DAVID DOESN'T DELEGATE Overcoming an Individual's Immunity to Change AS ANY EXPERIENCED MANAGER will tell us, being an effective delegator is crucial to using everyone's time, skills, and knowledge appropriately. Skillful delegation gives everyone a greater chance to grow, and the quality of the work reflects the many talents that have been drawn into its production along the way. Without it, today's talents go under deployed, tomorrow's talents go undeveloped, and some peopleespecially ineffective delegators themselvesget overused and burned out. A mere peek into the management literature would give us the impression that all a person needs in order to develop the capacity to share work effectively is a good road map and a can-do spirit. Many practical guides, such as Robert Heller's How to Delegate and Gerard Blair's Starting to Manage: The Essential Skills, offer excellent advice excellent, that is, if learning to delegate is, for you, a technical challenge. For most people, however, we suspect that it's more of an adaptive or developmental challenge, of the kind we described in chapter 2. 1 This was certainly true for David, one of the rising talents in a worldwide engineering company, who had been trying, unsuccessfully, to delegate since he was recently promoted to a senior management position. Let's take a closer look into David's experience in his new role, especially his experience with delegation. DAVID'S IMMUNITY TO DELEGATING In his midthirties, David had been promoted to general manager, reporting directly to the company's CEO, six months before we met him. Overall, things were going very well: he was excited about his work, and people throughout the company respected him and were pleased to have him in this new role. Nonetheless, he felt relentlessly overwhelmed for the first time in his career. He had no difficultly naming an improvement goal that met all our criteria, including that it was \"very important\" to him to make progress on it. His first cut describing his goal was \"to better focus on a few critical things,\" something he had been working on explicitly for the past months via a time management approach. He saw progress, but still felt in over his head and knew that better delegation was part of his solution. He was quite specific about what he wanted to do differently, including getting better at clarifying for others the outcomes he desired, accepting people's different approaches to the work, challenging people's thought processes and logic, and finally, supporting small failures as learning opportunities. Clearly, this was not the first time David had thought about how to delegate. We've chosen David as one of our cases in part because the goal he identifies is a version of one of the most common we see. Whether someone says he or she wants to get better at \"holding others accountable,\" \"leading from behind,\" \"empowering others,\" \"shifting from 'hero on the field' to 'coach on the sidelines,'\" or \"letting more people lead,\" the thread that runs through all of these aspirations has to do with delegation. But as David's column 2 entries in figure 5-1 reveal, delegating is not always easy. He had no problem identifying ways he acted inconsistently with his intent to better focus on a few critical things. He listed these three behaviors: I let new opportunities distract me, adding to my list. I accept more tasks and sacrifice non-work-related things (sleep, family, hobbies). I don't consistently balance time commitment regarding urgent and important rankings. His counter behavior to his intent to delegate was straightforward: \"I don't ask people to help me.\" Having done a good job filling in column 2, identifying what he did and didn't do that worked against his column 1 commitment, he was ready to consider what all those behaviors worked for. He could easily see how those same behaviors were very effective when it came to his hidden commitments (see his column 3, including his fears). Adding new opportunities to his list, accepting more tasks, and not asking people to help him were clever ways to make sure he could stay \"independent,\" \"capable of anything,\" and \"selfless.\" He was clear how costly the flip side would be; that is, if he didn't do those things, then he would pay a price, such as being dependent on others and feeling selfish. You can see from his big assumptions that he assumed these would be costlyhe would lose self-respect, become superficial and trivial (exactly what he dislikes in others), and stop being valuable. Figure 5-1 was David's first map. As often happens when rereading a first draft a few days later, he had a new thought: he realized that his three hidden commitments were all expressions of what it meant to him to be a \"real\" worker, not just someone who puts in time and \"is overhead.\" He added the following to his map: \"(I worry I'll abandon my values of what it means to be a worker.) I'm committed to being loyal to my blue-collar roots.\" This turned out to be a crucial insight because we can see, looking at even his earliest version of his map, that underneath his words is an as-yetunrecognized view of \"delegating\" as \"getting other people to do your work.