Chapter 6

CULTURE

Culture has been described in many ways, and Schein’s definition is still one of the most accurate: Culture is “[a] pattern of shared basic assumptions that [a] group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems” (1992, p. 12). Schein has more recently described culture as a web that binds individuals together such that they have a shared ethos (2004).

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE

We already know that all cultures are different. Even related companies or organizations will have different cultures. Consider that each of us went to different schools growing up. Even if the schools you attended were in the same town or even in the same neighborhood and were similar in certain ways, each school managed to have a unique culture that affected your experience there. As a student, there was little you could do to change the school culture. Now think about the jobs you’ve held, and consider the culture in each of those firms. Consider how different your experience at a certain company would have been if the culture of that organization had been different.

Organizationally speaking, culture is a force that binds all of us together in a way that is greater than each single person. We might think of it as, in the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.” Similarly, one can think of culture as the force behind the invisible hand that moves business (Smith 1904). If culture is the force that moves groups of people, one must be able to understand how this force works to create a successful virtual project management office. One must learn how to make the culture support the project management office, rather than allowing the culture to function as an impediment to success.

To understand organizational culture, one needs to understand the elements of culture. Although no two organizational cultures are alike, most successful organizations have at least seven different cultural attributes that contribute to their success: innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, team orientation, aggressiveness, and stability. All firms either promote or discourage these elements; the manner in which an organization handles these attributes defines its culture. We will examine each of these elements to determine how they can affect a culture in order to facilitate cultural change. In essence, a single individual who understand the roots of culture can learn to change it.

ATTRIBUTES OF CULTURE

The following attributes will explain some of the key elements that make up culture:

• Innovation and risk taking

• Attention to detail

• Outcome orientation

• People orientation

• Team orientation

• Aggressiveness

• Stability.

Keep these seven attributes in mind when considering how an organization’s culture can impact a VPMO. In a virtual environment, culture determines how individuals act and react when others are not around to monitor them.

Innovation and Risk Taking

An important aspect of organizational culture is the degree of innovation and risk taking that individuals are granted. Organizations that allow individuals to take risks and innovate at any opportunity are those organizations that do not punish people for making mistakes. At the other end of the spectrum, many organizations discourage people from admitting to mistakes and punish those that underachieve, regardless of the circumstances. Where is your organization on this risk-taking scale?

Innovation and risk taking are definitely important in a successful virtual project management office. A lack of innovation and risk taking means that the culture supports complacency. Organizations in which people have an “I’m right, you’re wrong” mentality discourage innovation and are not going to remain successful. If a culture is based on the ideas of a select few rather than the ideas of the group, the organization will eventually stagnate. On the other hand, a culture that actively supports innovation and risk taking is one that encourages finding solutions to problems, even when the problems are not impeding the current project.

If you are not sure if your culture supports innovation and risk taking, talk to the successful people in the organization and find out if they have created new processes based on different people’s ideas, or if their success comes from devising workarounds to navigate the existing system. Too often individuals learn how to be successful by playing according to the rules of the culture or by doing what is politically expedient, rather than actually finding solutions to the problems. Those who fail to understand the difference between game-playing and real innovation will have difficulty moving the culture forward. Whenever politics trumps progress, one needs to examine the roots of the culture to find out what is holding the organization back.

Attention to Detail

In project management, the devil is in the details. Project success is never achieved by taking a 10,000-foot view of the work. To examine this element of culture, one needs to look at how people in the organization react to small problems. Are they escalated to ensure that quality is maintained? In organizations that focus on attention to detail, top quality is always important and even minor details are handled as a project crisis. Some organizations would consider this a waste of time and effort, but attention to detail is a matter of quality. If quality is compromised, shouldn’t someone say something about it? Is the goal of the project to deliver the minimum according to the specifications, or is the goal of the project to deliver a client-centric and impressive product?

It is true that there is always a cost associated with producing the best possible project, but a focus on quality increases the likelihood of producing a great project. When was the last time that a client was impressed with a project that achieved the minimum possible standards?

Outcome Orientation

Project-based companies are driven by outcome. The ultimate goal is the successful launch of a project. All areas are measured by outcome, and the results you produce are the single most important factor in the direction of your career at a project-based company. The company demands results and, more importantly, it demands results beyond established expectations. Careers are made or broken by results. Those who perform under difficult circumstances are rewarded; those who do not perform are deployed in another location.

