Articles
"Inside-Out" Alignment:
Maximum Engagement for Superior Performance
Dean Robb, Ph.D.
A recent national survey of American workers and managers was conducted
by Harris Interactive Inc., focusing on the issue of workplace engagement.
The survey produced a few key findings: Only 20 percent of workers
feel very passionate about their jobs; less than 15 percent feel
strongly energized by their work; and only 31 percent (strongly
or moderately) believe that their employer inspires the best in
them.
Other findings: More than one-third of managers do not care about
the fate of their organization. More than one fourth of managers
surveyed do not agree that their organizations inspire the best
in them, or are unwilling to promote their organization as being
a great place to work.
In a nutshell, workplace engagement and commitment are at an all-time
low. This represents a crisis as the accelerating pace of global
competition acts to create an entirely new market space that is
forcing businesses to elicit maximum workforce performance, creativity
and innovation. But sustaining that kind of sustainable workforce
excellence can only happen where very high levels of workplace engagement
and commitment are the norm.
Traditionally, the basic approach for eliciting maximum performance
levels has been what might be termed "row harder," i.e. trying harder,
and harder, and harder, at making age-old — and increasingly
dysfunctional — strategies work. But the survey results bear
witness that the only thing we seem to be achieving is a death rattle...
on a national scale.
Regaining high levels of workplace engagement and commitment in
the new economy will require a fundamental change in management
paradigms and in the underlying social contract. This will require
managing a central paradox: Performance is based on alignment. Strategy,
structure, processes and, most importantly, people, need to be tightly
focused in the same direction and working in concert. This means
"convergence of energies" — getting everything and everyone
moving in coherent unison toward a single vision or goal. On the
other hand, organizational creativity and innovation demands tapping
into and amplifying internal variety and differences — diversity
and individuality. Here we are invoking "divergence of energies."
However, since the dawn of the great bureaucracies, the primary
goal of companies has been stability: i.e. "protecting" the organization
by defending the status quo. Internal differences posing a threat
to the status quo of a company have traditionally been repressed
and controlled. Maintaining stability by maximizing alignment and
minimizing internal differences has been the primary goal. And it
is precisely this 'minimization of internal differences' that is
so problematic in connection with organizational learning, creativity
and innovation.
This legacy shows up in traditional, top-down, command-and-control
practices for gaining alignment. The use of command-and-control,
for example, flows from a core belief of executive decision-makers
that the exercise of dominating power to subjugate other adult human
beings is a legitimate and effective practice.
This basic alignment was reinforced through "strong"
cultures that shape collective thinking and behavior along relatively
narrow (i.e. conformist) lines, believed by senior managers to support
strategic goals and objectives.
Gradually, "good corporate citizens" were shaped through reward/punishment
systems based on social rewards such as organizational position,
level, status, and power. On the flip side, social pressures, especially
the threat of loss of position, level, etc. shaped such corporate
citizens just as strongly. Another problem has been that the main
concern of legacy alignment practices has been centered on gaining
behavioral compliance, or getting employees to do what the organization
wants them to do (without concern about how they feel about it).
All of these strategies are "outside-in" because they rely on social
factors (either positive or negative) that are fundamentally extrinsic
to (outside of) the person. This shows up, for example, in the traditional
hospital hierarchical management structure, where there are clear
lines of authority and very little downward empowerment. The chief
nurse calls all the shots and everyone knows it; the chief of medicine
calls all the shots and everyone knows it; the head of operations
calls all the shots in his area and everyone knows it. Those who
"go outside the lines" are quickly "re-educated."
These alignment practices are deeply problematic in connection
with goals of sustainable performance excellence, and in fact seriously
undermine systemic capability for creativity and innovation. Their
negative impact has been dramatically intensified, stimulated by
hyper-competition and by our reactive response to it: remember the
"row-harder" syndrome! The effect has been compounded further by
constant downsizing, rightsizing, and outsourcing: organizational
members live with constant uncertainty and fear of losing their
jobs, so they tend to become even more risk-averse, won't stick
their necks out on a creative new idea, and make sure to be well-behaved
"good corporate citizens."
I've seen this in subtle ways: in hospital systems for example,
by an increasing number of personnel who seem to have become sticklers
for "following the rules" to a fault with forms, working with systems,
etc, where formerly they would be complaining about excessive "red
tape." The customer seems to have become somewhat incidental! Folks
are keeping their head down and their nose to the grindstone, and
making absolutely sure that they won't be called on the carpet for
even the least of lapses.
Because these traditional alignment strategies depend solely on
compliance, conformity, extrinsic motivation and external (social)
pressures, and because they discourage expression of intrinsic,
individual or culturally/ethnically-rooted identity (and differences
from the organizational norms), many employees eventually come to
feel devalued, demoralized and even dehumanized. Many begin to feel
and believe that, to the enterprise, they are merely "cogs in the
machine."
This causes employees to become emotionally and spiritually "burned
out," i.e., unmotivated, unengaged, uncommitted, and apathetic.
They lose interest in the organization's well-being. They can even
become actively subversive of organizational goals and survival.
Consequently, the enterprise often suffers a deep and serious "loss
of soul."
