A future of Organization Development (OD)

Posted on May 13, 2014 by crosbyod

Despite the ancient wisdom, “there is nothing new under the sun,” many OD practitioners and their customers seem to be addicted to finding what is “new.” This habit has been manifested over the past few decades through a constant stream of fads such as “change management,” “leaderless teams,” “servant leadership,” “matrixed organizations,” “self-organizing systems,” etc. The list is presumably endless as old beliefs (such as “hierarchy is bad”) and old practices (such as managing change) get repackaged as the latest and greatest. In contrast, a solid future of OD lies in the past. Group learning and action research (also a form of group learning) are theoretically sound and if properly managed will be relevant throughout the ages.

We need look no further than the father of OD, Kurt Lewin, for the elements of this sound approach. He was a systems thinker and a keen student of change. Whether working to change the food preparation habits of US housewives during WWII, the irrigation habits of famers in the dustbowl era, or inter-racial relations in Connecticut, Lewin got carefully documented results by engaging groups in a process of analysis and action. He also recognized the role of authority in systems, realizing in his research on boys groups that his own cadre of group leaders were more often than not ill equipped to lead in a consultative manner…they knew how to lead autocratically and passively, but when instructed to be in charge yet engage the group many of his leaders accidentally became passive.

While incorporating many other sources (most notably John Wallen, Daryl Conner, Daniel Goleman, and family systems theorists Murray Bowen and Edwin Friedman) my father (Robert P Crosby) and now my brother and I (and a small band of colleagues) continue a strongly Lewinian practice, including measuring results through various means (especially through the metrics of the customer). At the core is the engagement of groups, both large and small, in action research, and attention to authority relationships in systems. Both are accelerated through the use of T-groups to increase both EQ and systems thinking. Structure in this way of thinking, is not the problem. There is ambiguity in any structure. As my father puts it (based on ancient sources, of unknown origin), “there is no freedom without structure.” The challenge is for the members of any structure to create as much clarity as possible, including who decides what (and by-when), so that as much energy as possible can be directed towards achieving the organization’s goals. This requires EQ spread throughout the system, so that people take responsibility for co-creating what is not working, and for doing their own mini-action research to continuously improve.

That’s my 2 cents for now. I say “A future of OD” because I’m confident that OD will continue to have many paths. Some of those paths, alas, will be slick marketing without lasting substance, while some will continue to be a catalyst for high performance and lasting change.

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Sponsor, Agent, Target (SAT) – A Systems Approach to Everyday Work Life

Posted on April 17, 2014 by crosbyod

This post, co-authored by Gil and Chris Crosby, is based on founder and father Robert P. Crosby’s adaptation of Daryl R. Conner’s change model.

In today’s organization, most people work with and depend on individuals outside of their immediate work group. Although commonplace, such “cross-functional” work is often poorly understood, resulting in conflict, wasted time, and failed effort. Sponsor, Agent, Target theory, originally conceived as a navigation system for guiding change, provides a roadmap for improving cross-functional effectiveness.

Picture a diagram of a simple org chart, in which Bob and Jill report to John, the Manager of Department A, and Cindy and Jeff report to Mary, the Manager of Department B. Imagine that John asks Bob (the “Agent”) to complete a task that requires working with Mary’s employees, Cindy and Jeff (the “Targets”). If everyone involved does their piece of the task, then there is no problem, and barring complications beyond their immediate influence (budget cuts, etc.), the task will go smoothly.

However, if Bob is not able to get the effort he needs from Mary’s employees (getting “resistance”), then thinking in terms of Sponsor/Agent/Target can be very useful. SAT helps sort out the “systemic” aspects of the problem (how the organization is working or not working) as opposed to focusing primarily on individual behavior (whether Bob, Cindy, or Jeff lack “people skills”). Bob, for example, will have a hard time being successful if Mary has not been told by her boss (or in this case, at least told by John) about the task and Bob’s role in it. If her superiors aren’t in the loop, or don’t really care about the task, then even if she is “informed” she is likely to be (and probably should be) focusing her group on other priorities.

These are the circumstances that “agents” often face. Bob may be great at interacting with Mary’s employees, and he may even go to great lengths to “make it happen” by taking on some of their responsibility, and still accomplish nothing besides getting tired, frustrated, or possibly sick. If Mary doesn’t want her employees to work on the task that Bob has been asked to work on, there is a lack of alignment in the system, and Bob, as well as the task, have not been set up for success.

That is what we mean here by a “systemic” issue. If the front end of your car is misaligned, does it make sense to blame your tire when it begins to wear? Yet that is often what happens in the work place: the “parts” (in this case Bob, Cindy, Jeff and their bosses) eventually are blamed and start blaming each other. Once things have dragged on long enough to attract attention, many organizations will try swapping out the parts without aligning the front end, and the process of “wear” begins again.

In contrast, if the system was working, Mary would already understand that the task is a priority (or would have pushed back at the right level) before Bob has even approached her group. Mary and her employees would then be likely to view Bob as a welcomed resource instead of a nuisance.

