Of Organization Development Managers and Court Jesters

“Can I request you to give me an additional role?”, the Organization Development Manager asked the CEO. Noticing that the CEO was looking a bit confused and apprehensive, the Organization Development (OD) Manager continued;  “No, I am not asking you to add me to the senior leadership team. I am also not asking for any role that someone else is doing in our company. The additional role that I am asking for is that of a court jester – in the business context”!

Prima facie, roles of OD Managers and Court Jesters appear to be ‘strange bedfellows’. However, based on my 15 years of experience in OD (10 years of which in internal HR), I am increasingly realizing that one of the roles that an internal OD consultant (OD Manager in a business organization) needs to play is that of a ‘court jester’. 

Though the word 'jester' is often (incorrectly) interpreted to mean 'a fool', a jester (like Tenali Rama in the court of King Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara empire in India or William Sommers in the court of King Henry VIII in England) is a much more profound creature than a fool. At a superficial level, both a fool and a jester might appear quite similar. When we look at them more deeply, these similarities vanish.

While a fool entertains others by 'making a fool of himself', a jester enables others to laugh at themselves. While the techniques of a fool focuses mainly on the physical plane (doing funny things, acting in a funny manner etc.), jester operates mainly in the mental and/or spiritual plane (generating insights). We can also say that fools represent ‘simplicity on this side of complexity' (or simplicity that ignores the complexity) while jesters represent ‘simplicity on the other side of complexity’ (simplicity after working through the complexity). In terms of impact, a fool leaves his audience 'entertained' while the jester leaves his audience 'enlightened'. In terms of their influence, fools are quite 'peripheral' while jesters are quite 'central'. Jesters had the right (or even the 'duty') to criticize the king and get away with that (or even get rewarded for that!). Often, Jesters possess 'shibumi' (great refinement underlying commonplace appearances).

An OD professional is supposed to facilitate change. This change also involves ‘mindset change’ and ‘questioning deeply-held assumptions’. Again (with due respect to the ‘good press’ that ‘bottom up culture change’ enjoys), change often needs to begin 'at the top of the pyramid’ in business organizations because the role modeling behavior of the leaders is the most important factor that drives and sustains behavioral/culture change. So, one of the key requirements for OD professionals is to enable very senior people to change their mindsets and deeply held assumptions.

Sometimes, these mindsets and assumptions are very change resistant – even to the extent of being funny. For example, once I was invited by a business leader to transform the mindsets of the leaders in his organization. During the diagnosis when it was becoming increasingly clear that he was a major contributor to the problem and that he would need to make significant changes to his pattern of behavior, he made himself unavailable for the intervention saying that he was very busy and that it was his team members who needs to change. In another context, the HR head came to me and suggested that as the business leader can’t change his behavior (and as he won’t move out of the organization for the next few years), we need to train his team to enable them to work with him better. While it is an interesting idea ( to train the team to be better followers if the leader is immune to any leadership development efforts) it highlights two problems that are important for us here – the difficulty in getting the senior leaders to change and the high degree of fear that many of the HR leaders have when it comes to attempting any ‘change interventions on the business leaders’. Hence, OD professionals need to find ways to encourage business leaders to examine their decisions and their behavior/mindsets/deeply-held assumptions without offending them and without making the HR leaders too jittery.

This becomes even more important for an internal OD consultant (OD Manager in a business organization), as these senior people he needs to influence are higher up in the reporting chain (food chain!) of the organization. Often, there is an organization layer between the OD Manager and the business leaders (i.e. the OD Manager reports to the HR Head who in turn reports into the CEO). This makes influencing the business leaders on their mindsets and deeply held assumptions  very difficult (if not impossible) for the OD Manager, as it would require a lot of deep interactions with the business leaders that too over a long period of time. The OD managers might not get such an opportunity because of the way of functioning of the organization (‘organization culture’)  and as the HR Head might get threatened by such direct connection efforts!  Again, one of the de facto expectations from the layer below the CEO (e.g. in HR Head in this case) might be to protect the CEO from unpleasant information/interactions and even to maintain convenient collective delusions . If this is the case, it becomes very difficult for the HR Head to allow this kind of interactions between the OD Manager and the CEO as the HR Head (and may be the entire HR function) might have to suffer the possible ripple effects of such interactions!  

This is where the role of the jester comes in.  Jesters can draw attention to the blinds pots without making people defensive. Humor can go through the emotional defenses more easily as compared logic. Jesters can help the leaders to laugh at themselves. Jesters are less threatening because what the they say can be taken as a joke if the leader is not yet ready to accept the truth (and hence the jesters' 'intervention’ is an 'invitation to change' that does not ‘put the leader in a spot’).

Now, let us explore how we can make the role of the jester work in the context of business organizations. The way of the jester requires a high level of wisdom and refinement as the jesters need to walk a very thin line between causing enlightenment and causing offense. Also, this line is a dynamic one and walking it requires a very high degree of situational and interpersonal awareness. To avoid becoming a threat to other functionaries in the court (read the direct reports of the CEO -including the HR Head) the jester should always remain as some sort of an underdog or a wild card and should also remain detached from the office politics. Some of the concepts outlined in ‘Wisdom-level consulting' and ‘A political paradox for OD and HR' might be useful in this endeavor.

From a sustainability point of view, it would be best to create some sort of a formal mandate for the role  of the jester and provide it some sort of ‘diplomatic immunity’(so that the messenger does not get shot). Unless the OD Manager is mandated to be a ‘full-time jester’ (which might not be feasible as there are many other roles that the OD Managers play), we would also need some sort of  a signaling mechanism (corporate equivalent to the costume of the medieval jester) to indicate when the OD Manager is in the jester role.  Since elaborate costumes are not easy to put on and take off, maybe we can settle for a simple cap! If the organization is not willing to let the jester intervene whenever he wants to do so, there can be a designated 15 minutes ‘jester time’ in the middle of a business review meeting (where the jester gets to be an observer/'fly on the wall')!

If the business leader is not open to the interventions from the jester in the context of a meeting (where his direct reports are also present), this can be done on a one-to-one basis (at least to begin with). To be sustainable, the jester has to become a cherished rather than a tolerated presence. This can be accomplished by helping the business leaders to realize their mistakes by allowing them to see it for themselves. Rather than directly contradicting/confronting the business leader, the jester can encourage the business leader (by showing enthusiasm for the idea that the business leader has come up with) to think through the idea to its logical conclusion, so that the business leader herself/himself can realize its absurdity.  To make this happen, the jester should have high degree of business understanding (insight to the organizational truth) in addition to perceptiveness, wit and interpersonal sensitivity/awareness.

 It has to be noted that the jester is not just for the CEO. The jester is for the entire company. This role is relevant for facilitating change at all levels. Jesters can also facilitate creative problem solving – as creative problem solving requires questioning basic assumptions and exploring new (unusual) ways to look at old problems. Since these need to be facilitated across the organization, we might have to create 'jesters at all levels' or enable the employees to 'discover the jesters in themselves'!!   

So my fellow OD professionals, what do you think about this? Can the ‘jester role’ be made a part of the OD Manager’s job description?  Is it likely to work?  Do you want to explore the art of being a jester?

