162 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
By saying “Look, what we’re trying to do is make the workplace great,”
you’re giving people a common goal.
In these sessions, the first thing you’ll discover is a sense of commonal-
ity between the team members: “Wow, I didn’t know that is how you feel!”
It’s vital of course that the ground rules are set. There’s no defensiveness, no
accusations flying. They’re just bringing concepts up, getting it all out there.
Our intention is to find ways to work better together.
At that session, I gather a long list of what’s working, what’s not working,
and what could work better, and write it up on whiteboards. Typically, you’ll
find plenty of things that are working: There are good people with good
intentions, there are good products, and there are good clients and custom-
ers. And, on the other side, you’ll hear things like “There’s too much gossip …
not enough communication … the rules keep changing …”
With one recent client, there had been a lot of internal communica-
tion and morale issues. In particular, intense animosity had sprung up
between two departments. Deadlines were being missed, and instead of
taking responsibility, the staff were blaming the other side. These issues had
reached a point where they were stressing the entire organization. People
were getting caught in the crossfire and were being forced to take sides.
Ultimately, it began to impact the company’s ability to produce new products
and meet revenue targets.
My intervention began by helping people to understand their role in
creating and solving the situation. I worked with both teams to try to create
more compassion and forgiveness for those on the other side, using an exer-
cise that I call “Just Like Me.” It’s a way to break down the barriers and bring
people to an understanding of those they’re in conflict with. They’re human
beings too. They’re doing the best they can.
This assignment was a real challenge. It took about two months before
there was any significant change at all on either side.
Every organization is different, and the rate at which change happens
depends so much on willingness. This gets back to the Odyssey concept,
the necessity of there being a willingness and an openness to change.
Making change stick and having a really high-performing organization took
a full year, all four seasons.
How do we know it’s working? We survey throughout the process. It’s
about people evaluating themselves and the team: On a scale of 0 to 10,
how would you rate our ability to communicate effectively? How would you
rate our ability to deal with difficult issues?