4 Tips on how to fix a "basket case"
Have you ever found yourself describing your organisation as a “basket case”? Recently I’ve been in a few conversations where people were looking for help to fix their particular “basket case”. They also seemed to be looking for reassurance that there was some hope, that change was possible.
So following on from those conversations, I thought I’d share a few tips on what I’ve learnt over the years about how to transform a “basket case” organisation into a place where people are delivering exponentially better results. I have four key tips that describe much of how I approach such challenges in my own consulting and executive work these days.
Tip1: Have the courage to be a leader who challenges the status quo, shapes a new direction, and forms coalitions for system change
I am reminded of what Linda Cliatt-Wayman said in one of my favourite TED talks on “How to fix a broken school” about her approach to being a principal of a North Philadelphia high school classified in the “low-performing and persistently dangerous" category. (Click on the link to watch her inspiring talk.)
Her first slogan for dealing with such a difficult leadership challenge was: “If you are going to lead, lead”. Good leaders can make the impossible possible and inspire hope and confidence in people that they can be part of something better. Being a leader of a “basket case” is one of the best opportunities to learn and grow as a leader and do what leaders are paid to do - lead. But it needs courage, coalitions, vision, and a systems approach to change. People expect leaders to lead, but are so often disappointed. So you need to decide early - are you up for it?
No matter what the problems, your greatest asset in this situation is people. If people are working in a basket case their talents are being wasted, and many yearn for something better. And this is where leaders can make a difference by creating hope that change is possible, forming coalitions, and leading people in a way that gives them a reason to bring the very best of themselves to work and awakens their unused potential and energy to contribute and make a difference.
It probably involves doing this with your staff, your peers and maybe even your boss or your Board. And it is best if you can involve your customers in helping you with this as well. Customers can be a powerful force to get your people interested in improving their performance.
You need help and support during this process as it will be tough. But this transformation should be leader-led because people will be looking to you and others with influence in order to judge what is expected around here. Their judgment will be based partly on what you say, but mostly on what you do, how you do it and the stories they hear about you from those they trust.
Humans are social beings for whom emotion is more powerful that reason, stories and dreams are more powerful than plans, and social connection, love and recognition are more powerful that policies, rules and processes. To bring the best out in people it is important to remember this.
Tip 2: Engage and empower people to contribute their best and achieve what they never thought possible
I have deliberately used the word “empower” to emphasise that the best ideas, insights and solutions come from people who are given the opportunity and confidence to contribute, influence change and make a difference. This is not just about winning hearts and minds, it is about giving people the power to influence, to solve problems and help fix the basket case.
When you’re in charge of a basket case it’s tempting to see the staff as the problem rather than as your biggest untapped opportunity to sort things out. You might have a few problem people or people who are a poor fit for what you need, but in most cases, people are just not using the potential they have at work because things are not set up for them to do that. And the lower in the hierarchy they are – usually the bigger the gap between what people could contribute and what the system enables them to contribute. (See my article on “The Organisational Pyramid of Potential”.)
It is more likely that you are seeing people who have been poorly led, uninspired and disengaged, and are poorly resourced. They are probably working in an environment that has failed to provide them with the inspiration, the resources, the skills, the systems or the feedback they need to do a great job. In other words, the things they need as human beings to contribute and make a difference are missing. You have a huge unused resource locked up within those people – you just need to unlock it to help turn your basket case into a treasure chest.
The way to do this needs to fit the particular culture and situation. To be most effective however it probably needs to involve the following components:
Tip 3: Build implementation into strategy design from the start to ensure impacted people can help shape plans that work
When it comes to understanding and producing successful strategy, I turn to Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne and their world-leading work on Blue Ocean Strategy, a methodology that is based on 30 years of research into what successful and innovative strategy looks like. Their approach is closely aligned with my own experience of what works. (Click here to go to my web site for an introduction to Blue Ocean Strategy.)
One of their key findings on what makes the difference in successful strategy execution is the engagement of impacted people – customers, staff, peers and stakeholders - from the very beginning so that you are building implementation success into your strategy development from the start. A team of strategy experts working in isolation and handing over their powerpoint pack to others to implement is a recipe for failure and disengages those who need to make strategy work.
And if you have an intractable problem, someone somewhere has probably solved something like this before – you just need to shift mind-sets and consider how to use the resources that new perspectives can bring to the problem. See Alan Gregerman’s uTube talk on “The necessity of strangers” for some ideas on how to think differently to accelerate solutions and problem solving.
