| Synopsis—All Book Summary
Ways to Read this Book Many people love to read research. More do not. Much of this book is a review of research we conducted and an analysis of what that research means. If you are a person in Human Resources management, a leader interested in the details of how one or another site or group responded to questions, a researcher or professor who wants to know the details—read the book cover to cover—you will love the detail, the graphs, and all the weight of research behind our end of book recommendations. You might also add your own thinking to our research findings and come up with some new and different ideas of how to use the research data for your own needs. We welcome and encourage such interaction with our work. If you are a "bottom line" sort of person—a leader looking for an idea of what in the world your colleagues and staff are thinking, an answer to the question of whether or not people are change adverse, an individual wondering what others are thinking at work and if you are alone, or an organizational change leader looking for some clear and straight forward strategy advice that is based on reality and facts rather than just someone's opinions, you might want to look at specific portions of this book and get the key points we learned from our research initiative and consider our specific strategies based on the research results. Here is how to do that. Read the Forward to know who Pat Gill Webber is. I wrote the vast majority of the book and am the key author. This tells you where I am "coming from" so you can understand my biases while reading the book. Read the Narrative Objective to understand what the research and the book was designed to do. Then read the synopsis and implications for Parts I, II, and III of the book which cover all the research we did to understand the world at the current time, what people are thinking about change, and how people are handling change at work. At that point proceed directly to Part IV to read the synopsis, the implications, and the whole chapter for specific recommendations based on our months and years of research and hundreds of hours of thinking. Finally, look at the synopsis of Part V which tells you about the references and resources available here. This recommended set of material is less than 60 pages. If you have the time or interest, you can go back into the first three parts to read the details of both phases of our research and our overview of the "Big Picture" as we call it, the details of the organizations we worked with in depth and the analysis of the populations we worked with—over 300 people in phase one and over 600 people in phase two. We hope
this helps you navigate the book and gain from it what you need and want.
We hope as well that if you have any unanswered questions or want to share
your thoughts or thinking on some aspect of the book, you will contact
me at patgillwebber@drpatgill.com Part I: The Big Picture (Synopsis and Implications) People do not work or live in a vacuum. They live in a context—in a culture, a time, impacted by its issues and molded by attitudes prevalent in the society as a whole. They are also impacted by the context of the workplace and its leadership philosophy, strategies, and market approaches as well as an organization's unique culture. When we began our research into what people were thinking about change, and how they were dealing with change in their lives post 9/11, we felt it was imperative to have an understanding of the world they were living in and how it might be impacting their thinking and behaviors. To do that we essentially read about and then analyzed life in the United States in the early part of the 21st century, most especially as it relates to the workplace. It is not that we ignored the world at large—far from it. But we limited our close inspection to what was happening here, in the United States, and how this context would effect workers of all types in any organization including non-profits and global enterprises. We focused on the big issues including globalization, terrorism, and the new unstable world it has created, the culture wars with their relatively new strong "right" leaning impact as well as the more open culture including the shift toward self-development, self-determination, and self-help. We explored the rise of spirituality and its implications. All of these forces were seen as impacting people and their mindsets. Mostly we felt that these forces were creating more sophisticated thinking, more open thinking patterns, and more maturity and complexity of thought—but we did not yet have the research to prove it. In these four chapters of part one, we also considered the current workplace. We focused on strategies and markets that we saw as evolving and moving quickly and decisively to deal with pressures of globalization. We observed significant progress on creating organizations of all types with strong process orientations and a realistic view of competition. We saw too a lag in leadership and management styles and approaches. We noted that despite vast improvements in many aspects of running organizations, the management and leadership often were not as educated and sophisticated in their thinking and approaches due to a lack of strong investment in making that happen. In an odd twist of events and implications, we saw organizations grappling with business realities in the broadest sense of that term, but we did not see an equal commitment to modern and more effective leadership and management in many organizations. We also touched on the explosion of technology and felt that its effect was far greater than many organizations may have thought—people exposed to technology at work use it more often and in broader ways than others. This explosion in the uses of technology we surmised was going to increase the mind sets and thinking of workers across the spectrum, making them more aware and more in touch with global realities, and more open minded and pro-change than their leaders or organizations might suspect. The results of our overview of the world at large, or what we call "the Big Picture," set the stage for our first phase of research with people who we predicted would show more positive pro-change attitudes. We had no idea HOW pro-change those mind sets would be.
