At The Clearing, we focus on the human side of change. And what we’ve learned in working with government and private sector leaders over the past two decades is this: change is hard.

“As we plan for ‘re-entry’ into normal-ish conditions post-pandemic, we’re seeing a rainbow of reactions to the prospects of going back to ‘normal.’”

However, we’ve also learned that staying stagnant is worse – and potentially even deadly – for an organization. What’s required for an organization to remain successful is that it adapts to shocks and stressors over time in a healthy way.

Right now, as we plan for “re-entry” into normal-ish conditions post-pandemic, we’re seeing a rainbow of reactions to the prospects of going back to “normal.” And, as your organization begins to move toward “normal” operating conditions, the following list might help identify some of your teams’ re-entry styles. In fact, you could even call them archetypes:

Rejoicing: Individuals who are gleefully awaiting the opportunity to once again sit next to strangers at an airport and listen to their life stories. These folks would come to the office in a hazmat suit if it meant that they could be around humans and in “normal” working conditions once more.
Resuming: Individuals who didn’t even notice a blip on their radar during the pre-vaccine pandemic. These are the kinds of people who swiftly and gracefully lift their laptops off a table after someone spills a large drink on said table – and continue working on the laptop as if nothing happened.
Reluctance: Hello, “cave syndrome.” These are the folks who loved an opportunity to work remotely, petting the cat and making the perfect cup of coffee every day. Now they shake at the idea of “hoteling” next to their colleagues once again and sharing the corporate Keurig.
Rejection: Individuals who not only fear a return to normalcy but avidly dislike it. Resuming the use of crowded highways, subways, or sidewalks, and waiting in lines is creating moments of panic, frustration, and/or anger. These are the kinds of individuals who live in a tourist town like DC and shake a fist annually at the Cherry Blossoms for causing “tourist season” (i.e., me).

“We focus on the human side of change. And what we’ve learned in working with government and private sector leaders over the past two decades is this: change is terrible.”

So what do you – as a leader – do with a group of people who sit across this spectrum when you need the organization to return to “normal” working conditions?

In the words of every frustrating professor, therapist, consultant, and parent ever: “it depends”. First, read my colleague Jason’s advice on ensuring inclusivity in re-entry. Then take a look at the following recommendations based on our firm’s approach to building a resilient culture at a management consulting company. (I call them the ‘6 Ps’.)

And don’t worry, each of these recommendations is designed to appeal to the full spectrum of individuals who are on your teams – from the rejoicers to the rejectionists. So, you, as a leader, can rejoice.

1. Return to purpose.

Steeping your re-entry plans in the mission, vision, and values of your organization drives greater adoption by those who joined to do that specific work. It also clearly signals the impact and value that “normal” working conditions will have on your clients, community, and/or the world, depending on your mission.

Why? Studies show that individuals with a connection to purpose experience increases in leadership effectiveness, fulfillment, engagement, and productivity.

Practice: In corporate-wide settings such as events and communications (e.g., newsletters, Slack messages, etc.) consider:

Sharing project case studies or client experiences at corporate-wide events that highlight company purpose
Highlighting a value and associated practices each month
Acknowledging and incentivizing team members that have demonstrated values
2. Pilot short-term operating principles.

Identify a set of operating principles for your organization that you’ll pilot and revisit within 90-120 days. Some ideas for these operating principles: (1) Put your people first. (2) Assess clients’ progress and preferences. (3) Increase autonomy and decision-making at the front-line management level. These are especially useful for newer individuals at the company who may not be as familiar with explicit norms.

Why? Flexible operating principles provide short sprints to give insights into what’s actually working on the ground during re-entry to allow for rapid pivots as needed.

Practice: To develop and implement these operating principles consider:

Bringing together a diverse group of individuals across levels at the company to develop principles
Provide a shared template or language of these principles and disseminate them broadly across the company with example practices
Ask for feedback on the operating principles and re-visit on an ongoing basis
3. Strengthen and widen the connection with your people.

These are the moments to overcommunicate. (Really, when *shouldn’t* you overcommunicate?) Identify the social networks in your organization and celebrate/advance the informal leaders who helped to translate and build bridges during the quarantine. This team is your superpower to create a cohesive, post-quarantine environment, even among those who reject re-entry. Create new connections between your senior teams and these informal leaders.

Why? Your business is your people. It’s as simple as that.

Practice: To celebrate and advance the social networks and informal leaders across the company consider:

Connecting informal leaders throughout the company that may not be interacting with one another on a regular basis
Ask for ongoing feedback from informal leaders on what they are seeing across the organization
Understand how your staff likes to be acknowledged and follow through on their preferences and support your team leaders in doing the same to ensure equity across the organization
4. Refine your processes.

Now is the time to review and adapt your organizational processes. What worked during quarantine? What gaps did it illuminate?

Why? Poor or cumbersome processes cause conflict and might be one reason (of many) for reticence to return to “normal” and all it entailed pre-quarantine.

Practice: One simple step: with your senior teams and frontline managers, run a START-STOP-CONTINUE exercise on major processes.

5. Create a 90/120-day plan.

With new clarity on purpose, principles, people, and processes, it’s time to build a short-term and focused action plan with clear owners, actions, and success measures to determine how re-entry is shaping up and what changes you need to make in your next sprint.

Why? Agile planning allows a shared perspective on what’s happening, built-in flexibility, and the opportunity to learn from failures. It also establishes clarity on what matters most to the organization over periods of time.

