Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage
Bosses aka “the man” frequently blur the line of sight to the customer forcing people to choose between meeting the needs of the boss or the customer. The fact that the boss doles out reward [raises, good evaluation, promotion etc.] and punishment [poor assignments, no raise or even firing] based mostly on their ‘subjective’ evaluation sets up a power dynamic that all too often focuses on the boss’ needs rather than the needs of the customer.
The focus on the needs of the manager shifts the energy away from the customer in subtle but powerful way. The job, as defined by the manager, is written with the ‘real’ customer in mind and usually describes tasks and duties that deliver ‘something’ [product or service] to the customer. The employee is told their job is to serve and meet the needs of the customer. However in practice, the employee is frequently tasked with work (or working conditions) that obscure the goal making it difficult to meet customer expectation or even worse conflict with delivering quality product to the customer.
This dynamic is reinforced by the way we define jobs and measure performance where the manager is at the center. Developing customer-focused job description moves the customer to the center, increases role clarity and shifts the power from the boss to the customer.
Most jobs descriptions are vague at best. They tend to include a mix of tasks (prepare work order letters); areas of responsibility (responsible for the Bureau’s expense budget) and expected behavior or outcomes (improve efficiency and effectiveness). They do not clearly define what must be delivered, who it must be delivered to, what need is being satisfied or value is being added, what the standards of delivery are – due by, format etc. or how performance will be measured. This is a problem on many levels.
First, there is too much room for interpretation by both the employee and manager, and the likelihood that they will interpret this vague description differently can almost be guaranteed. More importantly, the vague description puts the manager in a position to ‘tell’ the employee what to do and puts the employee in a position to either ‘wait’ to be told or have to ‘ask’ before taking action. This dynamic reinforces the under-lying assumptions that the manager is supposed to have all the answers and the employee is absolved from taking ownership or responsibility. Additionally, performance against vague job descriptions cannot be measured. It can only be interpreted and interpretations are as different as the points of view (or mental models) of the interpreter. And finally, the customer is not even part of the discussion – the manager and employee decide, without customer involvement, what needs to be delivered.
In this environment the style and of the manager greatly influences the employee’s ability to be successful and level of customer satisfaction relegating the two main actors (customer and employee) to the sidelines. It also reinforces the leadership styles that encourage 'learned dependency' versus leadership styles that encourage 'empowerment' and 'innovation'.
Breaking learned dependency, working under a controlling manager, you would need a team who is very emotionally intelligent and happy to 'break the unwritten ground rules' for the better of the customer. Most staff don't as they believe that 'breaking the rules' will lead to Disciplinary action. Disciplinary action takes many forms from getting passed over for better assignments, little to no raise or even firing.
It is also worth noting that even when managers want to give employees more freedom and employees want to take more ownership for meeting the needs of the customers, the current system gets in the way. At the end of the day the manager is held accountable for telling their teams what to do, measuring performance and rewarding them by their managers. Taken together these are powerful drivers that reinforce the command-and-control leadership style.
Redesign the frameworks used to define roles and put the customer at the center. Write job descriptions based on the work-products needed to meet specific customer needs.
The Customer Driven Performance framework is such a tool. It is designed to reinforce a much different manager-employee relationship where the employee’ job is defined by the needs of the customer and the managers’ role is to support the employee in delivering to customer requirements. Performance is measured by the customer based on objective targets set by the employee and customer. This framework supports the ownership employees crave to meet their customer’s ever-changing needs and the freedom managers must grant to enable increased innovation and real customer focus.
The framework is a simple customer-supplier model reframed as a position description and begins with defining your job parts/products.
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Job Part What are your products? |
Your product or service is the output of the work you do. We all have many daily activities that contribute to our products or services. Your product list must be manageable (between 3 and 7) and should describe the outcomes of your daily activities. |
This is best done by listing all the tasks and activities you do and then grouping them into job parts. Most jobs can easily be defined with five job parts. The frame work can appear deceivingly easy and will most likely require a facilitator to complete. The process of completing the framework is, in itself, an enlightening experience for teams.
