The meetings themselves need to be scheduled and run by a facilitator, and it is often useful to make that person a nonparticipant. Perhaps an HR person can take on the responsibility of sending out e-mails to remind people of upcoming meetings, running the meetings, and carrying the results of the meetings back to decision-makers. It is advantageous if the facilitator happens to occupy an organizational role that gives her or him ready access to decision-makers, because the output of the meetings is information that these people ought to know.
Initially, people may be suspicious of TMT members. That suspicion is itself a sign (though not an uncommon one) of mistrust within the organization, and mistrust is a situation that the decision-makers need to address before it damages their undertaking. Often the mistrust dies out as soon as people start to discover that their worries and difficulties are being recognized by the TMT—and better yet, that they are being answered and remedied as a result of being brought up in TMT meetings. Some TMTs function very well by taking a passive role, simply reporting what people come to them and say, while other TMTs take a more active role, sending members around to interview people as part of their ear-to-the-ground effort.
It is generally wise to limit the focus of the TMT discussions to matters that have grown directly out of the changes going on in the organization and the transitions that people are in because of them. Inevitably, the group finds itself touching on more general matters (“how bad communication is around here,” for example), and it is a good idea to find some way to channel those issues into appropriate venues for discussion and response. It is the facilitator’s role to take care of this, but if some members of the TMT are also part of other groups that address organizational problems, these issues can be delegated to them on the spot.
It is often important to feed back information on specific issues to the groups and individuals who originally brought them to the TMT’s attention. People naturally wonder what ever happened to their question or complaint or idea, and nothing kills a feedback system faster than people experiencing it as a black hole into which things are drawn and then disappear.
TMTs are extremely worthwhile, for they identify at an early stage problems that could later have serious consequences. They are one of the ways in which people can feel that they have a role (and a stake) in a change that has been planned by upper-level executives without much input from the employees. TMTs are also an effective way to counter rumors, because members of the team may be able to disseminate accurate information more believably than leaders can.
The case study below illustrates how a major corporation implemented Transition Monitoring Teams during a significant reorganization.
CASE STUDY: SHELL TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION MONITORING TEAM (TMT)
The Royal Dutch Shell Research & Development Laboratory in Amsterdam consulted with William Bridges Associates to assist them with a significant and complex organizational change. The Laboratory was preparing to merge with Shell Oil and Chemical manufacturing organizations in The Hague. The impact and uncertain future led to the resignation of the entire leadership team.
Gary Hays, general director and head of Human Resources, worked with Bill Bridges to adopt the Transition Monitoring Team (TMT) model as a part of the overall Transition Management plan. TMT proved to be a highly effective method to overcome the challenges of this period.
The Shell TMT was a network of employees who checked the “temperature” of the organization during the transition. They sorted through rumors, complaints, and compliments, and shared them with Shell senior management.
Many employees were skeptical about the TMT idea, and so careful selection was vital. Criteria included employees with already established networks and trusted relationships. Members were selected from a broad cross-section of the organization, across geographies, and with diverse knowledge and skills. Seven to twelve members were ideal. The goal was to stimulate communication—bottom-up, top-down, and across. TMT members needed to be perceived as independent, and not an extension of management.
TMT members had full-time jobs and received no additional compensation. As the TMT became better known, it became prestigious to be part of it. Individuals learned more about the organization fulfilling this role than if they were solely focused on their own jobs. But the main driver remained a desire to improve the organization, especially its culture.
TMT members collected input from several sources including e-mail (usually at the request of the TMT member), at coffee breaks, or during personal one-on-ones. Sometimes employees would share spontaneously. Comments could be given to anyone on the TMT anytime, and in any language. Every employee had access and everyone was acknowledged. Comments remained anonymous, even though the TMT member knew who was providing it. The nature of the comments and suggestions covered a range of subjects, some logical and some emotional.
The TMT met face-to-face every two months with a representative from senior management who was the liaison to the executive team. TMT members summarized the material clearly and by priority. Topics deemed most important were identified as burning issues, which became the main concern of the management liaison.
Comments were separated into two areas—criticisms and positive suggestions. Criticisms helped management recognize the disconnect between what they were saying and doing. The positive suggestions helped establish best practices for the new organization. When things were highly uncertain and changing fast, there were more comments. When events became more stable and people felt more secure, comments decreased.
Not everyone in senior management liked what they heard. They doubted the pervasiveness of opinions and there were many requests for more statistical data to ensure the feedback wasn’t merely anecdotal. TMT members rejected these requests.