If this is not the case, and it often is not, Bob faces a fundamental choice. The first option, often perceived as the easiest, is the uphill, annoying, and frustrating battle of trying to persuade Mary’s employees to accomplish the task. Employees in Bob’s role often continue on this path for weeks, months, and sometimes even years. The second, perhaps initially seen as the tougher or less comfortable option, is that Bob could work to create the conditions that will help him be successful. He can encourage “sponsorship” by asking his boss to build an alliance with Mary about this work, or by going directly to Mary to ask her support of what he is doing. If he goes directly to Mary and she is not supportive of the work, then he needs to go back to his boss with the clarifying message: “there must be some mistake, Mary doesn’t want me to do that work.” If, on the other hand, Mary is supportive, then she can sponsor the work with her employees in a way that nobody else possibly can.

Sponsor, champion, change leader, or whatever you wish to call it, are terms loosely used and frequently misunderstood. John may have great ideas, or more likely be given responsibility to implement somebody else’s idea, and send his employee, Bob, over to Mary’s crew to turn those ideas into action, but he is not a true “sponsor” of Mary’s crew. You can only effectively sponsor people who report directly to you.

That may seem like a surprising statement. After all, organizations often implement large scale changes led by the highest person at a site, or a corporate officer, or the CEO. The trouble is, the farther removed from the targets, the less influence the person initiating the change really has. This is especially true if they are attempting to lead across work boundaries outside their chain of command (such as in the oft repeated mistake of an IT or HR manager trying to “sponsor” work in production). When a leader, no matter how high in the organization, attempts to lead initiatives across boundaries, they’re really no better off than any other agent, prone to all the barriers faced by Bob. When this happens the leader must do the up front work of seeking a sponsor at the top of the target organization, or pay later.

In other words, projects sponsored by a single individual, directly in the chain above all the effected groups, have a huge advantage. Even then, the leader faces the challenge of working through their direct reports to sustain that sponsorship down through the line so that the John and Mary’s of the world are well aligned and able to guide and support their employees.

So SAT is simple. Bob, after taking a reasonable stab at it, insists (politely) that sponsorship and alignment happens at the level where it needs to happen before proceeding with the work. A skilled agent advocates that the system do what it’s supposed to do to set the work up for success. Mary and John, for example, in order to gain alignment, could have a talk and agree on what needs to be done, or seek clarity from higher up if they can’t come to agreement. Mary could then talk with her crew, and Bob, about what she expects of them so that successful work can get done.

Unfortunately it is that simple, yet it isn’t. In the real world, employees may see talking to a boss about getting workers aligned to do work as “ratting” on each other, or may fear that raising the issue up the chain may send the message that they can’t get things done. It may run against values of duking it out with your siblings instead of running to mom or dad. Many employees, at all levels, will default to “proving” themselves by “handling things” themselves (that is, not “bothering” the boss) and will write resistance off as caused by “unchangeable personality conflicts.”

In short, it takes guts and skill to work out these situations. Employees need to recognize and flag alignment issues. When issues do get flagged, managers must focus their effort on building alignment at their level and above, and even let go of proposed work if alignment is not achieved, rather than blaming and “fixing” the people down below. This isn’t to say that there are never individual performance issues: focusing on the individual should be the exception, or at least a parallel path, rather than the standard knee-jerk response.

Simple and complex, Sponsor/Agent/Target is a way of helping sort out problems of alignment when work that crosses boundaries and layers isn’t going well. SAT can be used from any spot in an organizational chart as a way of creating progress when work and initiatives seem stuck.

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Lean Manufacturing

Posted on March 26, 2014 by crosbyod

The key to lean is Action Research. Giving credit to Kurt Lewin, those on the front lines continually assessed the current situation, created actions towards a desired state, implemented, evaluated and recycled the process. Americans frequently ‘bought’ the product at a certain stage of its development and imposed it. The first time a client included me in a Lean training, the current situation was assessed by supervisors WITHOUT the workers! In a current draft of an article I write: Lean manufacturing, which originated in Japan and swept across U.S. plants, is but one example of a process that uses action research as the core implementing activity. Action research is distinct in that it not only involves the people who will be affected by any change (and who often carry out the change) in the analysis of the problems, but also in the identification of possible solutions. So called lean manufacturing in the U.S. is frequently lacking on both counts. Too often, American companies try to impose a solution discovered elsewhere and neglect the action research process through which it was developed, sustained and constantly improved.

There are other downsides to the implementation of lean manufacturing that are not talked about much. Many organizations apply lean thinking to staffing prior to doing the work of having effective lean processes. Also without sharing the gains in terms of increased wages for the remaining employees. This impacts morale and creates a condition at many plants where if a few employees call in sick they literally have to start shutting down operations. The same consequences can come from going too lean on parts and supplies.

Lean principals are great, lean implementation is often a disaster.

