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ENGINEERING: BEING THE BEST WE CAN BE

A Cultural Movement

Challenge

A CHANGE FROM AN ‘US & THEM’ CULTURE TO SHARED PURPOSE AND OWNERSHIP

To shift a culture of silence, suspicion and power-struggles between management, the union and employees to a culture of ‘shared purpose and ownership’ in order to speak up and speak out and become the ‘best we can be’. The challenge was to move in small steps.

Story

AN INFLUENTIAL PROGRAM WITH A SMALL STEPS APPROACH TO CULTURE CHANGE

The current cultural norms were silence, rebellion and learned helplessness. There was also frustration, anger and, as a result sin some areas, inefficiency. There was also a number of employees  – often cultural influencers – who wanted a better future and shared ownership.  The program had three pillars:

  • Build community from within. Identify the key cultural influencers and co-develop strategies and take action for continuous improvement and cultural change,
  • Get interested and motivated cultural influencers to drive process improvements (SS, Lean and Stable Ops)
  • Build distributed leadership capability at all levels from SLT to Frontline leaders’ programs. Instigate and collaborate to produce relevant performance management and performance conversations programs.
Doing

RECENT RESEARCH SHOWS THAT THE UPTAKE OF CHANGE IS FASTER AND MORE RAPIDLY ADOPTED AND SUSTAINED IF DISSEMINATED THROUGH GROUPS OF INFORMAL CULTURAL INFLUENCERS RATHER THAN  INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCERS.

The ONA was rolled out to 2000 people and the key cultural influencers (KCI’s) across the network were identified and invited to join Collaboration Forums (CF). In light of the more recent research we focussed on grouping KCI’s so the CF’s – short, structured conversational processes were conducted monthly (in this case)over 2 years.

Each Collaboration Forum consisted of:

A space for updates, questions of management and discussions,

Requests for more information from participants led to several intervention 1. Simulation day in which a current issue was given to participants who acted as management to solve them

2. Updates from different parts of the business

3. An Action learning segment for continuous improvement. KCI’s gathered around a shared concern aimed at continuous improvement and inefficiencies. The groups were supported and monitored and their actions recorded.

Principles of the Collaboration Forums:

  1. Align strategy with practice: Each local collaboration forums established a shared purpose and direction that aligned with the organisation strategy and vision. 
  2. Recognition of status, access, role & voice in engagements:   All levels were engaged to empower employees to voice and be listened to through direct access to senior leadership and other parts of the business,
  3. Telling the truth  Representative senior leaders were present  and spoke frankly when possible (including about when they could not be open and frank and why). 
  4. A focus on what can be done, rather than what cannot:The focus was framed as one of moving from problems to solutions (what we CAN do) and from habitual conflict ( breaking down the “them and us” ). This encouraged shared ownership (i.e. “we” all work for the same organisation).
  5. People who do the job are the experts:  When efficiencies/continuous improvements were being proposed(e.g. LEAN/AGILE),employees were asked to identify small multiple, local quick wins and helped to achieve them. They were assisted by the collaboration forum sponsor to negotiate the bureaucracy to achieve their goal if necessary. This built positive relationships, trust, local capacity and empowerment.
  6. Measure the small steps cumulatively: Implementations that included measurable results achieved in identified time periods were recorded. Over a period of 18 months of monitoring actions, there was an identifiable cultural ‘tipping point’.
  7. Model leadership : In the forums, new skills & ways of working together were modelled by leaders who were coached to do this. 
  8. Building local capacity and engagement to shift culture: On specific requests from participants (for example, how to hold a performance conversation) skills burst sessions were also conducted. 
  9. Enable shift from command/culture to coaching/ mentoring The overall aim was to shift capacity in leaders to move from a command/control culture (and learned helplessness) to collaboration (“ask (coach/mentor) not tell”  “act not whinge”).
  10. Build organisational cross functional capacity: All parts of the business were represented in collaboration forums where possible improving cross functional relationships and productivity.

After two years, the project was still ongoing and the relationship between management and employees had improved through constant dialogue and truth telling. A recent union vote on a new contract signified a significant, positive shift away from an ‘us and them’ culture to a more nuanced relationship and shared culture .

 

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

Charts showing improvement in uptake of cultural change and the continuous improvements in all KPI’s following introduction of Collaboration Forums. Following this are two examples of continuous improvements made by groups of KCI’s in Collaboration Forums

 

 

ACTION LEARNING GROUP

Action: A small cross functional team of cultural influencers came together to address their frustration at the overwhelming number of procedures, regulations, safety processes  and the growing technical complexity that meant wasted time trying to access the correct manual under the time pressure of work. Multiple manuals which were also slowing down Turn Around Time in maintenance.

Result: Designed, delivered a new “WIki” App for their ipads so that access was faster and more efficient. This is now adopted globally. 

ACTION LEARNING GROUP

Action: New vehicles for use on sites were requested and the organisation was insisting on vehicles that the people on the ground found inefficient and cumbersome to use. Two cultural influencers formed a group of interested people and requested an alternative. In the collaboration forum they chose to research alternative vehicles and they were empowered and coached to put forward a official business case to the leadership team.

Result: Group researched & proposed a more effective and efficient fit-for-purpose vehicle that cost 30% less. This vehicle was adopted nationally.

Finance Sector: Growing a Speak-up Culture

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