Part
II: Phase I Research: The Myth of Change Resistance Phase one of our research involved about 315 subjects who responded to an open survey we developed and put on the Internet. We worked with an organization to help us get a spread of ages and a mix of sexes as well as some diversity in terms of race and background. We accomplished this and had a mixed sample. We also interviewed a number of people in depth after the survey was completed and analyzed the results to get additional insights into our research questions. In phase one we were asking two major sets of questions. The first had to do with change in general and how people felt about it and dealt with it in all aspects of their lives. Secondly, we asked questions about 9/11 and living in a world of terrorism. Since we surveyed people all over the United States and some internationally, we did not see or account for any bias of people who were close to the events of 9/11. Some suggest that 9/11 was an event largely lived and felt on the east coast of the U.S. Our research did not support this contention with no differences found in our sample based purely on geography. Simply put, we were looking to learn what people's attitudes and feeling were about change and adaptation and how all this played out in relationship to living in a post 9/11 world. The results were very strong, persuasive, and not ambivalent. Across all ages, sexes, races, and backgrounds, people were strongly pro-change, open and willing to change personally and professionally, if they were clear that change was needed in many situations in the world today and were aware that without change and often strong change they could not succeed personally or professionally. There were virtually no differences by group—a very unusual and different result than one might expect. In terms of living in a terrorist world, clear patterns emerged. People have become much more self- involved and family-centric. One's home, family, personal life, and all things personal are more important than careers, money, or moving ahead. Health concerns took precedence over business opportunities. While not surprising to some, the findings certainly contained rich data for people running organizations or working in them. People want and expect different things from organizations—and their commitments to them are clearly less intense than when the world was a safer and more secure place, or at least perceived to be such. The three chapters in Part II go through the details of all the questions asked in both parts of this portion of the research. It also shares specific data suggesting what small differences existed between various groups of those that responded. Portions of interviews with ten different people are also included which shed light on the feelings, needs, and concerns of a range of workers from their 20s to their early 60s who work in a variety of settings. This interview data helps support our recommendations later on as well as suggests that our data was accurate in the surveys. This result we found—namely that people are very strongly pro-change and deeply impacted by the new world order—encouraged us to look further to see if, in fact, the differences in various organizations would influence how people specifically dealt with change and handled change in organizations—not just what they thought about change. We were surprised at the depth of the material and how different these views were from the commonsense wisdom of change resistance and the dismay people seem to indicate when faced with making changes. If truth be told, we were expecting more sophisticated views, but the depth of people's sophistication, and openness to new thoughts and actions, did strike us as a profound and critical paradigm shift. Part III: Phase II of Research: A Closer Look at Attitudes and Behaviors related to Change at Work (Synopsis and Implications) We already knew by the end of the first phase of research coupled with our review of the culture and the times that leadership needed to change and that individuals were being under-estimated in terms of their sophistication about change. We also knew that there appeared to be less differences among people regarding issues of change as well as issues of family focus. While our industry had literature exploring differences among groups—and we don't dispute there are such differences between Baby boomers and Generation X for example, when it comes to change, and handling it, the differences did not surface in our research sample. This is an important finding in light of some organizations' out-of-date beliefs that one or another group may be more pro-change than others, or that younger people manage or deal with change more effectively—this simply did not hold true in our research. What about when you factor in differences in organizations? What about when management or leadership is doing a particularly good or poor job of managing and leading change efforts? How does that impact people and how do people, in a real and concrete way not just THINK about change, but behave when faced with real changes at work. We decided we needed a bigger sample of people and we needed to see them in specific contexts. We worked with about 640 people in this phase of our research and we honed in on reactions to tangible work changes and to behaviors when faced with complexity and change at work. We also continued to look for differences by age and gender. We surveyed people at all levels by education and title/organizational status. We did not tease out this data to look at differences, but if our data is consistent, it is likely not going to show many if any changes. Simply put, we did not see many differences between various types of people