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The Eight Missing Elements in Project Management

Posted on March 16, 2014 by crosbyod

There are eight elements frequently missing in Product Development and Project Management, thus seriously impairing such activities. In fact, most organizations accept as a given that these critical activities will be late and over budget, and will only be salvaged, if at all, through heroic (and horrific) effort. Astonishingly, one study estimated US losses of $81 billion in 1995 on cancelled software projects alone, and that only represents a sample of over-all corporate initiatives (The Standish Group Chaos Report). Fortunately, a more reliable output is probable when the following elements are in place.

The Eight Missing Elements

Single point accountability
Decision making clarity
Employee Involvement in planning & implementation
A Project Manager with strong behavioral skills
Effective Sponsorship & Sustaining Sponsorship
A critical mass with specific behavioral skills
A clear & compelling Business Case
A communication “kick off” and follow-up

1. Applying Single Point Accountability (i.e., one person, not one group) to any task that must be managed during the process. This is especially vital given the matrixed cross departmental and cross organizational nature of modern projects.

2. Clarity about who decides (again, Single Point) and by when.

3. To the extent possible, engage employees impacted by the project in both planning and implementation.

4. A single Project Manager functioning as a change agent (not as a boss except among those who report to her/him), with high ability to be both confrontative in a non-blaming way and empathic, must monitor and manage the work.

5. Sponsorship and Sustaining Sponsorship is essential. Allow me to expand on this poorly understood yet vital element. The employee looks to his/her immediate boss for clarity about daily priorities. The supervisor of any employee is, in reality, their only effective Sponsor. Furthermore, “the manager (supervisor) can only Sponsor those who report to him or her” (Walking the Empowerment Tightrope, King of Prussia, PA 1992, page 21).

The CEO (or whomever is the initiating Sponsor) must build Sustaining Sponsorship with their direct reports, who in turn must build Sustaining Sponsorship at the next layer, and so on down to the level of the floor supervisor. This cascading alignment is often neglected. Worse, many projects attempt “matrixed” Sponsorship (for example, the MIS Director “sponsors” change in production). Such arrangements are the kiss of death.

6. A critical mass of organizational leaders and product/project employees must be capable of giving and receiving specific, non-blaming & timely feedback.

7. It must be clear to all involved why this project is important.

8. Goals, roles, and the timeline must be communicated to all impacted employees via a kickoff and periodic updates.

Skillful application of the above consistently results in key initiatives coming in on time, on budget, while meeting or exceeding customer and quality standards.

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The ERP Puzzle – Key pieces of successful software implementation

Posted on March 12, 2014 by crosbyod

Most businesses use some form of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Many have a terrible time during initial implementation or during subsequent upgrades. Despite this, ERP systems are here to stay. ERP systems (such as Oracle, MAS90, and SAP) are the information systems used to take, manufacture, ship, and account for customer orders, as well as to manage finance, purchasing, sales, planning, and inventory. Once you convert to an ERP system, upgrades and transitions to new systems become a fact of life.

Miss-managed implementations can temporarily cripple operations, cause sharp spikes in workload and stress, and negatively impact the bottom line in a manner far greater than the projected project costs. Research, such as the Standish Report on Project Success, indicates that most implementations go poorly. In fact, only 34% finish on time and within budget, while the rest are either abandoned in midstream (15%), or incur cost and schedule overruns or missing functionality (51%).

The ideas below are not a prescription for all implementations but rather a set of critical levers that may apply to your situation. The list only includes items that I think are often missing or done in a haphazard way. As you think about your situation decide which levers to pull in order for your implementation to be as successful as possible.

Obtain support from the top but build support throughout the system – The top leader in your organization must make it clear to everyone that you are implementing a new system and set the expectation that the success or failure is dependent on the whole organization, NOT just the project team.

Set the scope to minimize the impact on the manufacturing floor – Many businesses have multiple systems from different vendors. Each ERP implementation project must choose which old systems get replaced or interfaced into the new system. The process of building appropriate scope should be discussed with key managers with as much clarity as possible as to the risks and benefits to each decision. To the extent possible the manufacturing floor systems should be kept intact unless a clear advantage is shown in replacing the existing systems. If you disrupt the floor, the pain to the customer, and thus to your bottom line, can be immense. The Business Unit I worked for retained our floor system; other BU’s did not and paid a tremendous price for it in the form of missed deliveries and disgruntled employees.

Don’t sell it once it’s bought – Tell the end users with as much clarity as possible what you think they will gain and lose as a result of the software systems. Do not sugarcoat anything. Be honest about how difficult and the amount of work the implementation will require. Most end users have been through system changes before and know that it can be very difficult. If you are upfront with them they will respect you more in the end. On the other hand, if you only point out the great things the system will do while ignoring the constraints, potential problems, and amount of work, you will not only build resistance to the new system but potentially damage your credibility.

Spend time educating the managers above the people who will use the system – The project manager must spend significant time educating key managers on the project. Keep them informed regarding next steps in the time line, project issues, potential problems, key decisions that must be made, and, perhaps most importantly, ongoing resource needs.

