Chapter 13

The Work of the Metaphor

The serve was invented so that the net could play.

—Bill Cosby

The Executive Team meetings continued through the autumn months and into Christmas. They put things on hold until after the New Year celebration but jumped back on it in January. By late spring, they were well on their way to a complete overhaul of the company from the vision statement right down through every aspect of the organization. They had to ask some pretty tough questions along the way. They got some people pretty shook up. Jason tried to keep everyone focused on the new vision of the company by talking regularly about the tennis ball metaphor. He even brought a tennis ball to every staff meeting and when someone wanted to speak, whoever had the ball in his or her possession at the time would toss it to the person speaking. This kept the metaphor before them. Jason started carrying the tennis ball with him most of the time he was at work.

They began the process by going back to their chart that described the attributes of the tennis ball and breaking down the organizational principles one by one. Two principles stood out as being similar: the ability to be flexible and resilient.

Their organization had gotten so large and cumbersome that by the time they recognized they were losing market share to their competition, it was almost too late. They were unable to respond to changing conditions quickly. Attacks on their customer base were crippling and difficult to recover from. This pointed to the need to slim down the organization. Intuitively, Jason knew this all along but didn’t want to face the fact that they had a lot of excess weight. They added a column to their chart of attributes and principles to list some actions they could take to respond to the principles. Whenever possible, Jason required these to be listed as action verbs. He wanted their tasks to be proactive and not reactive. He wanted to build momentum in the organization and get everyone looking at every activity and how, or if it furthered our organization in the spirit of the metaphor.

Planning Our Assessment

They began planning the assessment of their situation by taking the 30,000-foot look and drilling down. They chose to view the company through three lenses, the organizational design lens, the political lens, and the cultural lens. Each of these would give them a pretty good idea where they needed to concentrate their energies and what were some of the potential challenges they would face in the coming months.

The organizational design lens allowed them to see how the flow of certain tasks and information was designed and how their employees were sorted into various roles. They also saw how these roles were related to each other, and the optimal design they needed to remain consistent with the new metaphor and the principles that they derived from the attributes. There were three elements they examined that helped them manage the amount of information they were gathering; grouping, linking, and alignment.

They first considered grouping, or how things differentiated themselves from other things. They drew boundaries around clusters of tasks or activities. This helped them to define jobs, departments, and associated processes. The task is the core element of the design of an organization. It is the smallest unit of activity that must be performed to realize organizational goals. Tasks vary in complexity, how often they are performed, and if they are interdependent with other tasks. Sometimes certain tasks must be completed before another related task can begin. Sometimes related tasks can be completed concurrently while others are completed in a repetitious manner by interacting with each other.

As they looked at how their people were grouped, they realized that this varied by expertise or function, by output or product, or by the market, either geographically or by customer group. Jason could see this was going to take time to analyze the organization.

Next they looked at how departments and roles were linked across these boundaries. This provided them an understanding as to how things were integrated within the organization. One primary linking mechanism they looked at was the formal reporting structure, the organizational chart. This showed them the hierarchical design of the company. They looked at which roles were liaison type roles. These people interacted across departments and work team boundaries. They looked at integrator roles, people who were able to bring various concepts and processes into the overall picture. They also took a deep look at their information technology systems to determine if, in the new metaphor, they would need something different or whether their current IT configuration would be adequate. Finally, they looked at how they handled planning, who was involved, how things were tasked, and how they maintained accountability. They were definitely deficient in their ability to maintain accountability.

The team recognized that alignment of the organization would ensure that everyone has the necessary resources and is motivated to complete the work they’ve been assigned. This involved looking at various systems. They found some of this information in their employee’s handbook, but much of it was outdated or not followed as part of their daily activities. They first looked at their employee performance measurement systems. They had one but they didn’t use it well. Everyone seemed to be rated at the top of the scale, if and when they were evaluated. They considered their rewards and incentives program. This had dropped to the wayside a long time ago. Jason suspected this contributed to some of the grumbling that a couple of his supervisors were dealing with. They looked at their budgeting process and how they allocated funds. They also went through their entire Human Resources Development plan. It was pretty weak. It seemed that after they hired and provided initial training for someone, they did very little to get them ready for promotions. There were few identifiable career paths in the various departments.

They knew that redesigning the organization would not be without its problems. They would have to disrupt the normal flow of business. A redesign could create problems with long-term relationships they had with some key customers and suppliers. It would certainly create stress and anxiety with all their employees; however, they knew they had to do this.

Next, they looked at the organization through the political lens. At first, two of Jason’s Executive Team members pushed back on this. They struggled to acknowledge that they had a culture that included office politics. Jason thought they wanted to turn a blind eye to this. In actuality, they were two of the biggest politically savvy leaders in the organization and took advantage of this every opportunity they could.

Some of the core concepts of the political lens they had to consider included interests and power. The entire organization is grounded in the various interests that are held by members and groups in the company. They certainly had cliques and they usually wanted things their way. All the stakeholders from the Board members, through the Executive Team, and all the way down to the mailroom and warehouse folks had special interests. These could be personal or business related. They had to analyze what interests were represented and the priorities they held individually and from the corporate point of view.

