Steps to Human Performance / Culture Change

 

Human performance/cultural improvement starts with the organization taking a hard look into the mirror regarding how they assess the day-to-day activities of the organization, in meeting their overall business objectives. Understanding these the norms and perceptions (culture) provides the base of the improvement plan.

The key to human performance improvement lies in leadership. It is the responsibility of top management to set the vision and expectations of the organization. Once the vision is developed, it must be communicated throughout the organization. The vision needs to be clear and must appeal to the emotions of those in the organization if change is to occur. Armed with facts and logic alone will not foster change. Without an emotional attachment to a cause, there is no ownership. In addition to appealing to emotions, expectations need to be measurable if there is to be ownership. Hence the requirement that they be clear. To increase employee engagement it is valuable that there is employee involvement in defining what is to be measured and how. When employees are an active part of the process, they will have a sense of ownership. Ownership brings with it engagement. Gallup’s 2016 Q12 Meta-Analysis that examined the effects employee engagement had on an organization’s bottom line supports this and the data confirms that regardless of the industry employee engagement consistently affects key performance outcomes.

Once the vision and expectations are established, the next step is communicating these throughout the workforce. Communication is not just a company memo, an “all hands” meeting, or posters/banners it needs to be interactive. In Stephen Covey’s book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 5 states “seek first to understand, then to be understood”  I loosely translate this to mean that communication has to be a two way street especially when we are encouraging change, our mission is to create ownership and buy in. Therefore, in this step it is prudent to communicate the vision through small group settings that are encouraged to be interactive.

Implementation is next in line. Here is where vision gets put in to play it is also the step that can define success or failure. For many, change is not a comfortable situation especially when trying to affect a change in norms and perspective. When implementing an improvement process it is best accomplished in small steps. Remember that the purpose of these changes is to redirect perceptions and establish new norms, many of which have been entrenched for some time. Another advantage of starting small is that you increase the potential to realize success. The benefits of early success was coined as the “Matthew effect” in the late 1960’s by Robert K. Merton and on May 13,2014 Arnout van de Rijt , et al published Field  experiments of success-breed-success dynamics in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences that shows early success increased the possibility of further success. As you realize success, introduce additional changes. Even if you do not realize initial change, you must stay the course.

As the process evolves, it is important to monitor the progress and where required identify those barriers that are hampering growth. Those who are performing the task will be the first to encounter these obstacles in the field. When barriers are identified, discuss the options with those groups that are intimately involved; they are in the best position to provide the most insight. Feedback is then applied to strengthen or modify the vision.