Remembering "The Wisdom of Teams"

I was in a used bookstore the other day and came across a copy of the Wisdom of Teams by Katzenbach and Smith. It brought back memories of an off-site sales meeting we had at the National Conference Center in Leesburg, VA where I gave a presentation to the 150 sales reps on teams and in particular information based on the book. That year at Reed Business Information, then Cahners Publishing Company, we were trying to develop the team concept so various sales reps from different books could go in and sell a joint program to clients/customers. 


I was nervous because my mentor Dr. David Merrill was there to see me give the presentation because it was Katzenbach's and Smith's findings complemented by Merrill's findings that was the basis for the presentation. Needless to say I was really concerned at how it would come across given that this was their works interpreted by me and not them. 


I stayed up all night making sure I had the presentation down pat so I would not have to look at notes and stumble. Well, it turned out great, I was happy, no stumbles, losing place, ands and ums. Merrill was very happy and the sales team really enjoyed the presentation and said they thought it would help them as we entered the second half of the sales year. Each sales rep received a copy of "The Wisdom of Teams".


The upshot at year-end was sales were up 21% and joint book programs were up as well because the team concept really took hold. The book and concepts about teams is as important today as it was in the 90's.  

The most successful people in business approach their work differently than most. See how they think--and why it works. I'm fortunate enough to know a number of remarkably successful people. Regardless of industry or profession, they all share the same perspectives and beliefs.

And they act on those beliefs:

1. Time doesn't fill me. I fill time. - Deadlines and time frames establish parameters, but typically not in a good way. The average person who is given two weeks to complete a task will instinctively adjust his effort so it actually takes two weeks. Average people allow time to impose its will on them; remarkable people impose their will on their time
2. The people around me are the people I chose. - You chose them. If the people around you make you unhappy it's not their fault. It's your fault. They're in your professional or personal life because you drew them to you--and you let them remain.
3. I have never paid my dues. - Dues aren't paid, past tense. Dues get paid, each and every day. The only real measure of your value is the tangible contribution you make on a daily basis.
4. Experience is irrelevant. Accomplishments are everything. - Successful people don't need to describe themselves using hyperbolic adjectives like passionate, innovative, driven, etc.  Remarkably successful people don't need to use any adjectives at all. They can just describe, hopefully in a humble way, what they've done.
5. Failure is something I accomplish; it doesn't just happen to me. - Embrace every failure: Own it, learn from it, and take full responsibility for making sure that next time, things will turn out differently.
6. Volunteers always win. - Success is based on action. The more you volunteer, the more you get to act. Successful people step forward to create opportunities. Remarkably successful people sprint forward.
7. As long as I'm paid well, it's all good. -  Specialization is good. Focus is good. Finding a niche is good.
8. People who pay me always have the right to tell me what to do. -  The people who pay you, whether customers or employers, earn the right to dictate what you do and how you do it--sometimes down to the last detail.Instead of complaining, work to align what you like to do with what the people who pay you want you to do.
9. The extra mile is a vast, un-populated wasteland. - Be early. Stay late. Make the extra phone call. Send the extra email. Do the extra research. Help a customer unload or unpack a shipment. Don't wait to be asked; offer. Don't just tell employees what to do--show them what to do and work beside them. 

These are the things that will make you different and successful.  I use these every day in my activities and all the people I have worked for who were extremely successful marched to these 9 elements. You may not embrace them all at once but over time, that's what will make you incredibly successful.

 

Brain Fitness – The Competitive Advantage

by Guest Columnist, Pat Faust

Our workforce is aging. “The curve of early retirement is flattened out, and people are staying on the job longer,” says Neal Cutler, PhD, executive director of the Center on Aging of the Motion Picture and Television Fund in Woodland Hills, California. A 2005 survey from Merrill Lynch found that 76% of baby boomers intend to work and earn in retirement. What has been set up to accommodate the aging boomers in the workforce? Wellness programs have been developed to address the physical, mental/emotional and stress effects that are taking a toll on older workers. However, there has been little if any attention directed to the aging brain. That is really an alarmingly low awareness level – because we are our brains. We protect institutional knowledge and the brain trust, but what happens with aging brains?

