The Performance Improvement Blog

Barriers to Learning in Organizations

Continuous acquisition and application of knowledge, skills, and beliefs by individuals, teams, and the  whole enterprise is an essential aspect of high performance organizations. However, barriers to this learning are common in organizations. These barriers must be overcome in order for organizations to have long term success. Twelve of these common barriers are:

1. Program focus – new programs and services are evaluated in isolation rather than as interdependent parts of the whole organization, e.g., a diversity workshop is evaluated by the participants at the end of the workshop, not by everyone in the organization weeks and months after the workshop
2. Limited resources – learning is not given adequate funding and support, e.g., staff are not given resources to experiment with new ideas before risking large scale implementation
3. Work-learning dichotomy – producing and selling things is valued whereas learning is merely tolerated, e.g., little involvement of supervisors in the training of their direct-reports
4. Passive leadership – leaders don’t ask themselves the hard questions and their boards and co-workers don’t question their actions, e.g., a hospital CEO continues to push for hospital expansion while nobody asks, “Is expansion in the best interests of patients, employees, doctors, and the community?”
5. Non-learning culture – organizational values, assumptions, beliefs, behaviors, and norms do not support learning, e.g., recognizing (praise, reward, promotion, etc.) individual success but not recognizing team success
6. Resistance to change – trying new ways of doing things is not encouraged, e.g., individuals are told to be creative and innovative but not allowed to implement their ideas
7. Not discussing the un-discussable – everyone has a shared but un-spoken understanding that certain issues are not to be confronted and resolved, e.g., one employee’s negative attitudes are bringing down morale of the organization but nobody will talk about this problem for fear of retribution
8. Need for control – managers intentionally and unintentionally use organization charts, policy manuals, rules and regulations, performance evaluation, compensation, budget and expense monitoring, security systems, and work-space arrangements to constrain and limit sharing and applying knowledge, e.g., lines of communication are enforced within an organization to the point that a manager in one department may not talk to a manager in another department
9. Focus on short-term, simple solutions – managers taking the most expedient course of action without solving the long term problems within their organizations, e.g., doing multi-person layoffs to reduce costs when the real problem is not offering products and services that customers want
10. Skilled incompetence – the tendency of managers to avoid embarrassing or threatening interactions, place blame on others, and not accept responsibility for problems, e.g., the leader of a team that failed to complete an assignment avoids asking himself, “What is it about what I am doing or saying that contributes to other people behaving in ineffective and destructive ways?”
11. Blame, not gain language – employees tend to use mostly language that is judgmental and punitive rather than language that facilitates learning, e.g., when something goes wrong, the first words out of a manager’s mouth are, “Who is responsible for this problem?”
12. Selective attention – not seeing (literally) and, therefore, not learning from unexpected events, e.g., two employees attend the same presentation by their CEO but understand the new organizational direction in very different ways

What additional barriers to learning have you observed in organizations?

 

The Leader Effect

As leaders, we often don’t realize (or choose to ignore) the effect that we have on people in our organizations. Our actions and inactions almost invariably have unintended consequences. Bernie Donkerbrook, writing in the Center for Creative Leadership’s July 2011 newsletter, makes this point:

Everything you do (or do not do) is observed, analyzed and discussed by your people. What you talk about, include on an agenda and get personally involved with - as well as what you choose to avoid or delegate — sends powerful messages. Your employees then draw conclusions and implications about "what it meant" — whether you meant it that way or not!

Everyting a leader does has an effect on others, often unintended. When I do assessments of organizational culture or employee engagement, I find that employee attitudes toward their organizations are heavily affected by the stories they tell themselves about top leaders. I hear comments such as,

• “He meets with Sally’s department a lot but rarely comes and talks to us; Sally must have the inside track for promotion.”
• “I sent Bill an email about the problem and he didn’t respond; I guess he doesn’t want to do anything about it.”
• “They haven’t filled the director’s position; my department must not be a high priority in this organization.”

According to Donkerbrook, three aspects of leader behavior affect the attitudes of employees: 1) what they say; 2) what they do; and 3) what they pay attention to. See his model.