Truth and Beauty: Motivations and Elegance in HR

“I am an old man. I don’t have time for these kinds of HR interventions now”, said the senior consultant.

We had requested this gentleman to come to our office for an exploratory meeting – to identify possible HR initiatives to improve organizational effectiveness. He came for the meeting ‘unarmed’ - he did not bring any of the typical consultant weapons like brochures and presentations. He did not even have a laptop with him!

He listened to us for a long time while we were giving him a detailed account of the organization context & the challenges we were facing. Then he asked a few questions and we had a discussion on the same. Then he went to the whiteboard and in a simple diagram he captured his understanding of our situation and the levels at which interventions can be done and the basic details of those interventions. After that he asked us what we wanted to do and we gave our opinion. That was when he made the above statement.

The way he said it shook me. He was not just saying that he was busy. He meant that he no longer had the time to do these kinds of work (interventions at ‘not- so- deep’ levels) regardless of how much value the organization saw in them, how good he was in that kind of work, or even how much he will be paid. At that stage in his life, he wanted to work only on those projects that he found to be personally meaningful. Of course, this does not mean that other types of interventions do not add value. It was just that he did not want to get involved!

I recall this encounter quite often. Apart from making me think about the kind of work I really want to do, it also prompts me to think about the 'basic motivations' for HR professionals.

It does not make sense to do ‘HR for HR function’ (taking up initiatives to make the HR function look good) or to do ‘HR for HR professionals’ ("I want to do some HR interventions and I will somehow convince the business for it").  HR exists to support the business and hence HR has to be aligned to business. But the issue of business alignment of HR is a complex one (See 'Paradox of Business Orientation of HR'). After all, most of us want HR to mean something more than ‘making people do more work without paying them too much and without risking disruptions to the business operations’!!!

One way to think about ‘what motivates HR professionals’ is to take the approach that HR professionals are human beings first and hence what motivates them can be understood in terms of theories of human motivation – as they play out in the context of the roles in HR/careers of HR professionals.

For example, if we assume some sort of need fulfillment (say based on a hierarchy of needs like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs/'Existence-Relatedness-Growth' needs in Alderfer's ERG framework) is the basic driver for motivation, we can easily explain the behavior of the senior consultant featured at the beginning of this post by saying that as his lower order needs had been fulfilled and hence what motivated his behavior in that situation was the urge to find opportunities for fulfilling his higher order needs (growth/self-actualization needs). While this looks like a very neat explanation, it might be a rather simplistic one (see ‘The power of carrot and stick’). Similarly we can look at the motivations of HR professionals in terms of other frameworks like personality profiles/types (e.g. OPQ, MBTI etc.), Talents/Strengths, Career Anchors etc.

Another set of motivations can result from the alignment to (or belief in) a particular 'philosophy of HR' (See ‘Towards a philosophy of HR’). Of course, individual vision, mission and values of the HR professional can also be sources of very strong motivations. Since these can be very individual specific, we can get a wide range of dimensions here (see 'Daydreams of an OD Mechanic' for a personal example). Finding meaning in their work (see 'Do we need a new defining myth for HR?') is important for all professionals - including HR professionals! Actually, I would go one step beyond and suggest that considering the role of HR managers as 'architects of meaning' (See 'Architects of meaning : From CHRO to CMO'), this becomes even more relevant for HR professionals from a professional integrity (in the sense of achieving integration/alignment between one's thoughts/feelings, speech and action) point of view. Also, talking about food (including 'food for the soul' that can be called 'meaning') often makes one more aware of one's own hunger - unless this 'talking about food/meaning' is more of a 'displacement activity'!!!Again, as I have said earlier, 'hanging around in HR for too long' without a compelling reason, can be a risky business - especially for personal happiness!

HR professionals who have taken their behavior science education seriously (see ‘HR professionals and Multiple Personality Disorder’) might suffer from some of the ‘motivational complications’ that social scientists suffer. For example, many social scientists suffer some sort of ‘physics envy’ and this along with other things might create a compulsion for them to work on those initiatives that are research based. However, as I have said earlier (See 'Research and a three-year old' &  'Truths stretched too far' for the details), this might not be possible in HR the way it is feasible in physics. We can still derive a lot of value from these research findings (and behavior science principles/theories), if we look at them mainly as a source of ideas (and not as absolute objective truth)!

Going back to our discussion on business alignment of HR, it has to be noted that there exist significant differences across organizations when it comes to the ‘picture of success’ (See ‘On what good looks like’). Hence it makes sense for an individual (HR professional) to work for organizations where there will be a good degree of agreement between the definitions of the organization and that of the individual (on what is required/what good looks like).

This leads to an interesting situation. If the choice of the HR interventions can’t be made in an algorithmic manner (or based on conclusive evidence), then the choice will be governed by ‘some sort of judgment’ made by the HR professional. Often, the choice becomes a matter of aesthetics (and that is where beauty and elegance comes in). The beauty we are talking about is a special kind of beauty – that manifests in terms of fit (with the context) and coherence (internal consistency among the various dimensions of the intervention), parsimony of unproven assumptions (Occam's razor), parsimony of effort (understanding and using 'leverage points' - where the application of a small input can lead to a high output) and of course 'Simplicity on the other side of Complexity' (See 'U-curve and simplicity at the other side of complexity').

While the biological evolution has given us the natural ability to make high quality judgments about aspects in the natural environment, some sort of a professional evolution  of the HR professional (based on years of struggle with the paradoxes in the HR domain)is required to make the type of high quality judgments that we are talking about here (See ‘Wisdom-level consulting’). Yes, often ‘less is more’ and sometimes, the best HR intervention might be to do nothing for the time being (remember - 'first do no harm')! One of the useful 'side effects' of the 'struggle with the paradoxes in the HR domain' mentioned above is that the HR professional develops a better appreciation of  'what won't work' in a given situation and this can be a great help in dealing with the common temptation for HR managers 'to try too many things' !!!

So, my fellow HR professionals – What are the factors that motivate you?!! What role does elegance/beauty play in your HR related decision-making?!!!

Note: It can be argued that the title of the post itself is a case of physics envy as it is similar to the title of a book by S Chandrasekhar (the famous physicist). While I do admit that Physics was my first love, I am quite sure that I had grown out of it when I realized years ago that, at advanced levels, the exploration of physical reality becomes a highly mathematical exercise. Hence I would like to think of it more as a case of ‘inspired by Physics’ and not that of ‘Physics envy’!!!

Using Assessment Centres for Evaluating Potential – A Leap of Faith?

“She is very bright”, said the first HR Manager. “She is the definition of a tube light - bright on the outside and hollow inside”, said the second HR Manager. Two senior HR professionals, and two very different inferences – about the same employee! I heard this conversation a long time ago. It came back to me recently, when I was thinking about Assessment Centres – the effectiveness of Assessment Centres as a tool to evaluate the ‘potential’ of employees, to be more precise. Usually, comments on 'brightness' of an employee have more to do with the perceived 'potential' of the employee as opposed to his/her performance!

As I had mentioned earlier (See Paradox of Potential Assessment), the basic issue in potential assessment (which sometimes does not get enough attention) is 'potential for what?’ Many answers are possible here. They include

1. Potential to be effective in a particular job/position
2. Potential to be effective in a particular job family
3. Potential to be effective at a particular level (responsibility level)
4. Potential to take up leadership positions in the company
5. Potential to move up the organization ladder/levels very quickly etc.