\" With this definition of delegating, how could it ever seem like anything but laziness or selfishness? Uncovering the source of this definition proved key for David's eventual bigger learning. FIGURE 5-1 David's initial immunity map Looking at his column 4 assumptions in light of this \"aha\" about his loyalty to his blue-collar roots, David realized that he had folded his beliefs about being an effective worker into a tacit, powerful theoryone that no doubt he had absorbed from the people he admired in his family and communityabout what made a good leader. Foremost was the distinction he saw between blue- and white-collar workers: in a nutshell, blue-collar workers get their hands dirty (literally and figuratively), whereas white-collar workers are dispensable, air-filled sources of overhead who tend to act (unjustifiably) superior. Embedded in this distinction, he saw, was his apparent belief that hands-on work is more important and valuable than thinking. He added an assumption to his fourth column: \"If I don't add value by myself directly doing jobs that involve the guts of the business, I will not be a contributor, and I will be overhead.\" His summary big assumption statement was this: \"I believe that leadership without doing is 'overhead' and worthless. I'd walk away from my roots if I was not doing the work itself. I would be selfish, lazy, and spoiled, and lose my self-respect.\" It's understandablegiven this belief system why David behaves as he does, and notice that how he feels about himself is at the heart of his struggle to be a better delegator. The behaviors of his immune system successfully protect him from feeling selfish, lazy, or spoiled; they protect him from the apostasy of defecting to the \"other side\" and becoming all that he and his people loathe; they enable him to feel like a self-respecting, hardworking guy who pulls his own weight, and can look squarely in the eyes of any blue-collar worker even as he assumes a different role. His challenge is an adaptive one because it clearly implicates his very self-identity. Becoming a better delegator is not (as it might be experienced by someone else) primarily about learning a new set of skills or techniques for assigning work. This is why, as you can imagine, it would be impossible for him to make progress by taking advice from delegation experts. Practical tips don't address the essence of why David, an exceptionally bright and motivated new leader, does not delegate. As he goes on to observe himself further, David (and we) learns just how central not delegating is to his self-image and self-esteem. He realizes that he gets enormous benefits from feeling \"important and valuable by doing individual tasks myself. It connects me to people. And I'm doing a kick-ass job. I feel good about being a star.\" He also sees he gets a great deal from how others regard him when he is the \"doer\": \"They see me as smart and a good problem solver. I get their respect for that.\" These are rich additions for his column 3 commitments to protect the self he wants to bethat is, important, valuable, and a star, especially perhaps in the eyes of a critical reference group, the worker on the floor level with whom he has the strongest identification. We now have a fuller picture of David's \"problem\" (the kind of problem which is also a developmental opportunity): right now he is stuck between seeing the need to delegate and not being able to do so because that means abandoning aspects of his identity and many of the ways he feels good about himself. His mental frame for understanding who he ishis values, beliefs, likes, and dislikesis inconsistent with being a delegator. This frame creates an impossible forced choice: he can solve this problem either by giving up on his wish to delegate or by giving up on his loyalty to his roots. Another solutiona more adaptive onewould be to create a bigger frame on who he is that includes delegation; that is, to undertake a developmental shift that makes delegating consistent with his self-definition. This more inclusive frame asks, \"Is it possible for David to respect and feel good about himself, be true to his roots and be a good delegator?\" While David initially tells us through his map that this is absolutely not possible, in less than a year his way of leading and his own words end up answering this question with a resounding \"yes!\" DAVID OVERCOMES HIS IMMUNITY Before we turn to how David became a better delegator, let's focus on what his changes looked like. His success can be summed up, using David's own words, as a move from \"being a 'tradesman' to an 'architect' and 'developer.'\" This shift captures a whole new way of working with his team, of which being a successful delegator, it turns out, is just one element. As an \"architect,\" David now spends the majority of his time building the business, having redefined the \"right\" work as focusing on strategy, people, and resources. This has had profound implications for how he works with his team. His way of interacting has changed to ensure that there are open and honest exchanges and a shared ownership of the work at each appropriate level. He now spends considerable time communicating about the team's direction, and doing so in ways that allow everyone to \"get what they are doing and why so that they can make decisions to keep us going in the right direction.\" He makes a point of open communications \"so people will be honest with me about how things are really going so that I can 'know' without doing everything myself.\" Delegating is woven into the way he works, prompted by questions like, \"Who is the best to do this piece of the work and what do they need from me?