Involve the real end users – When configuring the system make sure you involve the people who will do the work, NOT merely a representative. These end users must be your top players and be able to point out any potential issue that will hurt the business. Issues can be solved if raised, but if they are never raised until you start using the system you will be in serious trouble. IT People often say, “Just turn the system on, then we will stabilize it.” Do not listen to this logic; it will cause you way more pain than it’s worth. Instead, pay now and involve the end users in each step of the way. During the implementation above the end users raised over 500 issues through the testing process. We still had a few surprises at “go live,” but imagine how many we would have had if they only raised 50 issues?

Cultivate input – During software configuration the goal is to get as much input as possible. When end users raise issues, listen, paraphrase, and write them down. If you can add a “thanks,” that is even better. The number one factor on how much input you will generate is how you receive it when it starts coming. After you are clear about the issue they raise, then have a predetermined process to determine whether, and/or how, and when it will be solved. That process must be clear to all participants and continue to be taught, refined and clarified as the project progresses.

Clarify what can be changed and what has to be lived with – Another key to input from your end users is to clarify what has to be adopted and what can be adapted. Don’t expect this to be a one time easy conversation. Software systems are complex. The average person will not be able to grasp all the information immediately, and some will push the same issues several times until they really understand it. And well they should, because frequently, when pushed, the project team can create solutions that they didn’t initially envision, and solve problems that they didn’t think they could solve.

The configuration process is a game in which there are several levers that can be pulled, thousands perhaps, and each lever leads to another set of potential solutions and problems. The project team has a full time job to educate the end users helping in the configuration process. This education must be done with patience and grace. The key to good involvement is to set boundaries while rewarding feedback.

Be aware of the trade off between better data for the organization, and more work for end users – Better information does not come free. In all systems anything that you want to obtain at the back end must be input into the system by an end user. In our business the financial people wanted information on the product by piece. A reasonable request, but that information is not used by anyone else in the organization to make better business decisions, and it would have cost an extra man hour per shift to input the data (as determined through a time study). Getting this data would have cost thousands and given very little for the business in return. Make sure you have a decision process in place that helps sort through the validity of asking for additional input and balances that with basic operation needs.

Have the right and enough technical resources – ERP systems are at best well constructed software programs that are robust and flexible. At worst they are poorly written pieces of software that break down more than they operate. Each have series of modules specific to the different business areas such as planning and finance. Many have new modules to meet an ever expanding list of requirements and are filled with bugs and complexities. Expect to spend a lot of money on technical resources to assist with the more complex or newer modules, or to suffer the consequences if you don’t. Slow progress in getting modules up to speed could signal the wrong, or most likely, insufficient technical resources. With technical resources, you truly pay now or pay later.

Create clarity of decision making, especially when it comes to moving from testing to using the system – Most software implementation projects proceed in stages from configuration to testing, and finally “go-live.” At each stage, there should be a decision making process which balances influence from the end users who are helping to configure the system. Including the end users creates a decision matrix between the BU lead team, the local lead team, the end users, and the project team. Do not allow the project team to make decision recommendations to the BU and location lead team without the voice of the end users.

During our implementations, at the end of each stage, end users from each area impacted by the project raised their critical issues to the local lead team. They also indicated if their area was ready to move forward to the next stage or should take a “time-out” and solve critical issues. The local lead team weighed the information in terms of overall impact to the location and made their suggestion to the BU lead team who in turn made the final decision. The project team facilitated the process as well as added their opinions.

The above process caused several things to happen. First, we did not go live on a few occasions as planned. Second, the end users and the location lead team were significantly informed of each issue at risk. Finally, when we did go live the end users were ready and in most cases, were actually lobbying to turn the system on.

Do not skimp on go live support – Most people understand that there is a difference between classroom training and working in a live system. Make sure you have enough support to help anybody with keystroke needs for the first few weeks after go-live, and do not leave until the end users and the internal location person say it’s ok.

Every ERP system, like every business and every location, is different. Each has its own problems that must be solved to achieve an effective implementation. While it would be wise to consistently assess the items above, the need for action will be situational. I have seen software systems implemented where no additional technical expertise was needed, for instance, but I have also seen projects suffer because the right help was obtained only after a delay.

I cannot say this enough: to be most effective, besides choosing the right system, you must plan all facets of your implementation. This guide is intended to help prep and plan your ERP system adventure.

By Chris Crosby

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Self Differentiated Leadership

Posted on February 26, 2014 by crosbyod

A self-differentiated leader is able to lead and connect simultaneously. They respect their own inner guidance system – what they want, think, and feel – and convey their sense of direction clearly, calmly, and consistently. They follow their own path, yet respect and tune into the people they are leading. They are self aware, manage conflict with minimal ego and defensiveness, consistently listen and understand the perspectives of others, and encourage openness even in the form of apparent dissent. They take clear stands and hold people to clear standards. They recognize their emotional impact on the organization. They are serious but don’t take themselves too seriously. They have fun, which in turn encourages a playful yet focused emotional energy.

– Based on the work of Edwin Friedman

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T-Group as Cutting Edge Post #5:

Posted on January 22, 2014 by crosbyod

Implications for OD Practice

The first major implication from what I have written above is that team and even some leadership development, not just T-group training, needs to be done with intact groups. This minimizes the problem of transfer of learning.