Of course, managers can never fully know how every behavior is interpreted… or misinterpreted. However, we need to be sensitive to our actions and constantly be checking on their impact. I find this is to be especially true for email and text messages. Receivers of these messages are looking at what is written and what is missing and, like a Rorschach test, read into the statements whatever emotion and meaning they want to project onto those words. Leaders need to choose their e-words carefully and not assume that the reader is going to hear the emotion (joy, appreciation, frustration, anger, etc.) or absence of emotion that they are trying to convey.

Donkerbrook’s article reminds me of the Zulu concept of “Ubuntu”, which I learned in a workshop on diversity that I was evaluating. One meaning of this term is to acknowledge the existence and humanity of another person. If a manager doesn’t greet someone who is in proximity or doesn’t show caring and compassion for that employee or simply looks away, that employee will feel diminished by the communication. We all need to feel respected by our leaders. Leaders must find ways to show respect for everyone in the organization, from front-line hourly workers to top-level executives. Otherwise, employees will tell themselves stories about leaders that may or may not be true.

 

Seeing the Gorilla in Program Evaluation

Organizations often evaluate their own programs, as well they should. But, in doing so they should be aware that they are probably failing to observe some very important factors. It’s the nature of human beings. We suffer from selective attention. This finding is supported by the research of Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris who study our ability to see unexpected events.  In their new book, The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, they report on 10 years of showing videos to people all over the world who failed (including this blogger) to see something unexpected while trying to complete an observation task. Test yourself on their latest video:

The same phenomenon happens when managers of programs and services (e.g., training, customer service, process improvement) examine the effectiveness of their own interventions. They measure pre-determined attitudes and behaviors. When they do this they are likely to miss unexpected events. For example, in evaluating a diversity program for a client, I found that several managers who had participated in the program later retained employees who they had been intending to fire. A greater understanding and sensitivity to the individual needs of these employees, that they developed in the diversity training, made the difference. This finding was not expected. A study of the usually expected outcomes of diversity programs, such as hiring and promoting more women and minorities, would not have discovered this other very important behavior change. This is not to say that managers should never evaluate their own programs. It's just that when they do they need to be open to the unexpected.

Stereotyping Affects Learning and Performance

If you need additional evidence that expectations of self and others shape how well people perform on tasks, just read Claude Steele’s new book, “Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us.”  In an interview by NPR “Talk of the Nation” host Neal Conan, Steele answers questions about how his 20 years of research reported in the book shows that when a math task is important to women, their performance is affected by the stereotype that all women are poor at math. He says:

…if you're a woman, and you don't care about doing well with math, your life is on another path,   then the prospect of confirming such a stereotype about your group's ability… isn't as upsetting to you because you're not invested in that area, but when you've really invested yourself, then the prospect of that stereotype being true or its being seen to be true and you being treated accordingly, that has considerable impact. It scares you, and that fear can directly interfere with your functioning.

Steele calls this phenomenon the “stereotype threat.” When asked about the alternative theory, that low performance is caused by innate limits on ability, Steele counters that argument by saying:

…that theory would predict that nothing you did in the situation would change. If you give them difficult math, women are always going to under-perform. If you give difficult problems, African-American students are always going to under-perform. Well, they don't when you do things in those situations to reduce stereotype threat and that is probably the principal evidence [on] behalf of this argument.

Stereotyping threatens the performance of employees in organizations. In our book, “The 5As Framework”, Sean Murray and I write about the effect that expectations have on learning and performance. We call this “anticipation”. Stereotyping is a negative expectation that causes learners and others in the organization to anticipate an inability to learn and failure to achieve business goals. As a counter to stereotyping, organizations need leaders and managers who are always expecting both high levels of learning and high performance from every employee every day.

What's the Future of Diversity Training?

I fear that diversity training is losing favor among senior executives and HR departments. What I’m observing might simply be the natural evolution of a workforce intervention, similar to “quality improvement” which has moved from the province of a few experts to the responsibility of everyone in the organization. According to Billy E. Vaughn writing in DiversityOfficerMagazine.com, diversity training started in the 1960s, during the civil rights era, and was about racism and changing the attitudes of white males towards African Americans. Then, after federal legislation was passed protecting women and minorities, it became primarily about compliance with federal laws and avoiding law suits. The next phase was about inclusiveness in which diversity training was broadened to address breaking down barriers to participation for all people regardless of gender, age, nationality, disabilities, socio-economic background, or sexual orientation.