Logically, the first four answers should lead to the creation of a capability framework that details the requirements (functional and behavioral competencies) to be effective in the job/job family/level/leadership positions that we are talking about. Once this is done, a competency based assessment centre is often used to assess the potential of employees against that framework. This is where the trouble begins (Actually, the problems start earlier than this – with the definition of ‘potential’ and with the creation of capability framework. But that is another story).

Let us begin by looking at a couple of basic issues. An assessment centre is essentially a simulation*. Hence, there are always questions on the extent to which the simulation matches reality (requirements of the job//level). This becomes even more problematic in the case of international assessment centres (for global roles/with participants from different countries) as the cultural differences needs to be factored in when designing the assessment centres and while interpreting/evaluating the behavior/responses of the participants (e.g. what is an effective response/acceptable behavior in one culture might not be so in other cultures).  

Since we need to avoid a situation where the participant was able to give the correct answer/response in the simulation because he/she knew the correct answer/response based on prior experience/knowledge and not because he/she was able to arrive at the correct answer by himself/herself in response to the situation(and hence demonstrating the competency) the simulations often use a context that is different from the immediate job/organization context – while trying to test the same underlying competencies required. This can bring additional complications in ensuring adequate match between simulation and reality. By the way, this is one of the factors (knowledge of the correct answer without knowing how to arrive at the correct answer) that can give to the ‘bright on the outside – hollow inside’ kind of situation mentioned at the beginning of this post. Another factor could be ‘sublimated careers’ (See Career Development & Sublimation).

Each of the tools/exercises in the assessment centre is designed to test a set of competencies. This implies that each of the participants should have sufficient opportunity to fully demonstrate all the relevant behaviors corresponding to all the competencies during the exercise. Assuming that there are 4 competencies (each with 3 relevant behavioral indicators) being tested in the particular exercise, it would mean each participant should have an opportunity to demonstrate 12 behaviors. If the evaluation on the behavior is done using a frequency scale (e.g. always, most of the times, sometimes, rarely etc.) it would imply the need to demonstrate each of the behaviors multiple times during the exercise (e.g. demonstrating the behavior 3 times will get the participant the highest rating) and that would imply a total of 36 behaviors. Of course, if this is a group exercise, this number will get multiplied by the number of participants (e.g. 36*6 = 216 behaviors for a group of 6 participants). This is practically impossible to do in a 45 minutes group exercise! Of course, exercises can be of longer duration and there can be more number of exercises (requiring fewer numbers of competencies/behaviors to be tested per exercise). However, considering the cost and time pressures in most organizations, this becomes difficult. This implies that the very design of the assessment centres might prevent the participants from fully demonstrating their competencies/potential during the centre – leading to artificially lower potential evaluations.

Now, let us come back to problems specific to using assessment centres as a tool to measure potential. Even in a best case scenario, what the assessment centre is measuring is the degree to which the employee/participant demonstrates the behaviors corresponding to requisite competencies during the assessment centre. So, at best it can give a good estimate of the current level of readiness of the employee for a particular role/level. However, this does not really indicate the potential of the employee to take up that role/reach that level in the organization hierarchy in the future. This is because the employee has the opportunity to learn/develop the competencies during the intervening period. Assessment centre can’t give any indication on the extent to which (and the speed at which) the employee will further develop/enhance the competencies.

Assessments centres are based on competency models. As I had mentioned in 'Competency frameworks - An intermediate stage?',  one of the basic assumptions behind developing a competency model is that there is one particular behavioral pattern that would lead to superior results in a particular job(i.e there is 'one best way' to do the job). This might not be a valid assumption, in the case of most of the non-routine jobs. If there are other ways to be effective in the job (say, based on a deep understanding of the context/great relationships with all the stakeholders), it can lead to 'successful on the job  but failed in the assessment centre' kind of scenarios. Of course, it can be argued that such individuals won't be successful if they are moved to a different geography and hence a low rating on their potential coming from the assessment centre is valid. However, it still does not negate the fact that they can be effective in that role/level in that particular context. Yes, this (producing results without possessing the specified competencies) can sometimes resemble the ‘bright on the outside –hollow inside’ kind of situation mentioned earlier. 

Another problem is that the results of the assessment centres are rarely conclusive - in the case of most the participants. What you get as the result of the assessment centre is a score on each of the competencies (say on a 5 point scale). Converting these scores into a ‘Yes or No’ decision on whether the employee has the potential to move into the role/level often involves a many inferential leaps (similar to the ‘leaps of faith’ mentioned in the title of this post). It is easy to string these scores together into some sort of a decision rule/algorithm (e.g.  If a participant has a score of 3 and above on 3 of the 5 competencies, and an average score of 3 overall, the answer is an ‘Yes’ etc.). Of course, we can do tricks like assigning different weights to the individual competencies and specifying minimum scores on some competencies and come up with a decision rule that appears to be very objective (or even profound!) and that gives a clear ‘Yes or No’ decision (on if the participant has the potential or not) . But the design/choice of the algorithm is more of an art than a science and it can be quite subjective and even arbitrary (unless the organization is willing to invest a lot of time and money in full-fledged validation study)!

So what does this mean? To me, assessment centre is a tool; a tool that has certain capabilities and certain limitations. The tool can be improved (if there is sufficient resource investment) to enhance the capabilities and reduce the limitations to some extent. But, some basic limitations will remain. Hence, if one is aware of the limitations and the capabilities, one can make an informed decision on whether it makes business sense to use this tool in particular context – depending on what one is trying to achieve and the organization constraints/boundary conditions. If you push me for being more specific, the best answer that I am capable of at this point is as follows - ‘It is valuable to use assessment centres as one of the inputs if the objective is just to assess the current level of readiness of the employee for a particular role/level. If the objective is to assess the potential of the employee to take up that role/reach that level in the organization hierarchy in the future, assessment centres are of limited value when the intervening time period is long – say anything above 2 years’!!!

*Note: Assessment Centres need not always be pure simulations. Tools like Behavioral Event Interview (BEI) are often used as part of assessment centres. However, it becomes difficult to use BEI in an assessment centre designed to test the employee’s potential for a higher level role. This is because employee might not have had enough opportunities (till that time in his/her career) to handle situations that require the higher order competencies (required for the higher level/role and hence being tested in the assessment centre). Hence she/he will be at a disadvantage when asked (during the BEI) to provide evidence of having handled situations/tasks that require the higher level competencies.

Any comments/suggestions?

Performance ratings and the ‘above average effect’

“Performance ratings will be shared with the employees next week. We expect employee attrition to go up significantly in the next few months”, said the HR Manager.

It is a fact that in many organizations the attrition percentage goes up in the months after the annual performance ratings are announced. Some of this is because of the process linkages. Salary hikes and bonuses (that are linked to the performance ratings) usually follow soon after (or along with) the announcement of the performance ratings and it might make logical sense for employees to receive the bonus (after all one has worked for an entire year to get that) and the higher salary and then negotiate a better salary (with a  new company) based that. But some of the resignations are a direct emotional reaction to the performance ratings. Based on my experience across multiple companies (as an employee and as a consultant), I have often wondered why the sharing of performance ratings is such an unpleasant experience – both for the employees and for the Managers of the employees.

