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12 Steps to Organizational Transformation

LBO@MorganManagementConsulting.com
Call (814) 297-7079 or (814) 221-8769

LBO is a catalyst for growth and increased profitability. By drawing on the potential of every employee, organizations transform themselves. The LBO framework has 12 steps that will dramatically improve your ability to move forward and succeed.

1. Assess workplace climate and employee engagement (diagnostic survey)
   
2. Review organization’s core ideology, vision, and goals
   
3. Assess employee natural style and acquired strengths
   
4. Employee’s strength-based conversation with manager
   
5. Write job expectation description
   
6. Employee-manager performance expectations conversation
   
7. Develop individual Big-Dream Objective (B-DO) description
   
8. Employee-manger B-DO conversation and collaboration
   
9. Finalize B-DO description
   
10. Describe “Ways I can put my strengths to better use for the company”
    
11. Employee-supervisor career management conversation
    
12. Online follow-up workplace survey

Formula for Greatness

Get the right people on the bus!
Get everyone in the right seat!
Keep the right people on the bus!

Get more productivity out of your people and have them loving it:

• Spotlight the company’s core ideologies to map the route.
  
• Fuel the economic engine to propel the bus.
  
• Do what you are best at to make an easy journey.
  
• Do what you love to make the ride more fulfilling.

Managers promote open discussion to eliminate pocket vetoes and silent lies. As employees learn to voice their ideas, dissent rises to the surface where it can be faced—to the company’s advantage.

LBO promotes innovation by encouraging creativity of an engaged workforce.

LBO fills the company’s leadership pipeline through an innovative career management process.

Remember when professional athletes signed with a team and the team owned the player until he was traded or released? There were two guys that played for the St. Paul Saints (Brooklyn Dodger triple A farm club). It was widely accepted that if they were owned by any other organization, they would be playing in the bigs. They weren’t good enough to beat out Jackie Robinson at second or Peewee Reece at shortstop. The two minor leaguers were not traded, because Branch Rickey didn’t want them playing for the competition.

Those days are gone forever. Free agency has likewise come to the corporate world. Mergers, downsizing, contracting out, government contract cancellations, office relocations, and terminations work against employee loyalty. An even greater impact is from web-based media such as TheLadder, Monster, and CareerBuilder. Leading websites utilize strength assessments to get the right people off of your bus and onto their buses. TheLadder concentrates on management and executive positions, has 2 million members—70 percent currently employed, and accommodates 50,000 recruiters working to lure the best people away from their current jobs. The Internet makes your best employees easy recruitment targets for your competition.

LBO is based on behavioral science concepts and organizational research. It is economical to install. In the Executive Manual, Part 1 contains the philosophy, rationale, theory and expected outcomes. Part 2 provides a general description of the LBO process, and Part 3 describes the responsibilities of the CEO or general manager. In the Manager’s Guide, the fist part is about the paradigm shift from concern for one’s own brilliance to a concern for drawing out the brilliance of others, along with management skills and techniques. The second part deals specifically with managing employees as they work through the activities in the steps in the LBO system. The Employee Workbook includes sections on Getting started; Uncovering your potential; Leveraging your strengths; Staring in your job; and Projecting into the future.

The complete LBO cycle can be completed fairly quickly, but in most cases, the time-on-LBO-tasks will spread over several weeks. It is estimated that employees will spend about 16 hours actually working on LBO activities through the LBO cycle.

LBO Steps and Estimated Time-on-Task

1. Assess workplace climate and employee engagement by an online diagnostic survey. Employees respond anonymously. The interpretive report is graphically illustrated and written in plain language to provide critical enterprise information. [15 minutes]
   
2. Executives review and present the core ideology, vision, and goals using the Company Compass worksheet. Some companies will want to revise or expand their positions. Onsite facilitation is available. [30 minutes to 3 hours]
3. Assess employees’ natural styles and acquired strengths online or by printed surveys. [30 minutes to 3 hours] Leadership from each employee comes from understanding and appreciating the unique leadership style of each person. DISC profiles reveal leadership styles:
   • Taking the lead with concern for quality and ethical ideals (High C for competence).
     
