| The True
Turnaround
The Executive Brain's Call to REALignment
By Kevin J. Fleming, Ph.D.
One has to wonder in a $100 billion a year industry of corporate
training why there is only a 10% return on investment when
looking at serious behavior changes. Or as David Ulrich’s
research from University of Michigan indicates, why do 85%
of well-intentioned change efforts fail to meet their original
intention?
Most management consultants will tell you, there is no “messier”
time where “right questions, not answers” are
more desired then at business turnaround time. But a technique
or strategy is only as good as its grounding in reality. And
at a time when training and development content is certainly
not in short supply but sustainable changes are, we are left
having to change more than mere methodologies, but actual
assumptions. To do this, the CEO and senior staff need to
undergo transformative turnarounds of their brains, and stop
seeking outwardly the next “Kool Aid” of turnaround
strategic plans.
In the approach I call REALignment, I directly challenge
common understandings of management practices and unsubstantiated
“rules” of performance consulting.
Let’s look at five critical business process areas
and turn some assumptions around:
1. Ethical Decision-Making: Right/Real Some would say that
decision-making as a skill is the single greatest ROI-maker
out there. But in searching for the “shoulds,”
we have practiced a model that has no predictive validity
(think Enron). Aligning teams with the right “woulds”
do a better job than a team with the right “shoulds”
in a group-think kind of way.
2. Corporate Training: Information-Based/Knowledge-Based
Although information is exchanged lightning fast in this “flat”
world of ours, it still takes the same amount of time to learn
something like calculus or algebra now as it did 1,000 years
ago. What good is information if we have not yet mastered
integration?
3. Performance Evaluations: Human Performance/Human Nature
It’s true: If it can’t be measured, it can’t
be managed. But what if what you’re measuring isn’t
linked to the goal? What if performance is the cart before
the horse? Ironically, you get high performance when you optimize
human nature.
4. Management Practices: Sensitive Compliance/Commitment
Authenticity speaks louder than words. Instead of building
pseudo-commitment with words, tactics and “verbal biscuits”
that actually are manipulative, leave fear-based leadership
thinking behind and take the leap to really get to know your
employees. By being real, you get commitment more naturally
with less effort.
5. Visioning Capabilities: What You Wish/Want At a recent
seminar I presented, 74% of the participants felt vision started
with what you wish/want. Ironically, by knowing reality as
it is now, you have a better chance of obtaining (not just
articulating) that future you want. If there is a tendency
to be flawed in the present perceptually, then you are going
to build a flawed future.
Dr.
Fleming is a regular columnist on Transformation Insights
for the high end executive magazine, Executive Decision.
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