Of all the organs in our body, the brain is the most demanding and intriguing. It has fooled even the most renowned neuroscientists. Up until a few decades ago these scientists believed our brains were pliable, or could be shaped by learning only until early adulthood. After that we had all the brain cells we were ever going to get. As it turns out, we maintain the ability to grow new brain cells – neurogenesis – throughout our entire life. We also have the ability to reshape out brain through learning – neuroplasticity – throughout our lives. These findings have completely changed everything in relation to our perceptions about how the brain functions.

We definitely are at our cognitive peak in our twenties. Cognitive decline starts on the slippery road of decline around age thirty. The brain has such vast reserves that we don’t notice the losses we are sustaining until around the age of fifty. This is when we start to notice a slight acceleration in cognitive decline. It is then that we can’t find our keys; we skip introductions because we can’t remember names, we forget why we went to the grocery store and we better make a bee-line to the kitchen before we forget what it is that we went to get. These are all normal memory lapses. The processing speed of our brain slows down as we get older. The brain of a sixty year old is two-to-three times slower than a twenty year old. Neurochemical production slows down as we get older. We are very dependent on Acetylcholine and Dopamine neurotransmitters for communication and memory function. Acetylcholine is depleted in Alzheimer’s disease and Dopamine is depleted in Parkinson’s disease.

So what has the research revealed to give us hope? The brain has the capacity to repair, reorganize and rebuild itself. The key to this phenomenon is brain fitness. There are several ways to achieve brain fitness at any age: through nutrition, physical exercise and brain exercise. Each of these components can have a profound effect on the brain but together the synergistic effect can reverse cognitive decline.

Nutrition:
What is good for the heart is good for the brain.
Omega – 3 fatty acids are the rock stars of nutrition for brain health. DHA is the most abundant fatty acid in cell membranes. The human body produces DHA but not enough – so we need to get DHA from outside sources. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fatty fish such as salmon. It is also in walnuts and flax seed. Of course it is available in supplement form. Research indicates that Omega – 3 might have the ability to reverse cognitive decline. It is important to eat fatty fish at least once a week.

Our brains are extremely vulnerable to oxidative damage. Antioxidants in foods and vitamins are crucial to good brain health. The vitamins high in antioxidants are C, E and beta-carotene. Vitamin B12 becomes more critical to brain health as we get older. In fact, a person totally depleted in B12 can show signs of delirium. Vitamin B12 is found in protein based foods. Vitamin D is necessary for cognitive functioning. Red wine has powerful antioxidant properties and contains a nutrient called Resveratol. Research indicates that Resveratol has the ability to stop plaque formation from occurring in Alzheimer’s disease. Although this research is still in animal studies it is showing great promise.

Physical Exercise:
A controlled research study revealed that participants exercising for at least 45 minutes a day/ three times a week had the ability to hold off Alzheimer’s disease up to 32% (Annals of Internal Medicine). Through functional MRIs it was shown that physical exercise stimulated cell growth within the hippocampus – center of learning and memory. These results are far more exciting than any of the medications that are on the market today. Aricept, Nameda and others slow down the progression of the symptoms of the disease. Physical exercise alone has better outcomes than any of these medications.

Brain Exercise:
The adage is – “Use it or lose it”. The question is – Use what or lose what? There is some controversy over this old adage of use it or lose it. We have a master pathway in our brain. It is here where most of our mental functions fall. It is our auto-pilot. So, when we do a crossword puzzle – it falls into our master pathway. We are not challenging the rest of our brain. We are not lighting up all of the rest of the machinery. We are not using it. So what do we have to do? In order for the brain to benefit from activities and exercise – it has to be challenged. Brain fitness activities have to push the brain to do things it has never done before. For example: challenge your brain to pick out the cello from a classical musical composition; learn to juggle; learn a new language. We have more brain cells than there are stars in the galaxy – it is time to start using them – so we don’t lose them.

