The Mid-level Gap

No, I’m not talking retail, I’m talking about the development gap that exists somewhere around Middle Management and Director level professionals. Most Executive-level employees will tell you that there just doesn’t seem to be enough good leaders out there to take over executive functions yet there seems to be a void in development activity for the next level of leaders. And I think the problem is two-fold.

The Content Problem

Entry level managers have access to all sorts of developmental opportunities – management classes, project management classes, priority management classes, meeting management classes, decision-making classes, problem solving classes, the list goes on.  And relatively, the developmental classes are fairly inexpensive for the gains received.

Executives, too, have a fair share of options. Most of which focus on coaching and specific developmental mentors or business strategy driven development. There are Executive MBA programs and senior leadership retreats reaching into the tens of thousands of dollars. Typically, a good executive coach will cost you close to or over $10k as it is.

Mid-level managers (MLMs) or Director level employees, however, seem to experience a gap in the availability of options. While some (and I mean, very few) have already taken some of the entry-level classes (some need to go back in my opinion) most of the training that MLMs or Directors are aware of target towards those entry-level employees. Or at least that is the perception, which brings me to the next hurdle.

The Perception Problem

Most MLMs and Directors think they are doing a good job, but most of their employees don’t. A number of studies have shown this perception gap in management performance and yet, many MLMs and Directors hold fast to the belief that training is something for their employees, not them.  Oddly enough, this is the group many 360 assessment instruments are designed towards…yet, very few are used.  It is complete ignorance, or is it fear of the answer?  I suppose that answer depends on the person but one thing is true, the more classes I teach of supervisory basics, the more I hear people say “my bosses should take this class.”

The Incentive Problem

At most organizations, there is just no incentive for people to develop themselves. And this is a universal once you get past individual contributor level. While companies profess the value of promoting internally, it happens less than 50% of the time. So the odds are actually against you getting promoted over an external hire. While many companies will make a training course or two mandatory, taking more does not gain you favor or increase your bonus or raise at the end of the year. With the stress of doing more with less in today’s workplace, most managers (unless there is some direct corollary to their status or pay) will opt to not spend half a day or longer learning to do their jobs better. The benefit of doing so is just too far off of people’s radar to make it a priority.

The Budget Control Problem

The point at which most managers become aware and responsible for their total annual budgets is right around MLM or Director level. This is often the first time employees are also judged on whether they come under budget or go over. And easy thing to always cut is self-development, especially given the reasons above. And most upper level development interventions such as coaching 360 assessments, conferences, retreats, are fairly expensive, sometimes $10k and up.  Which is often 10% or more of a MLMs/Director’s salary. So the developmental dollars are spent developing others (if at all.)

The Cost of the Gap

The ultimate cost of all these factors is a serious talent gap that companies are experiencing…and paying through the nose for. Not only in soft costs but in recruiting effort and hiring bonuses for people with specific experience. It also is a contributing factor to paradox of high unemployment but a talent shortage.  So while millions are out of work, most companies have positions that are nearly impossible to fill (despite the hundred of applicants).  And part of that problem goes back to the budget issue, most companies are not actively developing people at middle levels. In the past few companies I have worked with I would estimate 80% of talent development budget is spent on entry-level and individual contributor level roles, 10% on line-supervisor roles, and perhaps another 5-9% on senior leadership.  And I may actually be generous to say that 2% is being spent on mid-level development. In fact, the last few companies I worked with had none, nothing, ZERO focus on mid-level development. And they were losing talent left and right, though sadly, no one seemed to attribute the reasons to their own doing (see Attrition and the Fundamental Attribution Error)

Though it would be easy to point to the content gap, the larger problems are the self-perception and budget issues. No one is assuming responsibility for the active development of mid-level managers or directors and, left to their own initiative, most will never seek development as a priority. The budget issue comes into play when searching for content. Sadly, while there is content out there, most mid-level managers or directors, do not think they are worth the cost. More troubling still is that many executives do not see the value either. When a talented mid-level manager desires a $10 development plan for the year, it is received with a great deal of scrutiny. However, when an outside recruitment firm is paid a $10k commission for a replacement hire, no one seems to give it more than a shrug.

