The Antidote for Unintentional Conflict

From the lens of energy, conflict is two or more opposing forces. It follows that the antidote for unintentional conflict is to change the circumstances that create conflict into circumstances that promote an alignment of energy. The concept of shared space emerged as the antidote of unintentional conflict in recognition of this fact. How we create shared space and avoid creating unintentional conflict is the focus of this chapter.

In a shared space, people can collaborate, align, and work together effectively. In shared space, there is very little cause or opportunity for the seeds of unintentional conflict to be sown. No seeds, no triggers around which conflict can grow. Eureka!

Creating shared space as a solution for unintentional conflict involves the redesign or adjustment of the factors causing such conflict to be the current expression of the business. At the enterprise level, which we discuss in this chapter, these are the elements in the Enterprise Elements Model. At the individual level, they also include the personal “ingredients” that we bring to the table in our interactions. We discuss those in detail in chapters 4 and 5. All of these factors are fair game for adjustment and/or redesign. We have discussed how organizational and operational misalignments lead to unintentional conflict. We have also discussed how, as people, we often miss each other in interactions, which often leads to unintentional conflict. We can turn around all of these circumstances by making the adjustments needed to change the flow of energy from opposition to alignment.

Perhaps the most important adjustment of all is to the people in a business. Just as conflict usually shows itself in the form of behaviors among people, shared space requires that people have the motivations, attitudes, and skills to help promote that shared space. In other words, through their behaviors, people help create the circumstances surrounding shared space.

But let's be clear about agendas. Creating shared space does not require that we strip ourselves of all personal agendas. That wouldn't be a practical expectation. However, it does require that we hold our personal agendas loosely and keep them secondary to the larger agenda and the common good. This is an important distinction because people will always have personal agendas. It is human nature.

The creation of shared space is a universal concept that applies equally to the way we organize our businesses, define processes and systems, make decisions, and interact with each other. In other words, it applies to the entire business enterprise. Creating shared space is an approach for avoiding unintentional conflict throughout the enterprise. Even better, the shared space is where people can work together and collaborate effectively with a focus on serving customers. It is a space where positive energy is created. It is, and can be, what drives important outcomes like customer satisfaction, innovation, and business growth.

Shared space is not a guarantee that unintentional conflict will be avoided completely. But it is a powerful way to avoid a lot of such conflict. Given the size and pervasiveness of unintentional conflict, this has huge implications.

Fixing a Broken Business Function with Shared Space

Remember our broken business function in chapter 1? We will use that case study to show how we fix such business problems through the creation of shared space. As a quick refresher, here is a summary of the original problem.

A scientific instrument company, Alchemy Instruments, manufactures and sells high‐end electronic equipment to business clients across North America. It recently reorganized its sales force into two groups.

• The Product Group is organized around the company's product lines, with subgroups for each line. Sales staff members in the group are instructed to sell their products to any potential client in the United States and Canada.
• The Regional Group is divided into six sales regions in North America. Those assigned to a region within the group are instructed to sell all of the company's products within their regions.

Although the senior VP of sales encouraged sales staff in each group to work cooperatively with staff in the other group, problems began to surface in the field soon after the reorganization was completed. Members from both groups were calling on the same clients, cooperation and cross‐group support was at best a low priority, and the VPs of the two groups were at odds. The two groups became polarized and competitive. Less time was being spent on selling and more time was being spent competing with those in their own company.

Each VP spent hours in the SVP's office complaining about the other group and stating why that they should be in charge of both groups. To the SVP, it seemed clear that the two managers could not work together, and he would have to remove one of them. He did so, and the “winning manager” celebrated victory.

Although everyone was now under the winning manager's umbrella, in a few months he faced the same problems, and now they were all his problems. The SVP fired him for his failure to bring the two groups together and took direct control of both groups. Months later, the SVP's efforts had been no more successful, and his own job was on the line.

We know from the previous discussion that the SVP's method of solving this set of problems was “obvious” but ineffective. Let's take a different path. We will approach this broken business function in three basic steps: analyze the problem, design shared space, and implement the changes.

Analyze the Problem

Design Shared Space

With a clear understanding of the root cause problem, we can set about designing a shared space that will encourage the behaviors, collaboration, and knowledge sharing that Alchemy is looking for. We start by identifying the new operating concept.