Now there appears to be a trend, in part driven by cost-cutting and down-sizing, to move away from organized diversity and inclusion programs. Some executives argue that they don’t need a department or an executive dedicated to diversity and inclusion because these values are ingrained in the culture of the organization. Luke Visconti’s column in DiversityInc magazine, titled “Ask the White Guy,” challenges this assumption. He writes:

Once in awhile a company spokesperson will tell us that diversity "is in our DNA." We usually hear that as they disassemble diversity efforts. The only thing in human DNA is to discriminate. It's a part of normal human tribal behavior. That's why you have to manage diversity if you want to extract the best talent, performance, market share and suppliers from a diverse country—and world. Constant management is necessary in a wide range of corporate functions; you would never hear "accounting is in our DNA" or "compliance with the law is in our DNA." Every company has accountants and lawyers, even though they've followed accounting and law practices successfully for decades.

Constant management of diversity and inclusion is necessary.  Part of the reason some companies have moved away from organized diversity and inclusion efforts is that they haven’t been able to justify their investment in diversity and inclusion programs. Joe Gerstandt writes about this in his blog, "Our Time to Act". He says:

The idea of isolating diversity training out by itself to determine if it “works” or not ignores the complexity, the interrelatedness and the uniqueness of organizational culture and ecology.  It is not terribly different from yanking my liver out of my body to determine if it “works” or not.  A lone liver lying on my kitchen table is of no value, but the right liver in the right body can make all the difference in the world.

We have to examine the contribution that training makes to all of the diversity and inclusion efforts that go on in a high performing organization.  I have talked to managers who attribute changes in their attitudes and behavior to experiences they had in diversity training. Of course, it wasn’t only the training that made the difference, but, clearly, training was a contributing factor.

Bill Green, Chairman and CEO of Accenture, in accepting an award from DiversityInc for being one of the top 50 companies in its commitment to diversity , says:

Diversity and inclusion are years past being a program; they are a state of mind in our company. We will take the best people on any terms we can get…in the service business, your assets have   legs and can leave the building. Diversity and inclusiveness have become one of the characteristics of a high performing company and if you intend to compete in the United States and on the global stage you have to be able to embrace it in every dimension.

High performing companies, given a workforce that is becoming more and more diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, age, education, ability,ideas, and geography, should intentionally manage diversity and inclusion. They should examine everything they do through the diversity and inclusion lens and hold all managers accountable for ensuring that all employees are respected and given every opportunity to contribute and be successful in the organization. 

Measuring Results of Diversity Programs

In an article titled, “Diversity Plans Tough to Measure” that appears in the latest issue of Human Resource Executive Online, Jared Shelly writes that although many companies want diversity programs (according to a study by i4cp), most have not defined what they mean by “diversity” and most don’t measure the ROI of these programs. It is my experience that for many companies, having a diversity program is simply a way to protect themselves against EEOC complaints and lawsuits. They don’t care about quality and results of these programs.

For others, who care about impact on their organizations, their HR leaders believe that it is too difficult and too costly to measure the return on their investment in diversity initiatives. If by ROI they mean a dollars and cents calculation of cost savings and revenue increase, they might be right. However, evaluating the impact of diversity programs should not be difficult nor should it be costly. The first step is to define diversity in the organization. Does it mean:

• complying with EEOC guidelines?
• recruiting a diverse pool of candidates for a job opening?
• promoting women and minorities to senior level positions?
• working effectively in diverse teams?
• effectively managing a diverse workforce?
• being personally aware of one’s own stereotyping?
• something else? 

We can’t develop useful measures of diversity until we know which of these definitions is being used and, therefore, what are the indicators of success.

