PUBLISHED ARTICLES
Do You Really Want Leaders?
By Zigmund Sepanski
Published in Amcham Magazine
How to Evaluate & Motivate Employees in Central Europe
by Zigmund Sepanski, edited for Western Distribution |
American Chamber of Commerce Journal
Managing Transition During Major Company Changes
By Zigmund Sepanski | Transition Management Presentation for Dean Foods division
Most Training is a Waste of Money
By Zigmund Sepanski
Published in American Chamber of Commerce Journal
The Role of Human Resources in Developing Countries
By Zigmund Sepanski
Published in American Chamber of Commerce Journal
Value of Multi-Level Assesment Feedback
By Zigmund Sepanski
Published in American Chamber of Commerce Journal
How to Make your Home Based Agent Life Easier
By Zigmund Sepanski
Travelmakers
AKA Zygmunt Szczepanski
By Zigmund Sepanski | published in Amcham Journal
Most companies can only guess at what the real problems are within their organization. As a result, restructuring, redirection and training are mostly “hit and miss” propositions. Many times the deeply rooted reasons for performance problems are overlooked and never solved.
Multi-rater feedback assessments (MRA), available and used by large corporations for the last 15 years, were expensive, cumbersome and difficult to modify. Today’s new generation of MRA’s is different. They are more affordable, flexible, paperless and more widely used by medium and smaller companies.
MRAs, also known as 360 or 20/20 because they measure and obtain feedback all around and have “perfect vision to internal company issues,” are the latest in the management arsenal of weapons, and a very powerful one.
They give you a cross section of perceptions within the firm, which result in a clearer picture of the real problem. They are independent and uncoached reactions to behaviors which affect performance and relationships between co-workers, departments, superiors, subordinates, divisions and customers. These working relationships are critical because they can make or break all types of performance within a company.
ITT, BASF, Dell, G.E., Capital, Hilton Hotels, Kraft General Foods, MCI, US Naval Warfare Center, Time Life Inc., TRW, Xerox Corporation and Tandem are just some of the companies now using 20/20 MRAs to determine what needs to be changed or retrained. The specific program they use is called 20/20 Insight by Performance Support Systems. Here is a typical scenario of the assessment flow:
1. First they position it with their employees as a diagnostic tool that helps determine the strengths and weaknesses of their organizations in many different areas.
2. Once the diagnosis is performed and results analyzed, the company becomes much better prepared to improve the way that people and systems work together. This in turn improves performance, work relationships, team building, customer satisfaction and ultimately profitability….it all begins with the people!
3. The report that is generated from the assessments is used to decide what the best approach is to capitalize on strengths, or to correct weaknesses in the organization. This might be done by a number of methods, examples include:
a. Revising organizational structure to put people in roles that will allow them to really do what they are best suited to do.
b. Target training programs to areas that are critical to improve.
c. Perform one on one coaching with managers to develop areas of weaknesses.
d. Help individuals to design a self-study program that would develop weak areas.
e. Design team, department or whole organization events, brain storming sessions etc. that would allow designated groups to improve relationships and work methods.
f. Simply improving the processes that are identified as a hindrance to performance and customer satisfaction.
After remedial steps are taken the instrument is run again to measure the effectiveness of whatever was done, whether it be training, coaching, process revision, etc…
Steps in implementing a 20/20 MRA:
1. You decide what department, job function, process or skill you would like to evaluate within the organization.
2. Next you decide which individual’s; department’s etc. assessments will be done.
3. Questions that come standard with the system are reviewed to determine appropriateness and changed/added/eliminated as desired.
4. You select the report formats that would be most beneficial.
5. Next decide who will do assessments. It is best to use a cross section of peers, managers, customers, suppliers….depending on the situation. The more variety and quantity of “raters” you use, the more reliable the information. (10 is a good number, but never less than 6)
Raters complete the questions and upload the information back to a designated administrator of consultant. NO ONE-EXCEPT THE RATER can look at the information as the rater has established his own password. IT MUST BE CONFIDENTIAL.