People Orientation

Organizations are made up of people, obviously, and people are what make projects successful. Successful projects are launched by outstanding people. A project manager must remember that the people make the culture; the culture does not make the people. Too often, people in organizations feel that the culture of the organization is letting them down. If the culture is failing, then the people are failing. And when the people are failing, everyone in the organization must look to see what can be done better.

Team Orientation

Teams are very important in a virtual organization’s culture. The more that people feel that they are part of a team, the better off the organization will be because the feeling of being included will generate loyalty and trust. However, certain team behaviors can be destructive. Sometimes people affiliate with smaller teams more readily than larger ones or the organization as a whole. When smaller teams become more important than the larger team, particularly destructive turf wars can erupt. Turf-sensitive groups are less interested in building consensus with other groups than they are in marking their territory.

For example, if resources are limited, smaller groups might take exception to sharing with others. This can create an atmosphere of animosity and create incentives for groups to actively undermine one another. This negative behavior can destroy an organization as groups look out for themselves, rather than for the whatever’s best for the entire company.

Aggressiveness

Although many people have a negative perception of aggressiveness and favor collaborative, group-oriented approaches, in any organization there is a need for people who are willing to lead. One cannot ignore the effectiveness of aggressiveness in an organization’s culture. Without aggressiveness, there is no risk taking and no innovation.

There are countless studies that show that our heroes are sports figures, astronauts, adventurers, explorers, celebrities, even some politicians—individuals who have achieved greatness in some way. (In some cases, our heroes were not even entirely successful in their endeavors, but they gave their best effort.) I have never heard of a study that found a single individual who considered Congress, the United Nations, or the International Olympic Committee to be heroes. People accept that teams and diversity are powerful organizational forces in society, yet few organizations are heroes worthy of our attention. Why is this? The reason is not so clear. People understand the purpose and benefits of teams, and some may be very involved in sports teams, leagues, or institutions, yet we seem to understand that it is the force of one that can make a difference.

Aggressiveness is related to the concept of a single individual making a difference. If one person can take an aggressive position to move a project forward, then a single person can make a difference. Oftentimes this means asserting a new direction or course for the project. Aggressiveness is like the rudder on a ship; the rudder is in the back of the vessel but it makes the front of the vessel turn. Hence, aggressiveness operates like a rudder. For example, the greater the angle of the rudder in the back, the greater the angle of the turn of the ship in the front. Although many people feel that one person cannot move a culture, the reality is that each of us can change the culture more than we want to believe. Sometimes, all that is needed to change the culture is a change in a single person’s behavior. The moment that one person changes, she becomes a model for others’ behavior. When others see the change, they can ignore the change, observe it, or adopt it.

Stability

Even in times of change, people want to believe that their organization is stable and will still be there in the future. This is particularly important in a project-based organization because individuals are constantly moving from project to project, and there can be a lot of unrest between projects. If the organization is growing, then there will always be a new project to move to, but if the organization is shrinking or new projects are scarce, then people will worry about stability.

COPING WITH DYSFUNCTIONAL CULTURE

In many organizations, project managers can only do so much to impact the overarching culture of the organization. At the same time, an organization’s global culture will affect its projects, but it does not need to dominate the projects. If the culture is positive, it might be easiest to allow the culture to define the project. However, this kind of approach has some inherent weaknesses. If the project manager does not direct the culture, then the culture might resist the project. For example, not all team members might want the project to succeed. If the culture is not a positive one, the project manager will usually simply need to cope with the culture in order to survive the project. It is this kind of situation that we will discuss here, because all project managers, regardless of how skilled they are, will one day find themselves in a situation in which the overall culture is not helping the project, and they will need to develop some kind of coping strategy. This does not mean that coping is the only way out, but it is one way to get better results from the people on the project.

A project manager must accept that sooner or later, at least part of any virtual team will be mildly to severely dysfunctional. Dysfunctional organizations are less productive, less efficient, and less organized, and they have more problems. Many times, when organizations notice a drop in productivity, they add new people to the troubled team. However, a severely dysfunctional organization will continue to experience a noticeable drop in total productivity, despite an increase in staff. In the most severely dysfunctional organizations, employees, as a whole, feel “beat up” by the circumstances that have prevailed over a long period of time. These organizations may have some or all of the following problems:

• There is no history or culture within the organization because of multiple reorganizations.

