All organizations are built up of, and by people. This means that people are an extremely important factor when making changes. With this in mind, I think it’s a paradox that when change is being planned, people and systems are not given equal value. Sure, there’s a balance sheet present, measuring the ROI of each employee, and the value of each position, but there’s more to people than that.
What about the knowledge, viewpoints, ideas and thoughts existing in the organization that top management are not aware of? I want to share a story with you on both lack of awareness from management, as well as how not to treat employees.
Accepting Criticism – How Not To Do It
Back in 2000-2001 I worked at a large bookstore in Norway, and during this period the store went through a change process focused on a new logo design for all the stores in the chain.
This may sound like small a change, but imagine the cost of changing every envelope, every letterhead, every bookmark to go with the book sales, every plastic bag, etc. It gets pricy.
One evening everyone working at the store was invited for an evaluation session. The new logo suggestion was presented, and guess what? …Not everyone liked it. In fact, quite a few raised their concerns, because the new logo didn’t really look that nice, and it wasn’t something they felt they could identify with.
Imagine the surprise when they (I say they, because I knew I wasn’t going to work there that long, and so it didn’t affect me as much) where told by the boss that “to be honest, the decision has already been made. We just wanted to show you the new logo”. Apparently top management just assumed that everyone would love the design they had spent all that money on, and where taken by surprise when it wasn’t case.
To top things off, a takeover from a different chain was already in the works, and would happen a couple of months down the line. In other words, lots of money was spent on a change that would have much impact beyond alienating top management and the employees from one another, and a few months later the whole process would be worthless as the logo would take the design of the new owner.
On the positive side, this was an episode that fueled my interest in organizational psychology.
Talk to the People That Matter – The Informal Leaders
Let’s look at a keyword here: Communication. Whether development and change is initiated all in-house, or with the assistance of external consultants, talk to employees all the way. They are the people that matter, the people who make up the organization, and the ones who make the wheels go around. Isn’t it only natural that their voices be heard? Or, well, maybe I’m just not getting it.
identify informal leaders
If top management had taken the time to discuss with the rest of the organization, the change could have been a success. Do you need to talk to absolutely everyone? No, and that’s the beauty of it all. Identify the informal leaders, the person (or persons) that the other employees talk to, the people that know what’s going on. The people who know what top management don’t. Informal leaders are centers of trust in an organization. They have the confidence of the people, and as a source of knowledge, understanding and insight, they are closer, often physically, and especially mentally. They are easier to talk to than the boss.
Making The Connection
Understanding of, and respect for, local norms have been shown to play an important role in achieving successful and healthy change processes. Since top management often has no clue as to what these local norms entail, clear communication with the sources that do is crucial. Enter informal leaders. They are the ones trusted with the real (and critical) points of view from employees. This makes them an asset to the organization and a source of learning, giving them leverage. They should be allowed to influence the change process, by working with the change agents (internal and/or external), or by being change agents themselves. If a greater success for mutual understanding and successful change is the likely result, it should be an obvious strategy.
To see the important relationship between management and the informal leaders, imagine the change process as a journey where you follow a map. Management knows where the organization needs to go, and what outcomes they need to focus on. However, they may only have a vague idea of where on the map they actually are. In a worst case scenario this renders the change useless. The use of a map is compromised when you don’t know where you are. See informal leaders as the source that can tell you where you are on the map. Together, top management and an organizations informal leaders possess both the knowledge of where they are, and where they need to be.
Question/Challenge: Who are the informal leaders in your organization (maybe it’s you)? How do you know? How do they connect with the rest of the people, and you with them?
One more thing – Consider what it means if you have no clue as to who your organizations informal leaders are…
Share your knowledge, thoughts and ideas.