Ben’s level of frustration had reached a level that he had never before experienced in his professional life.

His employer, a tech company that a year ago went after him so hard to lead a new enterprise initiative, had become the seat of his frustrations.  The recruiter and the COO who led the interview process must have either had a skewed and distorted view of this young but promising seven-year old startup, or they had been flat out dishonest and manipulative!  Ben thought about the three on-site days he spent during the recruiting process.  He could have sworn he observed a group of happy, smiling employees who really seemed to love their work.  He spent some time watching a bit of the annual ping-pong tournament that happened to fall during his visit. Didn’t he remember in the rec room hearing and even feeling the light-hearted banter and trash talk that indicated a cohesive culture – one in which he thought ‘…surely these people like each other…’

But where had it all gone wrong?  Since he accepted the management position and inherited a promising team of internal leaders, the reality that Ben experienced seemed to be light years from what he observed during his recruitment.  He thought back on the very first staff meeting with his boss – the COO – and her other direct reports.  She would run down the agenda, make a few statements about each item, ask for questions, and then move on to the next topic.  Eight topics in that first meeting, and the pattern held for each of the topics – no one asked questions or weighed in, other than the COO herself.  He remembers thinking that maybe it was just a bad day for the team, until he experienced nearly this same identical meeting the next four times the team came together.  It got a little better in the third month of his tenure, as he decided to take the plunge and make some suggestions during the staff meetings.  But he was quickly disappointed as he realized that none of his peers reacted to any of his comments and thoughts.  At his last company, he enjoyed the lively debate that would come regularly in vetting decisions.

Then he remembered on two occasions, both within one hour of the meeting’s conclusion, overhearing his colleagues around the corner in the breakroom, criticizing, fairly vehemently, the COO and points she had made during the meeting.  Worse, on each of these occasions, the two pairs involved in these ‘water cooler’ conversations were different people.  So out of the seven team members (with the COO being one and he himself being one), Ben had observed four of them in what he thought was subversive behavior – in just the first two months of his employment!

As he sat in meetings that were led by his people, he noticed a similar pattern, though not quite as pronounced.  Also, ad hoc hallway meetings and discussions seemed to be shallow, and very seldom did the discussions yield any back-and-forth dialogue.  Discussions seemed to focus on one singular idea, and what one person said was generally accepted, and the conversation would then move on. 

In this new job, Ben found himself caught in a vortex of Artificial Harmony, which had enveloped his company.  In environments rife with artificial harmony, there is a desire to portray an image that everything is good, that everyone gets along just fine.  There is the image that staffers are in agreement on, and in support of, the direction of the company.  However, in the margins staffers use gossip and even slander to lay out frustrations with colleagues instead of confronting them directly.  Passive aggressive behavior is tolerated because it is a byproduct of the desired avoidance of conflict.  Employees never really get to trust each other because of the high value placed on the image that the individual projects, rather than their authentic identity.  

Pinnacle Consulting & Coaching Group exists to assist organizations in creating genuine, authentic cultures.  Our work with client organizations focuses on growing the company’s overall health, largely by helping those in the organization to behave in a healthy fashion.  We do this by working with teams through facilitation and consultation – both in-person and virtually, and through coaching individual leaders to help them lead themselves and others with integrity and authenticity.  We also assist in visionary and strategic planning, building and developing teams, change leadership and leveling up leader functions with their positions.  We do all these things with the common theme of driving healthy behaviors.  We see time and again that organizations who commit themselves to these things will experience significant performance enhancement. 

Simply put, Pinnacle works with organizations primarily to leverage their ‘human capital’, which for any organization, is really their most valuable asset.  Human capital is simply the totality of the people who staff the organization.  It is the aggregated whole of the experiences, personalities, skills, abilities, etc. that the people bring to the organization.  It is the human capital that constitutes the largest determinant of the organization’s culture.  So it’s ironic that we don’t see ‘Human Capital’ on the balance sheet (but we see compensation on the income statement), despite it being the organization’s most important asset.

While companies do all they can to squeeze every bit of efficiency out of their business processes – and many, if not most, often do a good job of this – it is their human capital, that presents the greatest opportunity for increased productivity.  No matter how complex their products and services, no matter how powerful the applications that they create for customers and clients, it is what emerges from the organization’s humanity – and the resulting culture – that keeps the business moving and relevant.  So when companies are maximizing their human capital, they are, in effect, doing the most important things they can to maximize the capacity of their products and services.

