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Robert is like many others in his company. Technically very
skilled and dedicated to his company, he has reached a point where he is almost
literally pulling out his hair with frustration. Change is happening fast. He is
being asked to manage a team, win business, deliver the ‘product’ and feed a
demanding bureaucracy with endless spreadsheets and reports purporting to
control the endemic change and reassure the bosses that all is ‘on track’. “I
can’t do my job” he expostulates, red in the face with high blood pressure. “I
have to do all the things I’m not good at and that don’t add value, and there’s
no time to do what I should be doing. I don’t know how much longer I can go on.”
Now fast forward six months: Robert is relaxed, confident,
fully engaged and delivering twice as much business. He goes in front of the CEO
of the 13,000-strong business to describe the impossible situation he faced and
how he had transformed it. He and his team had been experiencing work as
unsustainably heavy-going, like wading through treacle. Robert used the tools to
transform that very treacle into days of ‘working well’.
The figures behind the story...
At the outset …
Robert’s group
has missed the last two quarterly targets and is
struggling to get near its £600,000 p.a. profit target; engagement is
lower than the company average.
After 6 months…The
group has overshot its targets for two consecutive quarters and engagement for
the pilot group is now significantly above the company average, having risen by
13.8%
After 1 year … The
group achieves over £1.3m profit per annum.
After 2 years … It
has reached over £2m profit per annum.
They had
trebled their profits and significantly increased levels of engagement, whilst
reducing stress. And both profits and engagement continue to grow 2½ years
later.
How did the transformation come about?
This was achieved not through financial or organisational
restructuring, nor through top-down process improvement, but through a very
simple shift that transformed everything. Robert and his group used 8 tools for
transformation within a framework of principles to bring out the resources he
needed.
If you are used to more traditional, analytic systems, what
follows may be surprising.
To begin the work of transformation the first principle is to
start in the here and now; we are fully present to people’s real current
experience. An organisation may have a grand mission statement for growth or
delivery of service but if, right now, Robert is shrinking from coming into work
and feeling discouraged, it is with this reality that we must start.
Secondly,we become aware of Robert’s team’s core values
and vision. It is our values that make us tick, and our vision that draws us
forward. They bring meaning and purpose to what we do. Only when people are
aligned with their vision and values will their commitment flow from the
deepest part of themselves and with that comes the engagement that underpins
high performance.
Thirdly,we address that most
fundamental of questions: What is a human being? We recognise that a
human being has boundless capacity for creativity, innovation, generosity. And
we also acknowledge that as human beings we have an equally boundless capacity
for messing up, for destroying, criticising, blaming, resenting. Given this, it
becomes imperative to create a working culture where Robert can choose to work
to his highest potential and be willing to tame and deal with his negative
potential.
These three principles – here and now, values and vision,
human beings - form the baseline principles for releasing the inner resources.
(This is only part of a larger process which is not within the scope of this
article.)
Robert went on to use a deceptively simple tool-set. “Of all
the tools,” he said, “it was stillness that changed everything – it took me off
the treadmill and I regained my sense of perspective.”. Stillness is taboo in
frenetic, driven organisations where being hyper-busy is seen as a virtue. It
takes courage to stop and draw on stillness.
Listening, story, encounter, celebration, grieving, visioning
and journaling complete the tool-box. They are all commonsense activities that
many people use sporadically and informally, but they are easily forgotten and
seriously under-used in the hurly-burly of work just when they are most needed.
The widespread consistent use of just one of these tools can transform a
workplace from surviving to thriving.(2)
As an individual one gains a sense of calm and confidence; as a team the tools
build collaboration, trust and the knowledge that together you can face
whatever comes along.
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