\" He has figured out how to both accept different approaches and still uphold his standards for excellence. The consequences of these different ways of working are huge: \"Challenging people's thought processes, and being open to them pushing me, has enabled everyone to produce quality results.\" His team members also have excelled at becoming better delegators themselves. In addition, he noted: \"Individuals are able to make quality decisions themselves consistent with our direction and generate ideas for moving ahead ... Best of all, people are coming to me to tell me ideas about how we could move ahead differently. That's been very fulfilling, much more so than getting an individual task done myself.\" Whereas being a \"tradesman\" had led David to focus on his own performance only, being an \"architect\" has meant attending to other people's development and their capacity to deliver on the business's mission. This wasn't an easy transition for him. As he got better at building other people's capacity, he said, \"I love that I can get more out of my team, but it is a little bit of a blowwhen you give people a chance to shine, they do it better. So my assumption that I would do it better isn't correct.\" This statement bespeaks a core move in David's development: he is no longer subject to his prior way of being a star to feel good about himself, but has developed a new way to shine, one that allows other people to shine. This has become a new part of his identity and satisfaction. He can now shine at doing what he calls the \"right work.\" Key to his transformation is this redefinition of what actually is his own work. So long as he continued to see what he might delegate as essentially \"his,\" delegating would always seem to him an act of getting others to do his workan ethically indefensible (even shameful) act, raising the unavoidable specter of selfishness, laziness, being a useless \"suit,\" and, most of all, violating a deep-felt kinship with his fellow laborers. Viewed this way, delegating could only be an exercise in class betrayal, letting oneself be lured into the heresy that moving away from the direct means of production is a desirable advance. And yet today, reflecting on where the overturning immunities work got him, there is no longer any sense that the work he is giving others to do is a way of getting out of doing it himself. The work he gives them to do is now theirs, not his, and his work is about helping them develop in the process of taking on new goals and challenges. \"I feel important and valuable by spending my time finding ways to help my people be more effective. I find myself looking more at what my people are accomplishing.\" Self-respect is still essential to him, but he has a different understanding of what he respects about himself because he has redefined how he wants to lead. He now feels self-respect for being a leader who is able to direct the work and to optimize resources, people, and finances to do it. He says, \"I have a clearer and more satisfying leadership practice, where I see that I don't have to do in order to know what's going on, but that I do need to know what's going on in order to direct the work\" (our emphases). \"This is because I now believe that the biggest single impact isn't from doing details,\" he explains. \"It's from doing lots of thinking and planning on my part, while having a real picture of what's going on, and finding the best way to bring all my resources to bear.\" This last sentence captures David's reformulation of his original big assumptions, that he had to be able to do things himself or he would lose his self-respect, his connection to his roots and his sense of being valuable. He has discovered that he can add value by knowing differently how to get the work done. His revised assumption is this: \"It's not that I need to do it, but I need to know it. I need to understand how the parts fit together in order to do the big-picture work effectively. Maybe it's not even having the skill to do the work, but it's having the detailed information.\" David's newly earned self-respect and sense of added value come from a more complex mindset. He has not abandoned his roots and the value they place on getting things done, being capable of anything, and being selfless. But he has reauthored these core value themes into a bigger, roomier story that allows him to be both a good delegator and a good leader. In the original story that \"authored him,\" his understanding of \"leader\" equated with \"white-collar,\" \"overhead,\" \"useless,\" \"not doing,\" and \"blowing hot air.\" \"Blue-collar\" automatically connected with all good things, including his family of origin, being a \"doer,\" and being important and valuable. Deep down, however sophisticated and smart he was, he still held on to a blackand-white, either-or construction of these sets of ideas. Or, to put things a little more rigorously, these ideas \"held on to him.