A second major implication is the importance of behavioral description as understood and taught in our unique T-group innovation. Even if the OD practitioner never does a Tgroup with a client (which would be unwise to do without training and apprenticeship), it is our belief that knowing and integrating our strict definition of both behavior description and openness into one’s habitual communication is essential! For instance, if I think that feedback is giving others my judgment of them rather than feedback as stating the specific behaviors that I’ve seen and heard, then I am fused and probably unaware of my emotionality in that moment. My judgments, besides NOT being facts, come from deep within me and are a clue about what lenses I wear looking out from my eyes. They tell the story of me and how I uniquely, emotionally, view the world.

I know of no one who wrote with more clarity about this than John Wallen, (Chinmaya, A., Vargo, J.W.) for me a giant in the field of OD and interpersonal communications.

His precision about communication and his skill exercises permeate all of our books and our work. Like no one else, Wallen emphasized “behavior description.” Without that skill of specificity, feedback is reduced to judgments about the other and to endless blaming. His “Interpersonal Gap” is an interpersonal systems theory that turns communication “upside down,” in that it helps those who comprehend it to realize that:

1. The receiver of the communication, not the giver, holds most of the keys towards resolving any confusion arising in the conversation since it is the receiver who knows if s/he is confused or irritated by an interaction. The sender may or may not sense this.
2. I create my own emotions based on my interpretations of your actions. You don’t
“make me feel…” — I do!
3. My unique interpretations of the other (responding to words, gestures, face, and tone), sometimes leads to my misunderstanding the other. I don’t know the others “by their actions,” but by my interpretation, which is often (especially in tense moments) different from their intentions. Wallen claims that more than 50% of all conflicts come from this gap in understanding.
4. Until I profoundly comprehend this, I will live a lot of my life as a victim pointing my finger elsewhere as I search for answers to repeated communication dilemmas.

Hunching by the observers, related to the behavior listed in the left-hand column, is the door to empathy. Many participants at the beginning of the training list judgments on the left and more judgments on the right. Until they become more emotionally aware they cannot do either the left- or right-hand column with much accuracy.

The practicality of being more precise soon becomes evident to most participants. Without specificity, employees and bosses don’t get what they really want; so-called feedback becomes blaming; goals and roles are fuzzy, and huge waste of time and energy follows.

Integration with Task Work

It is our contention that for OD and T-group training to be effective it must be integrated with the real problems and challenges that are taking place within the location. “Goodwin Watson (1947) warned that the skill training had to accomplish more than ‘the warm glow of participation’ to achieve objective results by truly implementing a databased project cooperatively.” (Schmuck, 2008) The following is an example of how we help each client do so.
During a recent 7-week intensive training (spread out over nine months) with a manufacturing company our firm enhanced an innovation that we have been evolving during the last decade. Each participant had a project that was cross-functional and that was expected to contribute to the bottom-line. The CEO signed off on each one. Work on this was interwoven into the sessions, all of which included continued Skill Group sessions.

For a systemic analysis of each project/task, we use our adaptation of Conner’s work. (Conner, 1992) Especially we insist that you can only sponsor your immediate direct reports. (Crosby, 1992 and 2011) Thus, if a supervisor isn’t aligned with bosses above, the crew almost always follows their immediate supervisor’s lead regardless of what higher-up managers are espousing.

We have each person chart their project or their cross-function task. We use Sponsor, Agent, Target, and Advocate as an analytic tool that helps each person build their strategy to achieve success in the socio-technical aspects of the change they’re attempting. It is not unusual for these to net significant results.

In Mexico recently with a multinational firm, our Tough Stuff had 34 participants (in three groups) from eleven countries. It is a part of a strategy which the top manager (V.P. of Central and South America) has begun putting in place. We have worked with him for
13 years in other companies. He distributes a book (Crosby, 2011) which describes the training and his preferred OD strategy and announces it as a “blueprint” for how he wants his company to be. It is important to highlight that the T-Group is not a standalone intervention!

Thus, Tough Stuff, or any OD intervention, is done in the context of business goals. For instance, when we present decision-making, each attendee will identify decisions that aren’t being made in a timely manner and which person needs to have single-point accountability for each decision. At midweek, the V.P. joins each of the three T-groups in a session that deals with their relationship to him. In it he models what is being taught in the Tough Stuff event. He has been in many of our trainings over the years and is highly skilled. This is sponsorship at its best!

Even in this 5-day training, we have attendees identify cross-functional, day-by-day issues or projects which cross department lines. Our goal is to have them identify conflicts that are delaying effective work. We believe that most so-called interpersonal conflicts are really systems issues stemming from misalignment of bosses higher in the chain-of-command rather than where the conflict appears to be happening.

In this Mexican training, the V.P. took an active part in the formation of six groups whose success he deemed of high importance. This is yet another example of how his sponsorship maximized the relevance of the training event and reduced transfer issues. On the 10-point, anonymous scale about “Applicability to Work”, this international group rated it a median of 9. Some readers may wonder whether this adaptation of the Tgroup to business still impacts the individual’s personal life. Rating the question, “Applicability to life outside work,” the median was also a 9!

