How healthy is your organization?

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How healthy is your organization?

Contents

This discussion--most of it directly library-related--comes from three sources: Meredith Farkas' Information wants to be free blog, Jeff Scott's Gather no dust blog, and three related items from Leader's Digest September 2007 and Leader's Digest March 2008.

Farkas, an innovation and professional leader who is not (at this posting) a manager, lists some fundamental workplace questions from a not-so-new management book and discusses her own experiences. Scott, an Arizona public library director, offers his own responses (as a director) to those questions and to some underlying issues raised in a third blog (links below). Leslie Dillon summarizes articles on the science of happy workers and the anatomy of a healthy corporation.

Meredith Farkas

Adapted by permission from "How healthy is your organization?", posted December 10, 2007 at Information wants to be free.

I’m reading a really interesting management book right now called First, Break All the Rules (by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, Simon & Schuster, 1999)... The authors, both of the Gallup Organization, based the book on in-depth interviews with over 80,000 managers. They found common threads in all of those interviews to understand what truly great managers do. They also found that no matter what the pay and incentives, if an organization does not have truly great front-line managers who know how to motivate employees and bring out their talents, the incentives will not help. The authors base the strength of a workplace on how employees can answer the following 12 questions:

  1. "Do I know what is expected of me at work?
  2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
  3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
  4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
  5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
  6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
  7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
  8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
  9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
  10. Do I have a best friend at work?
  11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
  12. At work, have I had the opportunities to learn and grow?”

If staff can say yes to all of those things, you have a very healthy workplace. If not, I think that’s a red flag to look at workplace culture and your own management techniques. I’ve had great managers who made me feel good about my work and energized, and I’ve had terrible managers who made me count the minutes until I was free of them every afternoon. I can attest that one’s manager and workplace culture make all the difference between feeling motivated to achieve and doing the minimum amount to keep your job. When I feel like my supervisor has faith in me… when I feel like my efforts are recognized… when I feel like my manager cares about what I’m working on… when I feel like my decisions are supported, that’s when I do my best work. I see this just in working on my class for San Jose State University. Debbie Faires, Assistant Director for Distance Learning at SJSU’s SLIS program, has been so supportive of my course preparation and so encouraging of my experiments with Drupal, that it makes me want to do better. When I feel supported like that, I want to put 150% in. If I was in a situation where everything I did was criticized and where creativity was not encouraged, I’d probably end up putting less of myself into my work. I know that’s terrible to admit, but it’s true.

This really got me thinking about Tyler Rousseau’s post the other day at Library garden: "Do we encourage our employees to leave?" In some situations, I’d say yes. I like what Tyler says here about the fact that there might be factors we’re not even aware of that encourage employees to leave:

If your system sees people leave and then watches them flourish in another position, you shouldn’t brag that “they started off in this system.” It should raise questions as to why your system couldn’t seem to hold on to him/her. Employee retention has always been difficult in our profession but, sometimes, we unknowingly encourage people to leave.

While I agree with Tyler that pay, vacation and hours are issues, I think that in many cases, people are willing to take less pay, less vacation and work crappier hours (within reason, of course), for a truly great job in a truly great environment. Professional investment in the development of staff seems like more of an issue, because it says a lot about an organization when it is not willing to support professional development of any kind. Even if an organization doesn’t have money to send people to conferences, they can give employees time to listen to a SirsiDynix talk or to buy employees some books to learn a new programming language. Opportunities for advancement also are an issue for those who want to move up the ladder. Especially at small libraries, the opportunities to move up often are few and far between, so it’s inevitable that some folks will leave if they are primarily interested in advancement. Still, a great culture can often make up for a lack of opportunities to advance and a smart manager would be willing to shift an ambitious employees’ job responsibilities around a bit to give them the sort of experiences they are looking for.

These are things that people have told Tyler they quit over. I think that there are often a lot of reasons why people quit that they don’t talk about. Like the culture in an organization. If everyone comes to work miserable… if all they do is complain… if people do the minimum to keep their jobs and never want to change since that means more work… what enthusiastic person would want to stay there? There are many libraries that sadly reward longevity over initiative and hard work. I’m a big believer in employee recognition programs that recognize good work, not just years of service. People want to feel like there’s some benefit to their hard work, even if it’s just a pat on the back. When people work twice as hard as their colleagues with no recognition of that, they will eventually stop working that hard or will leave for a place that does appreciate innovators and hard workers.

A little encouragement goes a long way, as Janie L. Hermann’s comment on Tyler’s post indicates:

My first year of teaching I had a principal who visited our classrooms regularly both while we were teaching and after hours just to chat. He was not being intrusive, just interested. About once every 6-8 weeks I would receive a quick handwritten note from him complimenting on something that I had done recently. Sometimes it was just two sentences to say he liked how I had done a bulletin board display and other times it would be a paragraph or two summarizing several things he noticed that he liked. I loved working in that school and for that principal. I have never worked for anyone like that again, but during a stressful first year as an 8th grade teacher it help me keep my sanity. I still have those thank you cards tucked away.