• Employees feel powerless and despairing because they do not know if they will have a job tomorrow or who their boss will be.

• Employees believe that management cares preeminently about the customer, to the detriment of the company and the employees. They think, “The company doesn’t care if my skills are up-to-date. I am a billable asset, and therefore a revenue stream. They do not care about me.” Employees who feel this way tend to disconnect from the company.

A common thread across dysfunctional organizations is a lack of contemporary rituals. Without rituals, there is no commonality or sense of community to bind employees together.

CHANGING CULTURE

Many people believe that there is little that can be done to move culture. What is closer to the truth is that it is extremely hard to change culture. Because it is very hard to change culture, many people stop there and conclude that it is not possible to do so. But organizational culture is constantly changing.

When people think about their organization’s culture, they often focus on the larger elements of culture that have always been there, without considering the smaller pieces that contribute to the whole. This tendency helps reinforce the idea that culture cannot change. But there is one important system that can help reinforce a cult ure: peer pressure. The term peer pressure has a negative connotation because it is often connected with negative behaviors such as smoking or drug use. Yet peer pressure is an irresistible force in organizations and can manipulate people into doing previously unthinkable acts.

It is speculated that the indigenous people of Mesoamerica were the first to use spicy peppers for medicinal purposes, but more importantly, as flavoring for food. Keep in mind that most animals will steer clear of most peppers. In fact, elephants fear the “ghost pepper” and will avoid this plant in the wild. So, if even large herbivores avoid pepper plants, then why do people frequently consume something that would appear to be hazardous? Experts speculate that early man observed parrots and other birds feasting on peppers. These peppers are an important part of a wild bird’s diet.

So enter a hungry indigenous American. He sees birds eating from pepper plants and decides to try them. What he doesn’t realize is that birds lack taste buds, so the hottest pepper will have no effect on them. The indigenous man takes the first bite … and within milliseconds, he is desperate for water. He manages to swallow some of the pepper. Concluding that it could not get any worse and uncertain of where and when he will get his next meal, he takes a few more bites. But it does get worse, and the man gives up. He decides that hunting wild boar would be preferable. Motivation and starvation set in, and he goes off in search of better hunting.

A few days later, the man’s annoying neighbor comes over to brag about how many large, tasty wild boars he has caught. Tired of suffering from neighbor envy, the indigenous man decides to finally one-up his pesky neighbor. He begins to extol the virtues of peppers, describing them as a magical food that is unlike any other—and is even better than wild boar. The neighbor, mesmerized by the story, decides that he must try this new food. The neighbor declares that there must be a feast so that everyone can watch him determine which is better: roasted wild boar or peppers.

Now our hero is in a bit of a bind. He is pretty sure that someone else in the tribe has tried peppers before. If that person warns the neighbor, the jig will be up and the man will be considered a deceiver. The last tribal deceiver was downsized—in other words, chased off.

So our indigenous hero decides that the best thing to do is to disguise the peppers the neighbor will eat. He starts by mashing together the largest peppers that he can find, but the paste is still too recognizable by the telltale seeds and skins. He searches the forest and finds a few wild tomatoes. He mixes cut tomatoes with the pepper paste and finds out that the mix is even hotter than the pepper he ate the other day. It seems that crushing peppers into a paste intensifies the heat. So he throws in some salt and lime juice to preserve the mixture. As an afterthought, he adds some cilantro to mask the color of the robust green chilies.

Tasting the mixture again, he finds that the flavors are interesting, though still spicier than anything he has had before. He then practices bracing himself to take a large mouthful of his new creation. He plans to offer to eat with his unsuspecting neighbor to lull him into taking a huge mouthful of the spicy mixture. He is certain that his neighbor will take the first bite and then beg for water, or better yet, break out in tears, while our hero will remain unfazed.

That night at the feast, the unsuspecting neighbor announces the challenge. The neighbor calls forth our hero to present the peppers. Naturally, the wild boar, which has been smoked and cooked over an open fire, looks far more impressive than the bowl of mashed vegetables, and the feasters laugh. Our hero, always one to take advantage of attention, declares that he is so certain that his dish is better than roast boar that he will eat the pepper concoction along with his neighbor. Then everyone can watch their reaction to each food. The neighbor declares that first they will both taste the roast boar.

