Human Resource

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JWI 556 (1196) Page 1 of 7

JWI 556 Leading Change by Putting People First

Week Nine Lecture Notes

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JWI 556 (1196) Page 2 of 7

MANAGING CONFLICTS DURING CHANGE

What It Means Conflict management is an important leadership skill that has been discussed in previous JWMI courses. In times of change, the opportunities for conflicts to erupt can increase dramatically. Putting people first while leading change requires that HR professionals be particularly active and sensitive in anticipating where these conflicts are most likely to occur. It also presents an opportunity to help other managers learn to deal with conflict in ways that allow the impacted parties to express their concerns without undermining the momentum or efficacy of the change. Why It Matters

• Being aware of the most common types of conflicts that surface during change initiatives will help keep you from being blindsided.

• Taking preemptive actions based on early warning signals makes it a lot easier to manage a potential conflict rather than fix a problem that has escalated into an all-out battle.

• Leveraging what you learned about competing commitments and hidden assumptions can pave the way for a more open and honest dialogue.

“All widespread communication in a change effort must be jargon free.”

John Kotter

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THE MOST COMMON TYPES OF CONFLICT DURING CHANGE INITIATIVES Change – especially large, transformational, disruptive change – has the potential to elevate negative tendencies that, under normal conditions, would not have caused issues. It does this, in part, because it pushes people out of their comfort zones and asks them to engage with new ways, and often new people, they may not like. Change initiatives open the door for all kinds of power struggles. These struggles can be over the control of a team or business unit, or they can be over control of a process. If there are too many open questions during the change around who will own what, or which processes will be applied where, the opportunities for conflict can escalate out of control. This is one of the reasons why having a strong guiding coalition, a clear vision and communication plan, and well-defined benchmarks is so important. This increase in conflict can impact even our best managers.

“For people who have been raised in a managerial culture where having everything under control was the central value, taking steps to push up the urgency level can be particularly difficult. Bold moves that reduce complacency tend to increase conflict and to create anxiety, at least at first. Real leaders take action because they have confidence that the forces unleashed can be directed to achieve important ends.”

Leading Change, p. 46 While conflict can have a variety of drivers, there are several that surface frequently during change initiatives. Being aware of these can help you identify where to direct your efforts to uncover, and address, the conflict. The most common sources of conflict include:

• Cultural misalignment where new teams are required to work together, but have deeply ingrained, often hard-to-articulate values about how business should get done

• Fundamental disagreements over the new model, strategy, or direction the company is taking • Competition for jobs in the new organization because redundancies will lead to layoffs, and/or

because the new structure will present additional opportunities that will only go to a few standout players

• A dislike for a new boss or member of a new team; this can arise from a number of real or perceived issues, including incompatible personalities, management styles, past performance track records, or inadequate skillsets

• An unwanted reassignment to a new office/city/team/division • Lack of skills or interest to perform the duties that are part of the post-change workflow

In identifying these potential conflicts, understand which ones are navigable and part of the growing pains that come with change, and which ones are lethal. You probably won’t know until you begin to address them and assess the stakeholders’ willingness and ability to respond to coaching and support.

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WHAT CAN HR PROFESSIONALS DO TO PREEMPT AND RESOLVE CONFLICT?

The best approach to managing a conflict is usually to keep it from happening in the first place. There may be a few circumstances where you will intentionally allow a pending conflict to come to a boil so that the fallout draws attention to an issue that can no longer be ignored. But this must be done exceedingly carefully so the outcome does not create more damage than can be managed. The most effective change leaders are not just the ones who can see a potential conflict before it sparks. They are the ones who have been working for years to build a culture of truth, trust, and honest dialogue that allows them to surface an issue and face it head on. Jack reminds us about the role of HR leadership in such situations.

“If your HR is on track, pastor-parents are ready to handle friction and crises – channeling anger, forging compromises, and if need be, negotiating dignified endings. They are there to help managers manage people well.”

Winning, p. 103 In restructuring situations, especially during a merger or acquisition, the opportunities for conflict multiply. As Jennifer Fondrevay notes in the article, “After a Merger, Don’t Let ‘Us vs. Them’ Thinking Ruin the Company” (2018), one of the great ironies of M&A activity is that trust, a key ingredient for business success, often quickly dissolves as M&A activity is usually cloaked in secrecy. A workforce can feel blindsided when a deal is announced, eroding trust and transparency in three mutually reinforcing ways:

1. Our Company Versus Their Company Conflicts can develop around culture, quality, processes, or just about anything where people can ask, “Our way is better than their way, so why do we have to change?”

2. Executives Versus Frontline Employees The perception is often that executives will be the real winners in a merger or restructuring, and the employees will be mere pawns

3. Who Stays Versus Who Goes Often, there are not enough jobs to go around, especially if the merger has taken place to gain efficiency, and competition and dissatisfaction can be fierce as colleagues either openly or secretly compete against each other and sow seeds of mistrust

As Fondrevay notes, the challenges with #3 are very real.

“Deciding who stays and who goes are hard-wrought decisions. Transparency is difficult as executives and managers are either legally prohibited from being more open or don’t know how things will play out. Trust is diluted further when, in an attempt to keep people motivated, early communications sometimes say that ‘nothing will change,’ and yet employees see change happening as people are let go.”