The reports are interpreted as to their meaning and what action is best to develop the individual or group as needed. A consultant should to the interpretation to obtain an unbiased result.
A good multi-rater tool should be so flexible that it can be used for many purposes. It should be customizable to your needs, and it can be used to support many different areas
Competency Development
Create skill areas and behaviors to be assessed for a specific position.
Skill Assessment
Assess skills for interpersonal or technical areas.
Needs Assessment
Print reports at any time for any individual, group or the entire organization.
Leadership Development
Diagnose individual interpersonal skill strengths and areas for development.
Team Development
Diagnose individual interpersonal skill strengths and areas for development.
Level 3 Evaluation of Training
Compare data before and after training to determine the impact of training on performance.
Customer Satisfaction Research
Survey opinions of external and internal customers.
The popularity of Multi-Rater Assessments in the world is soaring daily due to the PC and the new flexibility not found before. The latest generation programs are PCand Mac based, do not require programming changes to modify question sets, do not require paper input, do not require that the program company compile all data at a costly rate. It’s probably a good time to look into MRAs, for your company.
© Zigmund Sepanski 1998
MOST TRAINING IS A WASTE OF MONEY
By Zigmund Sepanski |Published in American Chamber of Commerce Journal
Yes, you read the title right. Most training is a waste of money. You might think that is a strange statement coming from someone who owns a couple of businesses that include major training divisions. Let me share with you two major reasons why I believe that most training does little good.
THE FIRST REASON
Method of training program selection
Look at this typical sales scenario:
Sales are not increasing as fast as management wants. Competitors are multiplying. Corporate offices send goals down that need salesmen who can jump tall buildings and you have managers who think that their salespeople can only jump over short barns. So, what is the answer? Training.
So you train them on sales skills. They sit through three days of the same stuff they sat through last year. A few things click. They do a couple of things differently. Very little of it actually works. Much of it is forgotten or not used since there is no frequent repetition. Much of it cannot be used for the second reason, which we discuss later in this article.
So where is the problem? Human Resources (HR) did its job. If they do not sell, it is their fault. You gave them a band-aid when they needed an organ transplant. You gave them an ice cream when they needed a cutlet and potatoes. You gave them a ping-pong ball when they needed a soccer ball. This is a bottom line game. Training should only be given to improve the bottom line, both in the short and long term. That means training has to address specific, and identified, deficiencies.
More and more firms all over the world are now realizing that there is one crucial step which cannot be left out before a company decides on the type of training required. And this step is so important, so vital that its absence builds an entirely false training foundation.
This first critical step is gathering and reporting performance feedback through a multi-rater assessment. In other words, first identifying, usually through computer-based technology, what skills or processes really need improvement, and then addressing those issues with specific remedies or targeted training, as opposed to spaghetti training (hope something that is relevant will stick to the wall when thrown against it).
This up-front analysis, sometime referred to as “360” or “20/20”, involves first measuring customer, management and staff perceptions of firm’s services, employees, processes and behaviors in the department where improvement is desired. The computer then prints out a completely detailed report that identifies areas of competency development, together with skill and needs assessments.
Taking a simple request for sales training, HR does a multi-rater assessment first. This assessment usually covers at least ten different competency areas that include everything from organizational skills to customer service skills, from management skills to follow-through habits. These instruments are taken in different forms by sales managers, customers and sales personnel alike, and are confidential.
Only the one who took the instrument sees his individual and his customer results and areas he need to improve. Then, all results are rolled up into report summaries that are charted and presented in different categories that identify deficiencies on a department and firm scale.
Now you have an exact report on what needs to be changed. It may be a behavioral habit change; it may be a skill-set change.
Most often, this analysis shows that an underlying habit, more important than sales training, needs to be changed. Then, and only then, do you approve targeted training or request process modification to improve the bottom line.
Identifying deficiencies first in the processes does much more good than just training and de-motivating a well-trained staff because they cannot overcome poor processes. The famous Dr. Deming changed the entire mentality of the Japanese industry by improving its quality partially through his examples of how poor processes defeat profit no matter how well trained employees may be.