There could be many reasons for this. The performance objectives and targets might not have been properly defined or agreed upon. There might have been changes in the context or factors outside the employee’s control that made the targets unreasonable/impossible to achieve. The performance feedback might not have been given regularly and accurately (managers often try to ‘soften’ negative feedback) and hence the rating might have come as a surprise for the employee. But I feel that most of the unpleasantness of the situation is related to a psychological phenomenon known as ‘superiority illusion’ or the ‘above average effect’.

'Illusory superiority' is a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. This manifests in a wide range of areas including intelligence, possession of desirable characteristics/personality traits, performance on tests and of course ‘on the job performance’ (for which performance rating is an indicator). While the exact percentages can vary based on the social/economic/cultural context, typically in a group at least 75-90% of the members rate themselves as 'above average'.

This fact (that at least 75% of the people rate themselves as 'above average') creates trouble when it comes to performance ratings. These days companies are keen on ‘differentiating based on performance’ (say ‘to build a performance driven culture’) and this would mean that when it comes to performance ratings, the relative performance of the employees becomes a critical factor apart from the absolute performance (performance against agreed upon targets). Whether or not a fixed percentage distribution of ratings are prescribed, some sort of a ‘normal curve’ emerges. Typically, the positively differentiated performance ratings (i.e. if we have a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest; ratings of 4 and 5 ) form about 25%. Thus only about 25% of the employees will get ‘above average’ performance ratings. The arithmetic is simple and the conclusion is inevitable. If at least 75% of the employees consider their performance to be ‘above average’ and only 25% of the employees will get ‘above average performance ratings’, then at least 50% of the employees will be disappointed with their performance ratings. Thus, sharing of performance ratings is likely to be an unpleasant experience – both for the employee and for the Manager.

Now let us look at this from the Manager’s point of view. Experienced people managers know that the problem described above will happen (though they might not be aware of the exact percentages/degree of the problem). But they can’t do much about it as the two critical factors (employee’s tendency to rate their performance as 'above average' and the maximum percentage/number of the ‘above average performance ratings’ that the Managers can give) are largely outside their control. Managers do what they can. This can range from ‘expectation management’ to ‘pushing for a higher percentage of above average ratings for their team’ to ‘providing other rewards and recognition to compensate for the unpleasantness created by lower than expected performance ratings’ to disowning the performance ratings (blaming it on HR and/or senior leadership). But these are of limited utility as they are not addressing the core problem. Also, this can lead to a situation where the employees lose confidence - in the Manager and in the Performance Management System. Another option for the Manager is to staff his/her team with people who have a low self-image (masochists are welcome!). But if the Manager wants the employees to have high self-belief/confidence when dealing with customers and low self-belief/confidence when interacting with the Manager, then it calls for a Janus-faced personality. While such personalities can be found in abundance in extremely hierarchical organizations (see Followership behaviors of leaders), it might not be a viable strategy for ‘normal’ organizations!

Logically speaking, grappling with this problem for an extended period of time and gaining insights and wisdom from the struggle should help the Manager to be more reasonable when estimating his/her own relative performance (and hence the performance rating he/she deserves) and to be more understanding when the Manager’s Manager tries to share and explain the Manager’s performance rating. But, as the studies in ‘Behavioral Economics’ have demonstrated, being aware of a ‘bias’ need not necessarily help one to overcome the bias! No wonder managers often dread the entire business of performance ratings – giving the performance ratings to their team and receiving their own performance ratings!!!!

The research done on the ‘above average effect’ has thrown up some interesting findings that might help us (at least to some extent) in dealing with this problem in the context of performance ratings. It has been found that the individuals who were worst at performing the tasks were also worst at estimating their relative performance/degree of skill in those tasks. It has also been found that given training, the worst subjects improved the accuracy of their estimate of their relative performance apart from getting better at the tasks.

Another possibility here is to make the performance ratings less dependent on relative performance and more dependent on absolute performance (performance against agreed upon targets) or to increase the percentage of 'above average ratings'. But these kind of steps can go against the performance management philosophy of the organization (of differentiation based on performance) and hence impractical. If the context so permits, standardization of performance objectives/targets for a particular role and making the information on the performance of employees on the objectives/targets available to all can also be looked at. Research shows that self-evaluation (especially in comparative contexts) is driven primarily by an intuitive ‘heuristic process’ as opposed to a logical/effortful ‘evidence-based process’. However, by making valid & reliable data on relative performance available and by encouraging the employees to look at it (and may be even participate in an open discussion about it) before they do the self-evaluation (and evaluation of their relative performance), the influence of the ‘evidence-based’ part on the decision making-process might increase.

Again, we can make discussions on the challenges related to the 'above average effect' part of the performance management related communication and training  for employees and Managers. May be, we can even build in some 'nudges' (like asking the employees to write down three things that their peers have done better than them - as part of the self  assessment) that will prompt them to deal with their cognitive bias (of superiority illusion) in a more rational manner.

Apart from this, ensuring that basics of performance management - performance planning, coaching, feedback and review - are done well also helps, though they don’t directly address the problem we are discussing. It is similar to ‘taking antibiotics for dealing with a viral infection’. While they don’t solve the core problem (virus) they do help in preventing secondary infections and hence has some utility in some cases (especially when effective anti-viral drugs are not available and the possibility of secondary infections are high)! The problem we are dealing with here is too 'human' to be completely solved by 'performance management techniques' and we have to live with it to some extent as the price for being human!

Any ideas/comments?

On what ‘good’ looks like…

“I am leaving this organization because my manager and I have very different ideas on what ‘good’ looks like in my domain, and we have agreed to disagree. It was not a matter of lack of clarity on the performance objectives and targets. The issue was a fundamental disconnect on what those objectives and targets should be and how they should be achieved – on what ‘excellence’ means in my role and in my domain”, said the Function Leader during his exit interview.

In my career so far, I have had the good fortune of experiencing many organization contexts – either as an external consultant or as an employee. Based on these experiences, I have come to realize that organizations often have different definitions of the ‘picture of success at an individual level’ (i.e. what good individual performance looks like). While the tasks/deliverable will vary from one job to the other within the organization, there are common patterns that hold good across jobs in an organization on what good performance (or ‘excellence’ or ‘quality’) looks like. But, these patterns can vary a lot from one organization to the other. When people move from one organization to the other this can create ‘rude shocks’ – for both the employee and the organization – especially when an employee who has been successful in one  organization joins another organization that has a different definition of excellence('what good looks like').

Let us take a closer look at these underlying(tacit) definitions of quality (or excellence). While each organization has its own underlying definition (assumption), it can be useful to conceptualize these underlying assumptions as points in a continuum between two polar opposites : 'absence of variation' and 'presence of value'. 

At one end we have organizations where the underlying definition of quality is very much similar to the ‘six sigma definition’ – ‘absence of variation’. In these organizations, the performance of an employee considered to the excellent, if he/she thinks through the goals before agreeing to the same, creates a detailed plan to work towards the goals in a systematic manner, archives goals even if there were changes in the environment (through scenario planning, risk analysis & mitigation and sheer focus). These organizations also tend to value and invest in building capability/expertise – at both people and process level. Hence the premium is on good design, deep expertise, meticulous planning, reliability, consistency, coherence and congruence. In extreme cases this can lead to rigidity.  

