Kindness in your organization

In a recent Atlantic article on successful marriage (that thorniest of relationships), Emily Esfahani Smith defines practicing kindness as "being generous to your partner's intentions". She explains that kindness is a mindset that assumes that the intention of the other person is positive. As an example, if someone is hurting your feelings, it is because of a misunderstanding, not because of an evil intention to hurt. 

This generosity towards others' intentions - we might also call it goodwill - is fundamental in the types of organizations that this blog concerns itself with. Tackling a problem or engaging someone with kindness is a way to recast the problem or relationship on a positive footing, and even more importantly, to stop a negative situation from spiraling out of control. 

That positive cast is crucial if one is looking for innovative or breakthrough solutions. If the debate comprises blaming and recrimination (downward spiral) there is no room for growth, exploration, and mutually beneficial feedback loops. Kindness, as considered here, is a fundamental ingredient in the very survival of the organization, particularly in a challenging environment. 

Treating others with kindness is particularly hard in corporate environments, where mutually exclusive 'success' is often conceived only as a zero-sum gain - a take-no-prisoners war of sorts. There are plenty of anecdotes of psychotic bosses that enjoy inflicting pay on subordinates, and a whole cottage industry of cathartic cultural items devoted to it. In fact, being kind to others can even be perceived as a sign of weakness, but only if it is misunderstood: being kind does not mean accepting anything or foolishly applauding any idiotic idea. The kind person can criticize, but in a positive and uplifting way, and will provide the other with a face-saving exit: "I know you've worked very hard on this project, and the results are encouraging, but sadly they do not meet the objectives that we'd set. What do you propose that we do?" 

The hope lies in that most of us (humans) like to be treated kindly, because it's simply much nicer than the alternative. We don't want our intentions misunderstood, and we certainly aren't all out to 'get' the other guy and inflict pain. Those not trying to step over others on their way to the top (the vast majority) just want to do their job as best as possible, in as meaningful a way as possible, and to be treated with kindness. 

What to do, then, to ensure that kindness is the default position in your organization given that it is not something "normal"? As with all cultural shifts, it is a long-term endeavor requiring significant top-brass buy-in. The most important person, in this case, is the organization's spiritual leader (a CEO, a chairperson, a sponsor, a coach, a widely respected employee) who can start and sustain a cultural shift towards the acceptability of failure, the importance of mutual goodwill, and the imperative of trust/confidence. These are the key elements of kindness that an organization must nurture on a daily basis. 

How will you know you've succeeded? I would state that it is when you can make yours psychologist Ty Tashiro's advice (quoted in the above article) : "A lot of times, a [person] is trying to do the right thing even if it’s executed poorly. So appreciate the intent."

Confidence

A CEO decided that he wanted to "shake up" his rather stodgy company to turn it into an outward-looking innovative juggernaut. The industry had been so comfortable for so long that innovation had not been necessary for survival. With the market upended and significant pressure on margins, the CEO thought that the innovation imperative would be evident to all. He envisioned a company where a question from Asia would find an answer in France, and where people who didn't know each other would collaborate to innovate. He put a team in charge of innovation, reporting directly to him, and bypassed the IT department to launch an enterprise social network (ESN).  

He acted fast and decisively, and expected quick results - an enthusiastic snowball effect of sorts. What he did not foresee, however, was that instead of rising to the challenge of the transformation, the majority decided to either 'wait and see' or to oppose him outright. In particular, there was strong resistance among second and third-line managers against the ESN. An idea that seemed obvious at HQ failed in the hands of the people it was supposed to help.  

What happened? 

For one, this is a classic case of "transformation by bus". The tools are deployed in the hope that people will use them. There is no clearly articulated and desirable target that the organization will reach by using this tool, and the employees have not formulated a need for the tool as a means to reach the target.  

  

Further, signing up for the ESN was an individual initiative for each employee. In a culture steeped in conservatism, that was already a stretch. Some staff resisted using a tool for which they were not specifically trained.  

More disturbingly, some second and third-line managers actively forbade their direct reports from using or engaging in discussions on the ESN. Upon inquiry, three things stand out:  

• the time spent collaborating and innovating (through the ESN or not) could not be clearly tallied towards the objectives guiding the managers' decisions. Nobody was going to get a bonus for or by using the ESN - it was "a waste of time". 
• the managers seem to have perceived the ESN as the threat to their authority. Specifically, if their reports could bypass them to engage directly with others in the company, they might discover that their bosses were less competent than previously believed. Alternatively, if someone had to ask the ESN for help, it might reflect poorly on the manager who, it would be assumed, had not provided the answer or guidance.  
• the managers also perceived, in a less explicit way, that an informed workforce requires leaders, rather than managers - that is to say bosses that inspire and facilitate rather than know and control. Ill-trained (or untrained) for this new responsibility, they could not take it on. 

We see here that this attempt to free knowledge and information in the corporate organization was thwarted by fear; fear of being exposed as less-than-competent and fear of actually being unprepared for one's new tasks. This fear, obviously, is just that: most of the managers are actually competent, and it results from lack of confidence. 

Confidence both in oneself and in the goodwill of others is a crucial ingredient for success that appears to have been lacking at the individual and corporate levels. To "develop individual initiative and individual ability to work with each other" in particular through the liberation of information flows within the organization - the ESN's purported objective - we need to ensure that the staff understands and buys into the shifts required in their positions, prerogatives and responsibilities. I propose that one way that this can happen is if those affected by the changes are :  

1. sufficiently self-confident that they accept to challenge the status quo and their position therein 

2. convinced that their management, peers, and reports will treat their experimentations and questions (and potential failure) with goodwill and that they will be given the necessary training and support to succeed.  