Both men simultaneously take a piece of the roast wild boar. At this point, the clouds part, cherubs come out and sing, and both men appear very satisfied. The people at the gathering cheer, and everyone is pretty sure that nothing could be better. When our hero brings out his dish, the neighbor calls for some tortillas to be brought out. Why not make a meal out of this magical concoction, he asks? A bite of magic would not be enough. Our hero is nervous; he prepared himself for just one hot and spicy bite. His neighbor sees the fear in his opponent’s eyes and begins to laugh inside. Our hero asks for a drink, and the neighbor jokes loudly to the person standing next to him that he wants to be ready to wash the taste of defeat out as soon as possible.

Two massive tortillas are filled with the pepper mixture. The two combatants raise them to their mouths. They take their first bite and start to chew. Our hero remains resolute and continues chewing. But the neighbor begins to sweat. His face turns red, and he gasps for air. He reaches over to grab our hero’s drink, yet the fire in his mouth cannot be quenched. Desperately, he fans his tongue with his hand. When that offers no relief, the neighbor drops his filled tortilla, bolts from his chair, and runs toward the river.

Our hero watches with great glee and continues to munch, gingerly taking small bites. Eventually, the neighbor returns to watch his opponent finishing up. He does not understand what has happened—and how our hero has survived.

The people of the tribe start giggling, and the neighbor senses that somehow he was set up. He is fuming mad, and he wracks his brain to figure out a way to save face. The neighbor calmly walks over and filches the last bite of his opponent’s meal. Ready for the worst, he starts to eat it. He’s startled—he was certain that our hero must have been eating something bland, but to his surprise, it was just as hot as his. Sweating, he forces himself to finish the tortilla.

Now the neighbor is seriously vexed. How is it possible that his opponent was unfazed by the heat of the pepper mixture? He picks up the tortilla he dropped on the ground earlier and finishes it. The tribe is stunned, and people begin whispering. They decide that the mixture in the tortilla must be better than roast pork—anything so good that one would be willing to eat it off the ground must truly be the best food ever. Others start to come forward to try it. Each person takes a bite, runs away, and comes back a little while later to keep eating. Eventually, a woman puts a tiny bit of the mixture and some pork in a tortilla to make some pretty spectacular tacos. By the end of the event, the pepper dish, now called “salsa picante,” is a staple of the tribe. At every celebration thereafter, eating salsa and racing to the river are part of the festivities.

What does this story tell us? Peer pressure can influence people in groups to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do—even things that are not necessarily wise. But in an organization, the power of peer pressure can be harnessed for good, to move the organization forward. The challenge is formalizing cultural peer pressure and directing it in a manner that is structured, organized, and consistent.

Making a Plan for Cultural Change

To use peer pressure to shape an element of culture, you need a plan for change and a method to keep the organization from relapsing back into its old ways. To determine what elements need to change, start by considering the seven elements of organizational culture and how they function in your organization. Then you must consider what the new culture should look like.

Start by writing a brief description of what you’d like the culture to become and which people can leverage such changes. Then consider how the change might look if taken to the extreme. For example, suppose the change your organization is trying to make is to put more emphasis on cross-training. At one extreme, perhaps the organization starts promoting cross-training over current projects, to the point that it is not convenient or practical. Cross-training might become excessive and organizationally disruptive. On the other extreme, a few negative experiences with cross-training could make people less likely to support the initiative. One should also consider the people who would support such an initiative and garner their support to pressure others towards the new program. The more you can do to influence positive feelings and promote positive interactions regarding the change, the more likely it is that the anticipated cultural change will take root.

After considering the possible extremes, build a plan for the cultural shift. The plan does not need to be as detailed as a project plan, but it can be. At a minimum, the plan should address the following:

• Elements of culture that will be affected by the change

• Brief description of the old culture

• Brief description of the new culture

• Timeframe for the change(s)

• Who needs to buy into the change

• What resistance can be expected

• How the resistance can be overcome

• Once the organization has begun to shift, how organizational peer pressure will be applied to keep the momentum

• What will indicate that the change has become a part of the culture

• What will be done to maintain the change as part of the culture.