At the other end of the continuum we have organizations where the definition is more like 'presence of value' or ‘fitness for purpose’ (with the ‘purpose’ changing quite often). Here the focus is on ‘trial and error’. Simply put, this means do whatever makes most sense in a particular situation. In these organizations, muddling through things is acceptable and even preferred (over thinking through things and seeking clarity before starting work). People who insist on planning and consistency are considered to be ‘risk-averse’ (or even to be 'lacking in courage'). Operating with contradictions (and lack of coherence & consistency) is considered to be ‘heroic’. A lot of emphasis is placed on pragmatism (as opposed to expertise) and on workarounds.  Hence the premium is on ‘flexibility’ and ‘crisis handling’. In extreme cases it can lead to an organization that jumps from one idea (goal or fad) to another on a frequent basis.

Of course, there are many other dimensions (for the variation in the underlying definitions on what good performance looks like) in addition to dimension represented by the continuum between the two end points mentioned above. There is nothing inherently 'good' or 'bad' about these underlying definitions - they are just different (equally valid) ways of looking at the world. The point is that these variations exist across organizations and it could have a significant bearing on performance, employee satisfaction, engagement and retention.

To some extent, these assumptions are related to the environment in which the organization is operating in. But it is often it is a matter of the preferred way of responding to the environment. These assumptions are also closely related to the culture of the organization- especially the deeper levels of culture – values and basic underlying assumptions. Theoretically speaking, the match between the employees’ and the organizations’ definitions of ‘what good performance looks like’, is represented by some dimensions of ‘person-organization’ fit. However, an intellectual discussion on the low scores on some dimensions of ‘person-organization’ fit might not fully bring out the reality (trauma!) of the ‘rude shocks’ for the employee and for the organization (mentioned earlier in our discussion).

This brings us to the question of adaptation. Employees can adjust. Organizations can change too – though usually it is a very slow process and require a ‘critical mass of new employees with different preferences’. The individual’s definition of ‘good’ can also change. However,  the individual’s definition of ‘good’ is shaped mainly by his/her personality and his/her ‘early career experiences’ (see 'Influence of early career experiences') and a change in the same requires lot of time and a critical mass of high impact (profound or traumatic) new (different) experiences. Hence, for the time being, let us focus on the issue of new employees attempting to align with the organization’s definition of ‘good performance’.

Yes, employees do realize that they are unlikely to find an organization that provides a 100% match to their preferences and that they need to adjust. But if an employee needs to constantly act outside his/her preferences it can lead to stress.  This can also lead to mediocrity as the individuals are not able to play to their strengths. Excellence and engagement at individual level requires the opportunity ‘to bring more of who you are into what you do’ (see 'Employee engagement and the story of the Sky Maiden'). It is critical for those employees for who looks at work as one of avenues for self-expression. Similarly, when organizations talk about connecting with employees at higher levels of the needs hierarchy, this becomes important for the organizations also.

Now let us come back to the exit case that we saw in the beginning of this post. Ideally, the employee and his manager should have been able to arrive at a higher ground that integrates their conflicting points of view (like the struggle between thesis and antithesis results in a higher more truthful synthesis of the two - in Hegelian Metaphysics).But this ideal state is often not possible within the constraints of the organization context and the individuals involved. Sometimes (as the existentialist philosopher Kierkegaard says), people will have to make ‘either/or’ decisions (and the seductive beauty of Hegelian ‘and/both’ turns out to be an illusion).

One of my all time favorite books is ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ by Robert M. Pirsig. This book begins with the lines “And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good, Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" In the context of our discussion (for a person who is trying to join a new organization or for an organization trying to hire someone), the answer should be a loud ‘YES’.  Yes, it is worthwhile to ask this explicitly, listen carefully, ‘read’ between the lines and to be very careful about what is left unsaid!!!

A political paradox for OD & HR

“This is a political issue and we should resolve it politically”, said the senior consultant. I heard this interesting piece of ‘wisdom’ at an early stage in my career as an OD/HR consultant and it had left me somewhat confused.

I knew that as external consultants one of our main tasks was to diagnose the core issue/root problem correctly (as opposed to merely documenting the symptoms) so that we can design an intervention at the appropriate level. I also knew that ‘workplace politics’ existed in many of our client organizations. What confused me was the part that said ‘we should resolve it politically’. ‘Organizational politics’ was a ‘bad’ word for me at that time – something that incompetent people do to further their selfish motives – something that we as external  consultants should keep a safe distance from. So the suggestion that we should use political means to resolve the issue alarmed me. Over the last decade, I have developed a better understanding of the paradoxical nature of organizational politics and its implications for anyone who wants to lead/facilitate change in business organizations. 

As we have seen earlier (see 'Paradox of business orientation of HR'), a paradox occurs when there are multiple perspectives/opinions (doxa) that exist alongside (para)- each of which is true - but they appear to be in conflict with one another. Let us look at some of these opinions about organizational politics.

1. Politics is essentially about power. Any activity that reinforces or alters the existing power balance in a relationship, group or organization is a political activity. Organization development(OD) is about facilitating change. To make change happen power needs to be exercised and hence all Organization Development is essentially political.

2. Politics is based on informal power - power that is not officially sanctioned. Hence politics is illegitimate in the organization context.

3. A large part of the work in any organization takes place through the 'informal organization' (informal channels that are not captured in the organization structure/job descriptions/chart of authority/operating manual). Keeping this in mind, one can't claim that organization politics is illegitimate just because it is based on informal power.

4. Organization politics is undesirable as it is all about pursuing selfish interests.

5. Organization politics need not be about pursuing selfish interests. It is necessary in order to secure resources and further ideas in an organization. Both ‘bad politics’ (characterized by impression management, deceit, manipulation and coercion) and ‘good politics’ (characterized by awareness, creativity, innovation, informed judgment, and critical self-monitoring) exist in organizations.  

6. A good organization culture can eliminate organizational politics

7. Politics will be present in any group of human beings. The only way to avoid politics is to define and enforce detailed rules and procedures for all activities and interactions among the employees. This would be very difficult to do in most organizations and this would get more difficult when uncertain and fast changing business environment requires organizations to be dynamic and rapidly evolving. When an organization is in transition there won’t be clearly established rules/procedures and hence politics will become more prevalent. Since organizations are likely to spend increasing amounts of time in the ‘transition state’(because of the multiples waves of change), politics will become even more prevalent.
8. Politics is a social construct. Hence the behaviors that are perceived to be 'politcal' in one organization might not be perceived as 'political' in another organization.

So where does this leave us? I think that organization politics is  a reality and any one driving or facilitating change in an organization (like a business leader or an HR/OD professional) need to develop an accurate understanding of the power structure and political dynamics of the organization. One of the key reasons why many of the change efforts fail (and why many of the consultants’ reports/recommendations gather dust without getting implemented) is that they didn’t pay sufficient attention to the political dynamics of the organization. As Human Resource Management (HR) professionals move from transactional roles to more consultative/'change agent like' roles, they need to develop the ability to naviagte the 'polical waters' of the orgnization better. Again, if the change facilitators don't pay attention to the political dynamics, they might end up as ‘pawns in the political game’ or even as ‘sacrificial lambs in the political battle’

I also think that both formal and informal influence needs to be used to maximize the chances of the change effort's success. This will become increasingly critical as the organizations become more fluid (with less rigidly/clearly defined procedures) and dynamic (fast changing with higher degree of uncertainty both externally and internally).

