• Millennial Malarkey

    “The people under 30 get it. It’s second nature to them.”

     “We have a bifurcated workforce.”

     “Let’s just turn the keys over to the Millennials. They get it. We don’t.”

    These are some snippets of conversation from well-intentioned change agents who overemphasize generational differences while attempting to transform their organizations into collaborative enterprises. In The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration®, I identify this scenario as the Generation Gap Trap. It’s a trap, because overemphasizing generational differences reinforces fear and internal competition which short circuit collaboration.

    Undoubtedly, younger team members who are so-called “digital natives” are accustomed to using tools such as texting, instant messaging, and social media. It takes more than using tools, though, to collaborate. In The Culture of Collaboration® book, I define collaboration as working together to create value. And it’s quite possible to text, IM, or use social media without creating any value.

    The point is that age is by no means a predictor of collaborative behavior.  Some people right out of college or graduate school internally compete while they use “collaborative” tools and technologies. Meantime, collaboration is baked into the behavior of some team members in their fifties and sixties. Some disciplines like aerospace engineering or animation are inherently collaborative, and therefore experience in these fields is a better predictor of collaborative behavior than age. I have worked with some “boring” industrial companies in which people work together to create value far more easily and often than team members in supposedly collaborative Silicon Valley companies.

    After seemingly endless media reports describing how millennials demand a collaborative workplace, a new CEB study indicates that millennnials—those born between 1980 and 2000—are the most competitive generation in today’s workplace. Among CEB’s findings are that millennials are more driven by performance relative to others than by absolute performance and that millennials are less likely to trust peers and their peers’ input. Trust, incidentally, is one of the 10 Cultural Elements of Collaboration that my colleagues and I have identified. Without trust, collaboration is dead on arrival.

    In an August 1, 2015 “Schumpeter” column in The Economist, the unidentified columnist explores some of these millennial myths and cites the CEB study. The columnist incorrectly concludes from the research that to motivate young team members, organizations should put less emphasis on collaboration. The real take-away regarding the CEB study is that emphasizing generational differences is folly.

    De-emphasizing collaboration because millennials are less motivated by it would pander to a generation without guiding it. Instead, doubling down on adopting collaborative organizational structures and cultures will ultimately motivate team members regardless of generation and create far more value than command-and-control and internal competition.

    Categories: , , , , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,

  • Collaboration to Change Product Use and Brand Perception

    The Apple iPod began as a music player and became a video player in part because consumers discovered a new use for the device. The brand perception then shifted.  Lego Mindstorms began as company-provided software and hardware to create small robots. Then consumers hacked the code, changed the products together and Lego ultimately began providing the source code and collaborating with its customers on new products. In time, consumers began perceiving Mindstorms as a collaborative activity.

    As in these cases, sometimes consumers collaborate to alter a product or its use and this ultimately changes the brand perception. In other cases, companies can collaborate with partners to discover new uses for products and change how consumers perceive the brand.

    Gin has traditionally involved martinis or gin and tonic—and at least one gin producer is collaborating with partners to change this use and brand perception. When Bombay Sapphire East

    Bombay Custom Tonic Bar
    The LUCKYRICE festival’s “custom tonic bar”: bartenders mix flavor extracts with Bombay Sapphire East gin and club soda

    emerged in test markets as the first product line extension of Bombay Sapphire gin in 2011, reviews described the gin as spicy. That’s because Bombay Sapphire East adds two new botanicals to Bombay Sapphire: lemongrass and black pepper. This “flavor profile” may seem a bit assertive to accompany typical cocktail fare like cheese and crackers. Therefore, it’s necessary for this brand to gain traction in a different culinary arena, namely Asian food.

    This past Friday evening, Bombay Sapphire East sponsored the 6th Annual LUCKYRICE feast at the Bently Reserve venue in San Francisco’s financial district. As I entered the event, an Asian woman handed me one of many varieties of exotic drinks bartenders were mixing with Bombay Sapphire East. A who’s who roster of upscale Asian restaurants with tables scattered around the event were cranking out specialties to accompany Bombay Sapphire East. The brand was clearly collaborating with chefs to create the perception that the gin goes well with Asian food. This is by no means a stretch.