Brain fitness involves speed of processing, getting back working memory, improving executive function and many other functions. Software developers have teamed with neuroscientists to bring brain fitness products to the marketplace. Nintendo opened the floodgates a few years ago with their Brain Age program. Since then many different software products have been introduced to the market. Happy Neuron is an on-line subscription based product consisting of 28 different computer game exercises focusing on a number of brain functions including memory, attention, language, visual-spatial skills and logic. Lumosity is also an on-line product addressing the same domain areas. MindFit is developed by CogniFit. Their programs are designed to boost cognitive skills including short-term memory, reaction times, recall and eye-hand coordination. Posit Science, out of San Francisco, has two programs on the market right now: The Brain Fitness Program, an auditory program that increases auditory processing speed by 131% and 10 years average improvement in memory; and Cortex with InSight a visual program that has shown a 300% faster visual processing speed and a 200% larger useful field of view. The programs by Posit Science have been heavily researched and all reported statistics are evidenced-based.

Why should companies, organizations and the corporate world be paying attention to brain fitness? Up until now there has been virtually no attention directed to brain health within the parameters of wellness in the corporate setting. There has been no thought to corporate training as far as mental acuity is concerned. However, the aging workforce is going to force a reevaluation of this entire area. Cognitive issues are going to be brought to the forefront especially in high risk jobs. People 55 and over are expected to make up 23% of the workforce in 2016. Having employees who are cognitively fit becomes a bottom line issue. Older workers have industrial knowledge from years of experience. Capitalizing on that by boosting memory and mental processing speed through brain exercises and you can significantly improve performance standards. Getting the most from a mature workforce translates into a competitive advantage.

Howard Newman, sixty years old and CEO of Pine Brook Road Partners, a private equity firm, invested in the Posit Science Brain Fitness Program. He had specific reasons for turning to brain fitness: he wanted to increase his working vocabulary; he wanted to sharpen his ability to pay better attention to oral presentations; finally, he wanted to be mentally stronger. He accomplished all of these goals and found that his softball skills also improved! After his successes he included his office staff in the programs and allowed them to do the exercises during office hours. (CNBC, February 2009)

As these testimonials become more mainstream, brain fitness will be as much a part of corporate wellness programs as physical fitness programs are now. Fit bodies, fit brains – that will be the picture of tomorrow’s workforce.

References:

Bazaitis,A. (2008) The workforce landscape – graying but gritty. Aging Well 1 (4) p16.

Frauenheim,E. (Jan.2008). Special report: training and hr technology – retrain the brain.
Workforce Management. 19-23.

Jarvis,R. (Feb.2009). Healthy Horizon: Brain Exercise. CNBC.

Revisiting Spacial Intelligence

In November 2008(Spacial Intelligence - 11/28/2008), I posted this and got lots of comments. Since it is still relevant today I wanted to re-post it so you do not lose sight of this important trait. 


In HR we learn about all the different types of intelligences. However, most people in our profession do not know how to distinguish between them. One of the more important intelligence types is spacial intelligence which gets pushed by the wayside for the following:

• EQ, IQ, AQ as well as;
• Linguistic and verbal intelligence
• Logical intelligence
• Body/movement intelligence
• Business intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intra-personal intelligence.

Spacial intelligence is how do you put together a picture that the CEO, or senior HR leader paints for the organization. Does your spacial intelligence see the same picture or direction? So if someone said put sales under marketing how would you picture that on a organizational chart, or better yet how would you realign the placement of departments within the organization? Usually, this is left to department heads and the facilities manager but as HR leaders this is one area that you should really be a part of in your organization. So think about spacial intelligence and how you measure against what you hear and how you see it.
I welcome your comments and opinions at wgstevens2@gmail.com.

Survey Highlights Successful Onboarding Strategies for Salespeople

George      George Bradt, Contributor

Sales Architects’ 2012 “Salesperson Onboarding Survey” illustrates how comprehensive onboarding programs can increase employee engagement and drive faster results.

Some of the most striking data in the survey, being released next week, details how long it takes new salespeople to generate the same revenue as tenured reps in companies with and without comprehensive onboarding programs: 251 days with a program and 381 without.

Click here to request a summary of the 2012 Salesperson Onboarding Survey

Key 2012 Salesperson Onboarding Survey Takeaways

(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

According to the survey, those who were satisfied with how fast their sales people got up to speed have a comprehensive onboarding program in place which leverages:

• Mentors and in-person group training
• Starting with a well-defined “first day program” that goes on for a meaningful amount of time
• Testing results at the end of the onboarding period, and following through to help those that aren’t generating the same revenue as tenured reps

Other takeaways from the survey include:

• Deploy a structured, comprehensive onboarding program. The most effective onboarding programs are highly structured and comprehensive in nature including testing, tailored coaching, one-on-one learning experiences and re-testing.