So, Pinnacle focuses on helping organizations maximize their organizational health.  Therefore, organizational health, which is basically the development and management of the organization’s human capital to create a continually growing culture of collaboration and continuous improvement, is really the most important activity that the organization can ever take on.  This is THE active practice in an organization that facilitates the development of a culture that brings out the best that its people have to offer.  Let me emphasize – it is an active practice – a practice of principles, disciplines, behaviors, etc. that must be intentionally driven into the DNA of any organization.  

But unfortunately, many organizations never take on the activity of organizational health.  They fail to jump into the world of human processing and interaction, not because they are naturally and intentionally avoiding this aspect of organizational life, but more because they may not know how to engage their workforce in this way.  Here are some of the reasons that so many organizations do a sub-par job in dealing with their human capital. 

A) They don’t know how. The world of team and organizational health is, in many ways, considered by many to involve the ‘soft skills’. For many in positions of influence, the term ‘soft skills’ tends to draw comparison to ‘squishy issues’ that they may find it hard to get their arms around. 

B) It’s not what we’re taught in school – Most university fields of study focus primarily on the technical aspects of a discipline or body of knowledge that is applicable in a professional setting. More organizational health-related topics, such as understanding principles of management and leadership (two complementary yet different topics by the way…) are perhaps brought in to the course of study, to a much smaller degree.  The result is that the aspiring professional enters employment being ill-prepared to deal with many of the interpersonal complexities he or she may encounter in co-workers.

C) It’s not the focus of promotional opportunities – Most organizations base decisions on promotional opportunities on technical competence, and not on management or leadership skills, or even potential management or leadership skills. This is especially true with frontline or first-level supervisory positions. As a matter of fact, many assume that people can learn the ‘soft skills’, because that side of the work is ‘easier’ than the ‘hard skills’ – the technical side of things.  But such is NOT the case.  Most who have made the transition from individual contributor to position leader will likely admit that the leader role requires more energy and wisdom.

D) It can be really messy – Working with a focus on humans and human behavior is inherently messy. A human being is, at perhaps his simplest, a configuration of thinking and emotion, with varying degrees of balance or imbalance between the two, depending on situations, background and experiences. No person has the same patterns, so behavioral predictability is nearly impossible.  Also, people bring into the workplace baggage that has nothing to do with the workplace.  Because of these complexities, when we see cues that indicate that someone has an emotion that is out of whack, we may choose not to address it.   We simply may not want to hear what we think we might hear.

 E) It’s not where we measure the bottom line – Human behavior is not very measurable, at least not in discrete terms, in the way we think of an organization’s operational metrics. Human behavior doesn’t necessarily tie very well to compensation plans. This is why so many performance management systems cater to metrics that more directly relate to dollars and cents, often to the extent that they ignore the behaviors of employees. This exclusion of behaviors from the evaluation of performance is perhaps the most significant oversight a company can make.   The reality is that behavior, which impacts company culture directly, will likely have a larger long-term impact on a company’s performance than the company’s aggregated level of technical knowledge and skills.

 How is your organization doing in delving into the issues of organizational and team health?  Are you leveraging your human capital in ways that will maximize it?  Or are you avoiding it?  We can help you get a handle on your organizational health and can help you drive toward significant growth in the health of your organization’s culture.  Hire Pinnacle.  Your people will thank you!

I like to say that people in ‘positions of leadership’ are really not ‘leaders’ unless they can lead people and teams through change.

Moving through change, for the majority of people, is something that probably doesn’t make their list of favorite things to do.  They may be what we‘ll call ‘change resistant’.  Some people, on the other hand, get easily bored in their work, and they like change because it can be a cure from the monotony of their job.  But these folks may not like change for the right reasons – for example, the right reason being the possibility that change will improve things.  Rather, they may like change simply because it gives them something better to do.  Maybe the change constitutes some ease from the boredom.  Let’s call these folks ‘change hyper’.  The change resistant and the change hyper folks who find themselves in positions of leadership will likely struggle, as neither of these mindsets are likely to facilitate a healthy change experience.

In many organizations today, the pace of work life is rapidly accelerating – seemingly every day – and so change is more and more the norm.  Things are moving so quickly that folks have to figure out how to maintain and raise standards of quality while at the same time significantly cutting development and production intervals – not to mention costs.  For this to happen, those in positions of leadership have to become real leaders of change – they have to become ‘change catalysts’. 

