Early in every year we are approached by a few agency owners who understand that their organizational structures and inefficient systems are stopping their growth and profitability. They ask us to analyze their agencies (GPP Analysis – Growth, Profitability, Productivity) and recommend changes to allow them to continue to grow and profit through greater productivity. One of the warnings we give each agency owner is that they might get resistance to the healthiest of changes – changes that would mean better work-lives for ALL people (employees and clients) — from the least likely places, the agencies’ previously most loyal and respected employees.
The agency owners’ greatest hurdles may be from their closest relationships, often family members and their closest work relationships.
The culprit is the release of roadblocks to success coming from changes in responsibilities, in relationships and in function and processes due to organizational changes that are made to and approved by the management or agency owners. Those changes may threaten the previously tight working relationships between the employees and the owner/managers.
CHANGE IS DIFFICULT, even if those changes are for the best interest of the agency and the personnel involved. If you dispute that, look at the constant attempts at permanent weight loss that would extend peoples’ lifespans. We lose weight and then, if we aren’t constantly vigilant, we fall back on habits that we know will regain the weight and negatively impact our health. PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM THEIR UNWILLINGNESS TO FOLLOW CHANGES IN THEIR EATING REGIMENS THAT WOULD HAVE SAVED THEIR LIVES.
If human beings can cause physical harm to themselves by resuming poor eating habits, what will they do to regain their “comfort levels” in their work lives – even if the changes requested are meant to help everyone’s personal and business goals? Those “comfort levels” remind us of a fellow employee early in our career whose manager surprised him with a new, ergonomic, desk chair to replace the rickety old chair with stuffing missing and a nasty spring that threatened the user every time he sat down. Instead of joy and appreciation, he refused the new chair claiming that the old one was “broken in” to his physique and he would rather live with the problems that he knew than face something new that required him to learn new procedures.
So, we conduct our analyses in agencies and recommend organizational changes that are designed to enhance the agency’s growth, profit and productivity and permit both owners and employees to utilize their skills and talents to better results. The changes are meant to cause the agency to grow, allowing it to pay more to the employees whose skills are more effectively used. Those employees become more productive and more effective. The Company becomes worth more, benefiting the agency owners. There is no downside – until well-meaning employees begin planting seeds of doubt and wishing that the agency operated the way it did when it was smaller (or when it was in earlier iterations as component predecessors) – seeking previous “comfort levels”.
How Do You Deal With The “Doubting Thomas”
Like the original Doubting Thomas, those employees who want to subvert the changes that are being implemented in the organization usually truly believe that the changes will yield negative results. They object and subvert in the name of “protecting the agency or the agency owner.” We find that most of these employees typically challenge the changes by circumventing the chain of command and approaching the owners or managers with doubts about the wisdom of the changes. They may simply ignore or refuse the requested changes. Their assumption is that their experience alone trumps the organizational development created for the Company and approved by its owners.
The important message to pass to ALL employees is that ANY SYSTEM OR PROCEDURE WILL WORK IF APPLIED PROPERLY AND CONSISTENTLY. The reason the Company is altering its organizational development is likely because whatever system or procedures (formal or informal) that was previously employed was weakening or was NOT WORKING in the Company’s current situation and continued application of the same procedures that didn’t work in the past and expecting different results in the future is the classic definition of insanity. This explanation to all employees – transparency in organizational development is very important to the success of the changes. It shows the employees that they are valued and that no negative ramifications are expected from the proposed changes.
In most agencies, something has to change. If we find the organization fully functional, we may narrow the recommendations to management reporting that would allow for quicker response to operational issues. But in most cases, the organization has simply outgrown its organizational structure and it needs to change. We have been through all levels of organizational change from one owner shops with a few employees to multi-office, multi-dimensional agencies that have grown from single to multiple owner organizations with hundreds of employees. Most employees have not been exposed to those types of changes, so they feel uncomfortable until those changes prove valuable.
For the most part, change is uncomfortable until it becomes habit and either proves worthwhile or requires the need for fine tuning. The disruptors try to short-cut the changes before they can prove themselves because they are more comfortable in the old system, even if it had serious flaws that could collapse under the weight of more volume.
We must balance the need for transparency that causes us to explain what we are doing and why to employees with the discipline that requires the employees to have faith in our efforts and to change with the organization as long as it doesn’t offend their morals or ethics. What cannot be permitted is the circumvention of the chain of command with any employee complaining to the agency owner without informing and involving their direct line manager. We owe an explanation of what is happening to the organization to ALL employees but we don’t owe that explanation to each employee individually. That’s the job of their direct line manager. If an employee is disgruntled by the changes and the manager cannot assuage the employee, the next manager above in the chain of command becomes involved- but only to the degree that the employee is comfortable in their revised role and organization. Unfortunately, we may lose (and have lost) valuable employees if their ethical position doesn’t match with that of the organization and they decide to (figuratively) “fall on their sword” instead of joining the organizational change. No single employee or group of employees is bigger than the organizations need to grow and mature.