Category Archives: General

OD espouses tolerance, but is intolerant-in-action

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At face value, the profession of Organizational Development exudes tolerance. But this is misleading.

Much of OD is trapped in the past, and often demonstrates intolerance towards innovation except for repackaging, buzzwords and marketable fads.

More shameful is OD’s embracing western values to the exclusion of others, a topic that I address most often on my blog and published work.

Things were not always this way. But now, faced with a world that they do not understand, traditional OD ers are stuck in the past when they encounter realities they do not understand. OD’s elite is protecting its vested interests as do all power elites, and by and large OD conferences burn incense and do not provide the needed innovation.

Global organizations of today have more behavioural variance than the organizations for which OD was designed. For many employees of today’s’ global organization, many (not all) values of OD are offensive.

  • The feedback loop and openness, critical cornerstones of OD, do not taste and feel good to people who comes from societies which prefer discreteness and face saving.
  • Participative decision making is threatening to people who see relationships as very unequal by design
  • Conflict management is totally offensive by the many employees who believe that talking about conflicts makes them worse.

When OD encounters  behavioural variance in a global context, it pays lip service to some “cultural differences” yet continues to impose the values of OD, because OD has yet re examine its core values in light of globalization and adapt its so call  tool kit.

  • “Jie, let’s be honest, and get this conflict out in the open.”
  • “Chan, why don’t you tell HQ what you really need from them? You are so opaque!”

I have personally learnt about OD’s intolerance in many ways. I shall list three

1-Massive resistance about the need to globalize the practice of OD. This resistance is disguised as yes but-ism.  “Yes Allon you may have a point, we need more “cultural sensitivity; but that is not main stream OD“.

2-For many years, an OD list almost threw people overboard who were not PC, or not “civil” or not “nice” or too temperamental, as judged by  “universal” Mid Western US standards.

3-The OD and HR satiric Gloria blog encountered fierce resistance because it is not “nice”. It was even marked as promotional material and banned by an OD list  on LI. The truth had struck too close to home. (In the meantime, the Gloria blog has been monetized and has almost 900,000 hits.)

Steeped in trauma of post-World War Two, the white middle-age men who founded OD were fighting the battle of their time. For the epoch in which they lived and experienced, the values of OD served as a beacon that enabled organizations/people to introspect as well and evolve more positively than even before. OD was a revolutionary force in its day. Today, OD force feeds Western values, and navel gazes about ‘cultural differences”.

This type of OD behaviour reminds me of the multi-culturalist who enjoys tasting the food of various minorities and even shows interest in their holidays, yet this same multi-culturalist behaves in such a liberal and inclusive manner only when the position of being the dominant cultural is ensured.  When faced with real cultural variance, the multi-culturalist retreats.

In the civil domain I support a multicultural society which maintains its boundaries, as in French secularism/laïcité. However in its professional domain of global organizing, OD cannot claim that its values are dominant. When OD claims to be tolerant but behaves oppressively, we have espoused tolerance and intolerance-in-action!

OD’s intolerance-in-action has positioned the profession as ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of global organizing.

All that is left of traditional OD in face of global complexity is: “Speak up Jai, even though I respect that it is not your culture”. And perhaps some ethnic food at lunch.

So how did it happen that our profession, a bastion of liberalism, become so backward?

————-PS

Dear subscribers, In order to clean up the spam, all blog subscriptions were deleted and a new subscription system installed. Please re register  on the right side, or below and sorry for the trouble.

Allon  אלון

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Avoid using these 3 OD religious tenets in Global Organizations

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Readers of this blog know that the stubborn author keeps harping on the need to adapt Organization Development to the complexities of global organizations.

Presently, I am working on a book ten exercises which will expand the capabilities of the OD practitioner to be effective not only in a parochial western organization, but also in global organizations.

Writing a book is not writing blog, and I keep forcing myself to focus on “what are the key messages that I want to make “, so as not to drive my readers crazy, like my satirical character Comrade Carl Marks.

By asking that question of myself day after day in the course of writing my book, I seemed to have also arrived at the major points I want to make in all the posts in this entire blog. So here they are:

While the tenets of OD are applicable to western organizations, their application to global organizations are ill appropriate. 3 major religious tents of OD need to be avoided, in alignment with cultural humility

  1. Avoid unpleasant interactions stemming from the authentic and open “management” of conflict. Deal with conflict discretely, quietly and try to work around it.
  2. Avoid “open and authentic” feedback, when the feedback is seen as damaging cohesion and diminishing face. Use non verbal clues and back-door obtuse communication.
  3. Avoid use of semi-structured meetings with free flowing communication when this will embarrass people who prefer to express discretely matters of importance . Prefer one on one, face to face, more structured communication.