Change catalysts see change differently.  They may see – or ‘envision’ – an improved / desired alternative outcome that may be possible for a process, product, relationship, etc.  This ‘vision’ for this outcome becomes a driver for them, and so they are willing to move into the change simply because they know that change is the pathway to the desired outcome.  They see the change as the means, to get to the desired outcome, which is the end.   This is a healthy perspective on change.  

But what can someone in a position of leadership, and who is change resistant or change hyper, do to move toward becoming a change catalyst?  Well, the first thing is to know that it will likely take a lot of time and effort.  One has to commit to what is likely to be a process. There are a number of other things to consider as well.  But let’s focus for now on the fact that becoming a change catalyst probably has more to do with letting go of things than developing new skills or talents.  This is because Change Management and Leadership have to become established as specific functions in the work portfolios of folks in leadership positions, and there has to be ‘room’ in those work portfolios to work on change management and leadership.  Here are some of those things that people in positions of leadership may need to shed if they are going to move toward becoming change catalysts….

1) A skill that has become obsolete:  Probably most who read this have been confronted with acknowledging a work skill that has been ‘replaced’ by technology or innovation.  If you think you haven’t been confronted with this, then you’re probably in denial.  When this happens, one needs to simply acknowledge that obsolescence of the particular function, celebrate the success the skill has brought them, and move quickly toward learning and mastering a new way of doing things.

2) A fear of missing the mark:  Reasonable people don’t like to fail, and don’t like to be wrong.  The natural process of change is going to put people in positions in which failure is more likely, as change takes us into new territory, where things are more foggy than certain.  I tell clients that two things will bring down their ‘decision-making batting average’ – moving through change and moving up in terms of the organization chart.  In both cases, you will run into more ambiguous territory, where it is more difficult to make accurate ‘reads’ and assessments on situations.

3) Work that is no longer relevant to the position:  This is similar to the first item above – an obsolete skill.  But here we refer to actual functions of the job that perhaps were once relevant and necessary, but now they no longer are relevant or necessary.  This is often less a problem of the individual employee, and more with the organization’s culture.  Many companies seem to not be very good at figuring out what employees need to stop doing, as they add new functions to the role, often due to the change that the organization is going through.  But often, employees do hold on to functions that they do well, even after the usefulness of the task has passed.    This occurs usually because the employee does the function well, and he/she finds a sense of personal security in performing the function.

4) The feeling that YOU must have the answers:  Moving into a position of leadership will likely be a pretty demanding step.  New pressures – often around specific knowledge of the jobs that one supervises – lead to a manager feeling that she needs to know (nearly) everything about those jobs.  Again, some organizational cultures drive this expectation, as the value of knowledge may far exceed the value of leading others in their work.  But again, this situation can also be brought on by the manager herself – often out of a deep sense of personal responsibility.  They may feel it their duty to know these things.  But the reality is that every manager has finite capacity, and just the condition of rapid change puts even more pressure on that individual capacity.  In addition, leading people will require more energy – emotionally and mentally – than actually performing the technical work.

5) The work itself:  In other words – one has to delegate.  Ah – one of my favorite subjects!  Delegation is simply the distribution of work responsibilities and tasks to subordinates in such a way that balances the workload and maximizes the productivity of the individual subordinates, and the team as a whole.  Proper delegation appropriates healthy accountability and allows the team leader to balance her time and energy between direct work, supervision and development of staff.  

The practice of delegating work to others can be somewhat complex, for so many reasons.  One in charge of a team must delegate well, because holding on to work oneself leaves little time and energy to nurture personal and professional relationships and professional development that is needed to cause a team of folks to really gel.  Managers who have a hard time delegating – and I believe a high percentage of them do – find delegating difficult because of pressures that often arise out of their own personal insecurities.  And while the proper objective of delegation is to provide meaningful work opportunities that will help to empower the individual employee, often those who do delegate do it in a way that feels more like ‘dumping’ the work.   The implication here is that delegation is an active task that must be done intentionally.  I know that many see delegation primarily as ‘getting rid of work’ to give it to other people.  But delegation is one of the two or three most important things someone in leadership must do, as she is accountable for the overall performance and productivity of the team she leads. 

So, ultimately, many change resistant leaders find change hard for them to move into, not so much because they don’t like change, but because there’s not enough room for it in their ‘work portfolios’, because they are holding on to things they shouldn’t.  A positive, but maybe difficult step may be to take a look at the portfolio of your work, in light of these five aforementioned things that you can very possibly shed.  As you see parts of your work that you can either eliminate or move to others, fill that time and energy with focus and energy on figuring what can be changed, and planning for and executing on that change.