Rolling Out a Cultural Change

Once the plan for change has been developed, consider how it will be implemented. Most project managers prefer formal rollouts for a new program. There is certainly a benefit to a formal rollout of a cultural shift. If the project manager is comfortable with this approach, then he should move forward in that manner.

Others prefer a less formal rollout. There are two primary advantages of an informal rollout:

• People in the organization will perceive the change as matter of interest, rather than an order. When individuals are required to do things, it becomes work. It stops being fun because deadlines and milestones depend on doing what is required.

• Informal change can be implemented faster by focusing on just the immediate team, rather than the larger organization. When you start by changing just a small group, the change can be replicated throughout the organization. Team members can talk about their experiences regarding the change with others. Positive sharing like this—in other words, peer pressure—can help others to embrace the cultural shift.

Consider these factors when you are trying to determine whether to launch a cultural change formally or informally. Also, keep in mind that an informal launch can evolve into a formal launch; starting small and then changing direction can be an effective approach to getting the change program moving. Building upon small achievements can lead to larger achievements.

Finally, a continuous process that will perpetually sustain the program or shift must be developed. What will help keep the program in existence? One common method is to link the shift to compensation. If cultural improvement is rewarded financially, a greater number of people will try to make a difference to earn this reward. If a certain change is rewarded, such as using a new payroll system, most people will respond positively and will facilitate the change as much as possible. This will not work, however, if the compensation program cannot be changed quickly enough.

Other options include recognition, awards, punishment, and praise. Organizational recognition can help showcase certain achievements. In particular, one should recognize people for exhibiting behaviors that grow the organization. Recognition should be done as publicly as possible to reach the largest number of people. When recognizing people for contributing to organizational growth, craft the recognition as a story. Instead of just stating that Lois, for example, earned the organizational safety award, explain the story behind the decision to give Lois the award. One should offer clear details on what led up to the recognition, rather than just stating a name. Craft an eloquent story to highlight the person and the process, rather than just focusing on the award. Organizations thrive and grow on positive mythos.

CREATING A FLEXIBLE CULTURE

Culture is an artificially created human construct that helps create a sense of order for an organization. It builds a framework that defines the groups within. People want to be differentiated from others; groups need the barriers of differentiation that culture creates in order to feel different and unique. This is particularly important in virtual organizations; differentiation creates a degree of separation between the “us” and the “them,” creating a feeling of connection between the virtual team members.

Cultural dynamics also shape what is achievable in organizations. They serve as constructs that limit organizational greatness. Even though each organizational culture is unique, they are all built upon the same elements, and people are always the architects of culture systems.

To build a flexible culture, it is important to look closely at the elements that can change within a culture. In Figure 6-1, we’ve focused on nine elements that create and define culture. Focusing efforts on these elements can help create a flexible culture. The more elements you can change, the more the culture will change.

Figure 6-1: Cultural Elements That Promote Flexibility

Monitoring Cultural Temperature

Cultural temperature is the overall morale of people in an organization and their feelings about the organization. It can rise and fall, depending on the degree of change. If people feel that the change was communicated well in advance and makes sense, then they will resist the change less. If change is thrust upon people without notice, they will most certainly resist it. Telegraphed change is often better than ambushed change. An organization’s cultural temperature will rise and fall with the degree and type of change that is experienced.

One can change an organization’s culture by learning what makes people in the organization happy and doing it. Sometimes doing something as small as buying lunch for the group is enough to make morale soar. Learn what engenders positive feelings in your organization, and leverage these things to keep the organization flexible.

Communicating Effectively

Communication is taking steps to better manage and explain happenings in the organization. Good communication and company events help solve problems and help employees understand the organization’s culture, while poor communication will weaken the culture and reduce morale. A company that communicates well also is one that will be flexible enough to adjust to what the future brings. People can adjust if they know what is coming.

Training the Team

Training is defined as the refinement of an individual’s skills and performance. A positive culture will encourage training and development, while negative cultures avoid offering training, perhaps because they consider it an unnecessary expense. Offering training in professional skills and in the company’s culture will keep the organization flexible. The more training people have, the better able they will be to cope with the challenges of their job, and the more they will be willing to go along with changes in the company.