    I sampled a drink called Piman which includes Bombay Sapphire East, yellow pepper puree and Kalamansi (an orange/kumquat hybrid) syrup.  I also checked out the Bombay Sapphire East “custom tonic” bar at which bartenders combined such flavor extracts as bergamot and elderflower with club soda and gin (see above image). These drinks complimented available dishes including Dosa restaurant’s Hyderabad chicken biryani, M.Y. China’s black pepper beef with mushrooms and Brussels sprouts, and Asian Box’s lamb meatballs in coconut curry.

    Collaborating with Asian chefs, the people behind Bombay Sapphire East are not only changing consumer perceptions about their gin. They’re also working with Asian restaurants to co-create and sell cocktails using a gin accented with botanicals that compliment Asian food.  This creates value for the restaurants and for Bacardi Limited, which owns Bombay Sapphire East.

    Whether the product is booze, blenders, toothpaste or technology, collaborating with partners to change brand use and perception can transform a sleeper product into a sales leader.

     

     

    Categories: , , , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , ,

  • Accenture Scraps Reviews, Rankings and Joins The Bounty Effect Bandwagon

    Nothing impedes collaboration more than outmoded recognition and reward systems. And replacing annual performance reviews and rankings advances collaborative culture, behavior and organizational structure.

    Many organizations promote themselves as collaborative while simultaneously reinforcing internal competition through annual performance reviews and rankings. This process squanders time and distracts the organization while pitting team members against one another. Performance reviews and rankings incent team members to hoard information and maintain hidden agendas rather than share ideas and work together towards common goals.

    Accenture is the latest major organization to eliminate rankings and performance reviews. “Massive revolution” is how Accenture CEO Pierre Nanterme characterized the organizational change as quoted in the July 21 edition of The Washington Post.

    In the Spring of 2013, Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates read an advanced copy of The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration® which demonstrates why ranking team members falls short and how a Collaborative Reward System creates greater value than an internally-competitive system. Replacing performance reviews is the first of seven components of the Collaborative Reward Process (CRP) that I outline in the book.  In November, 2013, Microsoft eliminated rankings of team members. You can read more about Microsoft’s reward system shift in my January 20, 2014 post.

    Many legacy recognition and reward systems are based on the premise that individuals have different goals and must be motivated using “carrot-and-stick” approaches. But in a collaborative organization, people share the same goals so “carrot-and-stick” performance reviews and rankings are obsolete.

    So why do organizations persist in ranking and annually reviewing the performance of team members? The justification is weeding out non-performers and promoting “star” players, but the real reason is clinging to an outmoded command-and-control organizational structure. Remnants of this structure include not only performance reviews and rankings, but also organization charts, meetings and mission statements. These remnants inhibit organizations from maximizing value through collaboration.

    Undoubtedly, more organizations will follow Accenture, Microsoft and other major companies in replacing rankings and annual performance reviews—and in adopting a more collaborative organizational structure.

     

     

     

    Categories: , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

  • Coffee and Collaboration

    In San Francisco, where I live, coffee plays a major role in lifestyles and work styles. People stand in long lines at artisanal coffee businesses for coffee that’s sourced, roasted and prepared with care. CoffeeIt has become de rigueur for leading technology and social media companies to make artisanal coffee available to team members. Google stocks beans from the better San Francisco purveyors in snack areas throughout its “Googleplex” in Mountain View, California. Team members can grind the beans, brew a cup, or pull a shot of espresso on demand.

    As the artisanal movement in coffee, often called “Third Wave Coffee,” sweeps the U.S. and infiltrates workplaces, people are becoming particular about what’s in their mug. Commercial brew just won’t do. Yet coffee consumption remains primarily a solitary activity. People fiddle with their smart phones or work on notebook computers as they sip that Yirgacheffe or Antigua drip-by-the-cup in cafes and in workplaces.

    In contrast, workplace coffee consumption in Sweden is primarily a social activity. Swedes embrace the ritual consumption of coffee rather than the coffee itself. So Swedes care less about sourcing, roasting and preparation and more about gathering around a table with colleagues to consume the beverage.

