Forum - October 2009

Following its initial work at the executive and director levels, it therefore involved management — including supervisors and project managers — in a training program that focused on identifying goal behaviors considered important to AAD’s long-term success. Managers participated in group meetings and education, as well as one-on-one meetings with directors, and were asked to give feedback on the suggested focus behaviors and how best to integrate them into everyday operations.

FEEDBACK LOOPS

During the initial phase of AAD’s cultural change, direct feedback was frequently solicited from management. When it came time to get input from the full staff community, the association used an external facilitator and trainer where appropriate in order to ensure staff was not wearing blinders, facilitate open dialogue and challenge assumptions. It also used the same anonymous employee opinion survey — distributed biennially — that had initially made clear to association leaders the need for cultural change. As with the initial survey, the need to improve collaboration among departments continued to surface in later polls.

Because the association clearly still had work to do in tearing down silos and developing collaboration, it launched an organization-wide training program titled “Moving From Conflict to Collaboration,” which focused on how to identify, understand, resolve and diffuse conflict, as well as on developing skills that support cross-functional teaming. All staff participated in the program, including executive leadership.

As part of the collaboration training, participants identified barriers that were still keeping the association from achieving its desired culture. Staff felt they would benefit from additional training in negotiation and communication. In response, AAD offered optional classes on “Embracing and Resolving Difficult Conversations” and “Getting to Yes Through Negotiation,” which had high voluntary attendance by employees who were clearly embracing the concept of collaboration.

The feedback AAD received on these two programs led directly to its most recent training program, “Enhancing Your Personal Effectiveness.” Staff was demonstrating the core principles of interdepartmental collaboration and now needed to develop tools and skills with which to further improve organizational effectiveness. Although it was difficult to measure, the energy and enthusiasm demonstrated during this training — which facilitated the honest, open and non-confrontational sharing of ideas and concerns about remaining cultural barriers and solutions — indicated that cultural change was, indeed, being embraced.

LONG-TERM SUCCESS MEASURES Cultural change is an iterative process that requires continuous reinforcement in the form of not only education and skill development, but also appropriate performance measures and rewards. At AAD, for instance, collaboration has been built into performance planning and assessment expectations, both for individuals and departments.

Because staff requires support in addition to education and rewards, senior staff and managers have made a commitment to removing obstacles that prevent or hinder change. They therefore support outside education and shifting workloads, when necessary, and have committed themselves to modeling the desired culture with their own behavior. Sometimes, that’s required making difficult choices — such as acknowledging when an individual is no longer a good fit with the organization — and executing them sensitively and appropriately.

AAD continues to solicit feedback from staff using surveys, focus groups and one-on-one conversations during projects and training sessions. Although management has continued to be highly involved in implementing cultural change, next steps are always contingent upon employee feedback at all levels so that no opinion goes unheard.

Along with communication, cultural change requires demonstrable support for addressing barriers. For example: During AAD’s “Enhancing Your Personal Effectiveness” program, employees learned that in order to be effective, one must set aside uninterrupted time to deal with “big rock” projects. Although there was some skepticism among staff as to whether this could actually be accomplished, AAD gave employees permission — and now actually requires them — to set aside extra time in their schedules for projects that require concerted effort. AAD employees call this “big rock time” and communicate it to others by displaying a bright yellow “big rock” sign on their work area or office door. When the sign is up, colleagues are expected to respect their need for focused work time.

In order to successfully implement cultural change at the organizational level, associations must be willing to take the time that’s needed to change behaviors at all levels of the organization. They also must be willing to make time to celebrate successes, and to remain focused on continuous improvement. Speaking of which: AAD’s next challenge will be training its volunteer leaders so that its cultural change can finally be fully realized, the entire organization working together in a seamless and collaborative fashion.

Eileen M. Murray, MM, CFRE, CAE, is deputy executive director and Sarah Tancredi is director of human resources of the Academy of Dermatology. Murray may be reached at (847) 240-1029 or emurray@aad.org and Tancredi may be reached at (847) 240-1039 or stancredi@aad.org.