within any given organizations although some differences did emerge by organization. We decided to do a couple of things in this phase of the research. First, after much effort, we selected eight specific work locations and a group of change consultants to study in more detail. For each we studied the industry, the organization, and the issues of change and how they were handled. Then, we grouped the sites into one set of four that were, according to our expertise and the literature of change more effectively handling change and leading the processes effectively. Then, we chose four sites which, for reason or another, in our professional judgment were not doing something right—either the leadership effort was off base, or the industry was going through some things that were troubling, or for some reason it just seemed things probably would not be going as well as planned. In all cases we selected and used two validated and existing tools that research shows demonstrate two sets of things—the first tool measured people's attitudes and approaches to specific work changes—they were either for them, against them, or neutral toward them. Then we looked at another tool widely considered in business—emotional intelligence—and we measured how emotionally intelligent people were in these settings. This we measured in terms of how well they handled issues related to change—not just what they thought, but how they acted and if they demonstrated flexibility and good relationship skills that would help them navigate change effectively. In the four chapters that follow we share the details of the sample, the tools used, the questions covered, and the various ages and gender mixes in addition to highlighting the stories of our sites and the analysis of where people are in terms of adaptation and behavioral approaches to change. Broadly, we discovered that the findings from the first phase which showed little to no differences between and among groups by age and sex carried through to this stage of the research as well. Next we found, that although there were some minor and interesting differences among successful and less successful organizations, and there was variation in response patterns, for the most part people were both more emotionally intelligent and more pro-change than neutral or negative toward change. The stories of the organizations—a brokerage firm, a global healthcare giant, a technology company serving the animal care industry, a large government agency serving millions of customers with thousands of employees, a large state government group that ran a well regarded court system, an entrepreneurial firm with high technology products for the visually impaired, an aviation company that serves unique niches in the marketplace, and a company doing outsourcing of communications for leading firms, are interesting and rich. They serve to demonstrate the range of organizations we considered and the range of workers and industries. In addition to these sites, we worked with a group of independent consultants specializing in organizational change and an additional 250 people who completed questionnaires and were from other industries and at a variety of levels within organizations than those we covered in our in-depth test sites. Overall, the conclusions were clear—people are more pro-change in their behaviors and approaches to specific changes at work as well as more pro-change in their general attitudes toward change. People are also more emotionally intelligent than previously thought. This is a rather stunning conclusion when it has been thought in some circles that emotional intelligence has been diminishing in the population. Again, our research showed the opposite with strong emotional intelligence across the board. There were a few anti-change people but those that were anti-change were that way due to poor leadership or conditions in their organization at the time of the survey. That is, when it came down to explaining why any person or group might demonstrate anti-change behavior or lower emotional intelligence, the "blame" is squarely on the specifics of the situation and/or poor leadership and management and not on people in general. Attitudes and behaviors are strongly positive overall, but can be made negative when situations suggest that being pro-change is not in one's self interest. This is completely consistent with our phase one research results. Part IV: Recommendations for Action (Synopsis and Implications) When we discovered that people were more pro-change than neutral or negative, we thought through what that meant in terms of policies and processes of handling change initiatives. We also considered what knowing that most people are willing to listen and are open to being influenced meant in terms of leadership and management behaviors. Finally we thought about what it would mean for individuals. In each case there were numerous implications. For example, if you have a majority of people already pro any reasonable change, why spend time with big meetings that are designed to get people excited about change? They already are, but the devil is in the details—so logically we would recommend more time on those details and more time getting people involved and engaged rather than convinced of the need for change. They likely will GET IT quickly but want to see details and get deeper into the problems, challenges, and what the options are for moving forward. The problem with recommendations of any kind is that they can sound or seem obvious or trite on one hand, or be perceived as a stretch from the data on the other hand. Our decision was to include in our recommendations those things that are not just common sense or common knowledge, or even best