    I recently returned from Gothenburg, Sweden where I gave a keynote speech on collaboration to a group of government leaders, healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical executives. While in Sweden, I engaged in Fika which is an institution in the Swedish workplace. Fika is scheduled twice a day, typically at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Work groups sit around tables in break areas. They drink coffee, eat cake sometimes baked by a team member, and they discuss issues pertinent to their work. Fika helps achieve the consensus that is integral to Swedish business culture (consensus is not integral to collaboration, but that’s a different post). Fika’s limitation is that people share coffee and cake with the same team members every day.

    Both U.S. and Swedish workplaces can enhance collaboration by changing how they consume coffee—but the challenges are different for each culture. In the U.S., the challenge is to put down the devices and engage others while enjoying that artisanal cup of joe.

    In Sweden, the challenge is to include people from other levels, roles and regions so that fika is less insular. Collaborative tools such as telepresence could bridge the distance gap and offer the opportunity for a video fika. Because fika is so engrained in the Swedish business culture, it is a critical channel Swedes can use to enhance organizational collaboration.

     

    Categories: , , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

  • The Collaborative Value of Getting Lost

    Remember when it was possible to get lost? Global positioning systems (GPS) and satellite-based navigation tools have rendered losing one’s way an anachronism. Something is lost, though, in the inability to get lost. And that something is serendipity.

    So what’s wrong with that? And what does this have to do with collaboration? Travel involves some structure. You may know approximate departure and arrival times. You may have an idea where you’re going and even some sort of a plan. Like travel, collaboration involves some structure. Balancing structure with serendipity is necessary to creating collaborative value.

    Adopting a structure that lets team members use creativity and collective brain power nets far better results than dictating their moves.  Instructing collaborators each step of the way as GPS instructs navigators falls flat. When people get lost, they may discover something new or find a different way to get back on course. They may also determine there are several paths and that options exist.

    Stopping and asking for directions lets us engage people rather than devices. Some months ago, a colleague who is a geographer and I tried an experiment while driving in France. We knew where we were going and we had some sense of how to get there. We skipped GPS and used no maps. Instead, when we veered off course, we stopped and asked directions. My colleague studied GPS in graduate school, but she realizes the technology’s limitations. She equates the “turn left, turn right” approach with command and control. Instead, she prefers to wander and discover new things. We lost our way a time or two with interesting results.

    In one case, a Frenchman retorted “Don’t you have GPS?” In another instance, we stopped at a small- town bar and asked the imbibers for directions. They motioned us to sit down and have a drink, which we did. And they engaged us in a conversation about the differences between small-town and urban culture in France before getting us back on course. This serendipitous encounter connected us with people and ideas in a way that using GPS could never have accomplished. Like collaboration, our encounter offered a richer experience as other perspectives entered the mix.

    The electronic mapping craze is now going indoors. I know a furrier in a mid-sized Midwestern city who keeps getting requests from Google to map the interior of his business. Security is a major concern considering the value of his inventory which includes exotic mink and other fur coats, and he has zero desire to publicize the layout of his store. Best I can tell, no banks have yet provided floor plans to Google.

    The downside of never needing to ask for directions is that our lives and our travels become overly planned and controlled with little room for chance. This mirrors the struggles of organizations striving to become collaborative while their structures hold them back. Enabling serendipity is a key element in adopting a collaborative organizational structure. In command-and-control organizations, formality eclipses serendipity. It’s as if everything is scripted. Organizations on a collaborative path design physical and virtual work spaces with chance encounters in mind, as The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration book details.

    I live in San Francisco where many people ride company buses to work in Silicon Valley. In the morning, they board buses on which Wi-Fi and other amenities are provided. At work, food is available in free campus restaurants and canteens. Haircuts and dry cleaning services are also available. They ride the bus back in the evening. The idea is that without having to think about transportation, food and other services, team members can focus on innovation at work. The problem is that without having to deal with many of life’s necessities, people can become less resourceful. Work days become too scripted leaving little to chance. The lack of opportunity to “get lost” can interfere with progress.

    Spontaneity breaks down barriers and silos among levels, roles and regions. A chance encounter with a colleague in another function or business unit may spark an idea for a process improvement or a new product. If our time and movements throughout the work day are overly planned, we lose the opportunity to engage colleagues on the fly.