\" But through the course of overturning his immunity, David goes far beyond merely getting better at delegating. He takes up the pen and gradually rewrites the self-narrative that had previously authored him. He remakes his mindset by moving the blue-collar family ethos from something that holds him (i.e., he is subject to it) to something he can hold (i.e., he doesn't lose it, but he moves it to an \"object\" of his attention, putting him in a position to work out a new relationship to it). The worlds of leader and doer move from \"either-or\" to \"and-also\" in his mind. Notice how David's success exceeded his initial aspiration. Yes, David learned how to delegate, even how to take joy in doing so. But his biggest learning might be that he changed his relationship to his own labor without violating his love of, and loyalty to, hard-working family members and heroes who inevitably served as models for what it meant to do a good day's work. This is often the case when a person overturns his immune system: his grasp ends up exceeding his reach. What is actually accomplished goes far beyond the \"improvement goal\" that, like a Trojan horse, initially tempts him out of the fortress of his established habit of mind. When we last talked with David, he had just received word from his boss that his plans for an especially ambitious new project had been accepted, and David would be getting all the money he asked for. One of his final comments to us was, \"We're going gangbusters!\" He added, \"And that followed from lots of thinking and planning on my part.\" TOOLS AND TURNING POINTS IN DAVID'S IMMUNITY WORK How was David able to make a change of this magnitude? We turn now to highlight a few of his critical turning points during the months we worked with him. The starting point for his inner change was, most likely, stepping into a new leadership role. This position posed more challenging demands than those he had met in the past, and David saw very quickly that he couldn't handle his workload in his accustomed player-coach fashion. From there, David's own view was that the two most influential steps he took were understanding his immunity to change (\"that was the biggest leap\") and acting on that understanding by telling people what he personally wanted to change. About the latter, he says, \"Once I started to explain to people what I needed to work on, I gave them permission to step in and tell me when they saw me not delegating properly. I told them to tell me when I'm doing something that you think you can do better.\" David used two overturning-immunities tools to increase people's understanding of his goal. (You'll find a summary of all the tools in chapter 10.) He started by completing what we call a continuum of progress, as shown in figure 5-2. FIGURE 5-2 David's continuum of progress This exercise begins with the column 1 commitment, and lists the specific initial steps a person plans to take toward fulfilling it. It goes on to establish the kinds of indicators that would show significant progress and, finally, full success. Notice how David's \"first steps forward\" focus entirely on his relationship with his team (communicating with them, planning activities that increased the likelihood that they could help him, and involving them in his and their success). A few weeks later, David used another tool, the overturning-immunity survey, which he sent to all his team members. As most people who use the survey do, he identified a small group of \"witnesses\" (usually six to eight) at the start of his work. These are typically people from within and outside your work life who would be in a position to notice real changes around your improvement goal if you made them. The surveys are short, simple, and anonymous. (You can see David's survey in figure 5-3.) The coachee usually receives an anonymous, scrambled aggregate of respondents' rankings and comments on two occasionsafter the first survey, at the start of the work, and again after a follow-up survey several months later, as part of the end of the work. The survey responses provide a kind of external change metrica way of gauging your progress toward your improvement goal. The first survey also serves as a reality check on whether you've identified the best or most valuable goal for yourself. The second survey also serves as a safeguard against self-deception. At more subliminal levels, the surveys create an internal and external \"audience\" for your progress. Sharing your commitment to change and knowing that others will comment on your progress make you much more likely to stick with your personal program. At the organizational level, the surveys signal throughout the system that senior leaders are working on their issues. In our experience, survey respondents often get intrigued by the process and become interested in participating themselves or undertaking a similar process within their teams. It has consistently impressed us how willing people have been, across a wide variety of organizations, to produce rich and thoughtful feedback. As sometimes occurs, David's first survey didn't go out until he had already begun his overcoming-immunities process; as a result, he FIGURE 5-3 David's survey form learned that some of his initial efforts, including those in his \"first steps forward\" column, were paying off, and that he should continue working on his new strategies. He also had an important insight: \"I see myself having made progress on accepting different approaches. And as I think about what I've been doing differently with my staff, two of those things are both referenced heremy giving starting and end points, and making sure to give them the context. I think part of the reason I struggled in the past is that I didn't share the context. I look back and think that if I didn't give super good directions, then I can look smart! I could like the respect of being a problem solver!