Conclusion

Directors and mid-level managers need to get rid of the notion that they don’t need developing and that it is not a priority. Senior leadership needs to take a more active role in development and succession planning and not expect people will seek out their own development. Companies need to face the reality that they are the cause for the talent gap and stop investing in an external hires potential, and instead, redirect that effort and money to develop the internal potential and talent. Far too many good people are leaving organizations simply because the company chooses to pay for someone’s stellar resume and fast talking during interviews, rather than developing the talent within. Integrating talent development, succession planning, and employee engagement can save organizations much more money than buying talent is costing them…both short-term and long-term.

Change Communication

I’ve worked with a number of companies regarding change and one thing still boggles my mind – a fundamental misunderstanding of change adoption and how the change team’s progress relates to the general population of the organization.  And more specifically, how delaying communication until you have all the data effects change adoption.

While there are a number of things that can influence the length of time for adoption (complexity, scope, pervasiveness, size of audience, etc.) on thing that has a direct correlation to the speed of adoption is communication. The sooner you let people know change is coming, the faster you can expect adoption. You can also get feedback to address any issues you may not have considered before they become difficult to implement. If you wait too long, resistance seems to become monumental and adjusting anything based on feedback feels like a slap in the face for all the time you feel you have spent considering all options. But there is one perspective you never gave a voice until you were almost ready to roll out the change – theirs.

The Root Problem of the Typical Approach

On a two axis graph (we love those, don’t we?) with time being the horizontal and change progress being the vertical, the change team and change leader start near point zero on both.  As time increases the change team is formulating what the change will look like, how to configure it, shape it, what training is needed (sometimes), who is, etc.  So the line begins to rise as time increases.  We get to initial system testing, or final review and the change line is still climbing.  Then we roll it out.  The change progress for the team is high, but all of the people who just learned about this are staring at zero in terms of change progress. They have had not chance to understand the motivation, reason, impact, disruption, confusion, or anxiety this is going to cause.

What sometimes makes this even more anxiety producing is, even when the communication does begin, the volume is way to low and horribly infrequent. Some companies I have worked with send out a pamphlet with people’s check stubs and that was as far as it went.  Despite all the other issues with that form of communication, the fact that this was the ONLY time and method they communicated a major organizational change left most people struggling to fill in any gaps.  In fact, six months later, some people were still unaware that a change had taken place.

The Psychology of Change

For most change processes, the act of change is linear – you start here and move some levers, change some forms, maybe do some training, and then flip the switch and you are at the end of the change project.  For people, change is never linear. The below graphic depicts the standard understanding of the change curve for most people.

How quickly someone navigates through this curve depends on a number of things: the pervasiveness of the change, how impacted the person is, how long the previous system/process/dynamic was in place, perceived benefit to the new way, etc. But a big piece that is not addressed in the illustration above is the cause for the dip. The cause for denial, resistance, and hesitancy, is fear. We fear change, not a new concept I know but something you can’t just expect people to get over quickly. And when you delay your communication and are expecting them to adopt the change quickly (in comparison to how long the change team has had to absorb it,) under-communication is your enemy.

Here is how under-communication leads to increased resistance. The human brain wants the world to make sense and it will fill whatever void it has to for the world to make sense. (See Gestalt Psychology) Typically, because factual data is not playing a part in filling gaps (hence the gap), our brains do not run to what is most logical – it runs to what is self-preserving (ala Triune Brain Theory). Example: you are hiking down a trail and see a hole in ground that you cannot see into – do you stick your hand in there? Before I get to why not, does the hole have a bottom? Of course it does, because a bottomless hole does not make sense. So what do you fill it with? A $20 bill? Winning lottery ticket? Or is it something more sinister – a snake, spider, scorpion, varmint – all waiting to bite you?  In reality the most likely scenario, is the hole is empty. But our brains don’t go there.  We fill it with something negative that we need to protect ourselves against. The same things happens when there is a ‘hole’ in the communication or understanding of a change. And rather than wait for more information, people fill the gap. That is commonly called “gossip”. We want to fill that gap, we need to fill the gap, and we will usually fill it with something negative.

