What lessons can business take from this lack of transparency and apply to the workplace? I am not saying to lay out the business plan for everyone, including your competitors to see as the way to handle major changes in the workplace. However, we can energize employees to work toward the corporate objectives  by making sure we,  as leaders, are living them, seen living them, and continuously communicating them to our employees.

We must be continuously sharing our corporate vision to move our company through the recession. If we focus on the problem and not the solution, we will never get past the starting line toward recovery. We need to be asking if our employees and company leaders have a blank canvas in their minds where the vision should reside. Dr. John Demartini once said ” Never underestimate what one person can do with a truly inspiring vision.” Are you projecting the vision you want your employees to have on their minds, or providing them a blank canvas?

Your vision should be one that inspires, motivates, and drives growth. It will create high energy in the company and enable everyone to see a long term benefit in this for them. With these simple ingredients, people will begin to do things differently and you will see profits increase.

Face the reality of the challenges before you by addressing the new industry, business, and economic realities. followed up with providing a vision of hope, an ambitious goal, and lead the way by instilling pride and excitement about the future possibilities and how they will benefit from reaching the goals set forth. Having well-defined visions and mission statements changes nothing. Going through the motions of creating clever mission statements and visions statements is a waste of time and talent if the visions and mission statements are used for nothing but being published in the annual report and displayed in a reception area or the back of the employees access or ID card.

So, get in touch with your mission and vision by living it and communicating it in a continuous and energetic way. The results will soon follow.

One question was posed from Part One: “When initiating change from the Executive Management level, what techniques do you recommend to ‘recruit’ additional change agents from your management team?”

My suggestion was that when recruiting change agents, the search begins by looking for consummate visionaries. Individuals who believe in the organization’s ability to succeed and can envision the future that others have not yet seen. These individuals will have demonstrated commitment to leadership roles on behalf of their departments, whether a ‘titled’ manager or not. They will have a proven track record for making things happen within their areas of expertise. One must also be open to recruiting those that have the ability to work with people from diverse backgrounds and who may hold an approach and perspectives that differ from your own.

Additionally, executives should look for persons with a track record for taking bold action and willingness to accept the consequences. These people will understand that resistance accompanies any change initiative and that they will take the brunt of it if things go wrong–and that might include their own employment. However, that would not stop them from stepping up to the challenge.

When implementing change, many missteps can occur. Here is a look at some potential markers for failure of a change management plan:

Lack of commitment – Implementing change without sufficient commitment of your change agents can be a disaster. This directly relates to the leadership and how one has established ‘buy-in’ to the change plan. This could be a key leadership killer if change is hastily implemented, ill-advised, with a lack of commitment from the change agents.

Lack of focus on results – Process changes often become the focus of attention and results are overlooked. It is imperative to inspect what you expect. Having a total focus on the process and following the process without looking at results can lead to certain failure. Change agents must not get caught up in being agents of process change, but must be champions for results that make a positive outcome in achieving the organization’s goals.

Results only focus - Remember, the end does not always justify the means. Organizations should never discount the human element involved in change. When an organization is not sensitive or is insensitive to people’s feelings — that not only prevents the change but destroys morale and loyalty in the process. People tend to resent when management announces change and then mandates the specifics of implementation.

Involving employees to a degree in the implementation can stave off resentment to the change. This can be accomplished in two ways: 1. Soliciting their input and suggestions when planning the change, and 2. once committed to the change, involve them in determining the means. Leadership may simply communicate, “This is what needs to happen. What ideas do you have to best accomplish these outcomes?”

This author does not pretend to have all the answers to change management. My ‘musings’ are frequently from personal experiences that have begun to guide me in how to proceed the next time around. ManagerMusings.com welcomes your questions, comments, and ideas in order to keep the topic relevant to what may be affecting the readers during this current climate of change. Please feel free to provide your input for ‘Part Three’, and we will be happy to post and if applicable ‘trackback’ or link to your site or blog.