Often when people ask me what I do as a consultant, I tell them “I work in the area of organizational health…’.  So they sort of look at me with this blank stare.  Organizational health is a relatively new field, involved with enhancing the ability of teams to work together in organizational settings.  Perhaps the greatest pioneer in this field is Patrick Lencioni, President of the Table Group, and the author of many best-selling business best sellers, perhaps principle among them being The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  I have the great privilege of having worked with The Table Group for ten years – and what a great learning experience that was!  Pat is the REAL DEAL.  He gets it when it comes to human nature.

So here is my shot at a comprehensive definition of organizational health.  I hope it sounds like an organizational setting in which you may like to work!

Healthy organizations are characterized by cohesive and collaborative teams whose goals are aligned with overall organizational direction. These teams work together to foster transparency and trust.  Teammates learn to complement each other through leveraging their individual and collective strengths, and working to mitigate their areas of weakness.  Teammates are willing to challenge each other and to be challenged, in an effort to improve ideas and ultimately to improve the quality of decisions. 

Heathy teams are comprised of teammates who feel valued and affirmed by their leadership. They understand how their work impacts the productivity of others in the organization, and how their work improves the lives of the end client.  They are self-aware of their behaviors, and how those behaviors affect their teammates.   They’re willing to focus on the big picture of the organization and are willing to align their behaviors with the values of the team and organization.

Healthy teams are led by authentic leaders who influence teammates through practices of developmental accountability, appropriate and targeted reward and recognition, professional development, and performance management.  These authentic leaders are willing learners, and consistently drive to improve the culture of the organization.  Leadership and teammates work to drive the principles of organizational and team health into the organization’s human and technical systems, creating a sustainable culture of continuous improvement.

In healthy organizations and teams, leadership consistently communicates the organization’s direction so that teammates fully understand and take ownership of that direction.  In times of directional ambiguity due to significant environmental and market change, leaders still communicate honestly and work to help teammates be as effective as possible in the midst of trying conditions.  Leaders embrace authenticity, integrity, and high ethical standards.  They lead from a platform of moral authority, and consistently lead by example as they communicate effectively about values, purpose, vision, strategy, goals, etc.

Bud Wrenn

Pinnacle Consulting & Coaching Group

‘Pump, Everly…’;  ‘Pull, Aria…’;  ‘Vinnie, move or you’ll get hit!’ 

All of these, phrases of encouragement, admonition, and warning that I issued to 3 and 4 year old kids in just the past few minutes.  You see, one of the reasons I love my jobs, as an organizational health consultant / facilitator AND as the leader of a growing, innovative church, is that I have the flexibility on many days to go hang out with the children in our church’s playschool.  Today is a warm February day and they’re out on the playground.  I open the gate and head in to the playground area, to the yells of all the kids calling out ‘Pops!’, which is the name my 3 year old granddaughter (who is in the playschool and on the playground) calls me, and thus the name that all the other kids use for me.  “Pops, watch this!’  ‘Pops, flip me!’  ‘Pops, push me on the swing!’  All of the kids want to get the attention of the old guy who comes to visit (OK, so it does wonders for Pops’ ego…)

So, I find myself at the swings – helping the kids understand when to lean up and back, when to throw their legs forward, and when to pull their legs back (of course with their teacher watching them closely to make sure that my instructions don’t put them in harm’s way…..) They really try to do what I say, and for most of them, they begin to have a little success.  As I’m on at the playground, I realize a couple of things:  a) these kids are really trying to learn something new, and b) they apparently trust me.

The beauty of this experience is seeing these kids experiment – trying new things.  Whether they know it or not, as they begin to do more of the pumping, pulling, etc. on the swings, they are actually increasing the risk of negative consequences during the process of learning (…as I’m getting ‘the look’ from their safety-minded teacher…).  If they throw their legs out too far or too quickly, they run the risk of getting too far up in the swing, and possibly falling out.  If they let their feet get too close to the ground, their feet could drag and cause them to be pulled out of the swing.   Yet – they carry on – trying these new things as they listen to the pushing of Pops and the care-filled encouragement of their teacher.

 They Trust Me?

So as I said earlier, it seems these kids actually trust me.  But why?  First, the kids have the assumption that I am a good person – because I come out to see and play with them.  They assume that all I really want is to have fun – just like them!

 And that is at the root of the second reason – that I actually come to see them on the days when I’m in my office – even when it’s cold and rainy outside.  There is a familiarity that we have established.  They feel that they know me.