Implement the Changes

Once the changes that will create shared space are designed and developed, they must be implemented. Implementing any significant change is potentially difficult. Several change management models can be utilized to guide the implementation, and we make no attempt here to judge, prioritize, or rewrite those popular models. Any one probably could work. However, regardless of the model you use, it is important to have an implementation/change management strategy that is based on an understanding of energy.

Of all the enterprise elements, often it is hardest to shift people's attitudes and motivations. We address that in detail later on in the book. Change would be a lot easier if we didn't have to deal with people! However, to optimize our chances of success in working with the affected people, we recommend implementing all elements together at the same time. Collectively, the elements will frame and encourage the desired behaviors while helping to prevent people from engaging in what we might call mischief. Examples of mischief include overt and covert resistance to change, doing things the old way instead of the new way, gossiping, and spreading rumors. We prevent a lot of mischief by taking away opportunities to exercise these dysfunctional behaviors. Parallel implementation of all involved elements, if achievable, is almost always the optimum path. Right off the bat, this moves the implementation needle pretty far to the right. As we discuss in the next section, implementing in a more serial fashion causes energy leakage along the way that often chokes the life out of the change initiative. Lengthy serial implementation is one of the top ten real reasons why transformations and change initiatives fail.

Similar to the issues that spring from drawn‐out serial implementations are the issues that arise when we give people too many options that ultimately have to be discussed and debated. Too many choices make it extremely difficult to achieve a necessary level of agreement and alignment among the people, which threatens the entire change initiative. People should be appropriately involved in change, but it can't be a democracy. Leadership, guidance, and visible leaders who are walking the talk are essential, especially during the early stages of change. And when we want people to change how they work, we need to give them very prescriptive guidance and direction. Again, the newly designed enterprise elements, implemented together, provide much of the needed guidance and direction.

Once we have created this sort of gated community of change, with roads, signposts, and rules of engagement, we can then focus on driving the adoption of the desired attitudes and motivations. Roads, signposts, and rules are all well and good, but we must still get people to follow them and want to follow them. It is best that people not have too many work options while they are going through this internal transformation.

Let's walk through how the implementation of shared space, utilizing our parallel implementation strategy, would look.

Model for Diagnosing Problems and Conflict

We begin with the first part of the roadmap, which is to diagnose the problems and conflict. This process starts with what we see and observe and digs through the layers of understanding down to the root cause level. It is at the root level where we truly understand the problems. Figure 3.1 illustrates the process for diagnosing problems and conflict.

The process begins with defining the presenting problem(s). Presenting problems are the things we can see and observe. There is no analysis in this step, only clear observation. How are the affected people behaving, in general? What are the current states of performance, productivity, and so on? What are your observations about morale, attitudes, and anger levels? What things are not working? Whatever it is, just state the observations.

Next, map the flow of money through the problem area and supporting areas to understand how the function currently works. How does the flow of money reinforce current behaviors and contribute to the problems? Does the flow of money empower or disempower those involved? Do support functions like IT and HR have budget and resources pointed toward activities that contribute to the dysfunction or toward activities that support a balanced operation? There is energy in money that can work for or against the business. Keep in mind that changing the way money flows is potentially a part of your solution.

Now identify the conflict among those involved in the problem area using available information and your own insights. You don't need to recount every negative encounter that has occurred. Boil it down to what is most important. What are the behavioral patterns? Do certain types of conflict occur regularly? What do they point to? How is energy being drained? If possible and practical, quantify the level of conflict as a baseline so you can show concrete progress as you implement your solution.

Your analysis up to this point should have prepared you to identify where control and responsibility are out of alignment. Usually it is most effective to approach this step first at the organizational level, then operational, and then at the individual level. This is because organizational factors inform operational factors, and organizational and operational factors inform people factors.

Look at the organizational structure, department role definitions, and decision‐making authorities. Then look at leadership and culture to see how they contribute to the problem. At the operational level, start by looking at expectations and resources. These things often point the way to misalignments. Then, at the individual level, start with people skills, positional role definitions, and decision‐making authorities. If you have exhausted everything else, look at individual people who may themselves be causing significant problems. There is usually one overarching misalignment of control and responsibility in any major problem, and everything else is a supporting actor. Find that one misalignment and clearly state it.