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure

The longer gossip festers, the harder it will be to correct it.  What is worse, is negative gossip can feed cynicism which then begins to feed negative gossip – and so the negative culture spiral ensues.  Now communication seems to breed its own resistance, anger, dismissal, and hesitation. This commonly occurs when organizations begin communicating after the negative gossip has started. And it causes most change managers to avoid communicating because it seemingly does no good – and in some instances – can derail the change process by giving a formal channel for high-influence individuals to voice their cynicism.  So if you start too late, yes, sometimes you might be better off just dropping the change in on people, but don’t expect people to like it, gravitate towards it, or accept it quickly. In fact, the best you can expect is mild compliance at that point – people who only do it because there is no other option (that is, IF you take the old method away.)

Start Your Own Gossip

Viral and teaser marketing tactics have been all the rave these days, and for good reason, they get people talking…even if sometimes all they are talking about is the ad and have no real knowledge of the product. Generating buzz about your change is a great way to begin communication. Primarily because it allows you three things right off the bat: no need for all the answers, feedback on possible early resistance, and early buzz. Now, obviously if the change IS negative in its impact (layoffs, pay cuts, etc.) you might want to formalize the message and opt for transparency, but for other changes such as a new technology, new procedure, change in product offering, etc. “viral” marketing can get you a lot of early traction and information. Imagine if Apple put out an ad that said, “get ready to change the world again..” And nothing more, maybe some elusive photos that don’t really show anything.  Trust me, people would be talking.

Doing It Right

Be Early: Even if you are vague.  If you want adoption, start before the gossip gets out of your hands.  Better to have curiosity chatter than negative chatter

Be Everywhere: Information rarely travels through a single medium.  Even if your formal communication channels are usually via one medium, trust me, people get their information elsewhere.  Email, website, intranet, twitter, Facebook, blogs, closed radio circuits piping Musak to your company restrooms, hold music, newsletters, bulletin boards, etc.  For viral messages, I would actually avoid all company meetings. To generate buzz, keep it unidirectional at first.  Coordinate your message releases so they are consistent but make sure you are not relying on one channel.

Be Frequent: Set a schedule and pace yourself to ramp up close to formal announcements.

Be Receptive: Once you plan your formal announcement, provide room for Q&A.  Communication by its very definition is not one-direction so simply telling people something is not communicating…it is informing. Informing has its place in change but do not confuse it with communication.  If you want to communicate change, you need to listen when people talk.  Resistance is simply data. And like all data, it is worthy of analysis. Some data is great, some is not so great, but ignoring it just forces people to fill in the gaps.

Be Transparent-ish: Don’t lie, and don’t hide things that everyone will learn anyway.  If there is a reason you’ve decided to go one direction v another, being honest, even when people don’t always like it, is better than destroying any trust people have in you or your organization.  Once the trust is gone, they don’t even listen anymore since they assume you are lying or manipulating information.  That does not mean always telling them everything, but obscuring the truth is not going to help people trust this change is the best thing for them.

Be Frequent: Doing one information blast is not going to help you get adoption. And don’t assume communication should stop after you have rolled out the change, if anything you should communicate more.

Be A Safety Net: You and your change team are the experts on whatever the change is.  If you want people to catch up to you, don’t assume training and education will happen instantly. Coach people, stay with them, and help them be successful. Telling someone to figure it out on their own usually results in heavy resistance and a gravitation back to what is comfortable. If you want them to make the leap to something new, you have to position yourself to make it okay and to catch them when (yes, when, not if) they fall.