• Pivot off a well-defined day one. That one change doubles participants’ satisfaction with the program.

• Extend the onboarding period. The length of time to develop productive salespeople is significant. The onboarding program duration should be designed to reduce the amount of time it takes for new salespeople to produce at the same level as tenured ones.

Lee B. Salz, the Sales Architects’ sales management strategist who put together the survey, said:

The survey results remind us that top companies don’t view adding sales headcount as hiring, but rather as an investment in revenue. Onboarding is the key to a high return on that investment.

Implications For the Rest of Us

While salespeople are different animals than other employees, many of these ideas can be applied to other leaders and the broader organization.

Prepare in advance

Getting a head start is key – for all. As discussed in an earlier article, “Executive Onboarding, The Key to Accelerating Success and Reducing Risk in a New Job,” the basics of getting a head start, managing the message and building the team generally apply. Inherent in this is creating a structured, comprehensive onboarding program and planning in advance. This should take into account all aspects of onboarding from before the first contact through to accelerated results.

Manage the message

Part of why day one is so important is because it’s when new people really start converging with the culture. If culture is the only truly sustainable competitive advantage, which it is, then how you define day one, how you communicate your message, how you make people feel has ramifications far beyond that day. There’s much to be learned by how the Red Cross’s Charlie Shimanski inspires others with his message.

Follow through

There is no reason to believe that onboarding has any less impact on people in other functions. Thus, shame on people that don’t follow through on their onboarding programs beyond those first, early days. New leaders and new employees need more help longer than you think.

Take Onboarding Seriously

Whether you’re dealing with salespeople or others, onboarding is a crucible of leadership. The state of the art of onboarding continues to evolve, but this survey and the discussions at the recent Conference Board Onboarding Labboth drive to the same basic points. Having a comprehensive or systemic approach to onboarding makes a big difference. But personalizing what you do is critical. And remember to earn the right to lead before you start to lead.

Click here to request a summary of the 2012 Salesperson Onboarding Survey

Full disclosure: this survey was designed and implemented by Sales Architects with assistance from ES Research, HumanNature@Work, and PrimeGenesis (my firm).

Training for Older Workers - INNOVATE NOW !!!!

I have always been one to think about the future and create opportunities though innovation. As my former CEO once said, "Bill can create something out of nothing and make it relevant." I cherish that comment and have tried to continue to liver up to that saying ever since. 


So, that being said, I think about the the future of older workers and more so the concerns about people who have been out of work for more than 1 year.  I thought of a great way for corporations to earn many points in their respective communities by offering these valuable out of work people training. Yes, not training provided by the unemployment offices or state funded programs but by the people who are current in the T&D areas and who are active in the market. 


I know you are going to say where are the corporations that slashed their T&D & HR budgets going to get the funding? Well, think about it for a minute. What better way to market your company locally and nationally than by self-funding workshops and training programs for these really valuable workers. It will help them get current with software, project management, CAD, engineering, MS development, and the like and who knows, they may even be your future employee. 


So, get on the side of progress/innovation and offer training and skills based learning for these workers. Be a leader in your community and blaze a new progressive trail. Open up your on-line training systems for them and  classroom based learning now.  


This is a call to innovate at a real level, the worker you provide these skills based learning to may be your employee tomorrow. You thoughts are appreciated, email me at wgstevens2@gmail.com and let me know what you think!!!

Don’t Know How To Code? Use Scroll Kit To Build Your Next Website

So this thing called the Internet makes it easy for pretty much anyone to have a voice and get messages across. The problem is that building beautiful, intuitive websites typically requires some knowledge of code. New York City-based Scroll Kit is trying to change that, with an intuitive web app that allows anyone to build compelling experiences with no background knowledge necessary.