    GPS and satellite-based navigation technology have made the world smaller, but we must make sure that these tools and overly-controlled environments have not made our worlds smaller by preventing the serendipity and spontaneity necessary for travel and collaboration.

     

    Categories: , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

  • General Motors and the “C” Word

    General Motors CEO Mary Barra is taking aim at the “C” word.

    “I hate the word culture,” Barra is quoted as saying in an article by Joseph B. White in the Mary BarraSeptember 30 edition of the Wall Street Journal. “Culture is really just how we all behave,” according to Barra. The comments are curious in that Barra testified before a Congressional subcommittee last June that she would

    GM CEO Mary Barra outlines new strategic plan  (Image copyright GM)

    not rest until GM’s “deep underlying cultural problems” are resolved. The subcommittee was investigating GM’s failure to recall thousands of cars with defective ignition switches for eleven years.

    It’s myopic to dismiss the word culture. Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s third definition of culture is “a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.” GM would benefit from focusing on these issues plus the broader context of the word culture. In his Tusculan Disputations, the ancient Roman orator Cicero introduced the concept of culture as cultivation of the soul as a farmer cultivates crops. Culture has come to represent beliefs and customs of societies. Cultural anthropologists study social structure and customs in populations ranging from villages to corporations.

    Culture is inextricably intertwined with collaboration in that how “we all behave” in Barra’s words determines whether we’re working together towards common goals or working at cross purposes. Ironically, in a July 28, 2014 post, The Culture of Collaboration® blog took General Motors to task for overemphasizing culture change without structural change. Culture change typically delivered as an edict often highlights the desired result without providing a way to get there. This common prescription from leaders, pundits and management gurus often fails, because the shift originates with executives without detail, discussion or broad buy-in. Meantime, the outmoded organizational structure stays the same. To achieve collaborative culture and the payoff that collaboration provides, it’s necessary to change the organizational structure. Then culture change can happen.

    On October 1, GM outlined its new strategic plan that focuses on technology and product advances, growth in China, establishing Cadillac as a separate business unit “headquartered” in New York City and delivering “core operating efficiencies.” Incidentally, the notion of headquarters is a relic of Industrial Age command and control. Nowhere does the plan mention structural change, which the automaker sorely needs. Changing GM’s structure requires overhauling everything from how team members share information across levels, roles and regions to how the company recognizes and rewards people as I detail in my book, The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration®.

     

     

    Categories: , , , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Health Insurance Company Experiences The Bounty Effect

    When Presbyterian Health Plan denied Dave Bexfield of Albuquerque, New Mexico reimbursement for a multiple sclerosis treatment trial, Bexfield launched a campaign to recover the $200,000 he spent on the treatment. He contacted media, bombarded Presbyterian with calls and emails, and ultimately lined his garage walls with the insurer’s denial letters, according to an August 1, 2014 column by David Segal in the New York Times.

    The treatment was a stem cell transplant trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. The trial worked in that Bexfield no longer takes M.S. medication and the disease is in remission. But the stem cell transplant was apparently not a covered benefit when Bexfield received the treatment. Ironically, Presbyterian Health Plan added this treatment to the benefits for Bexfield’s plan a few months after he finished the trial. A Presbyterian spokesperson reportedly called the timing “unfortunate.”

    Unfortunate indeed for Presbyterian Health Plan in that Bexfield refused to back down. Presbyterian reportedly insisted that the only reason the company had added stem cell transplants for M.S. as a benefit was that the federal government had mandated it. So Bexfield submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and received documents indicating there was no federal mandate. This suggested that Presbyterian had decided on its own based on the treatment’s merits to begin covering stem cell transplants after Bexfield had completed the trial. After receiving many additional letters and media calls, Presbyterian changed course. Presbyterian Health Plan President Lisa Farrell Lujan agreed to reimburse Bexfield not only the $200,000, but also an additional $198,000 in interest at 18 percent, according to the Times.