HR departments are increasingly becoming aware that their responsibilities are not to train staff first but instead to identify what habits/processes need to be changed, and followed with training.
REASON NUMBER TWO
Managers are left out of the training.
Inevitably, this scenario happens in most training:
Seminar leader: Did you learn anything in the seminar?
Participants: Yes, a lot.
Seminar leader: Have you learned new skills that will help you in your job?
Participants: Yes, these are great.
Seminar leader: So, will you start using them on Monday?
Participants: No.
Seminar leader: Why not?
Participants: Because our managers were not here and they will not let us use these techniques; they do not know about them.
Do you know how many times we have heard that? Recently, we gave a customer satisfaction training to middle managers of a major company. These managers were so excited. They were just amazed at the opportunity to show the customer that they cared which resulted in repeat business and a better bottom line.
“Please, please,” they begged. “Can you give the same training to their top managers? We cannot implement what learned to improve customer satisfaction because our bosses do not know what we were taught.” You might as well throw your money out the window. These people will get frustrated and eventually become unmotivated and leave.
You can teach your people teamwork. But unless their bosses are trained in teamwork, those people who were trained have no choice but to go back and use the same techniques they used before. You can teach your people effective time management. But unless their bosses permit them to use the time management techniques, they learned they have no choice but to obey their time wasting habits. You can teach your people customer satisfaction. But unless their bosses were trained in customer satisfaction, you just threw your money right out the window. Now you see a second reason why most training does not work.
Before you start your training plan for this year, think about measuring what really needs to be changed first. Second, make sure that management is included.
THIRD
Do follow up training re-inforcement. If there is no accountability to implement techniques learned old habits will return fast.
REASON NUMBER TWO
Managers are left out of the training.
Inevitably, this scenario happens in most training:
Seminar leader: Did you learn anything in the seminar?
Participants: Yes, a lot.
Seminar leader: Have you learned new skills that will help you in your job?
Participants: Yes, these are great.
Seminar leader: So, will you start using them on Monday?
Participants: No.
Seminar leader: Why not?
Participants: Because our managers were not here and they will not let us use these techniques; they do not know about them.© 2013 Zigmund Sepanski
Managing Transition During Major Company Changes
Transition Management Presentation for Dean Foods division, 2013
SUMMARY
This is a time of tremendous change due to acqusition and streamlining initiatives. This summary outlines the steps required to make transition least painful for employees and retain the highest level of profitability.
SENSE OF FEAR, LOSS AND ANGER SETS IN
Of the four stages of change this division is in the RESISTANCE STAGE where all employees, including top managers and supervisors are experiencing a sense of loss:
A. loss of power
B. loss of control
C. loss of stability
D. loss of security
E. loss of direction
F. loss of connection with company history
These feelings are natural and should be managed to a termination point that transfers from resistance to engagement. At the same time management must realize that such change that you are going through is disruptive and causes great discomfort in the short run. It requires a whole new mind set. However that is a part of natural progression. If it was not disruptive it would not be different from the past.
During this stage people will grumble, old timers will unconsciously sabotage progress, accidents and absences increase and resignations may occur. Top management who initiates the change sees signs of danger and sometimes reacts with the wrong solution. Work that should take 6 hours takes 10 hours due to misdirected focus and emotional employee response.
WORKFLOW WILL EXPAND
One of the by-products of rapid change is that work which should take a certain amount of hours takes longer. Your managers may complain that they have too much to do and too little time under the new system. There are several reasons for it:
1. They are forced to go out of their comfort zone and break old work habits. This is not easy and many managers continue the old work habits that they try to apply to the new system. This WILL NOT work and everything takes longer.
2. They may not have the skill sets required under the new regime and need re-training.
3. They focus on the negative “how we used to be” instead on the opportunity the new system provides. This distracts them from performing their best.