Scroll Kit provides users with what’s basically an empty canvas on which they can place anything — text, pictures, whatever — and with one click publish it to the web. The product goes beyond most WYSIWYG web editors, allowing users to control pretty much every pixel of a page and rearrange page elements at will. While the tool proves that you don’t need to know how to code to build something beautiful, the real point is to show that even if you do know how to code, that doesn’t mean you will be able to build a great website.

Up until now, Scroll Kit has been operating pretty quietly, letting early users create sites and rolling out features to support the product. The two-person team, made up of Cody Brown and Kate Ray, basically issued a manifesto today on how the future of the web should be accessible to anyone. The three key tenets: providing an open canvas for development, letting users get feedback from people they know, and allowing people to “play” — that is, making website building actually fun.

So far, Scroll Kit users have primarily used the site to build personal websites and web-based birthday or holiday cards to share with friends and family. Everything that gets published is hosted by Scroll Kit, and the team continues to add new features. Those include custom domains — so that users can host their creations on their own URLs — as well as embeddable videos, and the ability for users to draw their own images. The service is essentially free, but Scroll Kit plans to make money by charging for additional features.

Scroll Kit is currently just the two founders, but it’s been funded and is looking to bring on more designers and engineers to further extend its capabilities. The startup raised just short of $225,000 in seed funding to do so.

RYAN LAWLER

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012

50 Top HR Bogs for 2012 - We Made It Again!!

The Human Capital Institute has just published the top 50 HR blogs for 2012. 

The Best in Human Resources

Ask Dr. Janice BlogERP Career Hub Compensation Cafe Crisp Strategies Diggings Dr. Jac Blog EffortlessHR Flip Chart Fairy Tales HC3 — The Next Generation of Thought Leadership HR Bartender HR Cafe HR Examiner HR Fishbowl HR Funda HR Gumbo Hr Lori HR Marketer HR Morning HR Observations

HR Strategy & HR Technology HR Transformer Blog HR's Brand New Experience HR-XML Blog HRM Today Human Capital League Human Capital Source Human Resource Blog Human Resource Strategy for the 21st Century Human Resources and Customer Service Consulting Human Resources News JD Supra Labor & Employment Law JohnSumser.com Know HR.com Perceptive HR Technology Perfect Labor Storm Performance and Talent Management Blog

Profitability Through Human Capital Renegade HR Simply Lisa Talent Technology Blog TalentedApps The Business Execution Blog The Career Capitalist The Cynical Girl The Employee Engagement Blog The Hire Sense The HR Ringleader The Jason Seiden Blog The Sirona Says Blog TLNT TriNet's HR Blog Upstart HR Welcome to the Occupation

Managing Relationships with Managers

I am sure many of you have been in a situation where you had to deal with a manager who was not a fan of HR or for that matter not a fan of you. I know over my years in HR I can site at least 2 examples of this and how I dealt with them. So here are some useful tips on how to manage manager relationships:

• first, make sure you know who you are dealing with
• offer an olive branch to the manager to discuss an issue but start off with a slow burn towards your topic 
• ask, if they are no fans of HR, why they are not fans but do not immediately become defensive
• if they are not fans of you, ask why and how you can change their mind about your relationship
• this takes lots of work, effort, and humble pie my friends but the outcome will be most valuable
• see how you or your department can help the manager in other than HR ways
• and finally, do not force the issue. 

And here are a couple of other items for your quiver:

• know when to step in, don't interject every time there is an issue
• don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch
• help co-workers to get to know one another, provide opportunities for your staff to interact with others
• reward positive role models
• and also set the example,  Whether you're doing the managing or being managed, take a step back and look at the kind of tone you're setting.

I hope this help in our continuing efforts to manager the HR function. 

Leading Mergers & Acquisitions During A Recession

When a merger or acquisition is precipitated by financial difficulties is it all too easy to lose sight of the critical issues of culture and transformational change in the rush to rescue a failing business. Leaders must recognise that bringing people with you on the journey is a pre-requisite for success.

One consequence of the current recession is an increase in mergers and acquisitions as struggling businesses are swallowed up by their more successful competitors, not least in the ailing financial services sector. For many strong organisations, this is a period of opportunity when they can capture large swathes of market share. However, businesses can easily be seduced by bargain basement prices and should remain wary about what they are getting themselves into. Even at such attractive prices M&A remains a tricky affair often ending unhappily. It takes a concerted effort of leadership to ensure that imagined business benefits are turned into reality.