practices, but ideas that make sense due to the data we collected and thoughtfully analyzed. We discovered a much stronger pro-change bias than we thought in people. We therefore suggest that less time and effort be spent at all levels discussing the need to change and many more opportunities for inclusion in making things change. This may be one of those ideas that appears "obvious." But is it? How often, even in today's sophisticated organizations, do you find that change initiatives are limited to small groups of people making decisions for the majority? How often do you see people at high levels continuing to make it obvious to people in the ranks that they do not know what is going on or what would be a better approach? In another instances, we may know it is a "best practice" to involve people, but now we know for certain, at least with our research subjects, that not only is that a good idea but a necessary idea and even wasteful and fruitless to do otherwise. On the individual level we suggest things that are based on the research into people's emotional intelligence and change reaction and the Big Picture information we gleaned. For instance, we mention travel as a good idea especially for the young and unencumbered—again, perhaps an obvious tip for those in their formative years. If our research is to be believed, this isn't just a good coming of age idea, it may be an absolute for survival and understanding the changing dimensions of the global economy. While we tried not to stretch the data too much, we did suggest that any efforts to think women might be more open to change, or younger groups more easy to work with on change initiatives would in light of our research not be wise. We do not believe this is the commonsense thinking out there. As consultants, we often hear ideas that "our older employees are more resistant than our younger ones"—well not according to our research. We also did not find differences by job categories, though we did not discuss this at length in the research findings. In fact, we did find many differences once we were in organizations on any demographic characteristics. This is in our view an interesting finding and makes our recommendations applicable for any types of workers of any age in a wide range of organizations. One of the most important ideas that we present in our recommendations is our belief that the time is now right for the Learning Organization—a term and strategy popularized nearly 15 years ago and lost in the shuffle of change strategies and the poor economy. The emotional intelligence data we found supports that the time may be right for this tough to orchestrate but valuable strategy. While the idea of a learning organization might have been premature some number of years ago, times have changed as well as people—and with higher levels of emotional intelligence, the tools and processes of creating a learning organization might well be possible now when it was not just five or less years ago. We thought about our data, we talked about it, and then we selected ideas and presented in Chapter 12 as "Ins" and "Outs" for each relevant group—individuals, leaders, and organizations. The chapter that follows crystallized the main ones we developed. But for sure, the list is incomplete. The research we undertook and analyzed gives rise to many more ideas than we present. However, those would likely best be discovered organization by organization. We encourage dialogue at every level. In fact, this book, whether read in the short form (just the synopsis of each part and this chapter) or in its entirety, should generate discussion in any organization about how it is that workers with higher levels of thinking and more positive attitudes toward change can help create the organizations of the future. Making Meaning from Research (Chapter Summary) In summary, the organization has to embrace the new as much as individuals and leaders do. Since your workforce is by majority more sophisticated your strategies and approaches have to match that. With a learning approach there is a framework for doing this that is simple, straightforward, and includes all the stakeholders as well as the customers. Connection and collaboration are the name of the game. Organizational life has never been easy. Individual growth and development has always been challenging even with commitment, help from professionals, and a desire to turn one's situation around. But individuals keep moving ahead and so do organizations. Leaders and managers have always been up against it fighting to keep their own jobs, and trying to manage people or lead them without fully knowing how best to do that. Life and work have always been difficult. But our research shows hope—strong hope. It implies that despite the horrors of 9/11 or 7/7, the continuing threats and promises of globalization, the difficult challenges of working in organizations that are always demanding more with less, people are definitely rising to the occasion. They embrace change; they know they need to work hard at their own lives and to work at the relationships in their organizations. They have not just the right attitudes but the right behaviors if they are led and given the opportunity to work in organizations that tap into their maturity and interdependence. That suggests to us that the challenges ahead can be met, and that the next generation can clearly move beyond the progress made to date. Maybe all the work we in the development fields have done all these years has meant more than we know—all of us in the workplace now deserve some solace in knowing we have made inroads into developing the world's most important asset—its working people.
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