Chchchanges…

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“Burned-out, bottlenecked and bored. That’s the current lot of millions of mid-career employees…the manager who was beginning to realize that he’d never become company president, the senior executive who felt she’s sacrificed her life - and her spirit – for her job, and the technician who was bored stiff with his unchallenging assignments… ‘This isn’t how my life and career were supposed to play out,’ [one productive and well-respected middle manager in his late 40’s] told the employee counselor. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can cope.’”

“Managing Middlesence,” Harvard Business Review, March 2006,

Robert Morison, Tamara Erickson, Ken Dychtwald

Yes, there is a Gen X

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And very few women make it to the top in America…

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“The first generation to grow up digital, you are an irresistible force of creativity meeting an immovable object – traditional ways of working.”

Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics

And a Gen Y…

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“My research reveals two distinct groups: 1) people who believe large organizations to be fundamentally dysfunctional and who have opted out – nothing to do with the recession. These are the people off starting their own businesses; 2) the ones who are still trying to make organizations work. They are the ones doing all the slashing. Many of them are effectively as trapped in those organizations as anyone else, and may well be looking for a way out.”

Prof. Nick Holley, Henley School of Business

And dysfunctional organizations…

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•Power/status•Stability/security•Balance•Freedom•Challenge

Bottom line:Work motivators transcend generation

Legacy systems enabled this

Now, security is elusive, and

power/status may just get in the way

With thanks to Brooke Derr

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“For many employees, the recession has put the final nail in the coffin of the traditional deal that once existed between employees and employers.”

Max Caldwell, Towers Watson, Global Workforce Study 2010

The recession has made workers both cautious and frustrated

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How work gets done is changing – putting more pressure on our traditional notion of commitment

•Competition for discretionary energy will increase• Two job norm• People will begin to resist overtime work

•More diverse “grown-up” arrangements will arise•Flatter, more collaborative ecosystems – boundaries transcend

-thanks to Tammy Erickson as well as to Lynda Gratton “The Future of Work”

Looking forward…we are not going back…

Top 10 factors behind quitting

Source: Managing talent in a turbulent economy: Keeping your team intact, September 2009, Deloitte.

15 %

18 %

18 %

20 %

22 %

23 %

23 %

27 %

27 %

36 %

Excessive workload

Lack of challenge in the job

Poor employee …

Dissatisfaction with …

Lack of trust in leadership

New opportunities in …

Lack of adequate bonus …

Lack of compensation …

Lack of career progress

Lack of job security

More than half of these complaints

are leadership

issues

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Bottom Line: the work context has changed, and the leadership that guides actions must change, too

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What kind of leadership can meet the needs of employees and the business?

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•Top Companies for Leaders (with Hewitt and Fortune magazine)•Singapore MOM•The Leadership Code

Does leadership matter?

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The What: The organization is doing the right thing (goals and strategies)

The How: We know how to execute (make decisions, take actions)

The Why: Trust in the people leading the organization -- and they in you

“The Trusted Leader”, Rob Galford and Annie Drapeau

The Employee Value Proposition is met by the Leadership Value Proposition:

“I am getting from my leadership at least as much as I am giving”

@ the Heart of Engagement: Trust in Leadership

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Are all trusted leaders the same or different?

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Leadership Code: Supports EVP, creates trust

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Leadership people can believe in

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Leaders create culture

“I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game -- it is the game. In the end, the organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of the organization to create value. Vision, strategy, marketing, financial management – any management system, in fact – can set you on the right path and can carry you for a while. But no enterprise…will succeed over the long haul if [the right cultural] elements aren’t part of its DNA.”

Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?, Louis Gerstner

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Culture must serve the business need

“Successful institutions always develop strong cultures that make the institution great. They reflect the environment from which they emerged. When the environment shifts, it is very hard for the culture to change. In fact, it becomes an enormous impediment to the institution’s ability to adapt.”

Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?, Louis Gerstner

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IBM Culture ShiftFrom TO

Product out (I tell you) Customer in (in shoes of customer)

Do it my way Do it the customer’s way

Decisions based on anecdotes and myths

Decisions based on facts and data

Relationship-driven Performance-driven and measured

Conformity (politically correct) Diversity of ideas and opinions

Attack people Attack the process (ask why not who)

Look good Real accountability

Armonk Globe

Rule-driven Principle-driven

Value me (silo) Value us (the whole)

Analysis paralysis (perfection) Decide and move forward (80/20)

Not invented here Learning organization

Fund everything Create priorities

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Not every company must do what IBM did

Amount of knowledge work required

Competitive Intensity

Low High

High

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Viruses: Sap cultural health1. Not invented here

2. We haven’t done that before

3. We tried that before

4. Is it ok with the brass?

5. Face time v. real accomplishment

6. Meeting needs of boss, not other colleagues (or customer)

7. Activity mania

8. Decision-aversion

9. “In group” rules

10. Squeaky wheels get heard

11. Inability to deal with conflict or dissent

12. Inability to listen

13. Etc

14. Etc

15. Etc

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We’re all leaders in this room, leading in a storm… how are we doing?

Me as an Individual leader

Organizational Leadership

Leadership Code•Strategy•Execution•Talent manager•Human capital development

Culture checkUnwritten rules that determine who gets ahead and what gets done

Viruses checkCultural barriers to optimal functioning of the organization

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Do we understand the power of the individual leader?

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What can individual leaders do? Map motivators to leadership actions

Strategy •Engage and align the organization

Execution •Look into fresh assignments

Talent Manager •Mentoring •Have regular conversations with your manager and managees around role•Create and leverage networks/affinity groups

Human Cap Develop •Think creatively about career changes you can help to provide•Work, future needs – both for the individual and the organization •Extending leadership training beyond the few to the many

Personal Proficiency •Be articulate and transparent about WHO YOU ARE, about who the org is and who you are not•Sabbaticals

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Help your people think through critical personal proficiency questions1. Why am I here?

Build on my strengths

2. Where am I going?Aligning personal values with corporate values

3. Whom do I travel with?Relationships that allow for creativity, focused energy, trust, mutual respect

4. How do I build a positive work environment around me?Good communication, development opportunities, self-reflection, honesty

5. What challenges interest me?Commitment based on vision, personal growth, high impact work, fair pay, etc

6. How do I respond to difficulties and change?Growth, learning and resilience

7. Civility and happinessMove beyond us/them, we/they, right/wrong, blame/shame

Dave and Wendy Ulrich, The Why of Work

Leaders must themselves stay centered

Harvard Mind/Body Institute recommendations

- Cultivate an “attitude of gratitude”- Avoid “negaholics” and stress carriers - Volunteer- Join a support group- Find time just to play-Yoga- Decide to be happy

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Go to the people:

Live with them, learn from them

Love them

Start with what they know

Build with what they have.

But of the best leaders,

When the job is done,

The task accomplished.

The people will say:

“We have done it ourselves.”

--Lao Tsu

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Would love to stay in touch!

Email: katejsweetman@gmail.com Blog: Decoding Leadership (http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kate-sweetman/decoding-leadership-0)

Video: Thinkers50 video (http://www.thinkers50.com/video/20)

Website version1.0: Sweetman & Associates Leadership Consulting www.sweetmanconsulting.org