Practice: Once you have your action plan in place, create the team and cadence to revisit the plan on an ongoing basis to ensure milestones are met.

6. Establish daily practices.

Help teams to build daily practices, like regular check-ins (“What’s hard? What’s in your way?”), new operating hours, where feasible; and new wellness strategies. Over time, assess what worked and didn’t to create new organizational norms.

Why? Small moves have the biggest impact on your organization’s culture, wellbeing, and resilience. They also point to where new organizational muscles need to be built.

Practice: Meet with your core management and project team leaders to determine which practices they are performing regularly with their teams and which ones would be beneficial to STOP, START, and CONTINUE.

About The Clearing’s resilience work: When you can’t avoid a long-term set of shocks and stressors – say, as just a wild example, there’s a global pandemic and everything about your organization changes – our approach to resilience can help. Notably, our approach to resilience can be used before there is a need to bounce back. These core tenets can help individuals and organizations to build better leading, managing, and resolution skills that can mitigate shocks and stressors – and make our organizations more prepared without having to experience the traumatic events or the resultant side effects.

Want to learn more about comprehensive strategies for re-entry, resilience, and readiness? Connect with us at resilience@theclearing.com.

Organizational culture, leadership, performance, and job satisfaction are all inextricably linked. Numerous studies have shown that employees want and need more coaching, mentoring, and training from either internal or external resources. I’ve seen individuals and entire organizations experience better performance, improved leadership, and increased job satisfaction as a direct result of these types of coaching and training programs.

However, in certain situations, coaching, mentoring, or training aren’t the best or most effective solutions to address an issue. Some issues are culture-based, rather than individual or even team performance-based. In those cases, coaching or training will rarely produce the desired result.

In this blog, we’ll start to look at what constitutes a “cultural challenge” versus a “leadership challenge”, which is more performance- or style and competency-based. We’ve included an assessment that offers immediate feedback on ways you can help your organization address leadership and/or cultural challenges it may be facing.

Trends in the Market

As a certified executive coach, I’ve noticed a trend: some organizations see coaching as a panacea and use coaches to solve every kind of issue. Some scenarios I’ve seen include:

A difficult supervisor gets outstanding results but is damaging employee morale
A leadership team doesn’t make its annual, financial, or productivity targets
There is a merger or restructuring underway
A new leader is promoted or hired into a highly visible and challenging role

On the surface, it would appear that coaching and training could be effective solutions to work through these situations, but that’s not necessarily the case. Let’s take a closer look at two of these scenarios to understand why a challenge could be either culture-based or leadership performance-based.

Scenario 1: A difficult supervisor gets outstanding results but is damaging employee morale

A senior leader was hired to bring new results to a long-standing organization. This leader produced outstanding results, but was so difficult to work with that the organization was in danger of losing valuable employees. After these concerns were brought to the leader’s attention, he asked for help so he could build better relationships with his staff while also achieving results.

The organization used a 360-degree assessment across his staff and with other leaders to create a baseline understanding of the communication challenges affecting his success in leading his teams. Based on the feedback, the organization designed specific interventions to support new behaviors in the short- and long-term. These interventions held the leader accountable for sustainable change by adding several specific outcomes – both business and leadership – to his performance measurements.

In this scenario, coaching could transform this supervisor’s behavior and affect business outcomes for two primary reasons. First, the leader was willing to be coached and willing to change. Second, his outcomes were tied to his performance and leadership behaviors.

Let’s look at another scenario:

Scenario 2: A new leader is promoted or hired into a highly visible and challenging role

A senior leadership team requested that several new managers in one division receive coaching to support them in their highly visible, stretch roles. Coaches created a leadership cohort with this group of new managers. In the cohort, these leaders worked together to create a new division strategy while learning critical leadership and collaboration skills.

When the leadership cohort presented its new division strategy to the senior leadership team, they learned that a strategy and associated performance metrics had actually already been determined for their division – and that their inputs were not required.

Senior leaders incorporated none of the outcomes designed by the cohort into the managers’ performance or bonus metrics. What is more, per the strategy created by senior leadership, the new manager who achieved the highest sales, independently and without collaboration or her team’s involvement, was rewarded with a high-achiever award at the end of the cohort.

In this scenario, the organizational culture prevented the effectiveness of coaching and leadership development for several reasons. First, the senior leadership team did not actually instill any decision-making authority into the cohort. Second, the organization’s culture rewarded individual achievement over cohort collaboration. Third, new leadership behaviors were not rewarded or tied to outcomes. Coaching and training could improve individual and group leadership skills, but in this instance, a deeper culture issue acted as a roadblock to achieving new and more impactful results for the organization.

As these two examples demonstrate, successful executive coaching requires more than just a strong leader with good emotional intelligence (EQ). You have to take a deeper look at the organization, its leadership, its employees, and its culture to understand if you’re facing a problem that needs a coach or culture fix – or a blend of the two.

So how do you know if you have a leadership or an organizational culture issue?

Take our assessment to find out whether coaching, a culture intervention, or a blend of both might help you and your organization achieve the next levels of performance. At the end of the assessment, you’ll get immediate feedback on ways you can help your organization address leadership or cultural challenges it may be facing.

If you or your organization are struggling with leadership or culture-based challenges, The Clearing provides organizational culture change consulting and  leadership development programs to help organizations achieve peak performance. Contact The Clearing to discuss your needs.