It wasn’t about quantitative evidence. It was about the depth of the people’s feelings.
With such honest opinions, feeling and ideas coming from employees, management felt compelled to respond. It was crucial to make them feel heard. A town hall meeting format was set-up; emails were sent to all staff describing how their concerns were to be remedied. “Burning Issues” were published weekly.
TMT became a permanent presence in the organization when it became obvious that it was a highly effective communications resource. The TMT was not only essential during transition periods but also during periods of relative stability.
After several reorganizations and layoffs, the loss of technical expertise became a strategic threat and there were concerns that management was ignoring it. When the TMT raised this problem, senior management approved an enhanced skill-training program. It became so successful that it was eventually implemented globally throughout the corporation.
Though it was originally set up for a short transition, the TMT eventually became a group that continued for more than ten years. Throughout, the TMT was concerned with:
•a strong commitment to know how people were feeling and what they were saying,
•creating easy access to the organization’s “grapevine” to correct misinformation and quell rumors,
•and acting as a credible employee focus group to review developments before they were announced.
There were fewer reorganizations over time but enough business changes and transitions (and rumors) for the TMTs to continue to show their worth. TMTs continued to be needed—to gather information and to assess where the company culture was headed.
Shell Research’s Temperature Monitoring Team (as it became known) was successful for more than a decade through several major organizational changes. Ultimately, it influenced the culture, increased transparency, and fostered trust and openness between management and staff.
Gary Hays
March 2016
Appendix D:
Career Advice for Employees of Organizations in Transition
As organizations are exposed to unending change, transition becomes a more or less a continuous state, and many opportunities for employment and advancement may
go away. Cutting out a layer of management may have improved communications, for example, but it also may have removed several positions that people had their eye on. It is true that change destroys old opportunities, but it is equally true that it creates new ones. The same “flattening” of the organization that sliced out the layer of management jobs that people were after may also have created a number of self-managed groups. That has created a role for a new kind of person: someone who can handle the external interfaces between the team and other parts of the organization. Another example: a reorganization that decentralizes your department may also create a need for people who can manage virtual teams and work with groups dispersed over several geographic locations.
Obviously, a person who is trying to live with change would do well to find ways to capitalize on a reorganization. (Too many people simply try to figure out how to keep change from affecting them.) You need to go beyond adjusting to change. So how do you take advantage of it?
The first thing you need to do is to stop thinking in terms of fixed jobs and start thinking in terms of the unmet needs or the things that need doing or the unsolved problems in the organization. It may help to think of the organization—or of the part of it you know best—as a market or a collection of potential customers who are seeking to get their needs met. They probably keep wondering whose job it is to do what they need done.
If you don’t act but simply let the situation take its own course, you are going to find quite a few consultants and contract workers cruising the hallways, because it is very common for organizations to enlist the aid of free agents to get their needs met. You could play that free agent role if you wanted to. How would you set yourself up to do that? I’d suggest that you take what I call the Five JobShift Stepsa:
STEP 1. You start by finding out what resources you bring to any manager or department who needs some help. I urge you to think of those resources as being made up of four parts:
1.Your Desires. What do you really want—what inspires powerful motivation in you? What are your ideals and your values? What would you really like to pursue if you could?
2.Your Abilities. What are you good at? What comes naturally to you? What do others admire about you?
3.Your Temperament. What kind of activity are you naturally most suited to? How do you like to approach getting things done? How would you define your character?
4.Your Assets? What specialized credentials, skills or experience do you have? What degrees or well-positioned contacts do you have? What is unusual about you, something that not many people share?
Together, Desires, Abilities, Temperament, and Assets represent the DATA that you bring to the table. They are your resources.
STEP 2. Then you have to survey and understand the “market” you are trying to serve: Who are these customers? What are they after? What are the problems these customers are trying to solve? What are the specifications for the desired products or services? You are going to have to learn something about the customers you are proposing to serve. It’ll take a little work, but it’s worth the effort.
STEP 3. Next, you combine your DATA and the unmet needs you find in the market. This combination—call it “what-I-have-that-you-need”—is your “product.” Your product is a solution to a particular customer problem, a way of getting a result that the customer can’t presently get but that he or she wants. You are no longer an employee doing a job. You are more like a contractor (who just happens to be an “employee” too) who is selling a product. Many times you’ll find that the customer would be willing to pay more for your product than the company was paying you as a wage. Good deal! If you keep finding that to be true, you may want to change your employee status.