However, I feel that the OD consultant should not ‘play politics’ (i.e. become a political activist) as that would mean driving a political agenda/imposing the consultant’s agenda on the organization. This goes back to the ‘process consulting’ foundations of OD where the consultant’s role is to enable the organization to solve its problems (and to increase its problem solving capability) as opposed to providing solutions. Yes, I agree that all HR/OD consulting need not be process consulting and that the dividing line between the mandate of the HR/OD initiative/project and the political agenda of the consultant (especially internal consultant) is not always clear.

Hence, my current thinking is that the change facilitator/change leader should gather data on the political dynamics of the organization (power structure, various clusters of interests and their assumptions/world view/agenda/unstated concerns, interrelationships among the various clusters etc.) and leverage the same to improve diagnosis, solution design and implementation. This includes presenting (at appropriate times/stages) relevant data on the conflicting assumptions/interests without taking sides. This can also reduce the relevance of politics by making relevant parts of the informal (unstated/implicit) elements of the organization dynamics more formal (stated/explicit). This is not unlike a psychoanalyst helping a patient to be more psychologically healthy by enabling the patent to make some of the relevant parts of the unconscious more conscious (and hence better integrated). Most managers consider politics as a routine part of organizational life - though they might not talk about it openly. Hence, incorporating (without any negative associations) discussions/training on 'understanding and managing the political dimension of change' in the change management intervention, will give the leaders/managers a legitimate platform and skills to surface, talk about and deal with this dimension thereby increasing the probability of the successful implementation of the change.  

Another relevant analogy is the approach for incorporating feelings and emotions into the decision-making process. Feelings and emotions are real – though they might not be rational – and hence they can’t be ignored.  However, ‘making decisions based on emotions’ is not desirable, from an effectiveness point of view. We can improve the quality of our decisions by gathering data on the emotions/feelings of the stakeholders/ourselves (including impact of the various decisions/possible options on the feelings/emotions of the stakeholders) and using the same to inform our diagnosis, solution design and implementation. Similarly, we can improve the effectiveness of our change interventions (diagnosis, solution design and implementation) by leveraging the data on the political dynamics of the organization without ‘playing politics’. Yes, this is a tightrope walk that requires very high degree of self awareness and critical-self monitoring. But it is something that HR/OD consultants must do to maintain their integrity, credibility, effectiveness & relevance!

Appropriate metaphors for Organizational Commitment

"We need more commitment in this organization. Employees should just trust their managers and the organization and do what they are asked to do. Instead, they get confused and start asking questions", said the senior HR professional. It was my second encounter with this person (See 'Passion for work and anasakti', for the details of the first encounter that happened many years ago). Like what happened last time, this statement set me thinking. I have realized that interactions like this prompts me to examine my own opinions/assumptions and hence enrich my understanding. That is why I treasure these encounters!

For the purpose of our discussion here, let us define Organizational Commitment as the psychological attachment or affinity that employees have to the organization they work for. It is highly useful for the organization/employer as organizational commitment (or certain types of organization commitment - to be more precise) can have a positive impact on important workplace outcomes like employee retention, attendance, performance and extra-role behavior. There exists a significant volume of literature on organization commitment (e.g. affective commitment, continuous commitment, normative commitment etc.), its antecedents and its outcomes.

Now, let us come back to the statement made by our senior HR professional. What intrigued me the most was the likely underlying assumptions in his statement about the behavioral manifestations of commitment and trust. My objective is not to prove that these assumptions are wrong. Having been a people manager for more than a decade, there have been many situations where I felt that it would be so much better for everyone if my team members just did what I asked them to do without forcing me explain everything. Different assumptions are valid to different extents in different contexts. The objective here is just to examine if there are other ways of looking at the situation.

To begin with, I am not sure if 'getting confused' or 'asking questions' necessarily indicates lack of commitment. It might just be that the employee does not have enough information/clarity on what exactly needs to be done and how. Often, this is the result of the so called ‘curse of knowledge’. As the manger might have additional information/background/big picture understanding & knowledge/expertise about the situation/task the employees don’t have, what seems so simple, clear and obvious to the manager might not be so for the employees. But since the manager does not realize this (i.e. as he burdened by the ‘curse of knowledge’) he does not feel the need to provide all this information. Hence the most reasonable response on the part of a committed employee is to seek clarifications. However, in some organizations it could be culturally more acceptable for the employee to ‘muddle through the situation’ as compared to seeking clarifications upfront. In such cases it is the organization culture (and not the employee) that needs fixing (see 'Placebos, Paradoxes & Parables for Culture Change').

Sometimes, it is possible that the employee has a different view from that of the manager. In this case also, the most effective response is to discuss the matter upfront. But if such a behavior is not permitted/feasible, it can lead to 'passive resistance', especially on the part of the 'good' employees. As we have seen ‘Paradox of passive resistance’, it is often the highly competent (and hence capable of seeing the limitations of the approach suggested by the manager) and committed (and hence caring too much about the organization to accept the suboptimal solution) employees who exhibit passive resistance in an organization context where they can’t express their disagreement directly without seriously jeopardizing their careers.

Now let us look at the ‘trust’ aspect. I think that expressing the feeling of confusion and/or seeking clarifications can actually be a sign of the employee’s trust on the manager. If this trust did not exist, the employee won’t make himself vulnerable by expressing the feeling of confusion or by seeking clarifications (and hence revealing his lack of understanding). In a way, it also demonstrates the trust the employee has on the manager’s competence (to be able to provide the clarification). Of course, expressing confusion/asking questions can also be a defensive behavior – to avoid/delay the task. It is also possible that questioning too much when there is a critical need to take urgent action is counterproductive. My point is just that expressing confusion/asking questions doesn’t necessarily indicate lack of trust. It is interesting to note that the type of trust implied by our senior HR professional (on the omniscience and infallibility of the manager/organization) boarders on trust in God. That kind of trust would be appropriate in a religious/spiritual context but not in the context of business organizations! This brings us to the topic of metaphors and the appropriate use of metaphors.

Metaphors are highly useful tools for thinking. Metaphors facilitate the understanding of one conceptual domain (typically an abstract one) by relating it to another more familiar conceptual domain (typically a more concrete one). They are so much a part of our lives and thinking that often we are not fully conscious of the metaphors we use. It has also been argued that by examining the metaphors we use, we can a learn a lot about ourselves – our values and assumptions. A good metaphor is generative. It helps us to develop new ideas, perspectives and understanding about the topic that we are exploring (especially when the topic is a relatively unfamiliar one). But the use of metaphors also has its disadvantages. Since a metaphor is not an exact comparison, often inaccurate/irrelevant/misleading meanings & ideas creep in into our thought process/understanding. Since we might not be fully conscious of the use of metaphors in our thinking, this can be dangerous.