 The third reason is a product of the first two reasons: they assume that when I tell them what to do on the swings, I am giving them advice that will help them succeed. So – they listen to me.  They actually do what I tell them to do.  They simply trust me as a person and they trust that what I am telling them to do is in their best interest.

 By now, you probably see where I’m going with this.  Organizational life would be so much simpler, and easier, if adult members could be like those kids on the playground!  After all, time and again, research shows that this trust that is so very prevalent on the playground is so very absent in the average organization in America.  So why is that the case?  

 For one thing – these kids KNOW they are vulnerable.  They know that they need others – adults, and hopefully responsible ones – to take care of them and help them become more independent.  They have an almost innate expectation of this, and so they are open to others and their help.

 Second, these kids are still very young, and they generally will give others the benefit of the doubt.  They likely have not had so many of the experiences that their parents, family members, and neighbors have had that may have made them jaded about people.  So some adults may think, ‘Give them time, and they’ll see that they can’t trust anybody….’ (quite a dark view of life…)

 Third, these kids likely receive healthy love at home – from parents, grandparents, siblings, etc.  They have a sense of security that is rooted in that love.  Because they see me showing them something similar to what they receive at home, they feel I have similar interest in their success.

 So how do leaders receive the trust of those that ‘follow’ them?  How do they experience the kind of ‘love’ that I receive (from them) on the playground? While a full answer to these questions would be far beyond the scope of this article, we can take a look at a couple of learnings from the playground (we’ll take a look at some more learnings from the playground in our next newsletter…).

 Playground Lesson 1

There’s something about me just being there.  I come out to the playground, or to their classroom, and I goof off with them.  One may think, ‘Yeah, but adults in organizations need more than that…’  TRUE!  But it’s hard to learn to trust someone from afar.  One of the foundational elements of trust in human relationships is consistent presence.  The more times I see a person, with them being consistent in their mannerisms, emotions, words, etc., the more likely I will find them to be authentic, and the more likely I will find them trustworthy.   The more likely they are trustworthy, the more likely I will begin to trust them. Those in organizational management positions (I hesitate to use the word leadership here, and use ‘management’ because leadership is more a behavior-based thing than it is the description of a position….) must be accessible to their people.  No access – no trust!

Playground Lesson 2:

Being present is important, but it’s not enough.  It is the authentic interactions that occur between individuals, that tend to determine whether trust is being built or not.  The key word is authentic.  It’s important that when I go hang with the kids, that I become a kid.  It’s a good thing that I can get down in the floor and let them crawl all over me, and that I can hold their hands, let them climb up my tummy and chest with their feet, and then flip them.  These are the things that form a pretty quick connection with the kids.  So as it is with kids, it is with adults (without the flips of course…).  A big part of trust is finding those connection points.  Those in positions of management must figure out how to get into the worlds of their people – each individual – and discover those connection points.  In doing so, the manager must still maintain authenticity.   To do this without authenticity can appear to be manipulative.  Many – but not all – people are pretty good at detecting when someone ‘puts on an air’ just to try to impress them.  No authenticity – no trust!

 Playground Lesson 3

Another playground lesson is that the manager trying to gain trust of his/her team members must have at heart the well-being and success of their team members.  Managers have to believe in, and advocate for their people.  My playground friends really believe that what I share with them about swinging will actually help them learn to swing – independently!  Likewise, a manager must genuinely be concerned more with the success of his/her people than with his/her own success, and that concern must be demonstrated!  Of course, the reality here is that managers can really be only as successful as their people are.  One would think that those in management positions would get this – that they would hold their subordinates’ success as a very high value.  But all people are subject to insecurities, and a big insecurity for many is the need to be the person who actually ‘creates’ the success, rather than the one who leads and supports the person who actually creates the success.  And so I have to be content with helping the kids learn to swing, and cheering them on, rather than my jumping on a swing and dusting off my award-winning swing competition stunts!  No advocacy – no trust!

 By now you may be thinking, ‘Bud, you’d probably be a better playschool teacher than consultant…’ And if you were to say that, I’d take it as a compliment!  You see, my playground friends are actually the students of a great teacher, my wife of nearly 38 years, whom I want to be like when I grow up!  Her leadership skills exceed mine.

So three things from the playground today, as we begin to look at building this thing called trust….

• Accessibility: Being available for them,
• Authenticity: Finding and investing in connection points, and
• Advocacy: Caring more about their success than your own.

 How are you doing with your people in these three areas?  Think about that and make adjustments.  We will take a look in the next Pinnacle Principles at some more Lessons From The Playground!!!