In calm economic times, it is not often the case that a merger or acquisition fails due to lack of due diligence. Usually, the acquiring company carries out a forensic examination of finances, operational capabilities and order books. Generally, there is also a careful evaluation of the executives and senior managers to assess the capacity of the leadership team run the ship and to identify key players to be kept on board post merger. In the current economic climate, even due diligence may be set aside. You only need look at the disastrous takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB to see what can happen as a result.

One of the hardest tasks in M&A, and one that is therefore is more likely to be neglected in the headlong rush to merge organisational structures and operations, is the bringing together of two groups of people with two cultures into a single unified organisation with a single clear purpose and set of values. Ignore it, and a merger will be slow and painful. At best, there will be long periods of dysfunctional behaviour leading to poor business performance and at worst a break-up of the organisation.

When it comes to getting people all pulling in the same direction, organisations embarking on a merger or acquisition need to be guided by some of the central lessons of effective leadership.

Great leaders have a strong sense of what they stand for and a clear vision of the future. Think of Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Without an unshakable set of beliefs and strong sense of destiny they could not begin to lead others in turbulent and uncertain times. Not only that, and perhaps just as important, they had the capacity to communicate this in a way that inspired others to follow.

In a the same way, an organisation buying or merging with another organisation needs to have a strong sense of its own vision and values and to communicate them in a compelling way if they are going bring people with them. Take the example of a Dutch bank that acquired a UK financial services company. Whilst their culture was strong it was only really understood by those who had worked in the bank for many years. As a result, the vision and values of the organisation were not communicated to the employees of the acquired company who were left to their own devices to guess what was required under the new regime. As is typically the case in a takeover, people were highly sceptical about the intentions of their new bosses and so every attempt to change structures, operations and IT systems was seem as an attempt to do away with their culture or to threaten their jobs. Despite the fact that the takeover meant greater career opportunities for employees and a similar culture based on integrity, expertise and personalised customer relationships the Dutch leadership team faced a pitched battle with managers and staff to introduce the systems required to integrate the new acquisition into their organisation. Years later, some people have still to make the mental transition to their new company. So leaders must relentless communicate a clear vision and set of values for the new combined company before they can being to get everyone working together to move the organisation forward.

Another important consideration is cultural fit. As with any marriage compatibility is vital to long term success. Assessing the similarities and differences between the ethos and approach of the two organisations involved will tell you how much effort will be required to bring the two organisations together and where to focus your energy. It may even persuade you to abandon the idea before you start.

Desk research on company culture is problematic as, for instance, espoused values may well differ greatly from those actually practised. Statements such as ‘People are our greatest asset’ or ‘Customers come first’ may well prove to be fictional accounts of how an organisation really treats its employees and customers. Fortunately, there are a number of effective tools now available to help you to get a good fix on the culture of an organisation, normally based on questionnaires completed by a cross-section of people in the company. It may not be practical to conduct surveys of staff ahead of time, especially in the case of a hostile takeover, but former employees, customers and suppliers can provide a wealth of information. Once a merger or acquisition has been given the go ahead then diagnosis of cultural similarities and differences is a must.

Some essential areas to assess when gauging culture include leadership style, relationships with customers and suppliers, openness of communication, drive for results, risk-taking, decision-making, performance management, level of affiliation, attitude to learning, ethics and work-life balance.

Take the example of a high street retailer taken over by a private equity firm. A central strategy of the acquiring organisation was to empower store managers to operate as autonomously as possible within an ‘entrepreneurial culture’. Historically, the retailer had been run on a command-and-control basis with store managers given clear direction on what to stock and how to display it, as well as how the store staff should be managed. Giving store managers the freedom to stock items according to local conditions and operate as entrepreneurs led to long periods of confusion amongst managers and staff alike and a damaging drop in performance.

Different national cultures also present a major challenge to companies looking to integrate new acquisitions. One major consulting firm, for instance, struggled to its integrate existing country office into a new structure that required their people serving similar clients in France, Germany, and UK to work as a single cross-border business unit rather than operating according to geographical location. Even the way people from different countries prepared for and ran meetings were found to be substantially different and a barrier to working together as a single unified team. Left unattended these sorts of differences will hamstring organisations for months or even years, so an initial investment of time and resources to identify and reconcile differences will pay major dividends in improved organisational performance.