Once understood, restate the problem(s) at the root cause level. This step requires your analysis and insight. Remember in the Alchemy example that the misalignment affected every salesperson and both groups. Every salesperson was expected to sell, but no one had control over all of the needed resources. The analysis of that circumstance required the mental leap to the root cause problem, which was the need to make team selling work and, at the same time, eliminate the misalignment. In this step, you naturally have to eliminate the misalignment, but how you do that is the creative, insightful part. The answer may be obvious, or it may require a deeper contemplation. Look for the new model or paradigm in this step.

Model for Designing Shared Space

Armed with a clear understanding of the root cause problem, you are ready to design the shared space that will resolve it. Without this clear understanding, you will almost certainly fail to solve the real problem. Figure 3.2 shows the process for designing shared space to solve the real problem.

The first step in designing shared space is to clearly and succinctly describe the new operating concept. This is a creative endeavor requiring you to visualize how business will be conducted in the new paradigm. In the Alchemy example, this step required thinking through how sales teams would work, how many leaders each would have, which group the leaders would come from, how team staffing would work, and how sales staff from both groups would be incented and motivated to work together.

Designing your operating concept may be an iterative process. You put something out there and then test it to see if it hangs together. You test it by asking questions like these: Will the people be motivated to work this way?, What problems do I foresee cropping up?, and Am I providing enough specificity and guidance about how people need to work? As you test, find problems, and refine, your operating concept will come into focus. You can be pretty sure your operating concept is solid when you are no longer able to find potential problems.

With a clear operating concept, you can move to step 2, identify needed changes in the enterprise that will create the shared space and enable the new operating concept. You accomplish this by building a table like Table 3.1. In this step, you start your table by identifying the involved elements within the organizational, operational, and individual parts of the enterprise (i.e., the left column of the table). In doing this work, you must strike a balance. If you needlessly involve a particular enterprise element or multiple elements, you will be wasting time and money. If you leave out elements needed to support the operating concept and eliminate the misalignment, however, you may compromise the entire solution. At best you will leak energy like a cracked dam leaks water. Unfortunately, the tendency in business today is to cut corners, so the omission of critical elements is by far the more likely scenario. Just know that at some point, you may be better off doing nothing than cutting corners.

The third step, scope and escalate, comes next precisely because of the problem of cutting corners. Often change leaders cut corners not because they want to but because their authority, control, and/or budget do not allow them to make changes in some of the higher‐level enterprise elements (e.g., structure, major processes, and incentives). In this case, if you are that change leader, the best you can do is identify which elements you can do something about and which need to be escalated for recommended action.

If the change you can make will not adequately implement your new operating concept and solve the misalignment, now is the time to go up the chain with that information. Perhaps you can hand your leaders copies of this book as you explain the consequences of not doing what is needed. I encourage all leaders to recognize the importance of complete solutions and do what they can to make necessary changes to higher‐level enterprise elements. The return on investment alone should make it more than worth your time and resources. If you are limited in resources, consider having fewer initiatives but doing them thoroughly. Your higher success rate should soon pay for itself.

The fourth step is to design the new elements. You now build out the table you started in step 2 to describe the desired state for all involved enterprise elements. Collectively, these elements must now include the mechanisms and adjustments that will achieve the desired operational concept. As you design each element, ask questions: What does this element need to be and accomplish?, How will this element work with and fortify the other elements?, and What specific mechanisms must this element include? As with your analysis, it is usually best to approach this design in the sequence of organizational, operational, and individual elements.

The fifth, final step in this model is to integrate, test, and refine your shared space design. Put it all together and test it by mapping the new flow of money and checking for any remaining misalignment of control and responsibility at the people, project, and department levels and within operational systems and processes. Check for internal consistency and to make sure each element will work in concert with the others to create the desired operational concept. Adjust as needed until you achieve a tight integration, at least on paper.

Model for Designing New Enterprises and Functions

If you are designing a new enterprise or new major functions within an enterprise, your path will probably be less difficult than it is for those changing existing enterprises, particularly in the implementation step. As discussed earlier, moving people through change is often the most difficult step. If what you are designing is brand new, the people who will participate in it have nothing to lose or compare it to. Not having to give something up paves the way for a much faster and easier adoption.

The Model for Designing New Enterprises and Functions is similar to the Model for Designing Shared Space. The primary difference is that instead of designing shared space to fix a problem, you are designing shared space to optimize work in a new enterprise or business function. Figure 3.3 illustrates this modified flow.