With your Job Parts defined, next step is defining the customer for each job part
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Customer Who is your Customer and how will they use your product? |
A Customer is any individual or organization, inside or outside of the company which uses your products or services. Primary Customers are those for whom you produce your product or service. You would stop producing the product or service if they didn’t want or need it anymore. Secondary Customers may use the product or service or reap some benefit from its use, but you would not continue to produce the product specifically for them. Understanding how your customers use your products helps you design and deliver products that satisfy your customers |
There is value in defining both primary and secondary customers but not necessary and nothing to get stuck on, get the primary customers defined and move on to requirements. Sometimes, in conversations with customers about why they want your service and how they will use it, the secondary customers become apparent.
Understand the value of your product
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Requirements What are your Customer’s requirements? |
Requirements are what your customers’ want, expect or need from your product or service. Understanding from the customer what their requirements are, help you anticipate changing needs, innovate improvements and consistently deliver products that satisfy the customer the first time and eliminate failure/ rework. |
Remember, your product is more than an idea, it’s more than a website and it’s more than a transaction or list of functionalities. It provides an experience or service that adds value to someone's life through fulfilling a need or satisfying a desire and knowing this is paramount to adaptability.
How will you know that you are on target to deliver and ensure the customer’s needs are being met?
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Results How will you know when requirements are met?? |
Critical to the effectiveness of this framework is the ability to measure success and solicit feedback. Measures of success need to be observable. This greatly reduces the possibility of discrepancies between the coach and performer. The results should be supported by data (evidence) that you have met (or exceeded the customers’ requirements. |
Measurements must also reflect the likelihood of success in time to adjust and correct before delivery. It is important to know if you met requirements after you have delivered. It is more important to be able to determine and influence the likelihood of meeting requirements so you can adjust in time to deliver as expected.
These four segments are the foundation of this framework and have two supporting elements; the first is understanding and defining you suppliers.
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Suppliers Who are your suppliers? |
Suppliers are the groups, individuals, vendors or organizations that provide you with the resources you need to produce your products. External suppliers may provide equipment, material, information or services. Internal suppliers are those employees, within the company, who pass work on to you.
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Managing and maintaining good relationships with your suppliers is critical to your ability to deliver. Treat your suppliers with the same care as your customers and ensure they understand your needs and requirements and hold them accountable.
Completion of these segments is position dependent not incumbent dependent. In other words everyone filling this role, for the most part, will have the same job parts, measurements etc. The only time this varies is if the customer is different as the specs may differ. Generally speaking though, each member of your team performing this role will be delivering the same products to the same customers and these segments will be the same (e.g. regardless of the person playing first base, the role of the first base player is the same).
The one area where variation is expected is in the final section of this tool, personal strengths
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Strengths What strengths will you draw on to meet customer requirements? |
Looking at your job parts and customer requirements determine what specific knowledge, skill and ability (KSA) is needed to deliver. Identify the strengths (KSA’s) including interpersonal traits and behaviors you need to exhibit to be successful and fulfilled in your work. Once the strengths have been determined, coach and performer need to evaluate and identify any gaps crucial to meeting customer needs and develop an action plan (training, practice, etc) needed to close the gap. |
Everyone brings unique skills, capabilities and levels of competence to their role. Everyone has a different set of strengths to draw on in meeting their customer’s needs. While there are always a set of core competencies required to be successful in a particular position, it is not necessary for everyone to work in the same way. Employees should have some level of freedom to both draw on their natural skills and experiment. The manager should provide ongoing feedback and coaching to ensure the individual is the best they can be and are able to find fulfillment in their work. This section allows for that and helps to clarify what that is for each person. If the employee is struggling to deliver, this is the first place to look to determine corrective actions.
This tool helps to engage employees, build commitment, provide clarity and opportunity and sets up an entirely new and positive leadership dynamic.