 

Dear subscribers,

In order to clean up the spam, all blog subscriptions were deleted and a new subscription system installed.

Please re register and sorry for the trouble.

Allon

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Does telling your boss what he wants to hear, and not the truth, constitute a lie? – revised

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Many cultures value the collective more than the individual. In such cultures, the harmony and cohesion of the collective are served by strong and powerful leaders. In cultures, authoritarian leadership is accepted, respected and deferred to. Whilst there may be complaints about excesses of authoritarian style, few would prefer the  lack of harmony which arises due to weak leadership.

Harmony and cohesion in such cultures are more valued that the accuracy of this or that factual detail.

In such cultures, it is acceptable that a boss be told in public what the boss wants to hear, even if this includes a few inaccurate facts. This is not considered a lie, because it serves a higher perceived truth, i.e., maintaining the position and face of he who maintains harmony around whom all are rallied, willingly or less so.

This position of the leader is “more important” than a few uncomfortable facts, which can and will  be relayed, but discretely.

“Do most people agree that most people believe that telling your boss what he wants to hear, and not the truth, constitutes a lie? Not a lie at all for some-rather the ultimate truth, harmony and a strong boss, can naturally be maintained by a few factual inaccuracies. Yes, for others, this is a bald lie, but not for all. A split jury.

OD and change-management types may find this type behaviour offensive. Indeed OD’s development  was rooted in anti-authoritarianism. However, OD ignores these cultural genetic codes to the detriment of our profession. Neither OD, change management nor a strong corporate culture can re engineer such deep genetic cultural codes.

So in the following case, is Wang lying? Art (US) asked his direct report Wang (China) “what does this quarter look like” in a con-call with 6 participants.  Wang said “looks good”. After the con-call, Wang called Art and told him that the quarter looked bad.

Wang has maintained the ultimate truth; he has avoided making his boss look bad. He did this by lying.

 

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When faced with an impossible situation, what can be done?

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I imagine that all of my readers have faced impossible situations, both personally and at work.

Since this is blog about OD, it is so easy to conjure up impossible situations, characterized by poor products, impossible deadlines, poisonous management, a dysfunctional culture or a Board with their heads up their ass.

I am not the kind of person who generally easily accepts boundary conditions or limitations. Quite the opposite as this entire blog indicates, I challenge assumptions and turn over the apple cart quite often. This explains the work I get, the work I do not get, my success stories and failures.

Work and life have taught me to go slower when dealing with hard (for me) situations. Age has been a contributing factor in helping me be realistic. Age has played strange tricks.. As I have aged, I have learnt that if I cannot run 7 days I week, I can run five days a week. And on days when I cannot run 5 kilometers, I can walk 9 kilometers. And after the flu, I may not be able to exercise within a week, but I will be able to do so in a 3 weeks, or a month.

But what about impossible situations?  I think that I am making progress here as well, thanks to Shyka.

Shyka is a dog with a psychiatric depressive disorder. He takes massive amounts of anti depressants and the meds have stabilized him. Having torn up the living room of his past 4 owners due to anxiety attacks when left alone , Shyka lives in a well kept kennel. He has been without an owner for 2 years. Every Sunday, I take Shyka for a long walk in the framework of volunteer work that I do.

Entering the kennel is very very hard for me; the barking of the many abandoned dogs breaks my heart every time I pick up Shyka for his weekly walk. Shyka awaits me with the saddest of eyes .I know that he only gets walked 3 times a week. I know that the medicines that have placated him are also killing him. And I know that Shyka will never have another owner.

Shyka however has taught me that when everything seems impossible, do what is possible.

And when I walk him back to the kennel, I am at peace with myself. I have done what I can.

By the way. Shyka loves the bones I bring him, and slowly, he is showing me affection, not an easy feat for a dog who has been abandoned so many times.

You are my boy, Shyka.

 

s2

Smelling the land

 

shayka

שייקה ידידי My friend Shyka

shuki

Dec 2 2014

Update Jan 2015

My daughter just smsed me that Shaika has been adopted and is living in Tel Aviv.

Some stories have really happy endings. Here is Shaiya resting, and putting on the Ritz.

 

s1

At rest-בא מרגוע לעמל

 

s2

Putting on the ritz-חתיך

 

 

 

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6 questions that new (technical) leaders need to reflect on

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One of the services that I provide is working with people who have superb technical skills to develop their leadership capabilities.

In my experience, people with superb technical skills respond much better to one on one coaching than to learning with a group of people since in a group, they have often learned to be heroes and/or excel by leaning on one limited set of skills with people prone to worship technical talent.