Be Firm: There is a difference between helping smooth the transition for people and allowing the population to drive the change.  At a certain point, someone needs to be firm. Get input and modify implementation – yes.  Deviate from your vision and intended outcomes – no.

Conclusion

Change is hard, not only to implement but to adjust to. People feel uncomfortable in silence. If you are unsure about that, start your next meeting with 45 seconds of silence…and see how long it takes for people to start whispering under their breaths to their coworkers. People fill silence to make themselves feel more comfortable.  This is the essential importance of communication during change – if you aren’t having the conversations, they will.

Dumping the water back in the pond

An analogy I often use when working with clients goes something like this:

“If you scoop a cup of water out of a pond and train it to babble, tell it to babble, convince it what a good idea it is to babble, and then dump the water back in the pond…don’t be surprised that it doesn’t babble.”

The underlying message is, if the underlying system or support means are not set up to facilitate a change in behavior, then chances are you spent a lot of time and energy training or coaching someone to do something that may never or very rarely ever happen.  It is not a question of chicken or egg in this case, it is more a case of make the batter? or put it in the oven? – If you want cake – you gotta do both.

Whether you are working to fix a problem behavior or develop new skills, the solution is the same.  Yes, coach and train IF they do not have the requisite skills AND look at your system and see if it supports new behavior (or old behavior).  The greatest way to inhibit change is to not support it. Not only do people do what is rewarded, they also do what they have the opportunity to do.  If they do not have opportunity to exercise new skills/abilities or are being rewarded to do it the old way, then chances are, no change will happen.

I see this most often in developmental training efforts.  People are sent, invited, voluntold, or in the rare case, seek out, training on a new or developmental skill deficiency.  They attend a potentially career changing training and are super excited to try some new stuff. They then return energized and with new skills/tools/awareness/or ideas and either no follow up happens from the manager or there is no support to do anything different. Imagine going to a photography class and then never being given the opportunity to use a camera when you got back. According to a University of Minnesota study, this is the number one reason training is seldom effective as a change method – no support from the direct supervisor to exercise new skills.

If you want change or you want training to be effective, you have to intentionally alter the bedrock upon which people are working, change the environment, give them support, and create opportunity (not just look for it, CREATE it) for them to do something different.  In BlessingWhite’s recent engagement survey, “opportunity to do more of what I am good at” is cited as a top driver for employee engagement.  Moreover, the same report cited that the number one reason people worldwide indicated they were looking to leave their current organization was “My career: I do not have opportunities to grow or advance here.”  People want to be good at what they do and increasing research is showing that not only do we want to be good at what we do, getting better is actually a motivational driver (Dan Pink, “Drive”).

If you want high performance, change, and people to do innovative things, you have to make sure your foundation supports it.  Are you building a pond that stagnates, or are you building a river to keep your organization current.

High Attrition and the Fundamental Attribution Error

I was recently speaking with a friend who noted that the turnover rate at his company was surprisingly high at 26%.  According to him, this was news to everyone as no one had been tracking it, there was just an assumption of good culture since most people seemed happy… at least outwardly.  However, a few departments had seen unusually high turnover, one of them being Human Resources at over 50%.  Now, I would hope this would be cause for alarm by some of the leadership but quite the contrary, many of the senior leaders seemed quite aloof.  My friend had heard them say such things as “they [those that left] just weren’t committed to what we are doing here” and “I’ve lost over half my staff in the past year…I’m trying not to take it personally.”  WHAT!?

I’m going to go in reverse order since the last one seems the most perverse.  According to my friend, this person, a senior HR leader, has lost 5 of his 9 direct reports within the past year.  Does this person not read any studies about why employees say they leave?  For that past 20+ years, the number one reason people leave a job is their boss.  That is not to say the ONLY reason employees leave is because of a bad boss but the law of averages has to catch up to you sooner or later.  I am reminded of a rather cynical quote I saw on Despair.com, “The only consistent feature of all your dissatisfying relationships is you.”  So how you could possibly NOT take over half your staff leaving, personally?  Now I could open up the flood gates to all the other external reasons why someone might want to leave but that just gets us into the second issue…or the first comment by senior HR leaders above.  The fundamental attribution error.

