Harnessing Change to Develop Talent and Beat the Competition

James D. Spina, Lori J. Spina

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781839099984
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Gestión de recursos humanos

Developing talent is at the heart of any successful business, but in an age of changing technology and social needs, how can you best adapt to a new world and develop the talent your company needs?
Harnessing Change to Develop Talent and Beat the Competition explores how organizations can formulate effective corporate level and business level strategies to achieve competitive advantage, earn above average profits, build and retain talent, and sustain financial strength. Fitting into the gaps left by existing books, expert authors James and Lori Spina explore the ideas and actions business can take to meet local needs.
For executives making strategic business decisions, and for practitioners and researchers across the business industry, this exciting new guide helps people striving to obtain new levels of responsibility within an organization, reinvigorate existing processes, and implementing a new strategic management system.

1

Harnessing Change

It is a fact that every organization will experience transitions over time. An acronym often used to describe organizations of today, is “VUCA” (The Economist 7/7/18). It stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.

For example, experienced business executives know that “all engagements come to an end.” Engagements can refer to any type of interaction between and among individuals and groups. Scenarios from both quarters can occur internally or externally.

Consider the following: a long-time employee decides to retire; another hard-to-replace person decides to leave the organization for greener pastures; a change in management of a key client causes you to lose the account; your CEO is accused of malfeasance and is suspended by the Board. The list of transitions can go on and on, with negative results often following the events.

Just as often, transitions can be brought about by new technologies or regulations from governing agencies. Bad luck, such as storm damage, can also be a major factor.

Harnessing Change refers to ways to embrace change options to address the VUCA transitions and the actions needed to take as a result.

Key Reasons for Change Effort Failures

Research tells us that most change efforts fail. A lack of urgency is usually the primary reason that such efforts collapse under their own weight. However, many failures of mergers and acquisitions are usually caused by unmanageable cultural issues even when urgently acted upon.

Often a “flavor of the month” mentality prevents people from buying into proposed changes. The idea is that if we wait long enough, the proposed change will be forgotten as new issues arise and we can avoid the efforts to make it happen.

Procrastination is the watchword that some people use as a shield to avoid active participation designed to give them time to dodge getting on board. Common avoidance replies to requests for participation often emerge as “It needs more study” or “We tried that before” and “It's not in the budget.” Avoidance becomes a work style for too many resisters of change. Another huge problem is the fear of losing something if a strategic change is made in an organization. People tend to fear the unknown.

A typical fear-driven response is, “If it ain't broke don't fix it!” There is an alternative way to view the status quo as an opportunity to seek change rather than looking at it as too uncomfortable to move ahead. Think about a car that you have owned and carefully maintained for several years. It still looks good, runs well and is all yours with no bank as a partner.

However, it is approaching 10 years of age with 200,000 miles on the odometer. Out-of-sight parts made of rubber are beginning to deteriorate, presenting potential unexpected problems. New technologies that appeal to you for safety are lacking. While it ain't broke now, might it be a good idea to keep your eyes open for an upgrade before you have no choice but to get rid of it?

In other words, continually be on the lookout for new opportunities to improve how your organization operates while you preserve effective operations. This is not an easy task and the way leaders work to achieve this is critical.

If you believe you are comfortable dealing with change, let it be known that you encourage the generation of new ideas, and employees will not be punished for suggestions on new directions. To help you with this, an “Open to Change” self-assessment to help identify the degree of your openness to change is in order.

Method #2 “Open to Change: Self-Assessment” *

Consider the following agree or disagree statements and respond to them using the scale with total frankness:
Strongly Agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
1	2	3	4	5
1. I continually look for new ways to improve my business skills.
_____
2. I make things happen while others just watch.
_____
3. I know that maintaining the status quo often leads to failure.
_____
4. Reasonable risk-taking is comfortable for me in business and in my life.
_____
5. I continually share our business challenges with my staff openly.
____
6. I encourage business decisions to be made at the lowest possible levels.
_____
7. I am comfortable with ambiguity and risk.
_____
8. I feel excited about new ways to solve business problems.
_____
9. I am positive about the future of our organization and optimistic about life.
_____
10. I trust the people who work for me to make good decisions.
_____
11. I drive out fear in our organization at every opportunity.
_____
12. I believe that we can learn from our failures and encourage risk-taking by employees.
____
Total Score _____

^*Self-Assessment Scores: Change ready, and supportive change leaders score low on this assessment. People who need to reflect on their change readiness will score high. The scores will range from a low of 12 to a high of 60. The closer a person scores to 12 the more ready they tend to be when accepting change.