    Boom. The Bounty Effect had arrived at Presbyterian Health Plan, and the company seized the opportunity to change. The Bounty Effect happens when exigent circumstances compel businesses, governments and organizations to change their structures from command-and-control to collaborative. The exigent circumstances were groundbreaking advances in stem cell research. Bexfield’s campaign and the resulting media attention drove The Bounty Effect home. In this situation, Presbyterian adopted a more collaborative approach. Often structural change starts small and grows. This episode may pave the way for more fundamental structural changes at the company.

    In my latest book, The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration, one of the 7 steps is Processes. And a key process is employing Measurement Counter-Measures which curb the measurement mania that can complicate collaboration and compromise value. The point is that a maniacal focus on measurement can produce the opposite of the intended result. Clearly, Presbyterian’s measurement mania produced myopia in that claims representative had difficulty seeing beyond the numbers.

    The $200,000 for the stem cell transplant would cost the insurer in the short run, but the money produces a living, breathing example of an insurance customer who may potentially avoid further treatment for M.S. and save the insurer plenty. One measurement counter-measure is to perform a common sense reality check. If the numbers defy common sense, that’s our cue to pause and reconsider. Employing Measurement Counter-Measures is often the hardest collaborative process for financial professionals to adopt.

    Lujan, Presbyterian’s president, is the company’s former CFO and was previously an audit manager with Arthur Andersen. She told the Times that the individual decisions Presbyterian made in Bexfield’s case were correct but that consistent policies had to be balanced against fairness. “When I looked at the forest, I came to a different conclusion than those who had looked at each individual tree,” according to Lujan.

    The old reimbursement decision was obsolete, because of scientific breakthroughs. Clinging to an antiquated coverage decision would expose the company to possible litigation, bad publicity, and a hit to its reputation. More fundamentally, the old decision—and the structure that produced that decision—failed the fairness test and the common sense reality check.

    The Bounty Effect prompted Lujan to take a key step—but changing the structure requires much more. If only the CEO can see the forest and use a fairness test, the organization flies blind and the business suffers. In adopting a collaborative structure, the challenge for Presbyterian and for many organizations is empowering people at all levels to consider the big picture, participate in decisions and take action. This requires, among other shifts, changing the recognition and reward system and enabling spontaneous interaction so that all Presbyterian Health System team members share a view of the forest and not just individual trees.

    Categories: , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,

  • Collaboration Keeps Martini Thriving for 150 Years

    Winemaking, at its best, involves collaboration. Making vermouth adds a layer of complexity to winemaking and therefore requires an extra dose of collaboration along with added alcohol, sugar and botanicals. Martini, also known as Martini and Rossi, is the top-selling vermouth producer globally.

    In the building known as Department 54 at Martini near Turin, Italy, winemakers and herbalists

    Martini botanicals
    Making vermouth involves blending wine and botanicals. (Photo: Gary Sexton)

    collaborate to blend wine with botanicals. These include such herbs as dittany from Crete, a purported aphrodisiac, and the bitter artemesia. Also in the mix are flowers including roses and violets plus such fruits as raspberry and lemon. Martini winemakers and herbalists also include woods including quassia from Jamaica and cascarilla bark from the Bahamas plus many roots and spices.

    Many of these ingredients lined tables at San Francisco’s Dirty Habit restaurant a couple of weeks ago where I joined Martini Master Blender Giuseppe Musso, Operations Director Giorgio Castagnotti and Head Wine Maker Franco Brezza as they explained the intricacies of vermouth blending and production. The Martini team was in San Francisco to introduce Gran Lusso, a new vermouth celebrating the company’s 150 years.

    As Giuseppe described the woods, herbs and other botanicals, twenty or so writers and guests sipped

    Martini vermouth
    Botanicals line the tables at Martini’s vermouth tasting. (Photo: Gary Sexton)

    vermouths. Giuseppe has spent his entire 30-year career with Martini. His emotion bubbled to the surface as he described how Martini people treat each another as family and how the company emphasizes sharing skills and techniques from one generation to the next. Since 1992, Martini has been part of Bacardi Limited, the largest privately-held, family-owned spirits company.

    Most vermouths use white wine. For the new Gran Lusso vermouth, Martini blends red wine from Barbera grapes with white wine from          Trebbiano grapes.  To extract the botanicals, the winemakers and herbalists have created a new method for Gran Lusso. They combine grape must from Moscato di Canelli grapes with a natural spirit, and then they age the mixture for a year before adding botanicals. They then add a “secret ingredient” called “extract 94” which originates from a Martini recipe reportedly from 1904. The result is a bitter sweet vermouth with aromatic complexity.