The Harris survey bears this out: on top of the mounting loss of
worker and management engagement, it exposes a growing problem with
"burnout," reporting that increasing numbers of employees define
themselves as burned out (42 %), while a staggering one-third of
employees believe they have reached a dead end in their jobs, and
21 percent express an eagerness to change their jobs!
Inevitably, burnout leads to significant productivity declines,
growing hidden costs, loss of creativity and innovation, growing
lack of competitiveness, and over time, serious, long-term performance
problems. Left unchecked, these problems can result in enterprise
failure.
One area of intense concern in healthcare — for which there
is no "quick fix," unfortunately — is the plight of nurses
in our hospital system. Currently, there is a serious shortage of
nurses; as a result, nurses are overworked — stretched to
the limit, and beyond the limit in some cases. Add to that the fact
that traditionally, the status of nurses is very low relative to
doctors: so overworked — and underpaid — nurses often
get "ordered around" (command-and-control) by busy MDs, who don't
"have the time" to pay attention to the "niceties" of nurturing
relationships. And as everyone knows, hospital service is in a serious
state of decline, and the morale of nurses is, overall, poor.
In an intensely competitive, turbulent marketplace, these somewhat
hidden costs can easily mean the difference between success and
failure. There is little or no room for the "hidden downside" of
traditional leadership and management practices that formerly could
easily be borne in a less competitive or rapidly-changing business
world.
Sustainable capability to access, unleash and harness collective
energy, enthusiasm, initiative and drive can happen only when individual
alignment is authentic. This occurs when motivation is intrinsic
and when people actually care, emotionally and spiritually, about
the purpose — the raison d'etre — of the enterprise,
and about the part they play in it.
This dynamic plays out best when the foundation of organizational
identity, organizational alignment, and individual alignment all
act together in service of a mutually-shared "deep purpose." A foundation
of meaning then guides organizational and individual action, binding
people together in something greater than themselves. It works best
too when grounded in an ethic of continuous value creation that
connects the organization to its customers, suppliers and its wider
community of stakeholders.
One place this can show up is in healthcare delivery systems (particularly
in-patient hospitals) that have reengineered their business model,
organizational design and data systems to be truly patient-centered.
The heart of this venture is multidisciplinary teams comprised of
doctors, nurses, testing personnel and any other relevant personnel,
held jointly accountable for the testing, diagnosis, and health
outcomes of the patient. These teams are supported by a new, integrated
patient data record, offering any and all patient information, from
administrative data to test results to digitized scans of X-Rays
and MRIs.
To function at a high level, these teams initially need to "work
through" the layers of organizational barriers (status, level differences,
ego clashes, turf battles, etc.). All of these are socially-derived
externals which interfere with the ability of team members inherent,
intrinsic — and most importantly, shared — desire to
serve and to heal. To be honest, this process often requires the
services of an outside facilitator because of the challenges involved.
But as these issues are worked through, what emerges is a high-performance
— and often highly innovative — team, characterized
by mutual respect and a profound sense of give and take. And the
shared alignment with the hospital's primary goal is intrinsic to
each member of the team, rather than coerced through compliance
or command-and-control.
Sustainable levels of truly excellent performance and continuing
organizational creativity can arise only from practices that tap
into and nurture intrinsic motivation. Such practices build authentic,
two-way alignment between individual and organization, rooted in
authentic, two-way give-and-take between individual and organization.
The individual must be valued — and treated — not merely
as an interchangeable "role performer" or "task performer" as the
organization itself becomes genuinely open to change in response
to the ideas, perspectives, needs and drives of its individual members.
This "authentic, two-way give-and-take" just mentioned is likewise
the source of organizational dynamism and growth!
The resulting renewable enterprise, characterized by shared purpose
and a set of core values, produces a culture that is multiple, heterodox,
open and inclusive. Self-renewing, adaptable organizations must
create conditions that make room for organizational members to express
their essential individuality within the system, without being punished
or marginalized as "deviant." Encouragement of the realization and
expression of authentic individual identity within the enterprise
taps right into the root of intrinsic motivation, saying to employees
"You are valued for whom you really are," not just because of this
week's numbers, or because you are an excellent role/task performer,
but because you are a unique human being who can make a unique and
valuable contribution. The organization is thus communicating a
simple, straightforward message to its employees: "You matter."
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About Dean Robb, Ph.D.
Dr. Dean Robb is Founder and Executive Director of the Center for
Corporate Renewal (www.ctrforcorporaterenewal).
Since 1994, he has helped numerous domestic and foreign business
leaders build high-performing, innovative, entrepreneurial enterprises.
His expertise combines 26 years of practical, real-world experience
in corporate America with in-depth research in human and organizational
systems.
The Center for Corporate Renewal helps senior executives build
the capability for:
- Strategic Focus: Make sense of a changing
environment and gain focus on the next right strategic move
- Disciplined Execution: Align and mobilize
the entire organization behind this new strategic focus
- Creative Renewal: Renew the entrepreneurial
spirit by repeating these two actions over and over again.
For information on how Dr. Dean Robb can work with your organization
to instill a spirit and ethic of renewable corporate entrepreneurship,
email him at drobb@ctrforcorporaterenewal.com
or call him at 908-757-4721.
Permission to reproduce this article is hereby granted, given that
the contact information is kept intact with the article.
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