Employeeship (or 'Medarbetarskap' as it's known is Sweden) has taken taken organisations by storm but doing it properly eludes many. The concept is simple. Natural teams come together to discuss subjects that we don't tend to discuss at the workplace: what is loyalty, self awareness, work and life goals, openness and transparency, work fulfillment and pride to name but a few. When it's done properly, the result are astounding with reduced stress and absence, improved customer service and profitability and, most importantly the growth of grounded people.
From experience though, there's a few traps lurking that can hinder progress, here's our experience.
1) Too much fear and cynicism. We wouldn't suggest that anywhere that struggles with cynicism starts with Employeeship....it will feel too much like hard work. The foundations require that people are at least able to reflect on how they are being and are able to articulate it. Cynicism would suggest something in the line of Leadership development would be a best first step.
2) Leadership seeing it as something for others to embrace. Often the most powerful intervention is simply to encourage employeeship conversations amongst the leadership community in an organisation. Imagine if your 'top team' were grounded individuals who were transparent people taking responsibility and accountability and who were open to feedback too! Those that expect it to start 'elsewhere' are missing the point.
3) Seeing it as a quick fix. This isn't about developing a flipchart full of actions or a milestone plan of tactics that the team are going to take. This is about reflecting on who we are as individuals who are choosing to work together as a team, changing the way in which we reflect and communicate with each other. This kind of change is self-organising and unpredictable AND very powerful too. Beware the CFO who is demanding a ROI in the first 6 months, rather celebrate a CEO that wabts to bring about lasting, transformational change.
4) Not listening first. We have always started with some focus group work to explore what's really going on in the organisation. This is critical in deciding what is the priority and sequence in the first dialogues. It's also useful to get advice from a cross section of people what seems to work in the way change is embraced. The key is to find out what works and do more of it.
5) Involving managers from different departments in the first workshops. This process of change requires critical mass. In the words of the complex systems change folks, it requires small 'containers'. Getting a large cross section together will dilute the energy afterwards. Go small but concentrated would be our advice.
6) Not developing effective facilitation skills. The word facilitation comes from the Latin root 'facile' or 'facere' which literally means to make it easy. Well trained facilitators are adept at asking high quality questions that probe the thoughts of a group and take the conversation to new depths...Empoyeeship is not trivial or superficial so this skill is key.
7) Reading from the script. A build on number 6 above is the extent to which the facilitator uses the Employeeship dialogues as a support or a script. The latter produces dialogues in the team that are much like working through checklists. However using the dialogues as a framework can allow the conversation to flourish
8) Not having the logistics sorted out. This requires that every natural team sets aside a 3 hour face to face meeting once every 4 - 6 weeks apart over a 6 -12 month period. With cross functional and global teams this can be challenging but it needs planning and committing too at the outset. There's nothing more damaging than a deteriorating level of participation as the process is underway.
With the increasing take-up of Employeeship as organisations are experiencing trauma, we expect to determine much more learning...and we're also very keen to hear from those who are participating in this type of change too so your comments are more than welcome.
Cheers
Trevor
No comments:
Post a Comment