\" We often say that the immunity-to-change technology allows us to overcome blind spots, helps us see formerly invisible ways we are undermining ourselves. Here David sees that he may have been \"stacking the deck\" by deliberately (if unconsciously) preparing people inadequately, thus setting the stage for his heroic intervention. He could not give us a better example here of what it means to move third-column commitments from subject to object. When the third-column commitments are fully in force, they are like internal thieves running unfettered, stealing at will from the first-column commitment. When they become visible, we are then in a position to clamp down on them, to stop them in their tracks, as David did when he literally stopped preparing his people for failure and began preparing them for success. In taking stock of his progress six weeks into the overturning-immunity process, he said: My initial big assumption was around a couple of thoughtsone, that if I don't directly add value I'll stop really contributing to my teamin essence become pure \"overhead.\" Wrapped up in that is a feeling that I need to be willingand ableto do almost any job that could come up within my team, this being linked to a view of leadership needing to really have their hands in the guts of the business in order to be a good leader. The result of this big assumption was poor delegating and sometimes poor communication when I did delegate. I've done a lot of things to change my behaviorand in viewing my continuum of progress feel good that I've actually done the things on that list and I am now between the first step and \"significant progress\" in most areas. I believe that was reflected in the surveywith higher than expected results due to people seeing the change. I'm doing a better job delegatingbetter in quality rather than quantity, and I continue to focus on identification of more elements of my day-to-day job that can be delegated to others. David was now well on his way toward better understanding the limits of his current mindset, including finding aspects about it that he did not respect. Following an assignment to focus on what he feels when he delegates, David had a mixed report. He said: It's slippery. Maybe I do things myself because I can feel good about being a star. My current learning is a double whammydelusion number 1: the only way is if I do it myself; number 2: I will do it best. Actually, this guy's getting it better than I would have done! I'm doing a kick-ass job, yet they came up with a spin that's even better! Lovehate: love that I can get more out of my team, but it is a little bit of a blow. When you give people a chance to shine, they do it better. So my assumption that I would do it better isn't correct. He also discovered gaps in his own leadership philosophy that he had never noticed before. About the latter he realized: In my leadership philosophy, I say I ought to be able to do anything I ask individuals or the team to do. Yet, if I am actually following other aspects of my leadership philosophythat I should be selecting/hiring people with potential and supporting their development-then I won't be adding value by being their equal! If I select people who become the best, I have to be willing to have them outstrip me. I shouldn't be able to do everything they can do! On the other hand, he was feeling very excited about what he was learning about being a better delegator. One of his first breakthroughs was discovering that he had been limiting his own effectiveness by using one way of delegating, based on his own strengths, not the other person's strength. David asked all thirty-six people on his team to take a \"strengths-based\" inventory and then asked how they thought they could get their job done given their strengths: \"If I were to give you an assignment, what are the five things you'd want to know?\" Here's what happened when he did this: This got a huge response. Everyone identified different needs. Susan, outstanding with customers, has \"context\" strengthif she can see everything she's doing within the context, she gets great work done. She needs to know how it will be used, etc., the \"why.\" I was delegating \"10 phones by tomorrow\" and she wasn't getting it done. And I wondered whether she was lazy. Now she can do ten phones by 3:00! David's take-away? The first mountain was my willingness to delegate. Now I see the next mountain, which is, \"Does the delegating really have an impact?\" The impact was inconsistent. Now I see that was about my being a novice at delegating. I've learned that I need to communicate in a way that fits the way the person hears. Successful delegating is individualistic. Even though I can get better at delegating, I need to do that in a way that fits the individual/team. Generalizing over his many instances of more effective delegating, David began to alter his mindset regarding what makes a leader valuable: I add the most value when the boundaries are most unclear. When you delegate you need to be clear what your expectations are. That requires that I know the \"box,\" including the constraints. I met with my team about going through next year's plan. And there's a way to do thatlike blue sky thinking about the business, or \"here's a hundred things, you decide\"that sends them spinning. But when I gave them enough clarity, they went with it! I also realize that when I delegate to more than one person, the box has to be especially clear, as in dark, black ink. I can see my value coming in giving the lines, more than the delegation. FROM DELEGATION TO LEADERSHIP: NEW BEHAVIORS AND A NEW MINDSET As a consequence of his successes giving people clearer ownership over the work, David now sees \"there is a point where they turn to me and ask 'what do you want us to do?' Not in an autocratic way, but to make a judgment call about direction. I see this as further differentiating my role as leader.