4. They may not be able to manage time properly because of the chaos created in their mind due to the changes. As a result everything takes longer
5. They might be confused as to what is important and what is not because they are out of their comfort or expertise zone, lack direction from the top or are not used to a number of dotted line requests.
6. Middle managers are pulled in a variety of directions and they don’t know which way to turn. Leadership, training and clear directions from the top are needed.
MANAGER REACTION VS. SUBORDINATES
OPPORTUNITY DRIVEN:
This manager will go forward and force the change on his/her subordinates irrespective whether they understand, buy in, or are ready for the change. These managers implement change by order and by memo and there are no options. They will have a short-term success spike, followed with resignations and burn-out from subordinates. In the longer term productivity may drop and a high turn-over will result. These are very good managers but they rely more on dictatorial tactics to push the change through.
AFFILIATION and EMPATHY DRIVEN
On the other side of the spectrum we will have those managers who want to be liked and treat their people with kid gloves. They will allow a slow pace of transition and will burn themselves out while trying to appease everyone. Their department will have lower productivity because resistance to this change will take longer than it should.
COMMUNICATION DRIVEN
Somewhere in the middle is your manager who realizes that the change has to be implemented in a timely fashion, with understanding that employees are going through a loss and that this loss has to be addressed before this resistance stage changes to engagement stage. This manager controls the length of that loss, implements communication programs to channel it within reasonable time limits and drives reasonable implementation of the engagement stage.
BRIEF SUGGESTIONS for STRATEGY MEETING
1. You should have a Change Transition Team. Too many times only one top manager takes it on his/her shoulders to guide the company through this change.
2. All managers need to understand that the resistance stage is a natural stage when such rapid changes happen. Managers reaction to their concerns will either drive or put a break on success of their engagement. In a very recent Gallup poll it was clear that “key drivers for engagement are more about personal relationships that people have with their managers.” Engagement Strategies Magazine, Summer 2009.
3. H.R. manager or I should do a 3-4 hour session with small groups of managers and supervisors explaining what the natural human reaction is to this rapid change. It is vital that they understand the need for communication and how their subordinates react.
a. Learn how change affects the emotional well being of their employees
b. List the things that they are giving up in the “way it used to be”
c. Goodbye ceremony. Although at first top management sees this as unnecessary this little exercise does a lot for morale and helps in the transition. At the end of the above 3-4 hour meeting in the group the managers write down what they miss from the old company and in a ceremony they bury them in a time capsule or write them on balloons and let them go
4. Then the GM needs to have a meeting with these managers in a small two- three hour meetings.
a. Now that we let go of the old company….
b. What are you going to do to be engaged in the new company?
5. Ensure that right people are in the right positions:
It is a tendency in a “family” oriented company to try and save everyone. We all know that some people are not meant to be in the position they are in. This is either because they do not have the skills developed or they are not a good fit irrespective of the skills. HR needs to match the skill of existing managers to the skills required. Institute training for those who are trainable, move others to different positions where they fit or move them out if there is no fit. Under the new system moving people out if they do not fit is acceptable. Conduct individual skill assessments as outlined by Pam.
6. Reward for the change. Show the individuals and team that once they cross from resistance to engagement they will be rewarded.
7. Provide a prioritization and time management class for supervisors and managers.
8. Identify old work methods and throw them out.
9. Measure work and nature of work load through an independent time-load study of several key people
10. Reduce all unnecessary meetings
A FEW ACTION ITEMS FOR MANAGEMENT:
1. Identify who is losing something, (see sense of fear at top of this memo)
2. Identify what behavior changes they will have to make
a. What they need to stop doing
b. What old habits they need to break
c. What secondary changes this will cause
d. What unexpected circumstances can happen
d. What new habits they need to pick up
3. In meetings with them have them identify what they miss.
a. Keep asking why
b. Have them identify specific losses
c. Bring their losses in the open
4. Once losses are identified, can you give them something to make up
Copyright 2013 Zigmund Sepanski
Articles written by Zigmund
Multi-level assessments
Most training is a waste
Managing transition & change