Knowing the Market

The external market is described as the parameters that affect the internal workings of the organization. They can impact morale and decrease organizational productivity. The problem is that these factors may be difficult or impossible to control, such as new government requirements, general loss of faith in the overall market, or competitors’ actions. Too often, if the competition is doing something, then the organization must do the same to remain competitive. When the external market demands that the organization change, make it clear that the company is remaining flexible in order to remain competitive, not to add more work.

Mentoring Employees

Through employee mentoring, formal mentors help new employees navigate through the organization. Mentoring is intended to benefit the organization as a whole, too, by creating positive feelings about the culture, increasing employees’ fulfillment, and improving employee retention. If an organization does not already have a mentoring program, it should consider starting one. Not only will it help foster organizational flexibility, but it will make individuals more flexible. It is a lot easier to be flexible if you see a leader—your mentor—being flexible.

Emphasizing Retention

Retention emphasis is part of an organization’s commitment to its employees. Employees are often concerned about whether their company promotes from within or if it prefers hiring external candidates. A company’s retention emphasis will shape employee decisions to remain with a company more than anything else. Salary can be a factor, but if other factors such as employee fulfillment and job satisfaction are equal, employees are more likely to stay than leave.

Related to retention, are long-term employees considered valuable, or are they considered a liability? The treatment of long-term employees will make a difference in how flexible people are willing to be. If long-term employees are rewarded and not punished or forced into retirement, people will want to remain. If experience is valued and achievement is rewarded, people will be more willing to move past their comfort zone for recognition and additional reward.

Holding Employee Get-togethers

Employee gatherings have been identified as a way to create a positive culture. By creating a participatory, “family” atmosphere, organizations can help bring people together as a group or team. A sense of belonging is important because it will help improve the overall cohesiveness of the organization. People want to belong, so the more opportunities you can create to help that feeling along, the better off (and more flexible) the organization will be. Keep in mind that gatherings can be virtual, so don’t assume that traditional events like team picnics are necessary if they are not feasible.

Recognizing and Awarding Good Work

Awards and recognition are opportunities to offer acknowledgement for good work and achievement within an organization. If people are being rewarded for good work and achievement, then they will seek out ways to generate more achievement. Improvement leads to achievement, and the more the organization improves, the more flexible the culture must become to facilitate this improvement.

Performing Exit Interviews

Exit interviews do not necessarily have a positive or a negative effect on a culture, but they help organizations gather valuable feedback about why employees leave. This information may help the organization prevent any unfortunate or undesired departures in the future. People often leave places of employment for reasons that the organization itself cannot control. To build a stronger and more flexible culture, it can also help to guide decisions. Specifically, exit interviews can offer insight on any organizational deficiencies driving talent away. If you can find out what is wrong with the culture, you have a better chance at fixing the culture for those that remain.

Indoctrinating New Employees

Indoctrination is the transfer of the organization’s culture to employees. Training, such as an initial course to help explain what the company expects, and mentoring are pathways for indoctrination; however, the term implies a greater immersion into the culture by creating an atmosphere that requires the compliance of those who want to be part of the culture while culling those who are not interested in embracing those virtues. Training the culture, reinforcing the culture, and following the culture will create a stronger culture and, in turn, a stronger virtual project organization.

The Elements of Culture

These elements of culture offer a way to make organizations more flexible to address the future. Every organization must remain vigilant in all of these aspects. A positive culture will support an organization through difficult times, while a negative culture will pull down an organization. Keep in mind that rapid growth can mask the overall culture—when an organization is expanding and projects are plentiful, everything seems to be a lot easier to deal with. When times are tough, many people will depart a negative organization in search of a more positive one. The goal is to build a consistent and flexible culture that will be effective in both good and bad times.

BALANCING DIFFERENT NEEDS

In all organizations, a majority-minority dynamic will arise at times. A smaller group will feel as if a larger group is trying to enact an unfair change. When this happens, a rift will develop between the groups. This is, of course, not the ideal situation for a virtual (or any) organization. The good news is that there are methods to either avoid or mitigate this kind of situation. These strategies include continuous improvement teams, increased communication, training, and change awareness.