The process begins with defining the operating concept and needed capabilities and capacities. Defining the operating concept is essentially the same process as before. However, defining needed capabilities (what you can do) and capacities (how much you can do) is a new detail that applies both to the enterprise as a whole and to individual (major) functions within it. At the enterprise level, capability and capacity are essentially about what the enterprise needs to be able to accomplish to achieve its business and/or strategic plan. Address this level with fairly broad brush strokes. At the major function level (e.g., a department), summarize the capabilities and capacities of the particular function. As reference, see the description of functional capability and capacity in the Enterprise Elements Model discussed in chapter 2.

The next step is to identify the needed enterprise elements. Again, begin building a table like Table 3.1 listing the involved enterprise elements. If you are designing a new enterprise, you can expect to list all of the elements. For new functions, start with the full list and eliminate any that are definitely not needed. When in doubt, leave the element on the list and remove it later if you confirm it is not needed. (Note: We omit the scope and escalate step here on the assumption that whoever is designing a new enterprise or function is empowered to do so, and no escalation is required.)

Now complete your design table by designing the new enterprise elements. Bear in mind that although you are designing from scratch, the goal is still to create shared space in all aspects of the enterprise or function. The same thinking and discipline applies.

Finally, integrate the elements and refine your design as before to achieve a fully integrated set of enterprise elements. In addition, perform testing to make sure the integrated design is sufficient to provide the needed capabilities and capacities.

Model for Implementing and Managing Change

Regardless of your careful analysis and thoughtful design, implementing and managing change is always a tricky affair. As Obi‐Wan Kenobi said in Star Wars, “We must be cautious.” The way to be cautious in implementing and managing change is to anticipate and avoid as many problems as possible so that when problems do occur, you have the horsepower (energy) to keep your initiative on track. Managing change is about managing energy. Know in advance how much energy you will need, and don't run out before you get to the end. Look for opportunities to fill your energy tank whenever you can. Initiatives that fail do so most often because they run out of energy before they reach the point of sustainable change.

Figure 3.4 illustrates the four primary steps involved in implementing and managing change. Let's walk through the steps.

The first step is to develop the plan to thoroughly address development and implementation of all involved enterprise elements. The plan should specify how, when, and by whom each redesigned enterprise element will be developed and implemented. Remember, a parallel implementation strategy is usually optimal, so make sure your plan includes enough people with appropriate expertise to tackle each of the elements. Now is the time to build a case for resources. The plan should include any activities necessary to establish an adequate level of readiness among those involved. Also include overarching activities, such as communication, training, and measurement. Finally, a risk management plan identifying risks, mitigations and avoidance strategies is an essential ingredient of being cautious.

The next step is to establish commitment, communications, and readiness. You don't want to leave the gate, look around, and find yourself all alone in your change initiative. A strong start is extremely important because you need to quickly build momentum, which is energy. Commitment, communications, and readiness will help you do that. In the second half of the book we discuss in detail the things within people that ultimately need to be aligned with the change initiative for it to be successful. While readiness for change does not assume full alignment, it does assume enough alignment and engagement so that people are at least motivated to start down the path of change.

Although it is important to achieve that initial level of commitment among the people involved, it is equally important to get a major commitment among involved leaders and managers to support and take appropriate responsibility for the change. At the leadership level, one bad apple can spoil the bunch, so do what you can to build management commitment. Communicate with all affected people in different ways to inform them about the change, why it is being made, how they will be involved and affected, what is expected of them, why it is good for the company, and what's in it for them. Mix broadcast messages with two‐way communication (e.g., interviews, focus groups, and town hall sessions) to give people the opportunity to express their views. They may have misconceptions, which you can correct, and you will undoubtedly pick up some valuable information. It is essential that all of the messages delivered through these various means are consistent. Mixed messages have a way of fueling speculation, distrust, and rumors that work against establishing an adequate state of readiness.