Another critical issue identified by many M&A experts and practitioners is the danger of ‘politeness’. In other words, the temptation not to tell people the truth for fear of upsetting them. The important insight here, backed up by clinical research, is that people find uncertainty distressing and would rather know a difficult truth than be left in limbo. In point of fact, if you are not communicating what is going on then someone less informed will be communicating messages and rumours that will only have to be unravelled later when the damage will have already been done. As with any change, there is necessarily a period of transition when people are unsure about what will change and what will not and people find themselves straddling two ways of working – the old and the new. The job of leaders is to minimise the length and strength of this confusing period, sometimes known as ‘crazy time’, reducing the drop in performance that normally accompanies it.

In the case of a takeover, for instance, people will be fearful about their jobs, causing them to focus on themselves (rather than on their customers) often doing the minimum to get by at work. If jobs are to be cut it is still far better to be upfront about the situation. If people know who may be made redundant and when the decision will be taken they can get on with the job in hand rather than focusing on the latest gossip. As with any change, the sooner people can get clarity on what will change and what will remain the same the sooner they can move on and focus their energy on delivering results.

One of the most effective tools for providing clarity for people is formal training. People may need to be inducted into their new organisation not only in terms of new tasks and new structures but in terms of attitudes and behaviours. Simply telling people that they are empowered to be entrepreneurial, as in the retail example above, is not going to deliver the goods. People need the opportunity to learn what this means through questioning, dialogue and experimentation if they are going to put it into practice in a way that will reap the anticipated benefits.

Next, there is the challenge of helping people to break with the past and take up a new a different future. In many merged organisations people remain stuck in the past, identifying themselves with their old organisation rather than their new one. In the absence of any support in making the transition, many people in one particular privatised public transport organisation continued to identify with the old values of a nationalised industry whilst ignoring the new commercial realities they faced. This led to a long period of in-fighting and the loss of many experienced people as staff battled to establish a new order. This kind of schizophrenic behaviour where people are being pulled in different directions by culture and circumstances is clearly a recipe for disaster.

An excellent way of helping people loosen their affinity to their current organisation is based on what it known as the Janus Effect. This states that to be able to envisage a new and different future you need a clear picture of where you have come from. In practice, what it involves is getting people to work through the history of their organisation and examine the major changes they have encountered in the past. For each change they examine the reasons for the change, the emotions they encountered, their expectations at the time and the outcome achieved in reality. Through this process people gain a perspective of change as a regular occurrence provoking many difficult emotions, but ultimately leading to new norms of behaviour as well as to progress. This helps people gain confidence in their ability to work through forthcoming changes and live with a period of uncertainty.

The process also involves examining the conditions that led up to the merger or acquisition, such as a change in market conditions making it harder for smaller organisations to compete. This helps people understand the reasons behind a takeover or merger and to see it as an explainable event rather than feeling victim to some random catastrophe.

It is also important for people to work out what they will gain and what they will lose from merger or acquisition in terms of relationships with people (colleagues, customers and suppliers) and things they hold dear, like status symbols or habitual ways of working. As important is to recognise what will remain the same as this often receives little attention and it is those things that remain unchanged (usually most things) that help reduce people sense that their whole world has been turned upside down.

Finally, people need to be given a formal opportunity lay the past rest. This cannot be done by simply mandating that they consign their old organisation to history. What people need is an opportunity to acknowledge the past before they can set it aside and move on. This allows them to escape from the feeling that getting on board with a new company is a tantamount to dismissing past efforts out of hand. It is only once past triumphs and disasters are acknowledged that people can look to the future without feeling like they have somehow betrayed their past.

This transitioning process is best achieved, through ritual and ceremony. Leaders that understand this principle mark times of great change through ceremonially events in which people come together to acknowledge historic triumphs and disasters before setting them aside. In the case of a merger or acquisition such an event may include the ceremonial disposal of the symbols of the past such as old company logos and handbooks. Leaders then turn everyone’s attention to a clear and compelling shared vision of the future and the building of a new unified team.