How do I know what solution my organization needs?

Perhaps your whole organization, or just a department or particular location of the company, is experiencing significant stress. It could be any of a range of issues from higher than industry average turnover to unacceptable workplace safety incidents. Or it may be a completely different stress point. As a leader, you are [wisely] concerned about where this is going if not addressed. 

Very often what you’re seeing is a symptom and not the core problem. As an illustration, if I am getting bitten by ants, the problem may not be the ants, but the fact that I am unknowingly standing in an ant bed.  In work, we often see a symptom. An example: ‘our best performers always leave, even though we have a competitive benefits package.’ So then, what is the underlying issue or issues leading to that symptom? Sometimes they are obvious and sometimes they are not.  

Where do I start? 

Two key items you’ll need to determine are: ‘What are the underlying issues?” and “Who is the right partner to help me solve these issues or prevent them from happening again?” 

We suggest a no-cost consultation with us to help shed light on the answer to both items. We want you to have the solution to your issue. We may or may not be the right fit to help you, but through an initial consultation we can explore both. You can start that process by emailing Derek at dcbrown@leaderscode.com 

How do I even know if a KC&A process will fit my issue?

If KC&A is the right partner for supporting you in your organizational culture improvement, we will recommend a series of steps to get us where you want to go. We call these our ‘processes’ and each is chosen based on the client’s specific needs and situation. Nothing is ‘out of the box’ and each is customized to your company, your values, your cultural roadmaps, and the results you’ve prioritized. 

Below is an example of what this could look like (purely as an example).

CASE STUDY

Your company manufactures widgets. You were hired a year ago to run the whole operation, and at the same time the person who was the best welder was promoted to Shop Manager because he was the technical best at welding in the shop and was highly respected for that fact. At the same time a person who had been in the accounting department for years was promoted to Accounting Manager because she has been there the longest and is respected for her institutional knowledge. But neither had ever been in management. Both departments have since become major problems. Your best employees in those departments have either since left, or their productivity has dropped precipitously. You’ve also seen a sharp uptick in safety and quality issues on the shop floor, and repetitive mistakes in accounting. 

What happened? 

Was it possible that the skills needed for being a supervisor or manager are entirely different from being the best welder or the most tenured accountant?

Was it fair to promote those individuals without first making sure they were also fully equipped with expertise in the very different skillsets needed for being an effective organizational leader? 

Was it fair to throw these two successful people into a role where they went from peers of their longtime co-workers to being their longtime peers’ boss overnight with virtually no preparation other than ‘good luck, you’ll figure it out?’ 

Was it fair for everyone else in the shop and accounting department to suddenly report to someone who is learning all the managerial skills the hard way every day, with little support, much like a lab mouse going through a maze with fake cheese attached to electricity learning by shock around every corner? 

Now you’re one year in as the head of this operation and you wish you had a time machine to go back and do things differently. But you don’t. You genuinely want to be fair to all and fix this, but where do you start? You know your boss is thinking the same thing, aka, ‘can you fix this?” 

In a scenario like this, if KC&A is brought in to help, here is a possible path forward we might recommend: 

• KC&A and you have a private, confidential consultation (without cost). We evaluate the situation. And make an initial assessment based on this conversation. 
• You consider our initial assessment and determine if it matches your insights and priorities. 
• We will provide a proposal and scope of work.
• If you decide to hire us to proceed, we start with a series of interviews with you and key employees across the org chart that you identify with us, or who are selected randomly. 
• We do a cross-organizational survey. 
• We analyze the interviews and survey reports for signs of various underlying issues that could be present. 
• After identifying underlying issues we recommend a custom plan to clarify the organizational culture document, address the issues and to give everyone a fair chance to be a part of a positive path forward, while we offer new practical solutions and practical skills to every person willing to learn and implement them. 
• Each person who is a part of the process is asked to take a series of assessments and is given one-on-one confidential feedback session to help them have clarity about their individual current strengths and opportunities prior to starting the next steps. This gives them clarity about where to focus their learning most in the coming stages. 
• We offer a series of professional development opportunities not just for current management but also high potentials, supervisors, team leads, and ideally, all team members. These are ideally in-person or secondarily hybrid meetings and each ‘session’ involves multi-directional learning both from our facilitators and from each individual involved. In other words, not a teacher-student ‘class’ but a facilitation of practical key material that allows everyone in the room to learn from one another’s experience centered on key, proven concepts. These sessions are generally done over the course of 6 to 9 months, with weeks in between to process and apply concepts and strategies in their work roles. 
• Over the course of months, results will begin to show up across the organization.  Our facilitators present the custom curriculum (tailored to your organization) and that is applied by participants at the same time the participants are also learning from one another’s insights and expertises.
• You have now established new standards and skills related to communication, leadership, conflict management, problem solving, leading cross-generation teams, succession planning, and a host of other inter-related organizational strategies that will provide measurable impacts on areas such as high performer retention, key team member development, safety indicators, among many others. 
• We have ongoing and regular consultations and updates with you. 
• We set you up to carry on the positive trajectory forward internally and indefinitely. 

What are some examples of the core curriculum you might use to guide learning and conversations in an individual session? 

• A chapter from The Leader’s Code book, such as The Speed of Trust
• An article from our private Learning Library such as When Friends Become Direct Reports 
• A podcast interview with either an internal or external expert, such as this episode about how to deal with victimhood mentalities that can cripple an organization “The Agent of Your Own Life” 
• Reference materials in the custom binder created for your company participants 
• Asking each participant to apply what was learned or discussed in that session by putting it into a format describing how they will apply it inside the organization. This is submitted through our system so an internal coach can provide feedback and input, if relevant. And each participant shares their own plan with everyone else in the process, each session. 

To explore if we are the right fit, please schedule a time to talk with Derek at a time convenient with you: dcbrown@leaderscode.com 

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