Once you have achieved an adequate state of readiness, it's time to implement, monitor, and drive adoption. Depending on the size of the change, you may want to create a kick‐off event to create positive buzz and momentum. Such events are usually part educational and part motivational. However you do it, you want to build energy. As you move through your implementation steps, you are doing three important things. First, you are monitoring the progress of the implementation work itself, solving problems, and making course corrections as needed. Second, you are monitoring people's reactions to the changes. As change happens, emotions are stirred, and people react in a host of “creative” ways that may get ugly. People may resort to overt or covert resistance, coalition building, lying, and diverting attention away from their mischief to avoid detection or responsibility. All of this is negative energy pushing back against your initiative. Therefore, it is very important to stay on top of these negative reactions and neutralize them whenever possible. If you utilize a parallel implementation approach, as discussed earlier, you will stifle much of the mischief before it begins and protect your energy reserves.

The third thing you are doing is driving adoption of desired skills, behaviors, and attitudes among those affected by the change. As discussed later in the book, you are not finished with your change until you have reached a sustained level of adoption. The best way to do that is to help people see and experience, as quickly as possible, how the new way of doing things will be good for them and the business. Continue to monitor the indicators of adoption, and influence people in ways that will move them along the change curve.

No implementation plan is perfect, and you can't anticipate everything that will happen. As adoption progresses, your initiative may run into problems or obstacles that require you to modify or further refine your enterprise elements. For example, in the Alchemy story, the regional team leads received additional training on supervision and project management, as these were new areas of responsibility and their initial performance as team leaders suggested that additional training was needed. In addition, incentives were refined to reflect a more detailed definition and understanding of roles in the sales process. Such refinements plug cracks in the dam to keep them from leaking energy. Let your compass always be the creation of shared space. That means being attentive to building alignment, reducing conflict, and mitigating obstacles.

Start with How People Need to Work

Helping people work and collaborate more effectively is usually our end goal. While it is profoundly important to recognize the power and influence that enterprise elements have on people doing work, it is not a good idea to start there. It is far more effective to start with how you want people to work, see what keeps them from working in that way, and design solutions to promote that way of work. For example, in the analysis and design phases of the Alchemy example, we recognized that we wanted people to sell in teams, not as individuals. This became the basis for the entire design. Although this may sound like a no‐brainer, it isn't. People often miss or skip this step and, as a result, fail to effectively promote the way people need to work.

In chapters 4 and 5 we dive into the energy of work and the true nature of collaboration. These chapters provide considerable insight into and clarification of how people need to work so we can design the enterprise to support it.

Follow the Money

Earlier in the book we discussed the strategy of following the flow of money to find out how things work in a business. Money is energy, and money is power. The flow of money can detract from the way things should work, or it can promote it. The flow of money can breed conflict or promote shared space. Therefore, it is essential to map the flow of money to see how things currently work and then change the flow of money as needed to support the new design. But as I said before, we must be cautious. When you start messing with things like departmental budgets, you will get pushback, to put it mildly. Managers derive power and status from their budgets, and they often take any reduction as a personal threat.

The problem is that if we are really going to make a difference in our businesses, if we are truly serious about building shared space and business excellence, we sometimes have to slaughter sacred cows. One of the most common sacred cows is the budgeting process and the flow of money into division/departmental budgets. For example, companies with traditional hierarchical structures usually have difficulty making their teams work effectively because the flow of money is backward. It flows directly to the departments instead of the teams. The teams, which are responsible for executing projects and programs, have to beg and borrow resources (people) from the departments. Consequently, program managers don't really control the resources on the projects; departments control them. To fix this problem, to create alignment and promote high‐performing teams, money should flow directly into the program budgets, and programs should buy (or rent, if you prefer) resources from the departments to staff their programs. The departments are likely to resist initially, protecting their sacred cow, but making this shift in the control of money is the necessary thing to do.

Another aspect of managing the flow of money is using money as a lever to choke off dysfunctional behavior in businesses. For example, I worked with a company that was facing significant pressure to keep costs down. We discovered that some organization managers launched pet projects to do new things without the knowledge and consent of senior company leaders. They were able to do so because the budgeting process was sloppy and left them with more money than they needed to perform their particular function in the company. To make matters worse, we discovered that several of these projects were being duplicated with competing pet projects in other departments. The company could ill afford this inappropriate and wasteful use of money. In response, we launched a zero‐based budgeting process that effectively choked off funding for unauthorized projects. A lot of money was saved. The point of the story is that sometimes we can eliminate dysfunctional behaviors in businesses by choking off the money that feeds them. The flow of money can be a powerful lever of change that creates alignment of control and responsibility and a healthy flow of energy.