Understanding Change Supportive Leadership Behaviors

Some leadership styles support the idea that the examination of changes as should be viewed as opportunities to beat competitors rather than as things to fear and avoid. There are at least 10 or more theories of leadership that are addressed in textbooks or presented at seminars and workshops. This book is not intended to be a text on learning all about those theories. As an active executive, you have undoubtedly had the opportunity to sign up to attend a seminar or encountered the various theories in your studies. Like many of us, you may have found contradictions, duplications, and perhaps felt some confusion in what was under discussion.

In our experiences derived from our research, teaching and application of leadership styles in a variety of businesses, we suggest that “keeping your leadership behaviors simple” will offer the best chance to introduce change initiatives that work well and “stick” as standard operating procedure.

As an example of simplicity, among the many leadership skills you will need to master is learning and discovering ways to motivate people. This effort entails finding out what they want from the work experience and tailoring rewards for high performance to meet those needs.

Just as important, learning about your own needs emitting from the work experience, and the behaviors you exhibit in pursuing them, is paramount for leadership success, and understanding how you are perceived by those you lead is another lens to use in ensuring such success.

When the performance of someone or some department is below expectations, effective leaders address the weaknesses using communication techniques in a mature manner rather than a parental approach. Respected leaders are known to find solutions to difficult challenges where everyone wins in contrast where one faction “wins” and others lose. Respected leaders accept the fact that changes pose risks and view good faith failures as opportunities to learn and continue to move ahead to achieve strategies.

There are several self-assessment instruments available to help you understand the way you view your leadership skills and how they may be viewed by others. See Appendix 1 for recommendations.

We recommend Peter G. Northouse's book entitled Leadership – Theory and Practice as a valuable, highly readable, and concise overview of the most important findings on leadership styles available (SAGE Publications, ISBN: 0-7619-2566-X (pbk)).

Seminal Change Research Theory: Serious researchers began to explore the topic on change theories in the 1930s. The best-known work from that period is that of Kurt Lewin who introduced the concept of reducing the forces that wish to maintain the status quo in an organization and opened the door to a more critical thinking approach to change in organizations.

In the 1960s, Donald Kirkpatrick built upon past research and modeled an approach to managing change with specific steps and proceeded to add planning charts designed to bring a more humanistic approach to the process.

In the 1980s, John Kotter refined the existing research to step up a multistepped plan to bring about planned change that had a better chance to stick than experienced in the past. In 2017, then Secretary of State, Tillerson, spoke of “delivering incremental wins” (WSJ 10/20/17), a key concept of current research and its application to managing change.

So, how does the application of past and recent research work to make change “stick”? Where should you start? As professional sport team managers know, going back to basics can be a good first step toward making changes to improve performance.

For example, first try listening to employees and even their third-party representatives. Common knowledge tells us that most people don't listen well. Poor listening skills often lead to botched change efforts. To strengthen your change management skills, here are some simple steps to remember to become an active listener:

Method #3 “Three Key Listening Skills for Successful Change” – Opens the door to effective problem-solving discussions.”

1. After the other person finishes presenting an idea, repeat what was said before you provide a personal response with your “two cents worth”.

Here's a typical exchange in a manufacturing situation about cost of living wage decisions.

Union Steward: “Chief, we think that we need to change the way things are done around here.”

Boss: “OK, so the union thinks that systems for making cost of living wage decisions need to be changed.”

Union Rep: “Right”.

2. Before introducing more information, ask a clarifying question to show understanding and open the door to meaningful discussion.

Boss: “The scuttle-butt seems to say that we give too little, too late. Is that the issue?”

Union Steward: “You got it right, boss”.

Boss: “So what* do you suggest?”

Now, both players are starting from the same place and the floor opens to a detailed discussion.

*Note: The word “what” is an important term to keep in mind and use to keep a positive discussion going. It invites the other party to contribute his or her ideas for moving to a constructive conclusion.

Too often the word “why” turns up, and it presents an adult to child challenge to the discussion resulting in a response of “because”.

Simple example:

Mother: “You can't go out tonight.”

Child: “Why?”

Mother: “Because I say so, and I'm your Mother! End of story!”

Substitute Boss for Mother and Employee for Child to get a clea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author Biographies
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Harnessing Change
• 2 A Strategic Management System
• 3 Critical Thinking Skills for Success
• 4 Strategic Cultural Considerations
• 5 Motivating People to Embrace Change
• 6 Competitive Analysis
• 7 Creative Thinking Methods That Work
• 8 Using the Strategic Management System
• 9 Cooperative Strategies to Sink Competitors
• 10 Succession Planning for Sustainability
• 11 Future Challenges to Success
• 12 Looking Ahead: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Developing Talent
• 13 Readiness to Move Ahead
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2 Primary References – Classic and Current
• Appendix 3 60-Second Seminars
• Appendix 4 US Navy Talent Development Program
• Bibliography
• Index