Now let us look at a couple of metaphors used to talk about (think about) the ‘employer-employee’ (employment) relationship. The most common one is that of ‘marriage’ – with sometimes a finer distinction being made between ‘arranged marriage’ and ‘love marriage’. While this metaphor help us to generate useful ideas (e.g. the importance of ensuring high degree of ‘person-organization’ and ‘person-job’ fit at the time of selection), it also brings in meanings that might not be appropriate (e.g. the requirement for making a long term commitment at the time of joining the organization – reflected in statements like ‘we should hire only those people who are willing to make a long term commitment to the organization’). As a social institution, we don’t yet have a viable alternative to marriage. But we do have viable alternatives to lifelong employment. In some societies, marriage is a sacred bond. But employment might not be so. While stability/continuity of employments is important for business, the disruption caused by employee attrition is often no way close to the trauma caused by the dissolution of marriage. Again, in the context of frequent rightsizing and reorganization, a sacred longtime employment commitment might not be feasible even from the organization’s point of view.

Another metaphor is that of the family (with the employer being the parent and the employee being the child). While this metaphor also helps us to generate useful ideas (like encouraging high degree of mutual trust & collaboration, care/benevolence towards the employees, extra-role behavior/going the extra mile etc.), it also brings in meanings that might not be appropriate (like a lopsided relationship/power balance, assumption that the employer/manager always ‘knows best’, encouraging ‘Parent-Child’ interactions as opposed to ‘Adult-Adult’ interactions– in the Transactional Analysis sense – between the employer/manager and the employee etc.)

So where are we now? We have found that two of the most common metaphors used to talk about (think about) the ‘employer-employee’ (employment) relationship have significant disadvantages. They also create avoidable complications when it comes to figuring out what kind of trust and commitment would be appropriate in an organizational context. However, metaphors have tremendous rhetorical value and hence they are highly useful for leaders/managers in the complex endeavor of ‘motivating’ or ‘inspiring’ employees (Please see ‘Power of carrot and stick’). Metaphors are also be very useful for employees to find meaning (or to make sense) in the workplace (Please see ‘Architects of meaning’). Again, it would be very difficult (or even impossible) to totally avoid the use of metaphors as they are such an integral part of our thinking process. Hence metaphors are here to stay and we need to make the best use of them.

Are there metaphors that are more appropriate for helping us understand commitment and trust in the employment relationship? May be, there is no one metaphor that is appropriate. The best course of action might be to use multiple metaphors (e.g. marriage, family, contract, partnership, citizenship, mission, journey, marketplace, channel, tribe, village, casino etc.) to generate a wide range of ideas on the various aspects/dimensions of the topic/concept, while consciously watching out for spurious meanings/ideas that are likely to come in as part of that process, so that we can select the useful ideas (and discard the irrelevant/misleading ones) enabling us to come up with richer understanding and better responses!

Any ideas/comments/metaphors?

Paradox of ‘passive resistance’

“There is too much passive resistance in this organization! When I suggest something, everyone agrees. But they go back and do whatever they wanted to do", said the frustrated business leader.

‘Passive resistance’ is a term that is heard quite often in business organizations. Let us begin by taking a look at this phenomenon from a broader perspective.

From a psychological point of view, passive resistance is a form of passive-aggressive behavior. Passive-aggressive behavior involves acting indirectly aggressive rather than directly aggressive. It usually manifests as procrastination, resentment, sullenness, helplessness or even as deliberate failure to accomplish tasks.

From a sociopolitical perspective, passive resistance is a method of nonviolent protest against laws or policies in order to force a change or secure concessions. This involves methods like economic or political noncooperation, hunger strikes/fasting, mass demonstrations, refusal to obey or carry out a law or to pay taxes, economic boycotts, symbolic protests etc.

Keeping these in mind, let us come back to passive resistance in the context of business organizations. Employees exhibiting ‘active resistance’ are vocal in their criticism and they might even make efforts to cause the change to fail. Employees showing ‘passive resistance’ exhibit little visible resistance. They will outwardly agree with the change that is being proposed, but then act as if they don't. Eventhough they don’t challenge the change directly, they will continue doing things their own way.

The typical behavioral manifestations of passive resistance in organizations include

• not taking ownership while appearing to agree with the proposed change
• diminished enthusiasm/ withdrawal/ sulkiness/ apathy/cynicism/hopelessness
• complaining without offering solutions
• blaming others
• indecisiveness/ procrastination
• excessive adherence to procedures/guidelines
• working inefficiently/making half-hearted efforts  
• withholding information
• 'forgetting' obligations/commitments
• repeatedly making excuses to avoid assigned tasks/ working on unwanted tasks
• over-complicating the new way of working
• propagating rumors

From these it appears that passive resistance is clearly something 'bad'. So, what is paradoxical about passive resistance? As we have seen earlier, a paradox occurs when there are multiple perspectives/opinions (doxa) that exist alongside (para)- each of which is true - but they appear to contradict/to be in conflict with one another. Now, let us look at some of the opinions about passive resistance

• Passive resistance is more dangerous than active resistance as it is a ‘silent killer’ (that goes undetected and hence unresolved). 
• People who display passive resistance lack the courage to stand up for what they believe in. 
• People resort to passive resistance to hide their incompetence.
• The primary reason for passive resistance is an environment where the direct expression of disagreement is discouraged. When employees feel that they cannot express their opinions and emotions openly, they might resort to more indirect methods of expressing the same.
• Passive resistance can be a very ‘logical response’ in a hierarchical organization where it is culturally unacceptable to oppose the views of the superiors directly.
• It is often the ‘good’ employees (highly independent, highly competent and highly committed to their work/organization) who exhibit passive resistance. They are the people who can operate with a high degree of independence (a very valuable capability in rapidly evolving business organizations). Their high degree of competence enable them to realize that the plan of action suggested by the superiors might not always be correct or in the best interest of the organization. They also care too much about their work and the organization to just 'go along'. Again, they are intelligent enough to realize that they can’t express their views/disagreement directly without seriously jeopardizing their careers. Hence they respond with passive resistance!
• Sometimes, passive resistance can be a ‘rational’ behavior which lets an employee dodge unnecessary tasks while avoiding confrontation. Employees often resort to passive resistance when the assigned task/imposed view does not 'make sense' to them. It helps the employee to gain a sense of control. Passive resistance becomes problematic only when it becomes a habitual and indiscriminate response.
• An employee might not always be consciously aware of his/her passive-aggressive behavior.
• The basic 'animal response’ in a stressful situation is ‘fight’ or ‘flight’. 'Fight' is similar to active resistance and a fight response (in its basic form) might not be a possible (without serious repercussions) in many situations that employees face in business organizations. Similarly, a 'flight response' in its basic form (e.g. getting out of the situation by changing roles, changing jobs etc.) might not also be feasible. Hence ‘passive resistance’ (which can be conceptualized as a 'creative' combination of 'fight and flight') becomes a 'natural response' to cope with the brutal realities of organizational life. By the way, it has been argued that insanity is a perfectly sane response to an insane environment! 

Please note that the attempt here is not to glorify (or even to justify) passive resistance. The idea (like what we did when we explored the ‘Power of carrot and stick’) is to develop a richer understanding of the complex reality that underlies the phenomenon of passive resistance which in turn will help us to respond to passive resistance more effectively.  