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Supplier Who are your suppliers? |
Job Part What are your products? |
Customer Who is your Customer and how will they use your product? |
Requirements What are your Customer’s requirements? |
Strengths What strengths will you draw on to meet customer requirements? |
Results How will you know when requirements are met?? |
The power of this framework is that is can be applied to any organization with little set-up work, the changes in behavior are immediate and no fundamental changes have to be made the reward/ compensation systems.
One of the positive side-effects of working through this framework is that it shifts the burden of managing one’s career to them while giving them back some of the power they have given up.
As employees begin to define their job parts they instantly become aware of what they do and don’t have control or influence over. Many times employees feel responsible for work they have no influence, let alone control, over. The process of defining job parts helps to crystalize what one actual does and where others have influence or actually control the outcome. When job descriptions that include areas of responsibility or outcomes usually include work others must do and given the vagueness, employees frequently take-on activity that is owned by someone else which leads to confusion, turf wars and frustration.
Consider a forward in soccer who is generally tasked with scoring goals. They must rely on the halfbacks and keeper to defend their goal and take control of the ball pushing up to the mid-fielders. It is now the responsibility of the mid-fielder to move the ball further up field into the opponent’s territory and pass to the forward. If the halfbacks/keeper are unable to gain control of the ball or the mid-fielders are unable to get the ball to the forwards into the opponents territory, the forward, regardless of their talent or effort cannot score. And if the forward takes full responsibility for not scoring they will either be highly frustrated or move into the back field and try to move the ball up field by themselves. Not only is this a bad use of their core skills but it gets in the way of others, on their team, from being able to do their jobs. Ultimately causing further dysfunction and reducing, even further, the opportunity to score.
Employees are able to better understand what their contribution is and how to best add-value and support rather that detract from the teams’ success. The framework also provides enough clarity and distinction for the employee to both be given and take ownership. It sets them up to better understand the customer needs and what needs to be done (or what’s in the way) to meet them.
At the same time, it naturally shifts the role of the manager to more of a coach and thinking partner responsible for creating the conditions for the employee to be successful. It helps managers focus on breakdowns the process (e.g. helping to resolve problems preventing the mid-field from getting the ball to the forwards) and building capability to ensure the employee can be successful (take a good shot and score).
The process opens up communication channels with both customers and suppliers and creates a level of inter-dependence that makes collaboration a natural extension (forward moves to a position on the field that allows the mid-fielder to make a clear pass). This is especially true when everyone contributing to the same product/service uses the framework as they as are all serving their customer with clear boundaries and expectations.
Evaluating performance and measuring success becomes objective and evidence-based (either the team scored or not) and breakdowns encourage ‘how/why’ rather than ‘who’ questions because employees have a greater stake in getting it right than merely avoiding blame (the reason the goal was missed is more important than who missed it --why did we/I miss that goal, how can we/I ensure we/I make the next one. . .).
Rewarding employees is also more of a natural process based on value-added contribution. Some teams have superstars but not all teams have or need superstars and everyone’s contribution can be observed and rewarded.
The biggest challenge is working through the framework. Employees tend to find the process enlightening but struggle if left on their own to work through the process. This is easily resolved by the use of a trained facilitator to guide the team and help employees put it into practice. After using it for a while it becomes easy and changes the questions employees ask and the way in which they approach their work.
This is also very easy to tryout and starts with a conversation about what value [in the form of a product or service] do specific positions (not people) deliver and use the framework to guide the conversation as follows:
1) Start by listing (on sticky notes) what you do (day-to-day tasks and activities). Then group the like activities to determine job parts (no more than 5). Don't worry about getting this perfect, it will get refined as you work through the process.
2) Name each 'grouped' set of activities and answer the customer questions. Do the answers change the grouping or activities? Work through this process until you can clearly define the customer or each grouping and can specify what value your work delivers to the customer.
3) Work through the rest of the model and each time you complete a section, ask if it all fits and flows together from work-product to customer to requirements to measurements making minor adjustments as needed. Once it all fits, complete the suppler and strengths sections.
