by Katrien Decroos | Apr 6, 2020 | All, Transformation
Looking for hidden potential in your business
Energy losses, every company has them and underestimates their impact because they are not reflected in the financial reporting. Who in fact calculates energy losses related to, for example, regulating poorly made agreements, insufficient synchronisation between teams resulting in duplication of work, poor or no communication.
What are energy losses?
We call energy losses hidden costs, an inhibiting business factor to which too little attention is paid. Why?
Hidden costs are usually the result of poor human interaction, inappropriate organisational structure, malfunctioning processes, unclear communication.
When management and employees have to evolve with a changing reality, the pressure will increase to achieve the objectives. In doing so, one often forgets that there are resistances that make the change slow or not initiated.
Tapping into hidden potential
More than 40 years of scientific research (ISEOR, Lyon) shows that if you can identify these resistances with the right analysis tools and tackle them together with management and employees, a great potential for energy will emerge. Research and fieldwork indicate that one is at a hidden potential varying between EUR 20,000 and EUR 60,000 per employee.
Companies that can turn hidden costs into positive energy are able to do more and evolve faster.
A warm call
A warm call to management. Take a different look at your company, department or team. Are there elements today that cause energy to be wasted, that employees are frustrated because of skewed situations ? Make with them the analysis of what the impact is on their daily work, their well-being. This will most likely translate into extra time needed to get everything done. In some cases it will lead to demotivation, indifference and even absence.
Hidden costs can be recycled up to 50% with the right approach. A source of energy that can be a real change maker for your organisation.
by Ludo Goethals | Apr 1, 2020 | All, Communication, Transformation
The European integration of two companies is going smoothly thanks to a focus on preparation and management reinforcement.
A merger or acquisition often requires thoroughly integrating the departments, also across different countries. Following the integration in America, with this takeover, it was time for Europe to undergo the process. This meant moving the European headquarters to a different European country and restructuring six support services. The briefing showed that 12 countries would be affected, so it was crucial to have clear communication and strict compliance with the various legal obligations in the countries concerned.
As an expert in assisting with restructuring in the area of communication strategy and approach, Square Circle set to work to oversee this European integration process and draw up an action plan for communication, social relationships, and people, change and crisis management.
In this case study, we will briefly present our approach.
Step 1: Communication – From international to multi-local
The challenge is to get the management responsible for the project AND the local management on the same page. After all, integration may be the goal of the project team, but local management is the driving force for implementing the changes with the employees and is also key to preserving existing social relationships.
A number of well-organized messaging sessions with the integration team will provide a wealth of input, on the basis of which the communication platform can be developed. This is about more than just the pure business case and should give the stakeholders a clear picture of what will actually be involved in the integration.
Next, a number of work sessions with the various local managers allow the concept to be fully tested against the local reality on the ground. Involving the HR managers of the different countries is crucial for keeping the communication as clear as possible for the local employees and the social partners.
Step 2: Master roadmap – All on the same page
It has now become clear that a good roadmap is a crucial part of the preparation and follow-up once the integration has been announced. A detailed master roadmap is drawn up based on the information gathered during the work sessions and talks with project managers and legal specialists. This Square Circle tool incorporates 20 years of experience in some 400 restructurings and provides an overview of all aspects of the integration announcement: define responsibilities, determine communication tools according to the target groups, identify communicators, management training, major deadlines, legal obligations and, above all, what is expected from whom and when.
We then involve the local HR managers and guide them in preparing a local roadmap based on the master roadmap. This will include the legal steps in the different countries in order to enable synchronization in terms of timing (also during negotiations) and a joint approach.
By describing everything as concretely as possible together with the local managers, they are drawn into the project and can prepare themselves for what will be expected of them. They will ultimately become an important link in the success of the integration process. In the roadmap, nothing is left to chance.
Step 3: Management training sessions – How do I deal with uncertainty and change
During the various work sessions, we often notice that there is a need and demand for us to prepare the management for this change, as well. After all, many of them have never experienced anything like this. For example, we provide 20 training courses throughout Europe on how to deal with change in difficult times. These cover how to take on the role of communicator, persuasive communication and how to deal with the media. A Social Crisis Masterclass is organized in 3 potentially critical countries, with the aim of preparing for a number of difficult social scenarios.
Result: A more robust management following the integration
The thorough preliminary process with the integration team and local management put everyone in prime position for the kick-off. The announcement was flawlessly rolled out according to plan in the 12 countries. The social relationships were not harmed because management focused on transparency and trust. The information and consultations with the social partners went smoothly in all the countries where these procedures were required. As a result, the uncertainty among employees was also kept to a minimum.