Continuous Improvement Teams

A continuous improvement team is a cross-departmental team formed to strengthen a project or organization by improving communication and creating a sense of ownership. Ownership, in turn, creates a sense of community. A continuous improvement team must have a balance between people of the perceived majority and those of the perceived minority. An imbalanced team will be perceived as a vehicle for changing one group or the other. Consider that seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are apportioned by population, while each state, regardless of size, gets two seats in the U.S. Senate. Each house of Congress balances out the other. If the Senate did not exist, the needs of the smaller states would be ignored.

A continuous improvement team should address the following action items:

• Creating a place to gather employee suggestions

• Offering feedback and following up on those suggestions and other issues

• Expanding and creating new organizational rituals

• Implementing or improving training

• Enhancing the mentoring system, if one exists, and creating a mentoring system if one does not exist.

A continuous improvement team can also foster improved communication through symbols and stories (e.g., the hot pepper story told earlier), to improve internal communications for projecting the organization’s long-term vision, for example. Offering a metaphor like the Phoenix Project conjures up a vision of a bird rising up from the ashes. Images or symbols can be used to communicate quite effectively and quickly. They also can become a rallying point, which will help to instill a sense of pride in the company. Just as the U.S. flag can be a rallying point for military personnel in times of conflict, or the way a battle cry like Remember the Alamo inspired Texans, create a symbol that can be equally inspiring.

Communication

Communication channels that allow the majority and the minority to engage in two-way communication are ideal. Two-way communication enables management to hear and respond to employees. One possible way to accomplish this is an open lunch forum where employees may speak directly to upper management about issues of concern. This can be done by video conference or by phone in a virtual environment.

Sometimes, employees need to be able to communicate open and honestly while remaining anonymous. It is possible to create a two-way system of communication that preserves the anonymity of the employee. This method, if properly implemented, can also help management manage the office grapevine or rumor mill because it lets employees ask questions and air concerns with management without fear of retribution, and it gives management a chance to address these concerns. If employees do not believe that management is being honest with them, they will turn to the rumor mill as their sole source of information. Because the rumor mill may or may not have valid information, fear, uncertainty, and doubt will run rampant throughout the organization. Clearly, this is detrimental to the organization and will reinforce feelings of majority versus minority.

In a virtual environment, a high-tech approach to confidential communication should be considered. Options might include a dedicated website, an electronic bulletin board system, or an 800 number. These systems work best in a technology-based culture, where everyone has access to the system and can easily make contributions. Employees will ignore systems that are inconvenient to use, attributing their ineffectiveness to management’s lack of understanding of their needs.

Training

Training should be required whenever rapid changes occur that were triggered by the growth of the organization. Too often, employees receive only cursory or sporadic training when organizations expand. Insufficient training yields dissatisfied employees who will perpetuate the mistakes and the poor habits of the past. The “ineffectiveness” of the training then becomes an excuse to further restrict the training and leads to a feeling of failure within the organization. Inadequate training, like inadequate communication, also intensifies feelings of majority versus minority.

Implementing Change

How an organization chooses to implement its ideas often determines the overall success of the changes it makes. If the organization does not create a valid implementation plan that has various checkpoints at which feedback is given, it will be difficult to determine if the changes are effective. Also, without this kind of process, there will be groups made up of those who know about the change and those who do not know about the change, and, in turn, this will create the kind of majority-minority situation that organizations must avoid.

To discourage the development of a majority-minority situation, project managers must adhere to the following ideal process:

• Establish definite periods and milestones for a change project so that the organization can chart its progress—and know when it is done.

• Establish key success factors that indicate whether the organization has achieved the desired results.

• Be prepared for change. In any complex process with an extended duration, the environment will change over time, and the leader must document these changes and circulate the information to all the stakeholders.

• Call a review meeting with all the stakeholders. This review, perhaps one year after the change is implemented, can measure whether the desired changes were made.

Additionally, there should be periodic “success meetings,” at which the organization’s leaders talk about various scenarios that are conducive to heroes and winners. Leaders can give motivational speeches or pep talks to talk up the project and the organization. People want to feel like they are part of a successful project, and highlighting the challenges and successes is one way to make people want to be part of the project. People from all strata of the organization should attend these meetings. Without buy-in from all levels, any organizational change is doomed to failure, and the organization will be more susceptible to problems caused by majority-minority tension.