Remember this is a framework not a form. The goal is to create an ongoing conversation about what each position must deliver, to whom and why it matters. Then to ensure team members [filing the position] are able to deliver the expected value by owning how/what they deliver [strengths they need to have and draw on], managing relationship with their suppliers to ensure they deliver as needed.
Use the strengths section to define the required competence and desired ways of working to establish the delivery process. If requirements are not being met, look at the process to understand the breakdown and then coach the performer to be successful.
At the end of the day the form is not even needed, it is the clarity of what one delivers with an understanding of how and why it's needed and the ongoing conversations with customers and suppliers with a keen eye on the process used to deliver that matters. Use this framework to master this behavior and then either continue to use it as a form to capture and track your work, or develop a new or use an existing form. This is about empowering employees to consistently deliver/meet the ever-changing needs of their customers. This model gives employees control, responsibility and direct accountability to the customer at the same times moves the boss out of the way and into a support role– that is empowering.
Remember to assign a guide to support the individual/team using the framework to prevent them from over-thinking or getting bogged down on insignificant details and to keep the conversations flowing.
Hi Monique-- this is a very interesting hack, and I also found the exchange below between you and Richard to be valuable in helping me understand the ideas a bit better. One thought I had is that you mention how important it would be to have a facilitator come in to help people think through the framework.
In the interests of making this hack even more practical do you have any ideas for ways that organizations that might not have the budget to hire a facilitator might be able to still try out some of the things in this hack? Maybe as part of the First Steps section you could create a checklist or other tool that might help someone work through the process on their own? If you had something like this, you could even attach it to the hack as a resource. Just a thought.
It seems like one of the key goals would be to make this process as "lightweight" as possible so that people within the organization could quickly and simply complete the activity--the easier and less painful it is, the more likely that people might actually take advantage of it!
Thanks for the very thoughtful--and exceptional well articulated--hack!
Finding only one of the chosen hacks focused on the customer is just depressingly familiar in terms of where HR are in the grand scheme of things and sadly shows that we still have a long way to go to get our contributions taken seriously at Board level.
I'm also not sure that even this one 'customer-related' hack is remotely anything original. It looks remarkably like a process I was using in the 1990s called "Departmental Purpose Alignment" developed by Bristol Poly and based on ideas first suggested by Philp Crosby and others involved in the 80's total quality movement.
Far from having an outstanding return on investment, it often had minimal beneficial outcomes as the tensions between internal customer functions ('them upstairs' syndrome) were even more powerful than the 'boss'.
The problem with this hack and many others I'm reading is that they lack a context and overall cultural basis to them. DPA failed because it was not culturally anchored and often ran counter the prevailing culture. To be effective processes like these have to be part of a whole series of changes in the way an organisation operates including the way we advertise jobs, recruit, induct, set strategy, present ourselves corporately, reward behaviours, engage with customers, train, involve, give ownership, set communication channels, measure performance, deal with innovation and mavericks etc.
I'd like to see the Hackathon finishing up by combining these individual hacks into something more strategic and culturally targetted which involve many facets of organisation and human behaviour.
While I am not sure I agree with you on every point, I will say that I do agree on others. I’d like to start with you last comment first which I happen to agree with (conceptually). The type of transformation we want to see (adaptive organizations) clearly will not be accomplished by making any single change and will most likely require broader systemic changes. Changes, I believe are ultimately rooted in leadership and not HR (see Hack: http://www.mixprize.org/comment/28091#comment-28091). This, though, does not mean that HR has and can play a significant role in bringing about the cultural changes needed to achieve organizational adaptability.
The intent of this hack is to eliminate one of the systemic barriers to being customer focused, namely leadership behavior and reward systems that detract from understanding and meeting customer requirements. I am not familiar with DPA and am not sure there are very many truly original ideas that aren't rooted in existing theory. I can say that this Hack does draw on the principles and practices reflected in TQM. As far as the degree of return on investment, I couldn't disagree more.