Helping people to be creative and look in unexpected places and to new partners for solutions and resources can result in accelerating change, creating more value and finding solutions more easily than you expected. A lot of this will come through breaking down organisational silos and encouraging people to talk to strangers and customers.
Tips 4: Culture, systems and resources need to enable people to put the strategy into action, learn, and deliver results
When I talk about systems I mean the culture and social systems, technical systems, work processes and so on that connect people and resources to outcomes and that affect how things get done (or not done). All these factors form the fabric of people’s experience of what it is like to work in an organisation and subtly influence so much of what is often called “culture”.
The most subtle and powerful of these factors are the social systems and networks of human influence, power and connected-ness that run over and under the surface of organisations and switch performance on and off. This was illustrated at Qantas a few years ago where (unbeknown to management, and probably himself) a floor worker called Elvis at the Sydney supply warehouse was found to be one of the most trusted well-connected opinion leaders in the company and a secret weapon for change. This illustrated the power of informal social networks and their undervalued effect on the performance of teams. Restructures can unintentionally decimate such networks and undermine, rather than improve organisational performance.
Fixing a “basket case” will usually require a mind-set shift in how processes are designed. Customer-focused design and applying principles from Design Thinking to redesign processes from the outside (the customer) inwards can be a key way to unblock a moribund organisation that has become so inwardly focused that its own processes frustrate and prevent staff from being able to deliver good service. This approach works with internal processes such as HR and IT processes just as much as with external customer-facing processes. This is a great way to take out non-value adding work and create more customer and employee satisfaction and efficiency.
By focusing transformational change in these four key areas - leadership, empowerment, strategy, and systems - leaders can help shape an organisation where people love to come to work and which provides the right resources and environment to support the outcomes that will turn a basket case into a thriving performing organisation.
If you would like help with this in your organisation, contact me.
Susan Kehoe
Consultant | Mentor | Change Leader
Work with Susan
Susan provides consultancy advice, mentoring, program leadership and interim executive support to leaders and organisations where there is a need to challenge the status quo, engage people, shift culture and lift performance.
So following on from those conversations, I thought I’d share a few tips on what I’ve learnt over the years about how to transform a “basket case” organisation into a place where people are delivering exponentially better results. I have four key tips that describe much of how I approach such challenges in my own consulting and executive work these days.
Tip1: Have the courage to be a leader who challenges the status quo, shapes a new direction, and forms coalitions for system change
I am reminded of what Linda Cliatt-Wayman said in one of my favourite TED talks on “How to fix a broken school” about her approach to being a principal of a North Philadelphia high school classified in the “low-performing and persistently dangerous" category. (Click on the link to watch her inspiring talk.)
Her first slogan for dealing with such a difficult leadership challenge was: “If you are going to lead, lead”. Good leaders can make the impossible possible and inspire hope and confidence in people that they can be part of something better. Being a leader of a “basket case” is one of the best opportunities to learn and grow as a leader and do what leaders are paid to do - lead. But it needs courage, coalitions, vision, and a systems approach to change. People expect leaders to lead, but are so often disappointed. So you need to decide early - are you up for it?
No matter what the problems, your greatest asset in this situation is people. If people are working in a basket case their talents are being wasted, and many yearn for something better. And this is where leaders can make a difference by creating hope that change is possible, forming coalitions, and leading people in a way that gives them a reason to bring the very best of themselves to work and awakens their unused potential and energy to contribute and make a difference.
It probably involves doing this with your staff, your peers and maybe even your boss or your Board. And it is best if you can involve your customers in helping you with this as well. Customers can be a powerful force to get your people interested in improving their performance.
You need help and support during this process as it will be tough. But this transformation should be leader-led because people will be looking to you and others with influence in order to judge what is expected around here. Their judgment will be based partly on what you say, but mostly on what you do, how you do it and the stories they hear about you from those they trust.
Humans are social beings for whom emotion is more powerful that reason, stories and dreams are more powerful than plans, and social connection, love and recognition are more powerful that policies, rules and processes. To bring the best out in people it is important to remember this.
Tip 2: Engage and empower people to contribute their best and achieve what they never thought possible
I have deliberately used the word “empower” to emphasise that the best ideas, insights and solutions come from people who are given the opportunity and confidence to contribute, influence change and make a difference. This is not just about winning hearts and minds, it is about giving people the power to influence, to solve problems and help fix the basket case.