The integration went according to plan with a management that came out of the process stronger than before.
by Ludo Goethals | Nov 1, 2019 | All, Communication, Transformation
Organizing a perfect meeting is like committing a perfect crime. It is all about preparation. Simply apply following rules and you will enjoy every minute of your meeting life forever!
The perfect meeting
Meetings are an activity that mankind has invented as a way of directly translating Einstein’s Theory of Relativity into practical benefits for any manager, at any company. Time being relative, the primary benefit of meetings is to help managers survive long working days while occasionally attempting to resolve issues. But the latter is absolutely not a requirement. If you want to attain perfection in running your meetings, just observe the following 7 rules.
1. When to hold a meeting?
Well, this is a dumb question. Look at your agenda for the next few weeks. If you find some empty spaces, just fill them in with meeting requests.
Use your creativity to invent topics that are irrelevant enough to be sure you don’t need to invest too much energy in preparing them. It’s a joy to do and a good exercise in creativity, no thinking outside of the box this time, but thinking outside of your agenda.
Your agenda is already fully booked? Lucky you, just remember that the majority of the scheduled meetings will create quality time in your busy weeks during which to work on your exploding mailbox and answer written messages from other managers on your mobile phone. You can already feel your stress disappearing at this positive prospect.
2. Whom to invite?
The rule of thumb is: if you do not want to arrive at any decisions at the end of the meeting, invite as many people as you can fit around a table. You know that the majority of the attendees will not really participate, because they need to check their mails and messages. So, why bother worrying about whom to invite? A large number of attendees creates a win-win situation for all.
Note that if you really need to move forward on a project, you might consider talking to a few people face to face instead of scheduling another collective meeting. But this may be too efficient or disturbing because it works.
3. Organizing the meeting, where to start?
The first and most critical success factor is comfort. Go for large tables where everybody can easily install their laptop and mobile phone with enough space for their water bottles, some papers, a mouse for the elderly, the numerous cables needed to keep the laptops and phones alive and of course the many types of connectors for the beamer or TV set.
Don’t forget, we are 21st century managers. You cannot have too many power sockets. They are the lifelines for very busy people who never stop twiddling with their hardware in order to keep up with the many conversations that shape the daily life of a company. Plus, this way, you’ll also avoid people unplugging YOUR AC power.
For meetings at around 11 a.m. you should also provide enough table space for the occasional banana, apple, orange or light yoghurt including knife, spoon and the plastic bag for the peels. And at around 2 p.m. it is wise to provide space for the greasy sandwich that some participants will try to eat now, in your meeting, because they just came from a lunchtime meeting that lasted longer than planned.
Some companies these days are conducting ‘topless meetings’, where a huge tray collects all the laptops before the meeting. Be aware that many people cannot handle being away from electronics for more than 10 minutes. Compare that to a pet. So, in order to avoid pre-traumatic stress or late-stage depression, plan a lot of breaks. Such measures can only increase your reputation as an effective manager.
4. What is the most appropriate length for a meeting?
Well, contrary to what many managers think, the number of slides is not a good indicator of time. You know beforehand that you’re not going to have the time to go through all the slides anyway, whatever the length of the meeting.
Research shows that on average meetings – or 99% of all meetings – people do not really listen anymore after 5 to 10 minutes. So, as you can see, the length of your meeting doesn’t really matter. As long as everybody enjoys the time using their computer or mobile phone, you are safe.
By the way, keep in mind that in many companies, meetings never start on time and never finish on time either. So, do not panic if you see people arriving late and leaving early in your meeting. It is not that they are not interested or have a train or plane to catch, no, they just are trying to keep up with their agenda, this is business as usual.
5. And the slides?
Well, in our slide economy, common practice becomes a rule of law. Two principles have remained valid for the past three decades. The first principle is that the more slides you show, the more intelligent you will look. The second principle is that the more complex the slides are, the more you will be able to show that your audience is not intelligent. You get it? Number and complexity of slides are proportionally related to perceived IQ.
To achieve complexity in slides, please make sure to allow as little white space on each slide as possible. You can fill the empty space with words, or even better, long sentences. Or you can fill them with figures, graphs, pictures, emojis, clip-art or cartoons. As long as each slide resembles a Picasso or the mathematical formulation of the ignition mechanism of an atomic bomb, you are sure to impress your audience.
By the way, when you present the slides – because that’s what managers do instead of presenting their bright ideas – do not forget to read all the long sentences or go through all the figures and graphs of each slide, preferably with your back turned to the audience. They will appreciate that your body language is telling them they can safely continue to work on their mails because they are not involved in your discussion.