    What struck me about the Martini team’s formal presentations and informal discussions with guests is the lack of marketing bravado and genuine love for their products and company which they constantly referred to as “family.” At dog-and-pony shows staged by less collaborative companies, people pepper presentations and conversations with empty superlatives such as “Our products are best-of-breed” or “Nobody can do what we do.”

    In The Culture of Collaboration book, I call this Superlative Syndrome. It’s a manifestation of what the Greeks called hubris or excessive pride. Superlative Syndrome often masks defects and can ruin a business as trust evaporates. Customers, financial analysts and the media become conditioned to doubt the company’s messages. Team members learn to cut corners and lie. In contrast, Martini delivers its message with sincerity and cultivates long relationships with business partners, customers and team members.

     

    Categories: , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Fixing General Motors and Curing Veterans Affairs

    General Motors chief executive Mary Barra has vowed to change the company’s culture and has testified
    GM Logo1before Congress that GM has taken steps to increase internal transparency and information sharing. This commitment follows a report exposing that GM discouraged raising or sharing safety concerns. The company commissioned the report, because GM failed to recall thousands of cars with defective ignition switches for eleven years.

    Similar calls for culture change have followed the Veterans Health Administration’s wait-for-care and numbers fudging scandal. President Obama has remarked that VA Image the VA needs a culture change so that “bad news gets surfaced quickly.” Not content to wait for culture change, House and Senate negotiators today announced a $17 billion plan that, among other provisions, provides money to lease clinics so that veterans can get treatment outside the VA’s system.

    Culture change emphasizes the result without a way to get there. It’s like telling a poor person to become rich. Culture change has become a common prescription from leaders, pundits and management gurus. The prescription often fails, because the shift originates with executives without detail, discussion or broad buy-in. Meantime, the organizational structure stays the same.

    The Bounty Effect has hit GM and the VA. As I describe in my new book, The Bounty Effect happens when exigent circumstances compel businesses, government and organizations to change their structures from command-and-control to collaborative. The solution for these organizations is to seize the opportunity The Bounty Effect provides and fundamentally change their structures so that people can spontaneously engage one another, share information and participate in decisions regardless of level, role or region. This will cost far less than $17 billion.

    Many organizations, including GM and the VA, still operate with a structure that has barely changed since the Industrial Age.  This obsolete structure based on command-and-control promotes hierarchy and internal competition plus rewards information hoarding, secrecy, and cutting corners. GM and the VA also share a need to go through channels. This inhibits the participation and information flow critical to Information Age organizations.

    Safety concerns apparently never reached GM’s chief executive, nor did problems with scheduling reporting systems apparently flow to former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.  And both organizations apparently discouraged people from sharing concerns. VA supervisors often retaliated against workers who raised valid complaints, according to a White House report.

    GM chief executive Mary Barra has said that culture change must be leader-led. Barra has also promoted a program called “speak up for safety” plus three GM “core values.” These are “the customer is our compass, relationships matter, and individual excellence is crucial.” But a leader’s words have modest impact without structural change. Yes, GM has added safety investigators, increased safety data mining, and created a vice president of safety position. Nevertheless, none of these actions will reduce information hoarding and internal competition. None of these actions will change GM’s structure from command-and-control to collaborative. 

    When an organization rewards obsolete behavior, change dies on the vine despite a leader’s mandate. If hoarding and hiding information or failing to act on knowledge results in a raise or a promotion, people are unlikely to share information or take action. Pushing safety issues at GM was seemingly no path to promotion. VA managers reportedly kept patient names off the official waiting list, because bonuses depended on concealing information. Recognition and reward systems in obsolete organizational structures often reinforce bad behavior and the status quo regardless of culture change efforts. The same flawed practices and processes that encourage internal competition and information hoarding lead companies to compromise safety and fudge numbers.