The Fundamental Attribution Error is a psychological principle that basically says we mistakenly confuse character flaws with situational causes.  It can most notably seen when we make observations about others in comparison to ourselves.  A simple example is: if you get into an accident, you are a careless driver and weren’t paying attention (character). When I get into an accident at that same intersection, the stoplights were messed up and there was ice (situational).  Moreover, we tend to seek external causes to our misfortune rather than looking internally.  It is always because of something else that bad things happen, not because of us.  So because [they] are not committed, they left.  I’m sure it has nothing to do with you. Right.

Here is another disturbing indicator, this company my friend works at, does not do exit interviews. Presumably, because they either don’t want to know why people are leaving, or they DO know why people are leaving and they don’t want it confirmed.  After all, a fair amount of our defensive responses surround protecting ourselves from things we do not want to feel, or be reminded of.  So if I  fear I am a bad boss and I do not want to feel that way, I will think of countless ways to avoid it (such as not asking, attributing turnover to external causes, blaming, rationalizing, etc.)

If you have high turnover, and it is a surprise when it happens, there is a good chance you are not paying attention to how YOU affect your employees.  Sure, there are other reasons, but YOU have control over most of them.  If you really want to know, find a good 360 instrument, ask your employees, and DO something with your exit data.

Accountability is its own kind of feedback

While working on a project recently with a new team, I began receiving curious comments of appreciation. Not that the appreciation was necessarily curious (though some may be surprised) but the cause of the appreciation was somewhat intriguing to me. They were thanking me for keeping them “on track” and reminding them of deadlines (whether upcoming or missed.)  Essentially, I was holding them accountable, and they appreciated it.

This seemed contrary to the “do not micromanage” theory until I started to think more about it.  I was not telling them HOW they needed to meet their deadlines, merely that deadlines needed to be met. Additionally, I was not reprimanding them for missing them.  If their tasks did not come in, I asked if perhaps, in my error, I had not seen them submitted. When the reply came that, no, they just hadn’t gotten their task complete yet, I asked when I could expect it, and offered help.  Even when the task came in a day or two late, I thanked them for their attention to the project.  I then (and I think this was the key) asked that in the future, if they feared they may miss a deadline, they tell me at least two days ahead of time so I could rearrange things and perhaps provide assistance.  That happened twice. And then, a miraculous thing happened. Nothing was late after that.

I never stood over their shoulders, nor asked them WHY they had not met their deadlines. I never punished them, nor did I ever step in. In fact, only once was I even asked to help. The other time a deadline was at risk, they proposed a different allocation of resources that both allowed the deadline to be met and provided a challenge another team member had been asking for. Then is when the curious feedback started. “Thanks for keeping us honest and on track.” At first I did not quite know how to react, “uh, you’re welcome.” I started thinking and wondered, is keeping people accountable the same as giving feedback?

And I suppose it is. After all, when you tell someone they are missing deadlines and that is not okay, that is feedback, isn’t it? Beyond that, when people would offer reasons why they were about to miss (or had missed) a deadline I simply said “I understand AND how do you propose we work to get the deadlines met [next time] (if appropriate).”  They never spiraled into excuses and if they had, I would have simply let them spiral, used the same response and moved on. After all, it does not matter WHY the deadline is missed, none of the reasoning in the world will make that change. My focus was always on how do we get the results we want, not how do we prevent (or analyze) the results we don’t.

Providing accountability does not have to be punitive. People want to meet expectations. If they have lived so long letting deadline eclipse with no recourse, no feedback, and no accountability, then are there really any expectations? And how demotivating is it for others to have no expectations of you (or of yourself for that matter.) People just coast on cruise control. If you want people to start stepping on the gas at the right times, you have to provide accountability so they know what is expected. It goes back to the basics of management – give people clear expectations and provide feedback.  Perhaps accountability CAN be synonymous with feedback if you focus on the solution and not the cause.