To make this easy, let’s assume that this hack is like DPA. Just because DPA failed doesn't mean this idea is doomed to the same fate. First I have no idea why it didn't work and if failure is attributed to the idea or those executing the idea. Just because I am unable to hit a golf ball far does not mean the ball is flawed -- I just may be a poor golfer. I can also say that much of the value of this methodology is in the process of executing it and I have seen it used successfully by many teams. The most significant cultural change I have seen with this methodology is the increased awareness of how individuals can add value and the shift in ownership for outcomes. As teams work through this framework they begin to both question and better understand the real effect or influence they have on a particular outcome. This in turn leads to shifts in ownership as they give up the fight to control that they can’t truly influence and commit to that which they can influence.
This occurs at many levels. Conversations naturally become more collaborative as relationships with both customers and supplies are built. Managers have increased visibility into customer satisfaction and begin to focus on supporting their teams in solving those problems.
The fact that this and other hack are counter culture is, in my mind, the point of a hack. Our current culture is created by each action (behavior) and choice people in that environment make. This behavior (way of working) is reinforced by the processes, systems and practices that are in place. Introducing new, counter-culture, ways of working are necessary to bring about change. And yes, to your point about the rest of the system, changes must be made in all aspects of the system to reinforce a new culture.
The problem is that effective and lasting changes don’t happen all at once. It starts by making small yet powerful changes that influence change in other parts of the system. Again I encourage you to read the System of Leadership hack http://www.mixprize.org/comment/28091#comment-28091 which discusses a systems approach to leadership change and references the methodology described in this hack, I’d be interested in your thoughts on that.
Thanks for those comments Monique and I have now read the other article. Like you, my grounding was in TQM in the 1980s and 1990s from which I co-wrote "TQM in Action" which looked at the major causes of failure in such programmes (one of which you repeat in your other article). It was from this work that I came to firmly believe that understanding and influencing culture was key to organisational change and high performance.
Your other article contains an interesting approach, more holistic than apparent from the 'hack' and I like your idea of introducing the concept and ideas covertly before the technique; that is in effect my point about trying to nurture a culture in which the tool or technique becomes accepted as beneficial and helpful rather than some foreign object the body then tries to eject; there are a lot of good analogies here with the natural world (preparing the ground before seeding, ensuring blood compatribility before organ translant etc.). HR in my experience is often far too eager to grasp onto models and tools or become "facilitators" rather than address the basic underlying behaviours and assumptions.
The approach espoused in your article though is quite different to using a hack to change culture ("The fact that this and other hack are counter culture is, in my mind, the point of a hack"). Your actual proposed approach in the reference article is, if I may so so, more subtle than that and one I would enthusiastically support. My concern on a general issue however is that people may see these hacks as isolated tools in themselves and try to introduce them before looking at how the culture will react. In the "them upstairs" reaction I mentioned as an example of a failed DPA initiatve, the solution shouldn't have been introducing DPA at all, it should have been to simply put the two teams closer together in the same room - a physical move much less costly and far more effective than the kind of intervention chosen!
The only other problem I have with the kind of approach discussed here is that it could institutionalise departmental boundaries (managers and teams) with negotiated 'agreements' which are simply too rigid and bureaucratic to support our idea of organisations being adaptive. In a truly adaptive organisation, do we really want people defining all these terms such as outcomes and requirements (you could write a book on people's different interpretions of that word)? Adaptive organisations also get much closer to the real external customer at many levels of the business, not only at the end of a process chain; they operate customer-need-driven 'bubbles' (groups existing short term, without formal project definitons and controls) rather than functional silos and make use of social media and other instantaneous communication means for exchange and learning; I'm not sure how you overcome this with your methodology but am very interested in hearing more.