When I do intake before I start the work itself, I ask 15 questions in a 2 hour session. Here are 6 of the questions that I ask before we start to work to begin to understand who I am working with.

  • What are the major assumptions that you have about what makes leadership “happen”?
  • What can’t leaders do?
  • What is the added value that a leader should provide towards clients, boss’ and peers? Direct and indirect reports?
  • What events detract from a leader’s influence?
  • What are some of the reasons you can think of why people would not follow you?
  • What are some of the main reasons that you followed and did not follow people who have led you?

Follow me @AllonShevat

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After a reorg, nothing changes

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I have witnessed hundreds of reorganizations which have resulted in either no change, or a change for the worse.

The goal of this post are to point out why reorganizations fail.

At face value, reorganizations are implemented to improve the organizational ability to adapt to changing circumstance.

Another unspoken but very real reason for a reorganization is that senior management needs to buy time, and what buys time better than a reorganization, which can often result in a year of grace from pressure from above.

Yet another reason for a reorganization is that it is “doing”, which serves as a message that the status quo is untenable. And management often believes that doing “something” now is better than taking time and figuring out what needs to be done.

Change management and industrial engineers have promulgated a myth that reorganizations are more manageable than they really are, so managers feel more certain that reorganizations can be well controlled, and thus use the reorganization medication frequently.

There are many reasons why reorganizations fail. Here are the top three which come to mind.

  1. Most people have been through many reorganizations, and have learned the defence mechanisms necessary to protect themselves. So structure changes but individual behaviour becomes more self protective, resulting in a reduction in efficiency and effectiveness.
  2. Paralyzing processes, poor products, unskilled/demotivated engineers and a shitty cultures (pardon me)  are not cured by a reorganization.
  3. In order to support structural reorganization , massive investment goes into promulgating instant stability!. Massive investment is made in definitions,  new processes and re-freezing. Yet far too often, these massive efforts does not impact what makes a reorganization fail: politics,  poor leadership, incompetence and poor teamwork.

The type of OD work which is necessary to support reorganization  is not serving as  the CEO’s Vaseline with pre-packaged OD products, as it were, which purport to “manage the change” .

In a reorganization mode, OD needs to focus on ensuring that something else changes, not only the structure. Most time, reorganizations are merely turf grabs, as Terry Seamon notes below in his comments.

But only the best CEO’s want to expose themselves to this type of hardball OD in the first year of a reorganization.

Most CEO’s prefer to use the year of grace, freed from the prattle of an OD consultant whose input creates “noise” by focusing on abstracts like politics and trust.

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4 factors that impact the ability to integrate an Israel based start up

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The art of post merger acquisition is difficult regardless of cultural differences. When the culture of the Israel start-up is factored into the equation, the challenges of post merger integration become daunting.

This post will focus on 4 factors that will impact the ability to integrate an Israel based start up after its acquisition.

1) The Israel market has a crushing demand for top talent. So it really does not matter what type of stay bonuses are put in place after acquisition, there is a good chance that top talent will be lost. And because Israel start ups have so few processes and so much “oral law”, the chances are that not only talent will be lost, but also unrecoverable knowledge .

2) Israel is a very modern society and appears very western in its cultural accoutrements.. But Israel is not Western at all: relationships are more important than process, the “old buddy” network is impregnable similar to the Chinese old friend clique, and the communication style within the inner circle is very different than the communication with the outer one. Very few non Israelis get into the Israeli inner circle within the first 3-5 years acquisition.

3) Transparency is a rare commodity Like the Chinese, Israelis believe that transparency maybe foolish, especially when it gives HQ the possibility to screw you.

4) Israelis argue all the time about everything, both with one another and with their bosses. This is very time consuming when doing anything, large or small, because one cannot give “marching orders” to the Israel based manager and assume that things will happen. Corporate directives often encountered with the fiercest resistance due to lack of discipline and rugged individualism, the same rugged individualism and lack of discipline  that enabled the innovation to begin with!

My next posts will address what is to be done when acquiring an Israeli company.

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Missing Montreal; je me souviens

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In my long career as an OD consultant, I have had the opportunity to work in Montreal about a dozen times.

I used the time in Montreal to visit my parents and grandparents graves, meet with old friends, ski at Mt Chevreuil  and speak as much French as I could. I also walked for hours and hours on the mountain.

Today, of all days, I have been inundated by pleasant memories from Montreal. Today, Montreal has been visiting me today. Today, Montreal chose what I remember.