Target Conflict and Energy Leaks

As we have seen, unintentional conflict takes a huge toll on our businesses by wasting and draining energy. One strategy to improve performance and derive bottom‐line benefits is to go after the conflict, see what it is telling us about the business, find the root cause misalignments, and adjust the enterprise to correct them. Whether you mount an organizational campaign to reduce conflict or do it within initiatives targeted at specific business goals, you would do well to adopt a systematic strategy for reducing conflict in your organization.

Similarly, as you implement change, you will want to be on the lookout for the many forms of energy leaks that may occur. Resistance, rumors, miscommunications, and unfettered personal agendas all cause energy leaks that can sabotage your change initiative. Covert resistance is the most difficult leak to deal with and potentially the most damaging. Watch for the indicators of this negative energy (e.g., attitude shifts, propaganda, alliance formation, etc.), and be ready to neutralize it whenever possible. Try appealing to the best parts of people first, but be prepared to deal with their ugly parts if you must.

Recognize the Whole Organization Chart

Whether businesses recognize it or not, when they start forming cross‐functional teams to perform complex work, they have automatically become matrix organizations. The problem occurring at many companies is that they don't give much attention to designing and developing their matrix organizations, where people are hired into functional departments but do most of their work as members of cross‐functional teams. One aspect of that problem is that they do not recognize the whole organization chart. Typically, their focus is on the functional side of the matrix, which looks very much like a traditional organization chart. People overlook that there is a project/program side to the chart that identifies who reports into what projects. Often those reporting relationships are not even recognized, even when people spend 80% or more of their time working on projects. This blind eye toward program reporting relationships disempowers teams and contributes to a major misalignment of control and responsibility, which of course promotes conflict. Even though the project/program side of the organization chart is dynamic as projects come and go and teams re‐form, it is a good strategy to maintain the project side of the organization chart and give it adequate recognition and visibility. After all, in many businesses, the bulk of the work is accomplished by teams. Where the work is being done in a business should be a major area of focus as we align business energies to support the conduct of work.

Define Both Reporting and Customer Relationships

Businesses are generally adept at defining reporting relationships among their people. They typically do this with lines connecting boxes in their organization charts. However, another type of relationship often goes unidentified and unacknowledged in companies, in spite of its relative importance. It is the internal customer relationship. An obvious example of internal customer relationships occurs in businesses with shared service groups (e.g., IT, HR, finance, legal). Staff members in the shared service groups must recognize that those whom they support within the business are their internal customers, who should be treated no differently from external customers. This doesn't mean that staff members report to those internal customers; it means they serve those customers.

This distinction between reporting and serving is quite important as these are two very different kinds of relationships. Most people seem to automatically understand direct reporting relationships: “You are the boss. I work for you. You can tell me what to do. You can promote me or fire me.” Although many managers work to downplay it, there is an authoritative element at the core of reporting relationships. This authority is not present in internal customer relationships. Customer relationships are, at their core, about service. People seem to easily understand this service relationship with external customers, yet they often have difficulty when their customers are internal. This difficulty usually boils down to the authority factor, or lack thereof. For example, “Why should I serve you when you have no authority over me? Why should I serve you when I occupy a higher position in the company than you do?” When people lack the understanding that authority has no place in a customer relationship, they tend to bring authority into the equation and find reasons not to acknowledge or honor internal customer relationships. When that happens, they aren't motivated to serve their internal customers.

This problem can be a very serious. In many larger businesses, for example, the value chains, which constitute major pipelines of energy, involve literally dozens of internal customer relationships. Every time an internal customer relationship is not honored and subpar service is provided, energy in the value chain is eroded. Multiply that by a couple of dozen internal customer relationships, and we have a major problem. That's why it is so important for businesses to define and incentivize internal customer relationships and for the people in the businesses to acknowledge and embrace them.

Embracing internal customer relationships is doubly important because making and keeping these relationships healthy is a major tool in creating shared space. A good example is related to the shift toward solution selling occurring at many product companies that bundle services with products to create custom business solutions. A common problem with solution selling is friction between the sales team, which sells the complex solutions, and the professional service group, which implements them. The professional service staff typically complain that “Sales sold us down the river” with a price that squeezes their budget and with customer expectations that they can't meet. Sales staff complain that the professional service staff don't help them enough with these complex sales. “After all,” they reason, “the professional service staff are the experts in our products and services.”