Richard sorry for the delayed response, I went off grid for the holiday weekend! I believe the issue of adaptability is a cultural issue. In my mind, culture is a reflection of the way people have agreed to behave in response to their environmental structure/conditions. This agreement is unspoken [and largely undefined and unnoticed] and agreed to by individuals who behave consistent with the norms. Understand there are significant systemic pressures that reinforce and maintain the environment and behavioral norms. For the most part, behavior reinforces the structure and visa-versa. In any culture, norms change overtime as people decide to change their behavior and push back or challenge the norms and as behavior changes so too does the structure. Adaptive organizations, as they have been defined at the onset of this hackathon, require a change in both structure of the organization and the behavior of all employees. Building an adaptive culture at the onset of the business is a relatively easy task. The leader creates a structure that support their beliefs and values and begins to develop behavioral norms consistent with this structure. As new people join, behavioral expectations are established and newcomers learn how to be part of and reinforce the adaptive culture. The goal of this hack is focused on those organizations that are not adaptive and must transition (change their structure and behavior) to become adaptive. This is a much more difficult path to becoming adaptive because the undercurrent of the existing culture is powerful and constantly pulling against change.
The real question for me, in creating adaptive organizational environments and cultures, is not finding a way to change everything but rather find a leverage point that begins to move the current in a different direction. This not only moves us closer to the change we want to achieve but begins to create pressure in other parts of the system in the desired direction. HR does not have the vantage point to lead sweeping changes such as this, they do though, have the ability to influence adaptability. This hack is a seemly minor shift that has significant leverage because the process of implementing it is ‘enlightening’. It requires us to ask a whole new set of questions that allow for personal discovery and individual empowerment. These are two very strong motivators that create energy and movement in the direction of adaptive organizations.
In fact, this hack is covertly-disruptive. I recently worked with a team that has been struggling with low morale and very high stress. They were working hard and long hours and never seemed to achieve the goals [at least to the desired extent] that the organization wanted. And this team quickly became the scapegoat when they had no ‘real’ influence in the outcome they were required to deliver. In addition, the leader was not a very strong leader and she was under tremendous pressure from her boss [who also was not a strong leader]. The employees on this team not only felt beat-up, they saw themselves as victims and wanted the ‘culture’ and their leaders to change. I spent 2.5 days with this team and introduced them to this model as a way to clarify their role and shift the burden of their ability to be successful back to them – they could no longer, unconsciously, be victims.
It has been 5 months since I worked with this team, and things in the company (the environment) have gotten worse because of a major reorganization that has left everyone unsure about their jobs. I recently solicited feedback from the participants to see what, if anything, had stuck. This quote sums up the responses I received:
“I found the process very insightful. The concept that the organization has influence and that an individual/manager is not solely responsible for the environment, but at times is functioning at the mercy of the enterprise. I feel more in control now that my role has definition around it. I feel empowered to take action even if the team leader hasn't set a clear vision or mission for our team.”
Using the model described in this hack has created a new view and forever changed the way they see and behave in their environment. Each person who becomes more empowered – even if the environment has not yet changed – is part of the changing current and moves the organization closer to being adaptive. Adaptive organizations have empowered people. Many people in organizations today are not/do not feel empowered. The dis-empowerment of employees reinforces the command and control model and just telling people they are now empowered or what I’ve heard from leaders too many time to count “I want you to feel and be empowered” is not nearly enough to empower people. This model gives them control, responsibility and direct accountability to the customer at the same times moves the boss out of the way and into a support role– that is empowering.
I have not seen this model create rigid bureaucracy because it is built on relationships with customers and suppliers and managed through ongoing conversations (around needs/requirements) and validated with data to inform decisions and determine success. And yes in adaptive organizations I would want people focused on outcomes and requirements and believe this is necessary to gain and maintain line of sight to the external customer.
Your point, given the earlier conversation about the propensity to confuse means with the end, is understood. I imagine that it would be possible to implement this framework as an exercise in filling in the boxes and teaching people the ‘language’ of the model without living it. However I don’t think that would happen because of the sense of empowerment that is created through the process. As with all tools there is a level of coaching required to master the use of it and this is no different. It takes some time to use and facilitate the use of this tool with new teams. So I would recommend that before an HR team decides to move forward with this tool they spend time using it themselves to experience it before they push it out.
As Jack Welch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welsh) once said:
"everyone has their face toward the CEO and their ass toward the customer"
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