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Kotter’s advice on addressing these conflicts and not allowing them to derail the change initiative is straightforward and compelling:

“From what I’ve seen, the best solution to this kind of problem is usually honest dialogue. Here’s the story with the industry, the company, our vision, the assistance we need from you, and the time frame in which we need all this. What can we do to help you help us? If the situation really is hopeless, and the person needs to be replaced, that fact often becomes clear early in this dialogue. If the person wants to help but feels blocked, the discussion can identify solutions. If the person wants to help but is incapable of doing so, the clearer expectations and timetable can eventually make his or her removal less contentious. The basic fairness of this approach helps overcome guilt. The rational and thoughtful dialogue also helps minimize the risk that good short- term results will suddenly turn bad or that [the person resisting the change] will be able to launch a successful political counterattack. Guilt, political considerations, and concerns over short-term results stop people all the time from having these honest discussions. In retrospect, executives often express regret that they didn’t confront problem managers sooner in the process. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times: ‘I should have dealt with Hal/George/Irene much earlier.’”

Leading Change, p. 118 You’re not going to make peace with everyone all the time, and you’re not going to be able to manage all situations where everyone comes out with what they want. Still, you have to find as much common ground as possible. This is, again, where having strong, clear, and agreed-upon Mission and Values can pay huge dividends.

• Get clarity on the facts and conflicts and stay away from rhetoric and inflammatory language • Present the rationale for each position and how this aligns to the stated objectives of the

change initiative • Make sure everyone’s voice is heard, but don’t let the conflict carry on. If the two sides can’t

agree, then someone will have to go In their article, “Make Your Enemies Your Allies” (2012), Brian Uzzi and Shannon Dunlap share the following:

“Because rivalries can be so destructive, it’s not enough to simply ignore, sidestep, or attempt to contain them. Instead, effective leaders turn rivals into collaborators – strengthening their positions, their networks, and their careers in the process. Think of these relationships not as chronic illnesses you have to endure but as wounds that must be treated in order for you to lead a healthy work life.” “Many well-intentioned efforts to reverse rivalries fail in large part because of the complex way trust operates in these relationships. Research shows that trust is based on both reason and emotion. If the emotional orientation toward a person is negative – typically because of a perceived threat – then reason will be twisted to align with those negative feelings. This is why feuds can stalemate trust: New facts and arguments, no matter how credible and logical, may be seen as ploys to dupe the other side.”

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“Most executives who decide they want to reverse a rivalry will, quite understandably, turn to reason, presenting incentives for trustworthy collaboration. But in these situations, the ‘emotional brain’ must be managed before adversaries can understand evidence and be persuaded.”

ADDRESSING THE COMPETING COMMITMENTS AND HIDDEN ASSUMPTIONS THAT UNDERMINE CHANGE

At the beginning of our course, we looked at a great article by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey called “The Real Reason People Won’t Change” (HBR 2001). As you consider the guidance presented in your readings for this week, go back and review this article and the process they outline to:

1. Diagnose the Competing Commitment 2. Identify the Big Assumption 3. Test – and Consider Replacing – the Big Assumptions

In particular, focus on the application of their model in resolving conflicts in organizations, because, as they remind us:

“Although competing commitments and big assumptions tend to be deeply personal, groups are just as susceptible as individuals to the dynamics of immunity to change. Face-to-face teams, departments, and even companies as a whole can fall prey to inner contradictions that ‘protect’ them from significant changes they may genuinely strive for.”

Kegan & Lahey, 2001 Leading change by putting people first means opening the door for honest discussions. It means not sweeping issues under the rug, or strong-arming people to keep quiet and just get over it. The more you can channel conflict into positive dialogue, the more you can leverage passions and problem-solving skills to get to common ground. This is where HR leaders, as neutral parties and advocates for the workforce, have an important role to play. Despite all the useful tools that exist to support conflict resolution, we should remind ourselves of what Patty McCord says about the value of open, candid discussion.

“I [caution] about the limited value of formal employee-development practices such as conflict-resolution and management classes. There is simply no comparison between the learning employees may take away from such courses and what they’ll gain from participating in debates about business decisions. Ask anyone at your company whether they’d rather spend a day in a negotiation seminar or be able to ask – with impunity – a tough but fair question of a high-level manager at a big company meeting or engage in a serious debate with their managers about the problem they’re being asked to solve. I promise you, nobody but nobody is going to choose the seminar.”

Powerful, p. 67

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GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THIS WEEK’S CLASS As you read the materials and participate in class activities, stay focused on the key learning outcomes for the week:

• Explore the most common types of conflict that occur during change initiatives, including competition for jobs, cultural misalignment, and sabotage Identify, and prepare for, the types of conflict you are most likely to encounter during a change initiative. Run “what if?” scenarios with managers and HR colleagues to walk through potential fallout and to formulate plans to address these conflicts. Use the stakeholder maps you developed to identify people who are going to be negatively impacted by the change, and create options for best-case and worst-case conflicts and how you will address them.

• Examine the steps that HR professionals can take to preempt and resolve conflict The best conflict management is the one that addresses the conflict before it escalates. Proactively sharing information, being honest about what’s happening and why, and developing clear “what’s in it for me?” and “what’s in it for the company?” statements can go a long way to head off major conflict. True, you won’t be successful in preempting everything, but the more that you can ground the change initiative in the Mission and Values of the organization (assuming these have been front and center before the change), the more likely it will be that conflicts will resolve themselves as the change unfolds.

• Apply tools to articulate and address the competing commitments and hidden assumptions that undermine change

Ignoring a conflict and hoping it will go away seldom works. You may not have to deal with it directly at that moment, but it will more than likely continue to simmer and will, in the long term, lead to ongoing problems that undermine the lasting success of the change. Don’t be afraid of direct and honest discussion about the conflict. Use what you have learned in this course to help stakeholders understand where their own sources of conflict come from, and how they can reframe these in a positive way. Review materials from your previous JWMI courses on emotional intelligence and conflict resolution, and leverage practices to acknowledge the conflict and the negative impact it has, and to seek out common ground and find a way forward.