6. Body language makes the difference?
Since you’ve already screwed up your presentation from the very beginning by reading the slides and turning your back to the audience, your nonverbal communication will not make any difference at all in the outcome of the meeting.
Nonverbal communication is about eye contact, voice intonation, using your hands and your body to convince the audience. It counts for 50% of your convincing power.
Eye contact? What for?
You’re right. Don’t look into people’s eyes when talking to them or asking a question. You’ll not only disturb them, you’ll also force them to give a sensible and intelligent answer to a question they do not really care about.
And the hands? Just leave them in your two pockets. Yes we know, you will not look really convinced of what you say or seem committed but you’ll avoid the trouble of finding the best way of using them.
The same applies to your voice. A monotonous voice, without intonation, gives a reassuring feeling to your audience, comparable to lounge music. It is the signal that boredom is a safe haven for mooring one’s boat at several points throughout the day.
7. Closing the meeting? Go for a happy landing!
Of course, you can always stop the meeting by stopping talking.
But the best way is to very quickly go through the 15 slides you didn’t have a chance to show, telling your audience that you will come back to them during the next meeting. That’s reassuring for everybody. No to do’s, no fuss. We call that a happy landing.
Your time is up and you are still alive. Now, just go to the next meeting where YOU will be able to relax, working on your hundred mails and messages. Life’s good!
The Take-away?
Our statistics show that managers spend on average 60% of their time in meetings and that they find 40% of the meetings they attend, are pretty useless. This means they lose on average 1 day of precious time a week. This is 1 week a month or 2.5 months a year.
We have developed a technique that increases management’s persuasion power, improve the quality of the decision making and help managers to get that precious time back.
The outcome? More leadership with less energy drains and a more enjoyable professional life.
By the way. What would YOU do with an additional 2.5 months of professional free time? Think about it and send us your suggestions!
by Ludo Goethals | Sep 6, 2019 | All, HR & People Solutions, Transformation
The good news is: it can be treated!
An insidious virus is crippling many businesses and keeping them from achieving their potential performance and growth. Its name? TFW (Taylorism-Fayolism-Weberism).
The good news is: it can be treated!
The TFW virus chronically saps companies of their human, material and financial energy. Forty years of management research has enabled the economic cost of this destructive virus to be quantified. It is somewhere between € 30,000 and € 60,000 per full-time equivalent per year.
This represents a wealth of human energy and economic added value that companies could be mobilizing to boost competitiveness, improve flexibility, innovate more effectively, accelerate sales, and drive growth and profitability…
It all started with a revolution
In the course of the 19th century, the predominantly agricultural and artisanal society was catapulted into a new world. This was the Industrial Revolution.
This era marked the beginning of the quest for efficiency and effectiveness. How to best organize production? At the time, the discourse on business organization was dominated by three great thinkers.
The first figure: F.W. Taylor
The first thinker, the American Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of Taylorism, advocated a scientific approach to the organization of work. He proposed breaking the work down into highly specialized tasks so that everyone could be as efficient as possible. He introduced hyperspecialization to companies.
He also split every organization into two categories of people: those who ‘think’ and those who ‘execute’. In his view, organizing work in this way would bring a high degree of efficiency. Many companies were inspired by this early version of the assembly line, including Henry Ford in the United States.
The second figure: H. Fayol
The second major personality of the era, the Frenchman Henri Fayol, was one of the first to attempt to rationalize and formalize management concepts within companies.
He sorted administrative tasks into ‘operation groups’ such as technical, commercial, financial, administrative, etc. He described the content of each function but did not consider the human aspects that are relevant to a function.
For Fayol, a function exists once it is described on paper. The ideal business thus becomes a neat organization chart with well-defined boxes and every box in the right place.
His approach entails the depersonalization of the function. Fayol assigns little importance to the human factor, to the person who occupies the position. This leads to organizations that are not very rewarding on the human level and that do not perform well in the long term because everyone can simply hide behind their own walls according to the job descriptions.
Third figure: Max Weber
The third personality that dominated the discourse at the time was a German. His name was Max Weber. He was both an economist and a sociologist. His version of the ideal business boils down to what would later be known as a ‘bureaucracy’.
For Weber, the work must be organized according to strict rules that everyone must stick to. Command and control. The key principle of this approach is subordination. Everyone knows his place and awaits his ‘orders’ from above. Yet individuals end up merely protecting their territory and there is a loss of engagement.
Birth of a virus
Many years pass, men and women evolve, markets become globalized, new technologies flourish and a whole series of company organization models are developed, in the eternal pursuit of an optimal solution. The latest of these is the concept of the ‘lean’ approach.