Summary

Our unique innovation to T-group is cutting edge because of how we integrate it with business goals and constantly help the participants make direct day to day implications to work. When done in this fashion significant transformations happen like those highlighted at the Davenport Plant visited by President Obama in 2011. In my career, those interventions that tend to be sustained have integrated T-group opportunities as described in our model, for both hourly and salaried employees, into the equation. The EQ maturation, systems understanding, awareness of the distinction between behaviorally descriptive feedback and judgmental pseudo-feedback has direct relevance for the success of the business. Also the movement from victim to proactive creator and their new ability to manage conflict more constructively bodes well for the health of individuals, and companies. These are deeply learned in a T-group. Work on real projects and/or cross-functional dilemmas done in the context of this in-depth experience increases the possibility that the learning will be sustained across the years.

(Contact us for a complete bibliography)

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T-group as Cutting Edge Post#4: T-group Innovations: Our “Tough Stuff” Model

Posted on January 14, 2014 by crosbyod

Our “Tough Stuff” trademarked name is true to the essence of the original laboratory training, but adapted to highlight workplace relevance. Our unique T-group innovations are interwoven throughout each Tough Stuff event. Each location we help transform has Tough Stuff as a major component of their strategy. The initial event is five days with at least 10 separate T-group sessions during the course of the week. At the end of each “Tough Stuff” we have the participants rate it on an anonymous ten point scale, ten being high. They consistently rate it an 8-10 on its “applicability to work.”

These are some of its unique cutting edge features:

1. Whenever possible, we prefer intact work groups. At the plant visited by Obama, the group makeup included (union) hourlies, their supervisor, their union shop steward, and key people with whom they interfaced (i.e., a technician. engineer, quality, etc.).

2. Each group had a meeting sharpening roles and specific measurable goals prior to the weeklong session.

3. Each group had a follow-through session 2-3 weeks later which included more time in T-group, or as we call it, Skill Group (“Basic Skills Training Group” was the early 1947 name before being shortened to “T-group”). The follow-through sessions also include added conflict-management training.

4. Our unique innovation (credit for this goes to former colleagues John Scherer and Ron Short) is the inside-outside structure.

a) The first form Skill Group takes is that of a “fish bowl” Here, five to eight people sit facing each other inside a group of five to eight observers. Each member of Group A is paired with a member of Group B, who observes and gives feedback to their “A” learning partner between sessions. The Trainers sit on the outside with the observers, but are free to make interventions from that position or briefly join the inner circle to make a comment.

b) The typical beginning sequence of sessions is:

i. Group A is in session for ten minutes;
ii. Group A’s learning partners give them feedback for five minutes;
iii. Group A again is in session for ten minutes
iv. Group A’s learning partners give them feedback for five minutes.
v. Group B is in session for ten minutes;
vi. Group B’s learning partners give them feedback for five minutes;
vii. Group B returns for ten minutes;
viii. Group B’s learning partners give them feedback for five minutes.

5. This rotation continues for the length of the training. The time in session may be altered by the trainer who may structure occasional sessions of the entire group. This enables members to have direct access to each other, including the trainer.

6. The skill groups are interspersed with theory sessions of one to one-and-a-half hours in length where skills and concepts about self-awareness, interpersonal communication, conflict management, group process, and systems theory are presented. The total amount of time spent in Skill Group varies from 12 to 15 hours during the first week which is comparable to the early T-groups.

7. The outside group is equally as important as the inside group. Their task lies at the very core of this work. They are to take extensive notes, observing one person whom they are facing. On the left-hand column, they are to describe behaviors (what did the person you are observing do or say). On the right side they are to hunch feelings (mad, sad, glad, and afraid). The skills taught to the participants in the outside group are critical. They are the very same needed by managers to effectively coach their employees to higher levels of performance or by employees when they bring issues to their boss in a way that is devoid of blaming and focused on specific concerns.

8. We have a strict definition of what openness means. At first, almost all attendees interpret ‘openness’ as gut-spilling or as telling secrets about oneself that are otherwise held private. The inability for novice trainers to distinguish between personal confession and openness has been a major factor leading to the demise of Encounter and T-groups. Openness is the sharing of my feelings, wants, and thoughts NOW, not personal secrets or confessions. It is accurate data flow. It is a trust-building way of being. It is NOT always appropriate in life and work, but the T-group is an ideal arena in which to “try on” this basically new behavior for all attendees. Participants need to be more emotionally aware so that, with awareness, they can choose wisely. It’s not “Do what you feel,” but “Feel what you feel and choose what you do”. At the beginning of the very first Skill Group session, the trainer must BE ON HIGH ALERT to nip confessions in the bud! Personal confession is appropriate in therapy. It is NOT openness.

