The process of change in a charity with challenge

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The process of change in a charity with challenge Dr Laurel Edmunds, Julia Lindsay and Jessica Pryce-Jones Background The CEO founded this charity about 12 years ago. He was charismatic, entrepreneurial and unpredictable and his strategy had been based on opportunism. The charity has grown from two people in a bedroom to an international network with a head office employing about 20 people. His COO had a controlling managerial approach which was exacerbating tensions in the workplace and adding to the ‘bottle neck’ for decision making. Employees, especially the women, were frustrated with the leadership styles and everyone acknowledged change was necessary for the charity’s survival. Our involvement lasted for about 18 months, during their transition period.

Objectives To identify any relevant actions and outcomes within the organisation during the period of study

To identify the major issues within the charity for all employees To identify the major issues for the managers

Methods This was an interactive research study that ran for 16 months. 1st survey sample: 11 women and 9 men. All completed the iOpener People and Process Questionnaire (iPPQ). This is a new instrument developed in-house which assesses relationships between subjective well-being (Subjective Happiness Scale; Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) and aspects of work. Analyses were t-tests, ANOVAs and correlations. The findings from this survey were followed by focus groups. Focus groups and interview: one was conducted with managerial employees (n = 4) and two with women employees (managerial women (n = 2) and non-managerial women (n = 8). An interview was also conducted with the CEO, and post-intervention, an interview was conducted with JL. These were analysed using a constant comparison approach underpinned by Grounded Theory.

During the 18 months, the CEO, COO and Network Director received coaching sessions (JL: 3 each), a workshop was held at the head office for non-managerial employees (on influencing and persuading). After each survey or focus groups, reports were written and then discussed with at least two mangers on each occasion. 2nd survey sample: 9 women and 9 men (questionnaires were not matched with Survey 1). A newer version of the iPPQ was used, but the same analyses were used so that comparisons could be made.

June 2007

August 2007

September 2007

October 2007

January 2008

April 2008

April 2008

October 2007

1st iPPQ survey

Focus group with 4 managers

Feedback session with 3 managers

2 focus groups managerial and non-managerial females

Feedback session with COO and ND

Interview with CEO

Workshop (influencing and persuading) 8 women employees

2nd iPPQ survey

Coaching (JL) with the CEO and Head of Operations, each received a session on four occasions from between June 2007 and January 2008. Coaching with ND to January 2008. JL also conducted a leadership workshop on strategy in August 2008.

Results 1st survey: main findings Employees enjoyed working at the charity for very positive reasons. Doing something worthwhile was most strongly related to happiness (0.62), as was loving your job (0.61) and having fun at work (0.60).

two men. The coaching that each received helped. The CEO was helped to see a way through his dilemma without the charity collapsing. 2nd survey: main findings

Employees were very supportive of the charity’s values and appreciated their colleagues. There was a perceived lack of career development. It was not clear from the survey if this was due to complacency or lack of opportunity.

Compared with the first survey women were significantly happier, employees intended to stay longer (<1yr vs 2yrs), were taking fewer sick days (3.3 vs 2.0 days annually) and working longer hours (+ 1.5 h per week).

External feedback and lack of variety were workplace issues which made employees unhappy (-0.19 and -0.12).

Communications had improved.

Communications within the charity received low scores.

Career progression remains an issue.

Women perceive they were less able to contribute in some useful ways (e.g. less able to use their skills and strengths, not being listened to).

Employees showed higher scores than 2007 and compared with most employees in response to ‘I like learning new skills and acquiring knowledge’, ‘I like work I find challenging’ and ‘I feel proud of my organisation’, In 2007 women scored ‘being able to make use of their skills and experiences’, ‘having the freedom to voice their opinions’ and ‘making suggestions that would be noted by others’ significantly lower. In 2008 women scored ‘appreciating the values of the organization’ and ‘having impact on the world’ significantly higher, indicating that women now feel more positively. Women employees typically score lower than men on a number of items except for ‘liking their colleagues’ and ‘learning new skills’. The charity had addressed many of the issues for women by 2008.

Focus groups: main findings The focus group with 4 managerial employees considered the CEO’s unpredictability and entrepreneurial style undermined the functioning of the charity. 2 Focus groups with women employees (managerial and non-managerial. They thought the COO’s ‘command and control’ management style to be aggravating the charity’s problems. They did not feel valued. The COO had previously worked in a male environment. He sometimes accused women of being “fluffy”, did not appreciate how negative his body language was and insisted that all decisions went through him. They thought that he did not mind employees leaving after a couple of years due to frustration. They were conscious of a lack of career opportunities, and appreciated that this was a consequence of the charity’s size. CEO interview: main findings Had been pursuing an MBA which was nearly complete. His thoughts were that the initial set up had been “wrong” and their reliance on “fluke” funding had allowed this unsustainable model to continue. A culture had development that was “fun, but unchangeable”. Additionally a COO had come in with too much power, was unaccountable and bullied his way through. However he was very aware of a need for systematisation. The COO feared change and his approach was a “1,000,000 tiny cuts” to keep things as he wanted. The CEO felt “imprisoned” by the COO’s approach and was planning his future strategies. This was complicated by the strong friendship and religious convictions of the

Feeling respected had risen in importance.

Coach (JL) interview: main findings The charity was a mature organisation that was operating in an immature way. The leadership team was visionary, but this vision was not always conveyed to other employees. This meant that employees could not always see the links between their roles and the vision. So there their energy and engagement were dissipating. Employees needed to improve their ability to influence upwards. The dependency culture around the leaders needed addressing.

“On reflection I think they’ve made a significant change.” Capacity has increased dramatically due to greater shared responsibility, role clarification and everyone knowing what is expected of them. This had a positive impact on the dependency culture and the CEO and COO had more confidence in others abilities too. Because the COO had been very successful at changing his less helpful behaviours, the tensions at work had reduced.

Conclusions In the light of the report findings, coaching and workshop, the COO became aware of and changed his workplace behaviors. Some leadership responsibilities were devolved to the third manager (female co-founder), who is now his equivalent. Women currently feel treated fairly and a culture of respect has emerged.

The CEO has realised his motivation is to create opportunities and new initiatives. The charity is successfully negotiating a difficult period through awareness raising, using a strengths approach to enhance management styles and improving employees’ understanding of communication.

Contact

References

Dr Laurel Edmunds Head of Research Email laurel.edmunds@iopener.co.uk DDI +44(0)1865 517786

Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137-155.

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