This is not a new problem. It's just getting worse and more visible as solution selling becomes more prevalent. Companies have tried all sorts of things over the years to solve this problem, usually with only marginal success. For me, following the energy on this problem led me to an insight that actually solved it. The key breakthrough was the definition of an internal customer relationship.

The solution requires a paradigm shift where a professional services design and planning team is assembled when a major sales prospect becomes an opportunity (e.g., when the customer wants a proposal). Whereas sales historically created the custom solutions and priced them at this point in the sales process, the planning team is now charged with designing, estimating costs, and planning the solution. That way, if the company wins the business, the professional services group owns the plan and is willing to be accountable for its implementation. The sales lead develops pricing (informed by the planning team's cost estimates) and bundles it with the solution and plan in the form of a proposal and/or presentation to the customer—with support as needed from the planning team. With this approach, professional services designs and plans, sales sells, and solution selling becomes a team sport. However, to make this work, we have to make sure everyone involved is motivated to do his or her part.

In this new sales paradigm, sales gives up control of the solution design, cost estimation, and planning. However, in exchange, the sales lead is recognized as an internal customer of the planning team. That means the planning team must ultimately please the sales lead as one aims to please any customer. The beauty of this customer relationship is that it allows planning team members to apply their detailed knowledge in creating the design and plan (who better?) while giving the sales lead an appropriate level of control and influence as a customer. To reinforce this customer relationship, the design and planning teams are given modest commissions on won business. Doing this helps to ensure that all are aligned to the common cause, which, in this case, is making sales. When I first implemented this new sales paradigm in a business, revenue doubled in three years. Profits also increased as the implementation projects, which were now better planned and estimated, performed much better. The paradigm has never failed.

This is but one example of where a defined internal customer relationship can have a major positive impact on the value chain. As you create shared space in your enterprise, pay attention to the value chain and the relationships of people along the chain. You will find that customer relationships often define their optimum dynamic. The trick then is to get everyone to recognize and support those relationships with appropriate incentives, expectations, training, and communications.

Align Control and Responsibility in Everything

We talked earlier about aligning control and responsibility to fix misalignments that breed conflict and drain the energy of the business. Because this alignment is central to everything we do, the strategy here is to look for misalignments everywhere and fix them when detected. Although it is unrealistic to expect perfect alignment in everything, it is appropriate to strive toward that goal and use it to drive our understanding and solutions. In my experience, finding and fixing misalignments never fails. Use this approach as a compass and come back to it whenever you need direction.

Build Capability and Capacity

Many leaders and managers show little interest in building capability (what we are able to do) and capacity (how much of it we can do). For most, building capability and capacity is not as sexy as the execution side of the business. Therefore, it is often given minimal attention, which, ironically, cripples the ability of people and teams to execute. Furthermore, insufficient capability and capacity is the root cause of a huge amount of inefficiency, dysfunction, and conflict in business. It follows that building adequate capability and capacity is an essential ingredient for building shared space. An investment of time and energy here will almost always pay off in a big way.

Make Operational Governance and Decision Making Explicit

We are used to the term “governance” being used at the board level. However, there is another huge area of governance that applies to decision making within the operations of the business. I call this operational governance. At the top of the food chain, governance relates to decisions about what products, capabilities, and major systems a business is going to invest in. At the working level, governance relates to decisions and decision‐making authorities associated with even minor business processes. Add it up, and if governance isn't working well, conflict at all levels of the organization will grow.  The key is to proactively render decision making explicit, to decide how each decision type will be made, and by whom, before the decisions actually need to be made. Targeting operational governance is a strong strategy that can lead to major benefits with a modest investment.

Drive Interpersonal and Collaborative Capability

The previous strategies relate mostly to improving the organization and operations of the business. However, we cannot ignore the impact of the people. Specifically, if we want them to be more collaborative and adept at delivering interpersonal services, we need to equip them with the necessary skills and drive the associated behaviors. Don't expect this to happen by putting people in front of online training modules. Developing collaborative skills and behaviors goes much deeper than knowledge into the realm of the interpersonal, where there is no one right answer. In chapter 5 we discuss in detail the type of interpersonal skills needed to enable effective interpersonal services, productive business interactions, and collaboration.