    Changing the VA’s structure will enhance transparency and efficiency while saving money rather than costing the $17 billion Congress is authorizing. Changing GM’s structure will ensure that people across the organization share and act on critical information.  And changing the structure of GM and the VA will accomplish what many leaders and pundits are recommending: culture change.

    Categories: , , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Pope Francis Promotes Collaborative Structure

    The least collaborative organization is changing its structure.

    Which organization? Well, here are some of its characteristics. This global enterprise pays a few people to make decisions while everybody else follows orders. The CEO’s direct reports act like a royal court and compete for face time. Senior leaders often live lavishly and consume conspicuously. Headquarters micromanages satellite offices. Bureaucracy and formality reduce efficiency.  Internal competition runs rampant. The command-and-control organizational structure quashes dissent.

    Sound familiar? This description fits many global corporations and government entities. This particular multinational spent $170 billion in the United States in 2010, according to The Economist. The organization is the Catholic Church and, more specifically, the Roman Curia, the church’s centralized administrative operation.

    Like many corporations, the Catholic Church suffers from an obsolete organizational structure that is compromising value. And like many corporations, reform-minded leaders have tried introducing a new approach. But entrenched interests and a centralized bureaucracy rife with intrigue, fiefdoms, and Machiavellian motivations has frequently derailed change.

    Enter Pope Francis setting the stage for change by wearing a simple white robe and black shoes rather than the regal vestments and ruby shoes of his predecessor. He has washed the feet of inmates and has Pope Francis smallopted to live in a guest quarters rather than the Vatican’s deluxe papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. There are signs the Pope’s frugal tone is rippling across the Church. In March, the Pope accepted the resignation of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, Germany who spent the equivalent of $43 million on a new house and office complex.  In April, the Atlanta Archdiocese announced that it would sell Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s $2.2 million mansion.

    Beyond Pope Francis’ rejection of the trappings of office, he is taking steps to adopt a more collaborative structure in the Roman Curia and in the global Catholic Church. The Pope has chosen a “working group” of eight cardinals from outside the Curia to collaborate with him on changing the structure.

    Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio heads the Vatican department that writes the church laws that will codify reforms. The Religion News Service quotes Cardinal Coccopalmerio as saying “The big change is the emphasis on collegiality, on collaboration.” Now Pope Francis, Cardinal Cocopalmerio and other new church leaders are focused on breaking down barriers among silos so that information flows around the organization rather than from top to bottom. Cardinal Cocopalmerio has proposed naming a “moderator of the Curia” to identify inefficiencies and cut through red tape.

    Pope Francis participates in meetings without dominating them and embraces broad input. Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. recently attended one such meeting at the Vatican about appointing new bishops. Typically, popes never attend such meetings. Pope Francis reportedly stayed for three hours. “We’re all sitting around the table, and he comes in and pulls up a chair,” Cardinal Wuerl told Fox News.  At another similar meeting, a senior cardinal asked the Pope what he thought about the topic. “If I told you what I think, you would all agree,” Pope Francis responded according to Cardinal Wuerl. “I want to hear from you what you think.”

    Perhaps most significantly, according to Cardinal Wuerl, the Pope has repeatedly advocated a collaborative process through which “the Holy Spirit can be heard.”  And the Holy Spirit isn’t going to be heard if just one person speaks. “He wants all of us to be speaking with him so at the end of the day he can say this truly was the fruit of the work of the Spirit.”

    Hallelujah. Many corporations in multiple industries including United States government agencies can learn from the Pope’s example. It takes more than window dressing and a desire for change to create value through collaboration.  The only viable approach is changing the organizational structure which, in turn, shifts the culture. My research on collaboration indicates that changing the structure requires seven steps—plan, people, principles, practices, processes, planet and payoff. Pope Francis has demonstrated that making progress through these steps requires that a leader set the stage for change so that others feel comfortable participating.

    In essence, The Bounty Effect has hit the Catholic Church. The Bounty Effect happens when exigent circumstances compel companies, governments and organizations to change their structures from command-and-control to collaborative. For the Catholic Church, exigent circumstances range from sexual abuse scandals to corruption and cronyism at the Vatican. And it’s The Bounty Effect that led to the election of Pope Francis and the structural change now underway.

    Categories: , , , , , , ,
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

ABOUT

Email Me

CATEGORIES