So, how should we deal with passive resistance- in ourselves and in others? A good place to start is to examine some of the causes of the passive resistance mentioned above.

• If the cause for passive resistance is an environment where the direct expression of disagreement is discouraged, the logical first step should be to make it more safe/acceptable to express opinions/disagreement more directly/openly. Of course, this is easier said than done, changing (hierarchical) cultures often requires significant amount of time and effort (see 'Placebos, Paradoxes and Parables for Culture Change' )

• If the passive resistance is based upon the belief that past practices have been sufficient and there is no need to change, then placing more emphasis on creating and communicating the ‘business case’ for the change becomes critical. This is especially important in those situations where employees go into passive resistance as a means of retaliation for some decision or action they perceive to be unfair or unjustified.

• If the key contributing factor is lack of lack of competence or lack of confidence in their ability to execute, then capability building & coaching should be looked at.

• If the problem is primarily with the loss of control/independence, getting the employees more involved in the change process, giving them more freedom in determining how to carry out the task and reducing the amount of micromanagement (while ensuring accountability) will help.

• If the main contributing factor is some sort of ‘learned helplessness’, enabling people to examine their thought processes (and the inferences/attribution errors they are making) along with enabling them to build the requisite skills to operate in the new environment will help. If the transition from 'learned helplessness' to ‘learned optimism’ can be facilitated, it would provide a significant advantage when it comes to dealing with the next wave of change.   

Hence, the primary strategy to deal with passive resistance is to surface it so that it can be addressed in a reasonable manner. However, if there are issues at the structure level (e.g. administrative and functional managers of an employee driving conflicting priorities in a matrix organization), at the group level (e.g. inter-group conflict) or at the interpersonal level (e.g. power/political struggle with the person driving the change, lack of trust, emotional baggage from previous interactions etc.) that lead to passive resistance down the line, they need to be addressed at the appropriate level. Of course, basics of good change management like articulating the vision, communicating the business case for the proposed change and the ‘What is in it for me’ for the impacted individuals, creating forums to raise and address issues, demonstrating top management commitment and helping employees to improve their change resilience are very much relevant here also. 

So, these are some of my ‘thought fragments’. Now, over to you for your comments so that we can convert these thought fragments to something more useful in understanding and dealing with passive resistance!

Do we need a new ‘defining myth’ for HR?

This post is an attempt to explore the intersection of two of the key themes of this blog - the nature of the HR function (see 'Philosophy of HR') and creating meaning as HR professionals (see 'Architects of Meaning - From CHRO to CMO').
 

Meaning (finding meaning in work) is becoming an increasingly critical issue at the workplace. Hence, 'facilitating creation of meaning' becomes an important opportunity and challenge for HR professionals. While 'Architects of Meaning' touched upon HR interventions to enable leaders and employees to create meaning at the workplace, it did not focus specifically on enabling HR professionals to find meaning in their roles.  This is where a ‘defining myth’ becomes relevant.

A myth is a story that embodies a powerful truth. We create stories about our experiences to give meaning to them. Once we internalize a myth (created by others) it helps us to find (create) meaning in our experiences and in our roles. So myths are useful for HR professionals to find meaning in their roles.

In any domain of human endeavor that encompasses a wide range of experiences and dilemmas, multiple myths are required (to facilitate the meaning creation/sense-making process). However, there is usually a 'central myth' or 'defining myth' that lies at the core of the meaning creation process. This defining myth provides the essence of meaning and the other myths add to this meaning (in terms of details and finer nuances in various contexts).  In this post, we will look at a couple of candidates for being the 'defining myth' for HR.   

The nature of the tasks carried out by most of the HR professionals most of the time makes 'finding meaning' a difficult endeavor (Please see 'HR Professionals and Multiple Personality Disorder' and 'In praise of HR Generalists'). This vacuum in meaning prompts HR professionals to ask ‘existential questions’ about their roles (What am I doing? Does it make sense? Does it add value? etc.). To answer these questions multiple myths have been developed regarding the mandate of the HR function, the roles in HR and the significance(value) of these roles. Often, these come in the form of 'new models of the HR function' and/or ‘new set of roles for HR professionals’.

Let us digress a little. Many years ago, when I was exploring thought leadership in HR (see 'Thought leadership in HR in India'); I could not find any consensus (among the group of senior HR professionals that I had surveyed) on the names of the thought leaders in HR in India.  But the moment I expanded the scope of my question to cover ‘thought leaders in HR anywhere in the world’, almost all the people came up with the name of Dave Ulrich - that too as the first choice. I have often wondered why Dave Ulrich's ideas became so popular among HR professionals. Now I feel that it is partly because he created (through his ideas on roles for HR professionals) narratives/stories (myths!) about roles in HR - myths that enabled HR professionals to find meaning in their roles and in their careers. I feel that Dave Ulrich created some sort of a ‘professional mythology’ for HR – tapping into the deep-rooted desires and fears of HR professionals  - and through that he redefined the HR domain -  in a way that the HR professionals found meaningful and hence acceptable!!!  

Now let us come back to the myths in HR. While there are many of these myths, the one that has come closest to being a 'defining myth' is that of the 'HR Business Partner'. Usually a myth consists of a story and a truth/meaning embedded in the story (some sort of a 'moral of the story'). Here the story was about the heroic HR professional who evolved from doing mainly low skilled administrative activities that were  not core to the business  to become a strategic partner to the business, creating a huge impact on the business,  gaining respect from the CEO and the function heads and earning the much desired 'seat at the table'. The truth/moral was that HR professionals could  evolve from their earthly  administrative activities and fly in the exalted realm of true business partners - almost like the human beings realizing their divine potential from their earthly nature as outlined in the myth of a dragon (see ‘Too true to be real’)

This was a very valuable myth. It enabled many HR professionals to feel better about the HR domain and the opportunities for themselves in the domain. Also some people actually become business partners - at least to some extent. However, I feel that this myth (or the truth implied by the myth) has many practical difficulties in many organization contexts. Please see ‘In the wonderland of HR Business Partners’, ‘Nature abhors vacuum’ and 'Paradox of business orientation of HR' for more details. More importantly, as the context changes, new meanings are required – just like we need a new map when the terrain changes. This would mean that we need myths held together by a new defining myth. Of course this does not mean that the previous ‘defining myth’ becomes irrelevant. It can continue as one of the supporting myths. It is just that it is no longer the central theme (‘defining myth’).

In a new terrain (organization context) characterized by rapid/disruptive changes, complex challenges and paradoxes, being ‘Architects of meaning' might be more appropriate as the defining myth for HR professionals. Of course, the myth of the ‘HR Business Partner’ needs to continue as one of the supporting myths. But it will no longer be the central theme (‘defining myth’) as some of the basic underlying assumptions about ‘the nature of the business’ and the ‘nature of the partnership between  business leaders and HR professionals’  will get revisited.   The story that contains the new myth can be about the wise HR professional  who helped the business leaders and employees to examine their sense-making process  in the organization context and hence  enabled them to create meaning (and sometimes ‘new meanings’) for themselves and the people they lead in the face of gut-wrenching changes.  Also, the truth embedded in this story takes HR closer to its behavior science foundations. Behavior science was supposed to be about understanding, predicting and influencing behavior (and the underlying sense-making processes!)  

What do you think?