9. However, personal confession can be touched lightly when guided by a skilled trainer. Influenced by Virginia Satir’s visits in the 70’s, faculty Ron Short’s sabbatical with Salvador Minuchin in the late 70’s, Edwin Friedman’s frequent visits a decade later, and the addition to our faculty of Donald Williamson in the 90’s, family of origin (FOO) work became deeply integrated into our T-(skill) groups. The art here is to help participants, in intense interpersonal moments, dip quickly into their FOO history without going into therapy and therefore leaving the here and now conflict. “You seem more intense now than I expected given what’s happening between you and Mary”, the trainer might say. “Does someone else come to mind?” If yes is the response, the trainer then attempts to help the focus return to the immediate conflict with emotionality related to this event and separated from the historic family unfinished business. We have (in extended programs) a counselor on staff who is available for further consultation about this incident. In the Skill Group we use a brief dip into FOO to enlighten the here and now moment. This evolved FOO integration connects, historically, with Kenneth Benne’s observation that, “…the here-and-now includes a time dimension of the past and the future.” (Bradford, Gibb, Benne, 1964)

Many participants begin by thinking that they are “straight shooters.” They interpret ‘openness’ to mean direct talk that is loaded with judgments about the other. This, too, demands a quick intervention by the trainer so that norms in the group do not get tilted toward destructive confrontation. In the “stranger” groups, this is not as devastating. In an intact group, however, “secret-telling” and “accusative” language both create chaos that can be long lasting. Immediate interventions can quickly turn the quality of the conversation into one where such distorted notions of “openness” become positive moments of emotion and behavior description.

As Hamlet succinctly put it, “Aye, there’s the rub!” Too few adults know how to describe behavior. Children grow up being socialized to judge and call other kids by pejorative names when provoked. They point fingers, blame, and see causal factors as being outside of their control. This is sometimes accurate in the sense of the wider society, but I’m writing here about daily interactions with others. Most carry their childhood socialization into adulthood. Emotional awareness has been reduced from the full range that a baby possesses (mad, glad, sad, afraid) to a range that the child’s upbringing has influenced. Also, the ability to pull back from an accusation/judgment so as to describe accurately what one has seen or heard is a skill woefully lacking and rarely taught. Judgments are in our own head and behavioral description is what is outside of us. That’s why the skill of ‘behavior description’ is so essential if one is going to live a sane, differentiated life in a sane, differentiated company.

Further, behavior description affects the Anterior Cingulated (AC) area of the brain which is located between the Prefrontal Cortex and the Limbic area. (O’Conner, 2006) Especially, my capacity to separate my personal judgments from a behavior description of what I sense (see, hear, touch, smell) is a critical element balancing these two parts of the brain. As noted above, children believe that their judgments are facts. Adults remain stuck there unless they learn how to describe behavior, describe and own emotions, paraphrase, and do perception check as also significantly emphasized by Wallen. Without these skills, EQ is shallow. The T-group, competently led, nails these!

Greg Crosby, a fellow in the Group Psychotherapy Association and a Faculty in Interpersonal Neural Biology says “Limbic area functions are: emotional regulation of positive and negative emotions (which includes the Fight/Flight/Freeze response), attachment and memory. The AC is called the “gear shifter” since it can get rigid and argumentative when stressed. AC also has the capability of being flexible and sorting through difficult problems and distressing communication. This takes poise, patience and allows for a refreshing pause inside the brain to make sense out of the communication moment. Communication skills such as paraphrase, perception check, and behavior description are so helpful to brain function because they allow one to slow down the response time before reacting, thus avoiding a reactive response.”

Dr. John Wallen, author of the “Interpersonal Gap,” (Crosby, G., 2008) claimed that “behavior description” is the most difficult skill to learn. We agree. It is also absolutely critical if one is to give clean feedback unencumbered by the giver’s judgments/projections/opinions!

It is, therefore, an essential skill for managers.

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T-Group as Cutting Edge Post #3: Differences Between “Stranger’ Groups and “Intact” Groups

Posted on January 8, 2014 by crosbyod

Almost all T-groups have been composed of people meeting each other for the first time. Thus they were called “stranger” groups or laboratories (“laboratory training” was an early common term for the workshop that included T-groups). Even in corporations like Avis, which in the 60’s offered many T-groups, stranger groups were the unquestioned practice.

A major challenge immediately recognized was the transfer of learning difficulties faced when participants would return to their workplace. With Richard Schmuck, who had received his doctorate with Ronald Lippitt at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, we wrote, “Laboratory training is based on the important premise that what is learned during the laboratory may be employed in real life situations…The term transfer describes the utilization in a second situation of what has been learned in a former situation. A denial of the importance of transfer would be tantamount to saying that what one learns in the laboratory is in order to do better in laboratories.” Later we state, “The problem of transfer is complicated by cultural-island approaches to laboratory training. Participants are removed from their workaday worlds to help ‘unfreeze’ daily sets, expectations, and patterns and to take fresh looks at themselves, their colleagues, and their back-home situations. In contrast, transfer would be enhanced by learning new skills in virtually the same situations as the ones in which they must be applied.” Schmuck wrote later that, “Lewin reminded his students that a focus on the intact group as the target of social-skill training necessarily differed from current visions of how to engineer community change.” (Schmuck, 2008) Indeed! The ability to transfer learning also greatly increases when T-groups are done in-house with intact groups! That intact group distinction, though historically referenced, is very cutting edge in practice today.