   • Generating social cement and grease that helps a team function better (High S for supportive leadership).
     
   • Generating excitement, energy, and enthusiasm to move people to greater effort (High I for influencing).
     
   • Providing direction and coordination (High D for directing).
4. Employee’s strength-based conversation with manager. Most people are not articulate when it comes to describing their strengths. The workbook provides language for employees to discuss strengths without resorting to bragging. [20 minutes]
5. Write job expectation descriptions. The workbook contains worksheets to describe responsibilities, activities, and related job factors. [1 hour]
6. Employee-manager performance expectations conversation. Most job descriptions are outdated. This step brings employee and manager expectations into alignment. [30-40 minutes]
7. Employees draft individual Big-Dream Objective (B-DO) descriptions. This activity conveys the expectation of leadership from every employee, in his or her own style. It results in “stretch objectives” arising from the internalized corporate purpose residing in the hearts of the employees. [45 minutes to 2 hours]
8. Employee-manger B-DO conversation and collaboration. Managers set their direct reports up to win. [45 minutes]
9. Finalize B-DO descriptions. Employees make revisions based on insights received from conversations with managers. [30 minutes]
10. Employees write ideal strengths-based job descriptions to answer the question, “How can I be more effective?” by describing ways to put their strengths to better use for the company. [1 hour]
11. Employee-manager career management conversation impacts the attitudes and motivation of employees. [30 minutes]
12. Employees participate in an online follow-up workplace climate and employee engagement survey to quantify the effect of LBO. [15 minutes]

Researchers with the Gallup Organization found that “engaged” workgroups have:

• 27 percent lower absenteeism
  
• 51 percent lower turnover
  
• 51 percent less shrink (lost inventory)
  
• 62 percent less accidents
  
• 12 percent higher customer scores
  
• 18 percent higher productivity
  
• 12 percent higher profitability

The Whitehall study, reported in Scientific American April 2008, p. 22, tracked 18,000 male British civil servants. “The lowest–ranking white-collar workers had the highest rates of premature death. It turned out that workload or responsibility had little relation to stress levels. Rather it was how much control an employee had over the work he did.” LBO provides employees with the opportunity for input on decisions that affect their jobs, and produces greater pride in their work.

Although LBO is a “turn-key” system, with a fill-in-the-worksheet approach to implementing LBO, outside consultants can easily be incorporated within the LBO framework. Prior to introducing LBO, employees participate in a diagnostic “workplace survey” to measure the corporate climate and level of employee engagement. Outside consulting support can be inserted into the LBO framework for a built-to-order organizational development system.

Live consultation and optional training modules are available on an “as needed” basis. These “a la carte” activities are refreshing “bus stops” where participants get to stretch their legs and become energized for the rest of the journey. Because the bus is chartered, the driver (CEO) decides which modules to visit. This may involve programs from other firms or consultants certified by Morgan Management Consulting. Partial list of optional coaching and training modules:

• On-Site, Off-Site, and Telephone Consultation
  
• Workplace Climate and Employee Engagement Survey
  
• Leader Effectiveness Training (assertiveness and active listening)
  
• Core Ideology and Visioning Facilitation
  
• Team Blending and Team Building
  
• Individual Strength Assessment
  
• Executive Coaching
  
• Effective Meetings

LBO leverages your knowledge about your business and mobilizes your workforce for greater productivity.

Tomorrow begins today. Keep moving forward. Use the LBO formula for greatness. Get on board—implement Leadership by Objectives and
build a greater tomorrow.

LBO@MorganManagementConsulting.com
Call (814) 297-7079 or (814) 221-8769

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Copyright © Don L. Morgan 2006-2008