I think people also need to feel supported by their managers. They want to feel encouraged to make independent decisions and know that those decisions will be supported. When I was in library school, I worked in circulation in a public library. Part of my job was collecting overdue fines as people couldn’t take out any more books once their fines got up to $25.00. Most people paid their fines, no problem. Others would complain. I remember there was a woman who had lost three books. She didn’t deny never returning them, but she didn’t think she should have to pay it since her taxes fund the library. I respectfully stood my ground with her and she started saying that she’d call the mayor and complain about us. Then my supervisor came out and told the woman she’d wipe out her fines. This teaches patrons that rules don’t matter if you complain enough and it taught me that I won’t get backed up by my boss when I’m enforcing her policies. I felt like I’d been cut off at the knees. When staff don’t feel empowered to make even the smallest independent decisions, how are they going to feel about their job, their manager or themselves?

Though I haven’t gotten too far into the book, I think this is a must-read for anyone who manages others. Many managers often don’t realize the impact they have on the morale of their staff. Some see their job as being about making sure people don’t screw up, giving permission for vacations, and doing yearly evaluations. They don’t see their job as being about support, empowerment and mentoring. And those managers are the sort that ambitious people are likely to run screaming from; regardless of pay or vacation or support for professional development. A bad work environment affects every other aspect of your life and no one wants to come home from work every day feeling defeated.

So, if you’re a manager, how would your staff answer those 12 questions? If you imagine you’d get a lot of no’s or, even worse, you have no idea how they feel, you might want to consider whether or not there’s anything you can do in your position to change that. I know some middle managers don’t have the power to make many changes themselves, but there are always ways to encourage, motivate and support your employees.

Editor's note: The post is followed by a dozen responses, the longest of which was expanded into the post below.

Jeff Scott

Adapted by permission from "How healthy is your organization? | Information wants to be free," posted December 10, 2007 at Gather no dust

There is a great post by Meredith Farkas about healthy workplaces. This, in part, was inspired by a recent post over at Library garden about "Why people leave?"

Several categories in the Library garden post discuss why people leave their jobs:

  • Pay
  • Vacation and/or Holidays
  • Hours and/or Nights
  • Professional Investment
  • Advancement

To which I commented:

  • Pay: The system should be performing an annual compensation and classification study. This will ensure that pay is equitable. If you are not doing that, you can't complain that people are leaving for better pay. I had someone leave from a part-time to a full time in another county. That one is tough because it wasn't in the comp and class realm, but most of the people who work for me get the same pay as any other library in Arizona. Librarians make 41K same as Chandler, Arizona, Mariciopa County, etc.
  • Hours: This is a common complaint and the burden of nights and weekends should be shared. How can one say one should do more than another? In some systems, everybody wants to work a night or a weekend and it works better for everyone. If one is unfairly taxed, that is a reason to leave, but if you do it along with everyone else, there is not much to say about that. If everyone is committing equally and there are problems, it may need a review of hours of operation.
  • Professional investment: Every library should have a training budget. It should allow as many library staff as possible to go to training, explore their interests, and pay for their trips to conferences etc. Most libraries can only afford to send a few people, and then only higher up, if it can be opened up to everyone, the results are interesting.
  • Advancement: This one is the toughest. Most libraries are fairly flat institutions. They allow pay increases and there is some room for advancement, but not substatial. This has been an issue for me in the last three months. I lost a library assistant to a bigger system with more pay, I lost a librarian to become a library director in a neighboring town, and a I lost a senior library assistant who became a youth librarian in another neighboring city. There is no room for advancement at my small one library system. The only choice is to go to neighboring communities. It will change, but slowly. In the meantime, I will bleed because of it.

Meredith poses several questions from the book First, Break All the Rules. She repeats 12 questions from the book. I replied to them in her comments and am re-posting it here:

  1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
    • Yes because we issue job duties not job descriptions. It breaks all duties down and details percentage of time. There is flexibility, but it provides the general idea.
  2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
    • I always leave extra cash in the budget plus I ask staff what they need around budget time. I also have a Friends wish list that staff contribute to.
  3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
    • Job positions are not static. One person cannot do the same as another and it is better to mold that position towards the person’s desire. If they like providing programming instead of cataloging, I would configure it as much as I can to make it work. Sometimes there is flexibility, sometimes not.
  4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
    • I always do a manager walk around and complement staff on a job well done. I need to do more of that. Previously, I provided an employee of the month program so that staff would be recognized for good work and what they did that was so good. It has taken a brief hiatus. I will find an alternative.
  5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
    • Personal time is very important to me. If someone is going through something personally, they won’t be very happy at their jobs. It is better to extend as much leeway as possible so that they can resolve an issue. I once had a staff member needing to take three weeks off in a few days to go see their dying mother. I let them take it and use it as sick time. This was a total violation of policy, but the person was able to get there before their mother died. A few days later, she wouldn’t have made it.
  6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
    • I hope I provide enough encouragement for training and professional development. It is difficult because most of the training is in the valley, a 30 mile drive, so many are reluctant to go on their own. I put out a training program so that they can request any training they want and attend any conferences they want regardless of their status.
  7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
    • Meetings are usually feedback meetings. What is going on and what do we need to do about it? Do we need to adjust anything. Front line staff opinion is critical. If they aren’t providing honest feedback, I can’t make good decisions.
  8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
    • My library has a strategic plan and each staff members role is molded around providing active parts of the plan or support parts. I came up with a graph that represents each staff members role and displayed it.
  9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
    • This wasn’t always the case, but with some training and some people leaving, everyone works more as a team.
  10. Do I have a best friend at work?
    • I think that is established through after work programs. Some staff members set-up bowling after work or other events. Outside of work events help with this.
  11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
    • Everybody gets a review from their supervisor. However, it is important that there is a constant discussion about expectations and mission. If you are just doing a review every six months, you may be missing the day to day stuff. It also minimizes surprises at the review bad or good. No one should be surprised if I think they are doing a good job.
  12. At work, have I had the opportunities to learn and grow?
    • This goes back to providing training opportunities both inside and outside of work. The library provides regular training and elective training. Staff are allowed to attend conferences and programs. Most of them can only go in state right now. Some can go to national conferences. It is tough to afford anything out of state.

Finally, I will point something I read on Tom Peters' blog about morale:

Top 50 "Have yous?" ...

  • Have you thanked a front-line employee for a small act of helpfulness...in the last three days?
  • Have you thanked a front-line employee for a small act of helpfulness...in the last three hours?
  • Have you thanked a frontline employee for carrying around a great attitude...today?

...

I would say the solution to all of these posts are the simple words "Thank you." I am surprised that in other organizations, people get so gaga over "Thank you." It shouldn't be this way. People should know they are doing a good job. There is a great point over at Slow leadership about this issue:

Gratitude isn’t just a pleasant trait, it’s also a very powerful one.
Thanking others and recognizing how much we all depend on support and co-operation makes it far more likely that help will be there when you need it. Those who help others most freely are most likely to be helped in their turn—provided that gratitude as recognized for what it is: a major constituent in the glue that holds together groups of all sizes, from a few friends to society as a whole.

I would say if you want to improve morale, the best thing to do is to say thank you. It is a rare commodity these days.

Leader's Digest

by Leslie Dillon

The competitive imperative of learning

Leader's Digest September 2008

“Today’s central managerial challenge is to inspire and enable knowledge workers to solve, day in and day out, problems that cannot be anticipated.”

According to author Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Business School professor, most executives still believe in the myth that “relentless execution—efficient, timely, consistent production and delivery of goods or services”—is the way to achieve customer satisfaction. But in today’s knowledge economy, “even flawless execution” can’t ensure “enduring success.”

General Motors, for example, “remained wedded to a well-developed competency in centralized controls and efficient execution”, while losing “a record $38.7 billion...in 2007." This “execution-as-efficiency model” is not sustainable long term because workers grow reluctant to ask questions, introduce new ideas, or take risks. A focus on “efficient execution inhibits employees’ ability to learn and innovate.”

In contrast, Edmondson’s research shows that what she calls “execution-as-learning” promotes an organization’s long-term success. General Electric exemplifies how an organization can continue to reinvent itself and succeed. The mind-set there “focuses not so much on making sure a process is carried out as on helping it evolve” and builds these four approaches into daily work:

  1. Provide process guidelines. Establish standard processes, but to facilitate learning rather than to increase efficiency.
  2. Provide tools that enable employees to collaborate in real time. Face-to-face collaboration and concurrent collaborative decision-making are both critical in the knowledge economy. “Make information available when and where it’s needed.”
  3. Collect process data. “[C]apture data on processes to discover how work really happens.”
  4. Institutionalize disciplined reflection. Use the data to discover how to improve execution and “prevent failures from recurring.”

“Taken together, these practices form the basis of a learning infrastructure that makes continual learning part of business as usual.”

(Amy C. Edmondson, “The competitive imperative of learning,” Harvard Business Review, July-August 2008. This article’s worth reading in full; it includes come excellent charts to guide managers.)