This is not meant to disparage stranger groups. Indeed we do two such groups annually in our “adapted for industry” style. Yet to work effectively with intact groups, we have developed new strategies that maintain some significant continuity with the older forms, while also incorporating some key innovations.

Continuities with Classic T-Groups

A typical early statement by trainers historically and in our style is often something like:

“We don’t provide a topic and we don’t guide the discussion of whatever you talk about. Rather, we attempt to help with the dynamics happening while you engage.” I’ve heard novice trainers say you can’t have a topic, which, of course, is impossible. In a business environment, topics often arise about tough issues they are facing! Our task is to assist them to be 1) here-and-now (there is always a “now” component in a conversation); 2) speak from the “I” when appropriate- I feel, I think, I want (you or we is also sometimes accurate); 3) Talk to any member directly rather than about them in the 3rd person; and 4) paraphrase when differences surface.

In addition, we note dynamics such as how decisions (for instance, about the ‘topic’ being discussed) are being made in the here-and-now in the group (usually by default). As in the classical T-group, we may also mention the current stage of this group’s development. Factors such as who is talking to whom, how differences are being managed, or what patterns are emerging are also noted. One common pattern is that each person speaks but no one paraphrases or builds on what the other has said. All of these are ‘here-and-now’ moments with ‘there-and-then’ implications because these behaviors often run rampant in the workplace. “I imagine this is also familiar at work,” says the trainer. Heads nod affirmatively. “Solve this here, and you will more likely be able to solve it there.” Our ‘there and then’ interventions take them briefly to their workplace and help them begin to see the relevance of this T-group moment.

Next post: T-group Innovations: Our “Tough Stuff” Model

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T-Group as Cutting Edge Post #2: Making the Case for T-Groups Today – A Manufacturing Plant Adaptation

Posted on January 2, 2014 by crosbyod

The following outlines the innovative way we used T-groups as a critical component of the strategy to transform the plant recognized by Obama in 2011. The intervention started in 2004 with two major events. The first was a joint T-group with the union executive board and top management. I was referred to the plant manager to help them make operational a joint union-management decision at the top level of the corporation called “Partnership.” With no further definition from headquarters, chaos reigned at the local level. The plant manager had extensive training in the unique T-group model in our Alcoa graduate program. For the union president we could provide references from other union leaders who had positive experiences with us and from steelworkers who attended the graduate program. The decision to begin with the joint T-group was preceded by private conversations with the union president and his board members, along with the plant manager and his direct reports. A one-week T-group then followed, as well as two three-day follow-through sessions, three and six weeks later.

The results of a Conflict Management instrument (Teleometrics International) had shown a strong distaste on the part of nearly all participants to collaborate or compromise. To have a partnership succeed we needed the kind of in-depth training that T-group’s can offer, which enable persons to become more versatile in their approach to conflict. Besides new concepts about conflict styles, T-group training offers existential exploration about one’s affective domain of values and emotions as they are manifested in this unique interactive event! As significantly, in the T-group, participants experiment with new ways of behaving in moments of tension. These are not role plays but real encounters in tense moments in this “safe” group setting. Participants not only become more aware of the positive value in styles they had previously found distasteful, but actually develop new skills to do, when deemed wise, that which had not been available to them before!

The second major event was a cost-improvement project aimed at both reducing costs and increasing production so as to net $15 million. For three days over 100 gathered in a large meeting room where they joined any one of eight theme groups (maintenance, production, human factors (not HR, though some HR personnel joined this group as well as others), quality, purchasing, engineering, etc. It is significant to note that, by design, more than 50% of the participants were steelworkers! We do not do this kind of planning process unless frontline employees are present. We believe they are collectively quite knowledgeable about the day-to-day possibilities for improvement and that their ownership/judgment of the plans developed will greatly determine the success of the endeavor. Involvement in creating the solutions, of course, increases ownership.

The top leaders who had participated in the joint T-group brought to the event a more positive attitude towards collaboration that influenced the workers. Equally as important were new, sharper skills in communication with paraphrasing, specificity, and the ability to raise issues in a non-blaming way resulting in more effective dialogue and conflict resolution. Above all, no time was wasted arguing whether or not this joint activity should be attempted! It was now clear that achieving the goal would benefit all.

By the third morning, each theme group, guided by a very structured process, had a timeline for the nine-month plan. These were merged into a 20-foot master chart (later put on Microsoft Visio to post throughout the Plant), and kept updated by the Project Manager. It is significant that, of the over 100 action items, about half had a steelworker with single-point accountability. They were eager to shepherd actions important to them.

This is but a brief outline of what became not only a highly successful project, but also a great launching pad for the OD strategy and further T-groups throughout the plant. These were considered core to the overall strategy.

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