How Do You Implement Change from Bottom-Up?

Making change happen is challenging on its own, let alone trying to accomplish it from the bottom-up. Bottom-up change management is not easy but if done right, employee acceptance and retention is greater.

What are some of the key differences in the two methods?

Change from top-down:

• Has leadership support
• More likely to have significant resource support
• Limited overt resistance (maybe lots of passive resistance)
• Can be quickly implemented
• Useful in significant and urgent organizational changes, for example, if competition is going to run you out of business
• Effect is on enterprise-level changes trickling down to operational level processes

Change from bottom-up:  

• No executive level support or involvement
• Requires lots of selling and promotion
• Less likely to have significant resource support, you do what you can
• Lots of questions on why we are doing it and whey we are NOT doing it as an organization
• Can take more time
• Focus is on smaller, controllable processes, subcomponents to the entire organization
• Sometimes the only way to bring key changes to an organization
• Acceptance is greater with an inclusive, slower paced, employee-based approach

If managers are committed to their organizations and teams, they will attempt to improve what they see as being ineffective. That means they will initiate change at their local level even if executive-level support is not yet there. In the meantime, theses managers will promote, educate and persuade others to join in the change process. Managers of these initiatives focus on the sphere of influence and control that is directly under them. By developing their own staff and processes, they make their units more effective and efficient. With time, higher level managers will notice the changes and upstream and downstream colleagues will begin to implement at least some, if not all, of the changes that make sense for them. 

The bottom line is to do what you can under your own umbrella and approach others with simple but necessary touch-point changes so that they do not feed you poor quality. With a long-term commitment in mind, solid changes made at your local level will consume others in the organization and start to become more global.

Six Sigma and TQM are NOT Fads!

I have repeatedly heard from various managers and organizations that 6-Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM), ISO-9000, Quality Improvement, etc. are management fads that had their time and passed on, that they are too complex and do not work. When I hear these statements, I listen to what is being said and try to (a) determine how much they know about these management techniques and methods and (b) how they define “execution” or implementation of these methods in a given organization.

First, if the understanding of these tools is basic, then the realization of their potential is going to be limited. I have worked with organizations that viewed TQM as a way to establish “Teams”. All of the organization’s resources, promotions, training and practices revolved around (a) creating teams and (b) running teams and meetings with the idea that somehow things would just get fixed by theses teams in an effective and efficient manner. All of the organization’s staff were absorbed in multiple teams dealing with a variety of issues. The reality of it is that Teams are only one of many tools in a portfolio of tools, practices and general behavior that needs to be in place for the organization to truly be practicing TQM principles.

Secondly, if the organization does not take into account that implementing these practices requires long-term commitment, not a few months, but literally years, and the organization is too impatient to get results, then they never achieve the expected big successes they have heard about. What we are talking about with these methods and practices is changing organization culture and individual behavior. Getting people to be collaborative in problem-solving and not looking at their jobs and the jobs of others as silos that if they “…just to do their piece…” takes time, commitment, energy and change of long-term attitude. The attitude needed is that my piece is dependent on the previous piece and affects the next piece and that I need to work with both my “Suppliers” and “Customers” to produce a quality product/service for the end.

I will concede that if you want something fast and simple, these methods are generally not for you. However, to attain long-term success, quality and reliable solutions, investment in 6-sigma/TQM will yield results beyond your normal operating practices, WITH TIME!

Another way to look at these methods while growing your organization’s capabilities is to use the tools and practices incrementally as needed until your organization reaches a higher degree of maturity. For instance, what I mean is, train your managers first, then some key staff, then your line workers and reinforce that we are not going to use each and every tool and method learned each and every time on every project. That you will use what is useful for a particular situation. With time and practice, there will be a slow shift towards a holistic toolset and maybe you can ultimately become certified as 6-sigma, TQM, ISO organization. One training pattern I used to develop a 6-sigma capacity in a 100+ employee organization was the following:

• Yellow-belt: train everyone in the organization on basic problem-solving (1 day)
• Green-belt: train 10-15 people (managers, project managers, team leaders, etc.) on more advanced techniques that could be used on projects (12 days). Have these people manage the projects and lead the yellow-belts.
• Black-belt: hire 1-2 black belts to act as mentors and consultants to the entire organization and support the green-belts. Lead mission-critical, high priority projects.