Change management can be defined as an organized and strategic method of initiating and managing the change process in an organizational structure or culture. Additionally, it includes managing the individuals or teams attitude and behavior toward the transitional changes in the implementation of new policy, changing business processes, or technology of an organization.

One of the primary opportunities for change management is when a new manager is brought on board from outside a department or company. As a manager enters that situation, he or she must understand the potential hostility and stressors that may be present. Employees tend to have a fear of the unknown and the new manager’s peers may also ponder the companies decision for implementing the personnel change at that level.

Knowing this, one must formulate a strategy for dealing with the change. The change of leadership in a department or organization can be just as daunting for the new manager entering the enterprise as it is for those having to get accustomed to the new person and their management style. However, it is imperative that the new manager understand the changes to be managed lie within and are controlled by the organization. Any changes to the department or organization must be in line with the goals and objectives of the organization that entrusted you with the new responsibility. Otherwise, change for change sake will be totally unproductive.

This is just an introduction on change management for my next post on the same subject. In the interim of that post, I would like to hear from you. Respond or comment with your experiences, questions or general comments, and we will be addressing particular situations that may help others who may be working through personal, departmental, or organizational changes. I look forward to hearing from you!

According to ABC News, racial and gender diversity did not have any resounding impact  positive or negative. However, if you understand leveraging diversity, you can get results that are more positive from diverse groups by providing the skills to help people learn from each others background. Learning better communication skills, conflict and negotiation skills, as well as drawing out the strengths of different people will aid in achieving the positive impact of diversity.

Diversity brings us strength because it allows us to tap in to diverse viewpoints and perspectives. Since our workforce must be hired primarily from the local populace, and that population is made up of all kinds of people, it only makes common sense that we will want to be a focus for and preserve the best employees not considering their gender, race, religion, national origin, physical ability or other distinctiveness.

Diversity is making a difference in the workplace. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the number of job discrimination complaints filed by workers against private employers declined by 3.7 percent in the 12 months ending in September after hitting a seven-year high in 2002. (DiversityINC, 2004) As workers become more accustomed to a diverse workforce, the differences between diverse individuals and groups will begin to fade.

Given all this, does diversity make our workplace stronger? Absolutely! We do benefit by learning about and from each other. We do make better decisions about how to serve our customers when we truly identify with our customers. We do open our workplace to the best available talent when we remove barriers based on age, race, gender, physical disability, religion, and so on.

Leaders must learn to manage, and managers must learn to lead. When we see the two as interdependent we are more apt to improve at the work of getting work done through other people. When we see the two as totally separate we more easily excuse our deficiencies in one or the other and thereby deny ourselves the potential for learning.(Hendrix, 2001)

Some believe that to understand leadership, we must understand the differences between management and leadership. While leadership is more influencing other people to work together toward a set objective, management is more clearly defined as the process toward achieving those objectives. This is where the aspects of planning, directing, controlling and organizing come into play. The manager deals with more of the administrative functions of the work, while the leader deals with more of the interpersonal aspects of the project. However, we learn that leading is one of the functions of management, confirming the statements made in the internet article, that the two are intertwined. The level of management that a person is on could also influence the level of leadership versus some of the other skill sets that managers have. Oftentimes, the duties of the executive managers may lend more toward forecasting and setting goals, while middle managers translate those goals into specific projects.

Relating these concepts of leadership to the workplace is quite easy. With the multiple layers of management within many work environments, one will find almost a textbook structure of management. The skill sets at the different levels are very much in line with the traditional management skills of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Depending on which layer one wants to examine, there will be a leaning more heavily in one characteristic of management that at another level.

A few years ago within this authors organization, an opening for a manager’s position came up. The leading contenders for the position had been in two different environments and would need to have a well rounded set of management skills in order to fill the shoes of the long time manager who was leaving. One prospective manager has great leadership qualities in the area of motivation. This person has great skills at getting people excited and hyped up about meeting the challenges of the day, or the goals set before them. However, the other applicant has a very stable background of successfully running teams of people that vary in numbers from eight to one hundred and twenty. He has also directed his teams of supervisors to consistently be the number one team in the country over the past year. This has been through organizing, planning, controlling and leading. Therefore, the recommendation should be to hire the person with the entire package of skills rather than one who is just highly skilled at leading through motivation techniques.