Change and Tension

I was talking with a colleague the other day and we were discussing organizational change. And we both arrived at this same conclusion: by its very nature change causes tension, stress, and discomfort. So it is no wonder change is often met with resistance. The mistake most change managers make is trying to smooth over or ignore the tension and avoid any discomfort. While it would be great if everyone were happy and seamlessly moved from one state to another, reality tells us that people don’t work that way. What change agents need to become more practiced in is navigating through the stress, not trying to eliminate it. Great sailors are not ones who constantly avoid storms, but who learn to successfully navigate through the difficulty.

To help organizations through large scale transformational change it takes a delicate mix of encouragement, facilitation, empathy, tough-love, and A LOT of listening skills. Most change managers work on increasing the amount of communication from them to those affected and while it is important to tell people what is going on and what is anticipated, what is much more important is listening to their concerns. The goal is not necessarily to make their concerns go away or convince them they need not feel that way. The goal is simply to allow them to be heard and understood. The stress, concerns, questions, fear, and trepidation people feel during change is perfectly normal and they NEED to feel those emotions. If, as a change manager, you work to suppress those emotions they will eventually resurface at key moments (usually when you are not there) and sabotage the change effort and perhaps cause that person to cling even more tightly to the old ways.

Two Approaches

The project management approach to change relies on highly orchestrated levers and switches to be thrown within the organization at appropriate times. While mechanically, this approach works very well and can fit certain circumstances, to use it for all organizational change would be a grave mistake. If what you are seeking is transactional change (one day we do a process this way, another day there is the new process) then the mechanical project management approach to change can work. There may be a fair amount of resistance as typically this approach takes little consideration for the people affected by the change. Yet, at a transactional level you can create boundaries that limit people’s ability to deviate. For example, if you switch software platforms, people can get upset but there is little they can do but accept and migrate. This approach tends to marginalize the importance (or even existence) of emotional distress.

The other approach is the relationship management approach which looks at the effect on the people first.  One option in this approach is to work to make those affected feel more comfortable with the change.  The other is to adapt the change as necessary so adoption is more palatable.  From an adoption standpoint everyone feels more comfortable with the change. In certain circumstances it could be the right way to go, especially if the end goal is fluid. Changes to effect interpersonal dynamics of a team might be a perfect scenario in which to use this approach. The downside could be it either takes forever or the final version of the change resembles nothing of what was envisioned in the first place and strategically misses the mark. The change manager in this case works so hard to make people feel okay with the change they lose sight of what is needed for the business or what tactically needs to be done for the change to actually happen. This approach tends to put too much emphasis on the emotional distress to the point it becomes the driving force rather than strategy.

The Synthesis

For large scale cultural change (also called second order or transformational change) a synthesis of the two approaches is required. It is also much more demanding of the change agent. They must now become a navigator and captain through the storm. And from a competency perspective they must be comfortable in the presence of high emotion without feeling responsible for it. For this type of change to take place a change agent must be able to facilitate with empathy for those affected AND direct with tough-love and encouragement to push them onward. It is not okay to derail simply because people feel uncomfortable and it would sabotage the change if you ignore or marginalize it. This is where I have found the word “and” comes in handy. People are uncomfortable and nervous about what is happening AND that is natural and part of the process. Things will work out AND it is totally understandable that people feel uncomfortable doing something they are not familiar with.

The Synopsis

For real change to take place in an organization, there is effort, casualty, reward, stress, confusion, innovation, and tension. A true change agent knows the tools and levers to manage change AND has the empathy, compassion, and tenacity to encourage people onward in a way that facilitates change. Cultural change is both a science and an art, both complex and simple. Effective change agents can navigate between both worlds and help people feel okay with being stressed. Winston Churchill had a wonderful quote to summarize cultural change – “When you find yourself going through hell, keep going.” A good change facilitator is your guide to the other side.