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Archives For August 2011

Brief History of Change: ADKAR

David Burkus —  August 31, 2011

Change is a gemstone that must be view from multiple angles. The ADKAR model provides another perspective of the change process. Rather than describe what is happening, or prescribe what actions must be taken, the ADKAR model predicts that organization change only happens individuals change. Developed by Jeff Hiatt, the ADKAR model focus on the five outcomes individuals must experience before organizations can change.

  • Awareness of the need for change.
  • Desire to support and participate in the change.
  • Knowledge of how to change.
  • Ability to implement the change.
  • Reinforcement to sustain change.

Besides leveraging the power of acronyms, this model has made an impact in change management because of its softer, individual focus. There is nothing new in the ADKAR model, except how its unique perspective allows for unique application. Not unlike the five stages of grief, its easy for individuals and leaders in a changing organization to understand and diagnosis their own stage and develop a plan of action accordingly.

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Social Intelligence and Leadership

David Burkus —  August 30, 2011

In this interview, lovingly poached from Harvard Business Review, Daniel Goleman delves into emotional and social intelligence and its implications for leading an organization to better performance.

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Creativity and Leadership

Tim Vanderpyl —  August 29, 2011

Creativity starts with humility. It starts with saying “I don’t know the answer”. The resulting journey to find that answer most times results in creative solutions. Creativity stops when we think we know everything and no longer become sojourners on a journey of inquisitiveness. It also stops when our teams become unbalanced because of homogenous recruitment to the team.

Jaussi, Stefanovich & Devlin (2008) argue that there are four categories of effective followership for creativity and innovation. They build on Roberts Kelley’s dimensions of effective followership, and label their categories as follows:

1. Creative Skeptics – Challenge and prod new ideas through bold questions that challenge assumptions.
2. Creative Statics – Bring calm, rational energy and a sense of stability to the team.
3. Creative Supporters – Open to creative solutions but have an easier time with incremental new thoughts that build on existing thoughts, than coming up with brand-new ideas.
4. Creative Catalysts – Inspire creativity by idea dropping, and create positive disturbances through those ideas.

A leader needs to build a team around him/her that has all four qualities/people on it. If the team is unbalanced towards on or more quadrants, creativity and innovation will be severely hindered, dysfunctional or irrational in the organization. Leaders must intentionally recruit diverse team members to their teams, that are different than themselves. This diversity will become a primary catalyst to creativity.

Jaussi, K.S., Stefanovich, A. & Devlin, P.G. (2008). Effective followership for creativity and innovation. In R. Riggio, I. Chaleff & J. Lipman-Blumen (Eds.). The art of followership: How great followers create great leaders and organizations (pp.291-307). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Tim Vanderpyl is a Certified Human Resource Professional (CHRP) with Canada’s largest catholic healthcare organization. He holds a Master of Arts in Leadership from Trinity Western University and is working toward a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership at Regent University.

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Brief History of Change: Argyris

David Burkus —  August 25, 2011

Many times change requires more than the conscious decision of organizational members. Companies, like people, typically need help changing. They need an intervention. Behavioral scholar Chris Argyris studied this need for intervention, eventually publishing his findings in the late 1960s as Intervention Theory.

Argyris first defined intervention. To intervene is to enter into ongoing system or come between people, groups or objects to provide assistance. An intervener helps the system become better at problem solving, decision-making and implementation so that the system can continue to be effective. With a definition in place, Argyris moved on to outline three basic requirements, or primary tasks, for intervention. First, intervention must generate useful and accurate information to describe the factors that lead to the organization’s ineffectiveness. Second, the intervener must allow the system or organization to make an informed, free choice to become more effective. Third, the organization must gain internal commitment to implement the changes required to become more effective.

Argyris’ theory is not a model, but a series of vital recommendations for leading change. Argyris built on classic organizational behavior theories such as Theory X and Theory Y to create a series of recommendation and requirements that create a sort of oath of office for organizational consultants.

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Is GSK taking the Sales out of Sales Rep?

David Burkus —  August 24, 2011

It’s been over half a year since a potentially landmark event occurred in the pharmaceutical industry. Last January, GlaxoSmithKline announced it was eliminating its individual sales goals as an incentive compensation measure for sales representatives. In short, reps’ bonuses aren’t based on individual sales any longer. In their stead, GSK introduced a combination of selling competency, customer evaluations, and overall business unit performance as bonus measures.

I spent five years in the pharmaceutical industry, and had the chance to talk to many GSK representatives when the measures were announced. Most believed it was just a public relations stunt to try and present themselves as the “good guys” in pharmaceutical marketing – focused solely on customer needs. However, I’m not convinced that’s the lone reason.

There’s research that backs up their decision.

Victor Vroom first argued that incentives work only when several conditions are met, one of them being a belief that extra effort will actually increase the measurement of performance. In the case of pharmaceutical sales, I’m not convinced this has been the case for a while. In today’s industry, most sales representatives serve on a team that shares a territory or list of physicians. In addition, numerous factors outside the representative-physician interaction affect the actual movement of product (e.g. insurance formulary, pharmacists inventory, patient preference, DTC advertising).

With all these factors, it is likely that individual representatives efforts explain only a small percentage of the product’s movement. So bonuses based solely on this movement are likely to have little motivating effort. GSK’s new bonus system is a little closer to, for lack of a better term, evidence-based motivation. It’s an important first step toward aligning bonus metrics with the actual demands of the role. We’ll see how many other companies follow GSK’s lead.

[On a related note, before they sold their pharmaceutical division, Proctor & Gamble eliminated bonuses all together, favoring a higher base salary and using sales data for individual contests.]

David Burkus is the editor of LDRLB. He speaks, consults and serves on the faculty of management at Oral Roberts University’s College of Business.

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