Politics is about the ability to influence others. It includes personal characteristics, scarce and valued expertise, past performance and track records, the formal position in the company, and informal relationships or social networks. They discovered that the influence from social networks was often stronger than from positional authority. They knew in order to bring about the changes they needed, they would have to develop successful political strategies. They needed to determine where interests were and the power that these interest groups held. They had to get “buy-in” throughout the organization or they stood to lose some very important colleagues. They had to find allies and build a coalition as well as networks. All of this would require them to sharpen their negotiation skills.

As they looked at networks, they realized that there were three basic types: advice networks, trust networks, and communication networks. Advice networks centered on those people who could solve problems. These folks were usually pretty highly trained and with considerable experience. Most of their technical people and art department types fit here. The trust network was kind of like an informal “grapevine” where gossip was passed up and down the organization. Over the years Jason had benefitted from asking his admin assistant what was going on. She was well tied into the grapevine. The grapevine was part of the communication network, which involved the various work-related conversations that took place each day. Some were formal and some informal.

The last lens they looked at was the cultural lens that focuses on the meanings that people give to what they experience at work. The symbols or artifacts that represent things throughout the organization tell a lot about the culture. The team knew that in the early days of the business, their culture was pretty laid back. They dressed casually, no one used titles, and they all played together outside of work. However, over the years, they had become more formal in how they engaged each other. Groups of people stayed to themselves. About the only time they got together in a large setting was at the annual company picnic that they traditionally held at Doheny State Beach Park. Jason remembered some great times there. The company purchased all the meat, usually tritip and chicken. Everyone else brought salads, rolls, vegetables, and desserts. They grilled all day, played beach volleyball and flag football, and paddled kayaks. They held the picnics during the last Friday in June because Jason always thought that it meant more if everyone had a workday off to celebrate together rather than ask someone to use their Saturday for a company picnic.

They also looked at the subcultures within the organization. This was usually segregated by the genre of music that the individuals were involved with. They would often take on the dress and the posture of the artists. You could easily identify the hip-hoppers from the pop folks. The rockers were a breed unto themselves.

Implementing the Assessment

After organizing their assessment process around the three lenses of strategic design, political, and cultural aspects, one of the very first actions they initiated was an audit of all their job descriptions, communication channels, and organizational structure. By combining the results of these with a process inventory, they were able to identify several significant redundancies, which when eliminated, reduced their costs and increased their efficiencies.

Through interviews, they also identified a number of people who were in positions where they were either not well qualified or were unhappy in their roles. They found several people were overcompensated and several were undercompensated. They had not been systematic in handling their compensation packages, and that had created some hard feelings among some of the staff.

During this time, everyone was feeling a lot of uncertainty. They were concerned not only about their jobs, but also about how the changes would affect the environment at the office. Almost everyone had regular routines that they tried to maintain. Some would stop at Starbucks or their favorite caffeine injection joint on the way to work. They would often meet friends there and hang out for a while. Because of the nature of their work, keeping regular office hours was not always possible. This created a lack of accountability that was enjoyed by many. In some ways, there were members of the staff who saw this as a part-time job. They had other things going on in their lives and their work became second to everything. There really was no way to allay anyone’s fears that things were going to change. Unfortunately, no one knew quite how great the changes would be.

As they progressed into the early stages of change, many were reluctant to address change adequately in their behavior, timelines, and their willingness to work toward the change. Some tried to do business as usual, just slowly moving along, late for meetings, not prepared, waiting for others to do the work, and contributing very little to the success of the company.

Many had joined the organization in the last few years. Although it was still somewhat nimble before they arrived, it had put on weight, and the pace had slowed quite a bit. Trying to talk to the newer employees about a company that existed before they were hired was difficult for them to comprehend. It was only the old timers such as Jason who understood what they had been and what they could become. He knew that he needed to create a sense of urgency in order to motivate others with the need to change.

Time for a Town Hall Meeting

Jason called a town hall meeting to discuss the situation with everyone. Prior to the meeting, he met with some key Executive Team members, those with the greatest influence. He also met with key supervisors and a few experienced people who were respected by the rest of the employees. During these meetings he let them in on all they had become. Some, particularly those who were not on the Executive Team, were not aware of their numbers and how the company had started to take a very long slide into possible oblivion. He asked for their support and told them that after the town hall meeting, he wanted to meet again to map out a communication plan so that they could get as many of their staff on board as possible.

Unbeknownst to them, he had put together a chart that listed the names of Executive Team members and key leaders throughout the ­organization. This chart categorized each of them as to where Jason thought they were on a change continuum line from, “dig in their heels” on the far left, to “early adopters” on the far right. He could see that they had a lot of work to do to get some of them to change their way of thinking. In the end, they would either get onboard or they would not be able to stay with the organization. He knew, however, that he needed to build a coalition of leaders to help guide the organization through the difficult days ahead.