Being a leader in and of itself is an admirable trait, however, developing into a great leader will require management skills that go beyond the realm of motivation. Making good judgments is also a trait of skilled leadership. In order to improve the skills of good judgment in business, one must gain as much knowledge of the business as possible, and do so quickly. According to Gary Dessler, your knowledge of the business is probably the easiest trait to modify; immerse yourself in the details of your new job, and learn as much about the business as you can, as fast as you can.

It seems we have a little meter inside us that always give a true indication of how things are or how we should behave, but as soon as we try to rationalize the situation, we get lost in a complex mass of pros and cons. Our moral beliefs or values are the principles we use to define what is right, good, and just. They provide guidance in determining right versus wrong and good versus bad. They are our standards. We attribute our morals and values to a system of belief that helps us to identify what is right and wrong. When one acts in ways that are consistent with our moral values, we will portray that as acting ethically. When one’s actions are not fitting with our moral values – our sense of right, good and just – we will view that as acting unethically. The terms “ethics” and “values” are not interchangeable. Ethics is concerned with how a moral person should behave, whereas values are the inner judgments that determine how a person actually behaves. Values concern ethics when they pertain to beliefs about what is right and wrong. Most values, however, have nothing to do with ethics. For instance, the desire for health and wealth are values, but not ethical values (Josephson, 2002).

Many outside influences have helped to mold my sense of morals and values, and in turn my personal code of ethics. One of the major influences to establishing these beliefs was the relationship with both of my grandmothers. Both had deep religious beliefs, each from different faiths. However different their faiths, the resulting influence on doing what they believed was the right thing to do, was very similar. One of them always stressed a particular phrase when faced with someone mistreating her or if one of the grandchildren were being mistreated or treating someone else badly. The phrase she always used was “What goes around comes around”.  Most of us have heard this, or something like it at one time or another, but because of my respect for my grandmother, I choose to believe it. It was a major influence in my life and how I try to treat other people and deal fairly in all of my dealings, both personally and professionally. The other grandmother was always urging us to find the good in people. She lived her life always finding value in everyone in the family. Never did I hear her speak critically of anyone. Whenever someone pointed out a particular flaw in someone, she seemed to always counter it with something positive that she saw. Family members who may have made some poor judgments or major mistakes in their lies were never an influence on how much love she showed them. She treated all of her family members with a very generous amount of love and compassion. She was never judgmental.

Watching other people’s examples has influenced the development of my own values and ethics. I have other relatives and acquaintances that I have observed doing things that went against what my grandmothers instilled in us as good and right. The consequences of those relatives and acquaintances behavior have also had a profound impact on where I define the lines of right and wrong. As a result, I believe I manifest my ethics as I try to live by the “Golden Rule,” and do unto others, as I would have them do unto me. In turn, colleagues seem to view me as a manager who is firm but fair, competitive while trustworthy. According to Josephson, ethics refers to principles that define behavior as right, good, and proper. Such principles do not always dictate a single “moral” course of action, but provide a means of evaluating and deciding among competing options.

We can examine existing ethics that surround certain current issues. In a workplace that involves caring for the elderly, an issue has ethical implications in direct proportion to its impact on human dignity. For example, an elderly person who is in unremitting pain and is incurable says to a family member, “I can’t take it any more, just let me die.” The elderly person then refuses food and liquids. This can create an ethical quandary if the family caregiver has religious or the moral belief that all medical treatment should be provided in order to sustain life. Another example of an ethical problem occurs when an adult child decides that an elderly person should no longer live at home because the mother or father is making poor judgments regarding his or her care. The preliminary finding is permanent dementia or progressive lack of memory leading to impaired brain functioning. Additionally, the elder person is very frail and has much trouble physically getting around without help from a family member. The principles of independence versus the safety of the individual are in conflict. To solve the dilemma individuals can use the ethical decision-making process:

• Gather relevant information
• Who are the stakeholders involved?
• Identify the values, loyalties or principles in conflict
• Explore alternative courses of action
• Make a decision
• Implement
• Evaluate

Answers to an ethical dilemma are never steadfast or clear. A solution for today may not be appropriate as the person’s condition or circumstance changes. In the example of the family that is considering a caregiver for the frail mother or father with progressive lack of memory, both the parent and adult child come up with a solution. They decide to let the parent conduct his/her life as he determines best. However, all the stakeholders, including the elderly parent, agree that should he/she fall again or cause harm to his/herself, they would consider hiring a caregiver. Although the decision was made with all stakeholders involved, two weeks later the elderly parent has a stroke. Despite the elderly parent’s protests, a caregiver is ordered to assist with their activities of daily living. The value of safety, at this point, overrides the value of independence.

Respecting the person’s right versus the policies and procedures that regulate an industry can often create conflicts. It is necessary for caregivers to be aware of their own values and how their values based on their cultural, religious or moral background may be in disagreement with the standards of the institution or the elderly client whom they serve. The dialog on morals, values, and ethics is ongoing and developing. It continues to be a work in progress. In closing, Bertrand Russell once said, “Without civic morality communities perish; without personal morality their survival has no value.”

Today’s leaders need to get back to basics: reaffirm their values, develop a learning frame of mind, make clear their direction, and most importantly, learn to face their own uncertainties and limitations.

Here are some additional resources about Leadership you may also be interested in–

Saying “No”  is Not a Crime

Another top time stealer is the inability to say “No”. Over the years I have seen efficient employees become overwhelmed with additional duties, simply because of their inability to say no. Sometimes we, as managers, are guilty of putting more on our overachievers than we should, as well as taking on more ourselves. We need to learn that in order to remain efficient and keep an efficient team, we must allow an atmosphere that permits polite use of the word “No”.  I would not suggest saying no regularly. Abusing the “say no” practice could give one the reputation of being obstructive. That could be counter-productive.

Whether it be in personal life with a significant other or work life with our boss, it can sometimes be difficult to say “no”. However, the more well-organized you become; you will likely have more work put upon you. Allowing yourself to become over committed lends opportunity for added stress and a much better chance of becoming sick, tired, or just plain irritable, which doesn’t benefit you or those around you. Therefore, it is important to say no, in a polite and courteous way. In doing so, you are not just saying no, but instead, are freeing up valuable time to spend on things you have already said yes to.

Making “To Do” lists is one of the most basic ways to attack the issue of procrastination. This way your day has a plan, and it is easier to remain focused on a path to achieve each task. This does not mean you will complete each task every day, but with practice, it becomes easier to win the battle of procrastination.

Keep practicing in order to advance. I suggest filing your completed “To Do” lists. You can go back in a month and measure your own performance to see how you are progressing.

For further reading on “To Do” lists, Brian Benzinger wrote a very informative piece on Solutionwatch.com titled “25 To Do Lists to Stay Productive.”

Weak managers are those that feel they must withhold training, development and sharing of the vision they want the department take. This is because they fear they may not be able to find the same level of talent to back fill the position.What this really exposes is the reality the managers have a lack of confidence in their ability or their trainer’s ability to develop the talent pool. If this is the case, the trainer or the manager should be replaced, or both! A company’s lack of commitment and leadership with regard to ongoing training and development will eventually catch up with them. It may not be exposed until tough times come, and people start to jump ship and leave key positions open.

So, you find yourself or your department in this position, what do you do? The answer is quite simple. Train, train, train. Utilize the key talent already in place to mentor those team members who show an interest in upward mobility. Continually inspect the ongoing training in departments and not just in the new hire training classes. Do not put yourself in the position of not being able to release your associates to other positions they have accepted in. The bitter taste in their mouth will not be soon forgotten. Overcoming their poor perception of your management style and lack of leadership is not a problem you can afford to have.