Treating employees with kindness, trust and respect is a good place to start building  self-confidence and corporate goodwill. Almost more importantly, giving employees the freedom to err, and even to fail, is the highest show of confidence and encouragement to their ability to make decisions - to take initiative.

Hug your way to profits

I will not play at tug o' war.  
I'd rather play at hug o' war,  
Where everyone hugs  
Instead of tugs,  
Where everyone (…) grins,  

(…),  
And everyone wins.

  

Sheldon Allan Silverstein (Hug o'War, Where the Sidewalk Ends) 

Zero-sum games, where a winner wrests victory from a loser, are widely believed to be at the core of capitalism. This is reflected in its language: companies "compete" to "conquer market share" measured in percentages, and "only the best survive". Inside companies, particularly large companies, the same notion applies: I must defend my turf for fear of having my budget reduced or my authority questioned. 

The erroneous notion that only one person can have a given piece of the pie at any given time causes antagonistic behavior that leads to waste, particularly if the pie is not growing. Genuine collaboration and shared success can seem incompatible with competitive capitalism. In fact, they are fundamental prerequisites of corporate success. A company beset by internal strife wastes time and energy in futile battles that take away from its ultimate purpose (and its bottom line).  

A large IT department had been under massive budget pressure for over 5 years and, barely able to meet its maintenance obligations, it had failed to meet the expanding needs of business users. The IT staff was disheartened and disregarded inside the organization, so much so that business users preferred outside suppliers to IT, further depleting IT's financial and morale coffers. In this tug of war, the business users appeared to be winning, when in fact they were no closer to getting what they truly needed: innovative IT solutions to their specific business problems.  

To resolve this sterile situation, management decided to replace the unpopular head of IT and reform the IT department. Wisely, they decided to couch this reform as a win-win proposition (hug o'war) wherein both the IT and business rank and file would come out ahead. Old wounds were lanced and patched in cathartic seminars, and a bright future envisioned with a positive, shared vocabulary. 

A few months in, the IT staff has a renewed sense of energy and purpose, and they are being treated like partners by business users. The newfound goodwill will need to be stoked regularly to ensure that the group hug can last, but "everybody wins" is now a distinct possibility.

Are your customers an alibi for what you don’t do?

In a recent meeting between the operations and IT departments of a large company, the operations department asked for a software solution to compare the competing offers of electricity suppliers. In response, IT's 'agile development' team asked for a fully documented requirements document - knowing full-well that it was a nearly impossible request. The operations people are busy running the company and have little experience writing software specs, and their original request was formulated as "let's work together to identify the options that are available to us". The meeting did not end well.

In theory, support departments serve and enable business users - their customers. In reality, long seen as cost-centers operating under ever-shrinking budgets, the support departments of some companies have developed an endogenous culture and a "can't do" attitude. Instead of seeking survival through innovation and service quality, a siege mentality has set in, where the walls are so many impregnable processes that stymie the barbarians at the gates (the business users).

  The endogenous culture results from the low status of support functions (cost-center) and the misguided belief that their function is indispensable independently of the level of service (i.e.: everyone needs a paycheck, so HR is irreplaceable). This monopoly situation breeds contempt for business users who, in turn, complain bitterly about the quality of service and lack of innovation. Without positive external feedback, the support function justifies its existence internally. 

The can't do attitude is a way to preserve power: who needs a border guard if the border is always open? Business users who propose new or innovative services are systematically turned away at the fortress' gates and derided for their insolence, naiveté, or lack of expertise. 

This opposition between "business" and "support" results in significant waste of time, goodwill, and energy, particularly as organizations grow in size. Instead of being the oil that greases the proverbial wheels, support departments become so many grains of sand that slow and frustrate the entire system. This is particularly true of formerly heroic IT departments. Their  relevance has diminished as their roles have been downgraded from developing mission-critical applications to maintaining the once-innovative in-house applications deployed in their glory days.   

Instead of looking for ways to improve and of reaching out in a constructive manner to business users, these support departments tend enter a spiral that justifies their self-image as victims of their customers rather than as sources of innovation. In this way, the customers become the very excuse for not improving, for not doing. The business users are blamed for :  

• not being able to spell out their needs in a complete (and irrationally exhaustive) manner   
• when they can surmount the obstacles of the requirements phase, having unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved, and how quickly it can be done 
  
• wanting unattainable ROIs (or even having the gall to try to calculate one)    
• when new services or products are delivered - sometimes very late - not being happy with them and not using them 'properly' or to their 'full potential'  

. 

Breaking the siege can be difficult, since it threatens the survival of those who control the processes. Sounding the trumpets to bring down the walls (unilaterally decreeing change) cannot yield results because the besieged are most often a necessary part of the organization, if not in their current state. A Trojan horse (political maneuvers) can break a stalemate, but it must be followed by quick and decisive transformation towards a desirable new state. The best solution, often long in the making, is a negotiated surrender with a guarantee of safe passage to this desirable target state.

In other words, once the siege is broken, the besieged must be given a shot at redemption, not massacred. This redemption takes the form of a transformation towards a bright and mutually beneficial future, one in which the incentives of the support functions are aligned with those of the business units. Mutual trust and understanding are key elements of this shared future:   

• trust that business requests will be considered seriously and quickly  
• trust that business units will stop trying to asphyxiate, denigrate, or circumvent support departments  
• understanding of the legitimate legal/technical concerns raised by support experts 
  
• understanding of the daily reality of business users and the services they effectively need  

Overcoming the endogenous culture and the "can't do" attitude are the first but necessary steps in a long reconciliation process towards the revival of the support services an organization deserves, and whose conclusion is more efficiency for all.