You Need Tools to Solve Complex Problems!

Different managers use different methods for solving business and technical problems. However, ones that succeed at getting things done in a timely and efficient manner with defined goals and objectives have skills in using tools to help them come to decisions and conclusions. This also means that you need to be educated about different tools. The more you know, the more flexible you are in using a variety of tools for various purposes. Just as you need a hammer or a screw driver to pound a nail and push a screw in, you also need management tools like how to conduct meetings, flowcharting, affinity diagramming, cash-flow projection, etc. to solve organizational problems. You can obviously pound a nail with a rock or a piece of wood or try to push a screw in using a coin, but it probably is not going to be effective or efficient.

The reason this article is posted is that I have wasted a lot of time trying to solve problems in environments led by ineffective managers who usually have one major tool that they commonly use, oral communication i.e., talking to solve complex problems. When the problem has a large number of variables and interdependencies, it is very difficult for the audience/group to keep it all together in a consistent manner. You cannot collaborate easily through just oral communication. Don’t get me wrong, oral communication is key to building relationships, persuasion and getting information out; however, it has its limits. Six Sigma, Lean, Total Quality Management (TQM), etc. did not develop because they were fads; there was intelligent design behind using them as methods to solve problems (see my article on “Six Sigma and TQM are NOT Fads!”). In addition, theses methods are rich in tools that can be helpful for dealing with a variety of situations, for instance:

• Pareto Analysis – 80/20 rule – for identifying leverage and focus areas
• Activity-Based Costing – breaking down costs across workflow steps to collect all the costs and determine problems areas
• Graphs – Time Plots/Scatter Plots, etc. – to visually map data to see patterns
• Flowcharting – for mapping out processes and data flows
• Affinity Diagramming – for organizing and grouping data
• Etc.

A good tool book reference manual to consider getting for yourself and your teams is: The Team Handbook by Peter R Scholtes, Brian L. Joiner and Barbara J Streibel.

First Step to Getting a Non-Performing Employee/Team Member on Track

Every so often you will come across an employee or team member who does not perform to your expectations. The question is how to get them to perform. The reasons for a performance failure could be many: lack of skills, unmotivated, distracted, etc.

There are many strategies that could be used to deal with these situations; however, for the sake of simplicity we will assume that the person is the right person for the job; it’s just that he/she is not doing the job you want them to do. Let’s start with some principles about human behavior:

1. Human beings are pretty smart creatures and with a little bit of time they will identify organizational and management weaknesses and might begin to exploit these. So, if a manager is not attentive to an employee’s work duties, the employee may take advantage of this and do other things e.g., browse the web, do work for themselves, etc.
2. Human beings are generally going to rank personal priorities ahead of project or organizational priorities. This is normal, it’s a matter of survival; however, under normal circumstances (e.g., not some kind of health situation), a person can focus and is hired to do a job for pay and should be focused on the job while at work rather than on personal priorities.
3. Human beings generally look for simplicity in their lives, you can even say, that in general, we tend to be “Lazy”. If the work is hard, most people will tend to avoid it, postpone it or shift it to someone else. In doing so, the work doesn’t get done or in a timely manner.

The first, and sometimes the only necessary, step to getting a non-performing employee on track is to (a) set clear expectations and (b) ensure he/she understands how he/she is being held accountable. If an employee is faltering and he/she does not get back on track through simple directional or process changes, then a candid, objective, non-threatening or non-accusatory conversation needs to occur between the manager and the employee about: (a) what is his/her role, (b) what he/she is expected to produce and by when, (c) what “Done” looks like and (d) what metrics and deliverables he/she is being evaluated against to define success. I would also ask the employee to document in a simple plan what he/she thinks the next steps are. In most circumstances, employees will reengage and respond positively and get back on track and you don’t need to go any further. For those that do not respond, the next step is to go deeper into issues and causes that have to be tackled. For instance, skill limitations could be dealt with training, reassignment of qualified staff, etc. As a last step, termination may have to be considered.