STEP 4. If you start to see yourself as “selling a product” rather than “doing a job,” you are in business for yourself, no matter whether you work inside the company or outside it. What business are you in—not your company’s business but yours? You don’t know? It’s time to figure out the answer so you’ll have a head start on your team members.
STEP 5. If you are in business, you are a micro-company—even if you are technically an employee. Stop thinking about your career. Start thinking about your business’s strategic plan. Where is your “Company” headed? What resources does it need? How can it market its services?
The Five JobShift Steps will shift your mindset from that of an employee who does a job to that of an independent worker who provides a customer with what he or she needs. You say that this doesn’t fit your desires because you want to remain an employee? Fine. What do companies need today? Workers who will deliver the best possible service or product to their customer—that’s what. And this is the way to deliver the best.
When you start to approach work this way, you may find managers who aren’t as far-sighted as you are. They may even tell you to just “do your job.” You can find another place to work, but hang in there if you can, and see what you can create.
I’d say that the best advice for developing a career in an age of constant change is to stop doing a job and start finding the work that needs doing, the work that draws on your DATA and produces a “product” that somebody really needs. That is what I did when I decided that the unmet need of people around me was a way to deal successfully and productively with high levels of change. I decided that my DATA fitted the task of speaking and writing on this subject. And that is what I have done ever since. This book is one of my products. I hope that you find it useful.
aThis is a very brief overview of the Five JobShift Steps, which is described in much more detail in my book Creating You & Co.: How to Think Like the CEO of Your Career (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 1998).
Appendix E:
The Leader’s Role in Times of Transition
Everyone knows that one of the leader’s most important roles is to “lead change,” but too few people realize that that job goes nowhere unless the leader can also play a transition leadership role. These two roles overlap, but there is a basic difference between them. In relation to the change, the leader’s task is to determine (usually in collaboration with others) the outcome of the change project and to keep reminding people what that outcome is and why it is important to achieve it.
The leader’s transition responsibility, on the other hand, is to lead people through it. Moses is a good model of transition leadership: he persuaded the Israelites to leave the status quo behind in Egypt, guided them through the wilderness, and, as the leadership mantle passed to Joshua, led them into a new beginning with a new identity.a
The transition leader’s function is to do a number of things related to getting people through the three phases of transition. Since there is a period before those three phases and one after they are concluded, it might be more accurate to say that the leader needs to think of her transition role as a play with five acts:
ACT 1: BEFORE THE TRANSITION
The transition hasn’t started yet, but you know that a change is in the works. Others—including some of the executive team—may not know this yet, but that does not mean that the task of transition leadership hasn’t started. This is the time to start “selling the problem” if you haven’t done so already. Some leaders resist doing this because they are afraid that it will upset their employees. But then they are angry with those people for not moving forward more quickly when the announcement is made. The people must acknowledge that there is a problem and understand the cost of not addressing it before they can follow the leader into action.
This leadership role may put you into your own transition, because it may force you to let go of your own style of leadership, with its insistence on staying positive and upbeat. This is one of the reasons why today’s leaders and their organizations have so much trouble with transition.
The second thing that you need to do at this preliminary stage of managing the transition is to put together a one-minute talk about what the change is and why it is necessary. It won’t be possible at this early date to g
ive the details of the change, but it should be possible to give a rough sense of when additional information will be available. You’ll use this one-minute talk again and again to deliver the basic message in a way that ensures consistency.
The final thing that can be done in advance is to assess employees’ level of trust in the organization’s leaders. Low trust means trouble in times of transition, so anything that can be done to build trust is worth doing. This is a time to be particularly careful to say what you’ll do and then to do what you say. It is a time to strengthen emotional bonds between leaders and followers and to build a stronger sense that everyone is in the same boat. Needless to say, words count for little whenever it becomes evident that people are actually in a very different boat from their more privileged leaders. Remember: your actions and the situations that they create are sending messages that far outweigh your words.
ACT 2: DURING THE ENDING
You need to be careful at this point not to overreact to resistance and opposition. Remember that what people are resisting is not the change that you spent so much energy on and that is so essential to the organization’s future. What they are resisting is having to let go of things that they have always done or situations that they have depended upon for years. Understand that people have to dismantle both their individual and collective worlds—those circumstances and outlooks that have helped them to feel at home at work. Cut people a little slack while they mourn their losses. Don’t take aspects of that mourning, like anger or depression, out of context and turn them into personal challenges to your authority.
Managing Transitions Page 18