The science of happy workers

Leader's Digest September 2007

Workers’ moods affect the dynamics of your entire organization, according to “21st Century Well-Being, Commitment, and Productivity.” Here are some key findings from the Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital study:

  • Employees who see themselves as productive quarrel less with their colleagues, work fewer hours and are employed longer at that organization. Research also indicates that married people are more productive.
  • The more hours employees work, the worse the group climate. Individual moods (e.g., sadness and distress) also negatively affect group mood.
  • As group-level quarrels increase, group productivity decreases.
  • Workplaces with “positive environments that foster interpersonal trust and good personal relationships create the most committed and productive employees.”
  • “Outstanding leadership today means much more than just doing your job. Success is creating an environment that fosters happy, committed, productive team members.” How to create such an environment?
  • Provide environmental support: Great employers manage their physical environments as much as the workload. (E.g., add flowers.)
  • Practice “uneventful management”: Be prepared for a crisis but, day-to-day, present yourself as prepared, calm and assertive.
  • Exude leadership: Workers commit to leaders who demonstrate confidence, credibility and flexibility.

(Inside Training Newsletter, Sept 13, 2007 and aboutflowers.com.)

Anatomy of a healthy organization

Leader's Digest September 2007

This article in The McKinsey Quarterly discusses how organizations can ensure that they perform well now and in the future using “a mental discipline founded on the...metaphor of human health, which improves when cared for and deteriorates when neglected.” The authors also describe how leaders can “embed healthy attitudes” in their organizations.

Three things make it difficult for leaders to nurture health in their organizations:

  1. The “mindfulness” trap.' This is the tendency to revert to a short-term performance perspective.
  2. The cognitive traps. This is a preoccupation with near-term performance and what’s needed to produce it.
  3. The self-knowledge trap. This is the “tendency to say (and believe) one thing and do another”.

Characteristics of truly healthy organizations include:

  • Resilience. Healthy organizations spot and manage risks, and “they build mechanisms...to get through difficult periods.” For example Wal-Mart was able to quickly reopen 125 stores affected by Hurricane Katrina because of an alternative railroad supply system.
  • Execution. Healthy organizations “get the basics right, make good decisions and perform essential tasks.”
  • Alignment. Healthy organizations work toward a common cause. They achieve this “when they sketch a compelling vision of the future for everyone connected with them--employees in particular--by articulating a shared identity that rises above individuals, functions, and [work] units.”
  • Renewal. Healthy organizations invest in their future by expanding into areas “where existing assets and competencies provide real leverage.” Renewal also requires the “ability to generate ideas and adapt to change, both culturally and strategically.”
  • Complementarity. “Effective communication and collaboration are crucial...and management practices act in concert.” In healthy corganizations “information flows across the organization, as well as from top to bottom, tapping into social networks beyond the formal organizational structure.”

(Aaron eSmet, Mark Loch, & Bill Schaninger, “Anatomy of a healthy corporation”, McKinsey Quarterly, 2007, Issue 3.)

Is yours a learning organization?

Leader's Digest March 2008

In addition to discussing the essential ingredients of a learning organization, this article presents an interactive online survey that lets you assess learning in your organization.

The authors believe that every organization needs to become a learning organization where employees are “skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge.” But unfortunately, the ideal of the learning organization hasn’t yet been realized.

Three building blocks are essential to the learning organization: "a supportive learning environment, concrete learning processes and practices, and leadership behavior that provides reinforcement.”

Building Block 1 — Supportive learning environment:

  • Psychological safety. Employees must feel comfortable expressing their thoughts about their work.
  • Appreciation of differences. People learn when they “become aware of opposing ideas.”
  • Openness to new ideas. Encourage employees “to take risks and explore the … unknown.”
  • Time for reflection. Too many people are judged solely by the number of hours they work. Encourage “thoughtful review of [your] organization’s processes.”

Building Block 2 — Concrete learning processes and practices:

  • A learning organization arises from a “series of concrete steps and widely distributed activities.”
  • Learning processes involve “generation, collection, interpretation, and dissemination of information.” They also include experimentation, intelligence gathering, disciplined analysis and interpretation, and education and training.
  • Knowledge must be shared, and this can happen in a variety of ways.

Building Block 3 — Leadership that reinforces learning:

  • An organization’s leaders strongly influence its learning.
  • “When people in power demonstrate through their own behavior a willingness to entertain alternative points of view, employees feel emboldened to offer new ideas and options.”

Organizational Learning Tool

The online diagnostic tool can help you answer two questions about your organization:

  1. “To what extent is your unit functioning as a learning organization?”
  2. “What are the relationships among the factors that affect learning in your unit?”
  • Here's a short version of the survey and for recommended lists and a related video.
  • Here's the complete interactive tool, including scoring.

(David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson, and Francesca Gino, “Is yours a learning organization?” Harvard Business Review, March 2008.)

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