In our world that is characterized by technological progress, the explosion of information and advances in education, we would expect concepts dating back to the 19th century such as hyperspecialization, the depersonalization of functions and subordination to have been left behind or at least to have evolved…
Well, think again. The principles that applied at the end of the 19th century are still very much alive in our so-called ‘modern’ management methods. But they have now morphed into viruses. The TFW virus.
Infected organizations
How to spot the TFW virus?
The TFW virus is everywhere. It is insidious because we have become used to it. And worse, we sometimes make it the fashionable model. How to spot it? Here are some of the symptoms an infected company may present.
We still see a lot of companies with departments that function basically as separate silos. The lack of consultation and transversal cooperation leads to paralysis. Essentially, this means difficulties in implementing the strategy, action plans and improvements. It’s a vestige of Taylorism that undermines the company little by little, from within.
The depersonalization of the function leads to the creation of workstations that offer little value in professional and human terms. This encourages absenteeism, and leads to increasingly worrying numbers of cases of burn-out and higher than average staff turnover.
Fayol’s principle finds its ultimate prototype in the matrix organization. An ideal organization on paper that in practice forces managers to become professional schizophrenics whose performance – they are the first to admit it – is arbitrary.
Weber’s subordination is still very much present in sometimes insidious forms. It is detrimental to the employees’ commitment to implementing improvements, changes, adaptation. When we expect orders, we feel little or no responsibility for the problems. Middle management and employees do not understand the strategy and therefore do not apply it – they do not feel that it concerns them.
What are the symptoms of the TFW virus?
The list of symptoms that indicate that a company is affected by the TFW virus is long. A few examples:
- Employees systematically complain about a lack of general communication in the company, but nothing changes.
- Recurrent defects in production quality, which the workers barely seem to take into account.
- Productivity is suboptimal but no one knows exactly why.
- The ‘lean’ approach generates tensions and creates widespread demotivation.
- Social relations deteriorate for no apparent reason.
- Implementing changes is slow, difficult and requires too much energy.
- The concept of the customer is not very present in the minds of employees, who simply do their jobs because they are getting paid.
These symptoms are all related to some form of hyperspecialization, subordination and depersonalization that causes the workers to give up or no longer feel engaged.
What are the consequences?
The TFW virus generates dysfunctions that cause recurrent losses in human, material and financial energy. These are known as hidden costs. They take a toll on the results and on the employees, but since they are not measured, they are not taken into account.
Aside from the impact on economic results, the TFW virus also has a social cost. Loss of commitment, demotivation, stress, burnout, absenteeism, resistance to change and difficulty filling jobs are just a few examples.
The virus results in lethargic organizational structures that are hypercontrolled or infinitely complex and impracticable. It thrives on a mode of management that is made up of various closely guarded ‘powers’ and not always subtle forms of influence. It creates and maintains conflicts, whether they are open or – more insidiously – underlying. It is found at every level of the company, in all its operations. And the body count keeps mounting.
But treatment is available. It is within the reach of any company, whatever its size
The first requirement is knowing who has the power in an organization.
The formal power is certainly in the hands of management. They can issue rules and fire employees.
But the real power is in the hands of the employees, those who ‘know’ and who ‘do’. They are the ones who will ultimately decide the fate of the company by investing more or less of their energy in attaining the company goals. And this power often goes undetected by the management. It is therefore necessary to repersonalize relationships, organize frequent one-on-one contact, give each employee room for responsibility that they can fill in their own way, with their own talents and knowledge.
The second requirement is to reinvent the ‘modern’ definition of the manager.
It’s quite simple, actually: take care of your employees and they will take care of the products, services and customers.
What is often overlooked in the so-called modern management models is middle management. Yet it is the most effective strategic link for progress. But the middle management is disregarded, and often has no voice in questions of strategy. A member of the middle management finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He must execute orders handed down from above and is often not valued by the company leadership. Everyone knows this. It’s what everyone says. But what can we do to change?
The third requirement is to systematically track the dysfunctions caused by the TFW virus by involving the employees. There is a diagnostic technique* that can bring these dysfunctions to light and calculate their impact on the company. It makes solutions for improvement more concrete, effective and sustainable. The goal here is to reconcile the human aspect with economic performance.
By targeting the TFW virus, the organization can build stronger tissues, improve blood circulation and increase muscle tone, turning it into an athlete that will be able to face the challenges of a fast-changing world like no other.
*The SEAM approach (Socio-Economic Approach to Management)
The TFW virus, the slow killer of companies?
