79

Chapter 7

WHERE TO START

People are always asking us where to start. Here’s how some effective involvers we know began their work.

Jan Mears, a human resources director, Global Supply Chain at Kraft, began by taking one of our tools and using it. Upon reading our manuscript Jan used the stakeholder map on page 27 to help her colleagues decide who should be included in a supply chain project.

Keith Smith, a product design manager, as part of a lean engineering process, was asked to figure out how to involve people in redesigning their work area. Keith took a straightforward approach to figuring out whom to include and what kind of involvement was needed. First, he asked the group’s supervisor to walk him through the work area. As people explained what they did and how they did it, Keith listened with a different ear. He listened for the people who wanted to improve the way work was done. He then invited those people to join a group charged with the responsibility for redesigning the workflow. Once the group had figured out what needed to be changed, they posted their ideas on easel sheets in the work area and asked their fellow employees to comment. Every day their co-workers put more and more sticky notes on their diagram. The group then reviewed these ideas and incorporated them into the final plan. Within two weeks, the ideas for a more efficient operation were up and running!

80

Arnold Aprill, director of the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education, a group that incorporates art into the teaching of subjects such as history, math, and science for the Chicago Public Schools, used all the steps as he brought together parents, teachers, students, researchers, marketing experts, and funders to develop a strategic plan.

Repeating Patterns

Change always starts with an individual and the circle then widens to include others. Throughout an involvement process you don’t just go through the steps we have described once. You go through them many times.

Consider how the pattern repeated itself at a global manufacturing giant. The work started when the vice president of engineering realized something had to be done about the double-digit attrition rate that was affecting his 23,000-person organization. First, he called together his staff and key union officials to get clear on the work and decide what kind of involvement was needed. Because of the matrix nature of the leadership group, they then involved fifty key leaders in the next step, which was to review the purpose of their work and identify the boundaries of participation. As a result of this meeting, the group refined their purpose to “create a work environment where everyone could be successful.”

The group then decided it was time to involve a wider spectrum of employees to set the strategy for going forward. Two hundred fifty people met from all levels and functions along with key union officials. A key question at this meeting was whether the change process should use a waterfall approach, going level by level throughout the organization, or whether the change process should use a ripple strategy, bringing horizontal groups of the organization to decide needed changes. The group said the change strategy should combine the waterfall and ripple approach.

81

Over the next few months this strategy was implemented as employees came together to carry out the purpose of the work—to create a work environment where people could be successful—and to do it in a way that was consistent with the four principles outlined in Dick Axelrod’s earlier book, Terms of Engagement: Changing the Way We Change Organizations. These principles are widening the circle of involvement, connecting people with each other, creating communities for action, and embracing democracy.

This work started with one individual answering our questions:

• What kind of involvement is needed?
• How do I know whom to include?
• How do I invite people to become involved?
• How do I keep people involved?
• How do I finish the job?

At each stage of the project from Hank’s first meeting, to meetings involving employees throughout the organization, to individual work groups, these questions were answered over and over again at different levels of complexity and different levels of depth by effective involvers throughout the organization.

Three years later, the attrition rate had dropped dramatically; an employee survey indicated a 25 percent increase in employee satisfaction, and when it came time to vote on the union contract, the same group that three years earlier had gone on strike overwhelmingly approved the contract.

Guidelines for Effective Involvers

While each step outlined in this book has its own particular set of ideas, some things are constant in answering every question. We think of them as overriding principles or guidelines. They are worth remembering as you involve others. Here are our guidelines for effective involvement.

Involvement produces results when:

• People believe the job is worth doing.
• People are focused on the task.
• People know that their contributions count.

People Believe the Job Is Worth Doing. First, the job must be worth doing—not just from the leader’s perspective, not just from the follower’s perspective, but also from everyone’s perspective. When you alone know your reasons for getting something done, you become a used car salesman, selling a broken-down jalopy to someone who can’t drive. Have you ever tried to sell something that no one wants? It takes a lot of effort and rarely works. But when you know what needs to be done from everyone’s perspective, you become a salesperson in the best sense of the word, delivering a product that everyone wants.

We answer the question, “Is this job worth doing?” when we get clear on the work and decide what kind of involvement is needed. We tap into the power of this question in the invitation and get people thinking about it whenever we meet. Discussing questions such as, “What do we want to create?” and “What do we want to be different as a result of our work together?” helps us decide that the job is worth doing.

The key to these discussions is for people to identify why the project is important to the organization, their group, and most importantly, to them.

Check:

Why is it important?

Who cares?

Will it make a difference?

People Are Focused on the Task. Second, the task must be focused. Focus occurs when you know where you are headed, how you will get there, and what is expected of you. To help people stay focused on the task, revisit your goals and your progress toward them frequently.

All this works better when people are involved from the start in deciding where they are headed, how they will get there, and what role they will play, as well as doing their own progress checks.

Having a clear purpose, knowing your boundaries before you start, thinking through who needs to be included to get the job done, identifying the current state of affairs and what you want to achieve—all these processes help you maintain focus.

Check:

Where are we headed?

How will we get there?

What do we expect of each other?

People Know That Their Contributions Count. Finally, people must know that showing up matters, that their contributions count. When you know your contributions are valued, you put forth more effort and take responsibility for making sure the job is done right. People know that their contributions matter when their voices are heard and their ideas are considered. This does not mean that you have to get your way; rather it means that you are listened to, you are understood, and you can see how your ideas contributed to the outcome.

Recently at a large group meeting to redesign the supply chain at Detroit Edison, an electrician got up at the end of the meeting and said the following: “We’re always saying, how come they don’t ask me? I do the job. I’m involved with it. Someone is always making decisions for me. Now I feel that they did ask us. We gave our input. Let’s see if we know what we’re talking about.”

A press operator at R.R. Donnelley and Sons, Inc., said the following when asked about his involvement in the redesign of the plant: “Even if you didn’t agree with what was said, it made you think.”

Clearly both the electrician and pressman knew that they had been listened to and that their contributions counted.

Check:

Do people feel understood?

Are people’s contributions recognized?

Are people’s contributions connected to the outcomes?

85

Many Ways to Start

Another question people often ask us is, “Can I only use these ideas when I’m starting my work?” Because involvement is a repeating pattern you can start anywhere. You can start with an ending, you can start with a beginning, or you can start somewhere in between. There are a number of ways to start. Here are some examples:

• Start with yourself by going through the steps outlined in this book and see where that leads you. You can use the tools contained throughout the book to help you decide how to involve others. Once you have done this on your own, you may want to share your thinking with others.
• Start with a question that is troubling you by picking one of our five questions and begin there. Suppose you are concerned about whom to include; start by using that chapter to help you decide who needs to be there.
• Start by designing your meetings using the ideas contained in “Meetings: The Involvement Edge.” Because meetings are involvement processes in miniature, they present a powerful opportunity to shift how you involve others. Use our meeting canoe as a guide to creating high-involvement meetings.
• Discuss our questions with a group that is a representative sample of the people you wish to involve. Use this “kitchen cabinet” to help determine how you will involve others in getting things done. In this way, you involve people from the very beginning.
• Start at the end. If you are at the end of your work you can use our chapter “How Do I Finish the Job?” as a starting place. One organization we know called together everyone who had participated in a strategic planning process to review what they did. Taking the ideas from this chapter, they reviewed what contributed to their success and what they would do differently next time, thus providing the seeds for new and improved ways to include others.

No matter where you start, at the beginning or in the middle, whether you start by reviewing these questions by yourself or with a group, the most important thing is to start. Do something and learn from it.