The film and television executives were well liked and carried considerable influence throughout the organization. Jason knew they would have some issues to discuss that directly involved their departments, and he was concerned whether they would be supportive of the change that needed to take place. Their departments were the glamorous ones. Everyday they had television and movie stars in their offices, and many young employees wanted to work there to rub shoulders with the celebrities. They were star struck, but that was expected until they got used to seeing how human the celebrities were, sometimes too human! Jason figured he would need to meet alone with the executives of these two units in the near future.

In the town hall meeting, Jason talked about the history of the company. He shared old pictures of some of them who were there in the beginning. Several of them stood with him in front in the large multipurpose room where they met for all-hands gatherings. There were some nervous laughs as they flipped through the pictures. He told them about their first Billboard #1 artist and how they felt when they got the good news. He thought some of them struggled to relate to that feeling since many of their artists had hit that threshold many times during their career. He also talked about how they started as a small family and had grown into a company that included every ethnicity, race, gender, and generation. They were as diverse as any organization out there and got along reasonably well. Then, he had to talk about where they were and what they had become.

Jason mentioned their strengths and their weaknesses. Their weaknesses seemed to outweigh their strengths, however. He talked about some of the painful possibilities, most of which were likely unless they changed course. He also talked about a timeline. It was then that it became very real for most of them. The room got really quiet. He broke the silence by telling them that the worst did not have to happen if everyone got serious about changing from what the organization had become to where they needed to go. It would not be easy but it was possible. He ended the meeting with everyone joining hands, and while they were represented by every faith and worldview, he prayed long and hard. It was a somber and sobering moment.

The day following the town hall meeting Jason met with the key leaders again to talk about how to communicate with the employees so that they could remain informed. He knew that rumors would be flying around like bees around a hive. He didn’t want people to start taking their frustrations out on each other, so keeping clear communication channels open was critical. He had the IT folks set up a private, in house, website that was accessible only by the employees. He thought about including their suppliers and distributors since they had such a close relationship, but he decided against it for the moment. He did meet with CEOs from each supplier and distributor early in the process to explain what they were doing and how they were going to do it. They seemed satisfied that his company wasn’t pulling out of the marketplace. This new website included updates, calls to meetings, and a place where people could blog about various change-related issues. He let everyone know that no one would be penalized or disciplined for posting honest thoughts and feelings. He tried to monitor it every day so that he could keep his finger on the pulse of the rumor mill. There were a couple of yelling incidents in the parking lot between disgruntled employees during the next few months but nothing serious.

The leadership had to make some very tough decisions in the days to come by letting some people go. Jason was pretty well connected in the industry and was able to help most of them find positions with other companies: some with suppliers, some with distributors, and some with their competition. Their competitors were pretty surprised and a bit suspicious of their motives. However, after they did their due diligence, they knew that Jason’s organization was just trying to do the best thing for their employees. Several of their competitors even called and thanked him personally for sending them some excellent people.

The employees that they had let go were also pretty surprised that Jason went out of his way to help them get hired within the industry. He thought it did a lot for their reputation, but most of all it was the right thing to do. Many of these people had been with the organization for several years and had become a part of their family. Unfortunately, the family had gotten too large. After getting their organizational structure in order, they went about reassessing their vision and mission statements.

Reworking Vision and Mission Statements

Organizational work on the vision statement took a considerable amount of time. The leadership wanted to get things just right. Their old vision statement evolved from, “To be an international force in music that would change the lives of everyone who heard or saw the incredible mix of sound or visual performance by their artists and productions,” to “To live music.” This was short, concise, and projected the action of living rather than merely “being.” A tennis ball is at its best when it is moving through the air, traveling to a destination. Their company was operating at its best only so long as they were being active, promoting, producing, and delivering good music content.

Next, they looked at their mission statement. They started with, “Their mission is to make international stars of their artists by producing and promoting their work around the world to audiences of every class, race, and ethnic group,” to “Their mission is to activate a global response by serving the best music possible to their audience.” This new mission statement included two action words, “activate” and “serving.” Both of these represented the trajectory of a tennis ball sailing through space. They wanted to show speed and action while being careful not to define any particular response by their audience to the music that they presented.

While their clients included the musicians themselves, in the old mission statement they had elevated them above their audience. Instead, they wanted their mission to reach beyond their musicians to their audience and therefore took the focus off the musicians and on the content of entertainment value to the customer.

Aligning to Values, Culture, and Leadership Performance

One thing organization leaders had struggled with for many years was the ability to align their actions to their values. They had no way to measure their soft people skills such as corporate cultural fit and leadership performance and therefore alignment existed only on paper. During this time of reevaluation, Jason came across a product by a company that had developed a tool that measured soft people skills and plotted these as well as performance on a Cartesian grid. The tool allowed them to plan, track, and assess everyone’s performance.

They implemented training to help those deficient in certain behaviors or performance. This tool, along with the training, helped them ensure their success in the future.

Questions to Consider

1.Using the guiding principles you considered at the end of Chapter 9, identify some actions that your organization might take that would line up with these guiding principles.

2.What are some steps that you would take to assess your organization’s effectiveness?

3.How would you communicate the results of this assessment within the organization?

4.Using the new metaphor that you created in Chapter 10, how might your new vision and mission statements differ from your old ones?