I have written previously about measuring the results of one particular diversity program (including measuring ROI). The purpose of that program was  “… to improve leadership skills for middle and senior managers by providing information, tools and processes for them to become more effective at managing and leading diverse teams to deliver exceptional customer service.” To achieve this goal the company put employees through an intense, three-day leadership development and team building workshop followed by informal coaching. One cohort of participants were surveyed several months after the workshop to determine who was applying what they learned and who was achieving business results related to the diversity program. Those who reported gains were interviewed. From these interviews, the company discovered that the program had a profound effect on the attitudes and behavior of some managers. Positive actions that were attributable to the diversity program were documented and, in some cases, cost savings (e.g., retained worker) and revenue increases (e.g., successfully negotiated contract) were calculated. From this study, HR leaders discovered the strengths and weaknesses of the program and its potential for success. This study was neither difficult nor expensive and the results were vital to the company and its employees.

Matthew Effect Hits the Glass Ceiling

Women are not filling the executive ranks at the same rate as men and the reasons appear to be arbitrary and unrelated to performance. DDI’s Center for Applied Behavioral Research conducted a study of women executives and summarized findings in the report, “Holding Women Back: Troubling Discoveries and Best Practices for Helping Female Leaders Succeed.” They write:

…a review of the demographic data revealed that organizations were not evenhanded in their treatment of male and female leaders. The women—more than one-third of the global sample of over 12,800 leaders—had not progressed nearly as far up the management ladder as the men. This discrepancy isn’t a surprise; it has been reported frequently in popular media. What caught our attention was how the deck is stacked against women from the start of their management careers.

Structural discrimination starts early. Men are more likely than women to be considered management material. Far more men in line management positions receive the coveted but often secret designation, high potential (HiPo). The HiPos receive more encouragement, sometimes being directed into special training and multi-national management experiences. As these managers move up the ranks, the gap between the percentage of men and women at each level continues to increase. Women who are promoted without the grooming that HiPos receive are set up for failure.

This is the “Matthew Effect” first identified by the sociologist Robert Merton and explained in Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling book, “Outliers.”  (To paraphrase Gospel of Matthew 25:29:  the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.) Gladwell uses the example of many young Canadian hockey players who are unlikely to achieve stardom simply because of having the misfortune of a late-in-the-year birth date. So too, many talented women managers will not break through the glass ceiling simply because they had a boss who did not consider them high potential at the beginning of their careers.  

What should companies do to correct this situation?

Diversity Training...Does It Work?

The record for diversity training programs is not good. In a T+D article titled, “Why Diversity Training Doesn’t Work…Right Now,” Aparna Nancherla concludes:

Various studies have shown that diversity training is ineffective. It’s not always just the training itself that is flawed. Sometimes it’s also the program’s context and delivery. Some of the major shortcomings include limited understanding of the scope of the issue, coverage of only legal and compliance aspects, and lack of buy-in from senior leadership.

However, before indicting all diversity training, we need to make distinctions among the different types of programs and their purposes. It’s one thing to spend two hours on explaining harassment to a group of managers; it’s quite another thing to spend three days trying to make employees more tolerant and accepting of each other. Both are considered diversity training but they are apples and oranges.

If the intent is creating teams of mutually trusting and highly engaged employees, we have evidence that this can be done. I had the opportunity to interview employees who had been through a three-day, diversity training workshop intended to achieve this goal. My interest was in the impact of the workshop on business results. I heard a story from a manager about how, prior to the workshop, he would fire any employee who showed the slightest bit of negativity in the workplace. One employee, in particular, was very close to being let go. After the workshop, he met with this employee and talked with her about her situation and what she needed to do to be more successful at work. She became one of his best workers. We can calculate the value of that learning to the company. It's substantial.

Another story I heard was from a manager who, prior to the workshop, was losing money on a contract he had with a partner company in another country. The partner company did not appear to be fulfilling its responsibilities in the agreement. The manager had just assumed that employees of the other company understood his expectations and assumptions about contracts. After the workshop, this manager decided to have a conversation with the partner and discovered that they viewed contracts differently due to culture and language. This resulted in a new working relationship and a new agreement that became profitable for both companies. We can calculate the value of that learning to the company. It's substantial.

We know how to make training work. To do so we need to be clear about intended outcomes, align the training with those outcomes, create a context in which that learning is supported and valued, and follow-up to measure impact. This is true of any training, but even more so when we are trying to influence deep seated values and prejudices.