When you’re in charge of a basket case it’s tempting to see the staff as the problem rather than as your biggest untapped opportunity to sort things out. You might have a few problem people or people who are a poor fit for what you need, but in most cases, people are just not using the potential they have at work because things are not set up for them to do that. And the lower in the hierarchy they are – usually the bigger the gap between what people could contribute and what the system enables them to contribute. (See my article on “The Organisational Pyramid of Potential”.)
It is more likely that you are seeing people who have been poorly led, uninspired and disengaged, and are poorly resourced. They are probably working in an environment that has failed to provide them with the inspiration, the resources, the skills, the systems or the feedback they need to do a great job. In other words, the things they need as human beings to contribute and make a difference are missing. You have a huge unused resource locked up within those people – you just need to unlock it to help turn your basket case into a treasure chest.
The way to do this needs to fit the particular culture and situation. To be most effective however it probably needs to involve the following components:
- Firstly, involve people in helping to understand how things are now and why they need to change in a way that means something to them
- Secondly, engage their hearts and imaginations in seeing the possibilities and what could be, and then involve them in creating it
- Thirdly, give them the opportunity and resources to contribute and make a difference to the things that affect them and that they care about, and
- Fourthly, provide useful feedback and recognition so they know what is expected and can learn and grow.
Tip 3: Build implementation into strategy design from the start to ensure impacted people can help shape plans that work
When it comes to understanding and producing successful strategy, I turn to Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne and their world-leading work on Blue Ocean Strategy, a methodology that is based on 30 years of research into what successful and innovative strategy looks like. Their approach is closely aligned with my own experience of what works. (Click here to go to my web site for an introduction to Blue Ocean Strategy.)
One of their key findings on what makes the difference in successful strategy execution is the engagement of impacted people – customers, staff, peers and stakeholders - from the very beginning so that you are building implementation success into your strategy development from the start. A team of strategy experts working in isolation and handing over their powerpoint pack to others to implement is a recipe for failure and disengages those who need to make strategy work.
And if you have an intractable problem, someone somewhere has probably solved something like this before – you just need to shift mind-sets and consider how to use the resources that new perspectives can bring to the problem. See Alan Gregerman’s uTube talk on “The necessity of strangers” for some ideas on how to think differently to accelerate solutions and problem solving.
Helping people to be creative and look in unexpected places and to new partners for solutions and resources can result in accelerating change, creating more value and finding solutions more easily than you expected. A lot of this will come through breaking down organisational silos and encouraging people to talk to strangers and customers.
Tips 4: Culture, systems and resources need to enable people to put the strategy into action, learn, and deliver results
When I talk about systems I mean the culture and social systems, technical systems, work processes and so on that connect people and resources to outcomes and that affect how things get done (or not done). All these factors form the fabric of people’s experience of what it is like to work in an organisation and subtly influence so much of what is often called “culture”.
The most subtle and powerful of these factors are the social systems and networks of human influence, power and connected-ness that run over and under the surface of organisations and switch performance on and off. This was illustrated at Qantas a few years ago where (unbeknown to management, and probably himself) a floor worker called Elvis at the Sydney supply warehouse was found to be one of the most trusted well-connected opinion leaders in the company and a secret weapon for change. This illustrated the power of informal social networks and their undervalued effect on the performance of teams. Restructures can unintentionally decimate such networks and undermine, rather than improve organisational performance.
Fixing a “basket case” will usually require a mind-set shift in how processes are designed. Customer-focused design and applying principles from Design Thinking to redesign processes from the outside (the customer) inwards can be a key way to unblock a moribund organisation that has become so inwardly focused that its own processes frustrate and prevent staff from being able to deliver good service. This approach works with internal processes such as HR and IT processes just as much as with external customer-facing processes. This is a great way to take out non-value adding work and create more customer and employee satisfaction and efficiency.
By focusing transformational change in these four key areas - leadership, empowerment, strategy, and systems - leaders can help shape an organisation where people love to come to work and which provides the right resources and environment to support the outcomes that will turn a basket case into a thriving performing organisation.
If you would like help with this in your organisation, contact me.
Susan Kehoe
Consultant | Mentor | Change Leader
Work with Susan
Susan provides consultancy advice, mentoring, program leadership and interim executive support to leaders and organisations where there is a need to challenge the status quo, engage people, shift culture and lift performance.