  • The Montreal snow has a very squeaking sound when underfoot. I loved walking in the extreme cold, and few things in life are as piercing cold as the Montreal winter.
  • The 17 bus used to take me to Parc Belmont Park in Cartierville  The driver called out all the stations along the way in French and English. Finally:  “Parc Belmont-Belmont Park. Tout le monde descend svp, please get off the bus.”
  • My grandfather owned  a boxing ring at the Medical Arts Building on Sherbrooke and Cote de Neiges. When I was a boy, I would visit him at the gym.  In those days, telephone numbers had a name as a prefix. The telephone number of his gym was Fitzroy 4022. This was in 1957.
  • When the Metro opened in Montreal, I learnt all the names of the stations by heart. And I remember the smell of the rubber tires on the Metro. I worked at the Worlds’ Fair in 1967 at The Human Cell, La Cellule humaine. My supervisor, Art Laurent, was French Canadian. We used to talk a lot after work in French. I learnt more French from old Art than from all the years in the Protestant School Board’s schools that I attended.
  • I spent many summers at Lac-des-Écorces far north of Montreal.  In the evenings, I used to go either to Val Barrette or Mont Laurier to eat. And believe you me, that was a very good way of learning French. I miss having French all around me.
  • Garland Terminus was a bus interchange station.The trip to the dentist entailed 3 buses: 116, 17 (change at Garland) and 62. Everyone interchanged at Garland.

Sorry to have bored you all. Next time, back of OD. Promise.

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OD’s fate is “signed and sealed”

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According to Jewish tradition, one’s fate is signed on New Year’s Day (Wednesday evening, Sept 24th) and one’s fate is sealed on the Day of Atonement, which falls the week after New Year’s. The days between the signing and the sealing of one’s fate are the Days of Awe, when supposedly the verdict can be overturned. (For those of us who resent having religion rammed down our throats, this is a punishing time to live in a semi-theocracy.)

However, while I am agnostic and I spend these “holy” days at the beach doing non-holy activities, the tradition and metaphor are useful.

OD’s fate is signed and sealed. There are many reasons why OD is rotting away. Follow this link if you want the gory details. The grisly execution of OD has been in progress for the decade. Unlike the executions we all see on TV as of late (which happen in my liberal neighbourhood), the dying process of OD is prolonged.

So what is there to atone about?

Well, universities and colleges and other institutes of learning are pumping out OD consultants as if the demand for OD is insatiable. This is an absurdity because there is very little work in OD for the new generation of OD “technicians”, unless they want to work for some canned-training company or support degenerative BPRs which are the very antithesis of OD.

Students spend years and years learning a disappearing profession which is self-destructing and being cannibalized. I must get 50 calls and emails a month asking me “if I need an assistant” or “where can I find some work, anything”. My message to these people is loud and clear-you chose the wrong profession. Go get retrained.

Yes there is plenty of work if you have been on the road as long as I have and have built up a reputation and areas of domain expertise (in my example global organizations, new product introduction and mergers). But there is almost nothing around for the newcomer, who wants to do OD the right way, not as an order taker for “3 workshops on people skills, medium rare”

And the universities need to atone for misleading thousands of people who have made the wrong career choice. Probably they cannot, because universities themselves are trapped in their own paralysing paradigm.

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Don’t ignore the underworld of poor team work.

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No other discipline can deliver results as powerful as can OD in the domain of teamwork.

This having been said, too many OD practitioners look at teamwork out of context and proceed to work with organic teams or “cousin groups”  to develop team effectiveness before examining the context in which the team operates.

This post will focus on what an OD practitioner needs to both look at and deal with in order to create a context for team work, regardless of the specific team.

1) Does the organization have an expectation that clearer defined roles and responsibilities as well as adherence to process are essential to team work?

Because the truth is:  teamwork’s added value is that it compensates for the inability of process and total role clarity to enable the work flow. Often poor team work is a result of overdosing on process and clarity  to control work flow.

Creating a context for teamwork entails working on teamwork as a compensation for the system in order to get it to work.

2) Does the organization recruit team players at the top?

Because if the organization is led by people who maximise their subsystems. there “ain’t gonna be no teamwork”.

Creating a context for teamwork entails working on the optimization of subsystems at the top of the organization.

3) Does the organization fund face to face interaction?

No amount of technology can compensate for the alienation inherent in the global configuration of organizations. People who do not meet face to face will not be able to work well as a team, especially if the issues at hand are complex and need a lot of healthy heated interaction to solve.

Creating a context for teamwork entails insisting that face to face dialogue is budgeted.

4) Does the organization overcommit to its customers?

If the organization has hallucinatory  commitments to its customers, the entire organization will be covering their ass to show that they are not guilty for the inevitable slips that will occur in both schedules and costs. Teamwork in over committed organizations is a critical success factor, but very rare.

Creating a context for teamwork entails removing the “blame game” and working on the over commitment, not just the team work.

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