\" Asked what the implications are for his leadership, he is clear that there are three \"right\" activities for him: Attract and grow talentthen we can achieve big. Should I get hit by a bus, there should be two people who can step in. If not, I'm not doing my job well. Provide direction. Fight for resources. David has been pursuing these three leadership challenges alongside delegating. Remember his column 1 commitment (in figure 5-2) to better focus on a few critical things? Indeed, he is now enacting it. Notice that the new behaviors do not wait until the mindset completely transforms. The ancient question, \"Do changes of mind lead to changes of behavior or do changes in behavior lead to changes of mind?\" is, in our view, a poorly constructed inquiry. The relationship is far more dialectical. The immunity-tochange process creates just the sort of behavior meant to usefully trouble the existing mindset. David's behavior, which is getting him good results from the perspective of performance improvement, is also informing a process of gradually reworking his mindset, one that can only author a new definition of \"being a good worker\" by wrestling with internalized models and deep-running loyalties. This takes time, and isn't easy. Asked how it feels when he engages in the activities he now sees as appropriate leadership behaviors, David is honest about the inner conflict it creates: \"Intellectually, I know those are absolutely the right things for me to work on. But it doesn't feel big enough. It's not personal enough. I have a sense of separateness. In my gut, I still have this sense that I need to be pulling the wagon. It's deeply ingrained.\" Our goal with David over the next few weeks was to create as many opportunities as possible for him to see whether he could feel fully good about his three new categories of leadership behavior. His next assignment was to pay attention to what happens in his gut when he engages in these three leadership behaviors. We also asked him to review his calendar (current and over the past six months) using the three \"right\" activities as a filter, and to circle everything that didn't fit. From there, he could answer questions like, \"What's the ratio of 'right' to 'wrong' time? What's the trajectory over time? Is there any theme to the 'wrong' behaviors? What purpose might those behaviors serve? What do I get out of those?\" Doing the calendar assignment turned out to be another turning point for David. For starters, he concluded that a solid 75 percent of his time was devoted to these three areas, and he felt very good about spending so much time on strategy and people issues. Here are his notes on the mix of activities he discovered: Strategy/business planning25 percent, but about half was in \"coordinating viewpoints\"basically not really focused on solving problems but gaining agreement across a bunch of different people. People25 percent. I've spent a large amount of time working with everyone in my group one-on-one for their personal development plans. Also included in this is team planninglooking at the strengths of our team and the individuals involved and allocating resources (people) against our business plan. I feel really good that this was the right thing to be working on. Tasks25 percent. This includes my individual work/analysis time as well as specific things given to me such as drafting presentations for our leadership conference or meeting with customer groupsdoing sales work, etc. Overall pretty rich contentand it has gotten dramatically more focused in the past six months as I've delegated more of the busy work. Wasted25 percent. I still do tasks that others could do better, or others could just do and free me up for more of the above priority areas. I can get sidetracked by an exciting idea that wasn't part of our plan and end up wasting timemeaning that while I enjoyed it, we weren't probably ever going to use it or benefit from the idea or concept. Other waste is reworkfixing things that I or someone on my team forgot, did wrong, etc. I've started a list of these and will be working to identify root causes just as we do with product quality. Just as important, David was able to work on his deeply ingrained assumptions, to step back and observe his changed behaviors and his newly emerging mindset in order to better see and feel his added value, including being more connected with people: I began to see that much of what I put under planning and strategy was working through communicationsgetting people to agree. That was a surprisehow much time it takes. We don't have a mechanism to communicate broadly the direction of change. I made a point of meeting with people individually to see what their goals were. I'm grabbing people more informally. I think that's incredibly valuable. That's a means for my connecting to my people. I work with my assistant to purposely make time to connect with folkscheck out how things are going. Yes, it's still business, but it's also personal. One of the biggest things I'm working on is open communicationso people will be honest with me about how things are really going. One is buy-in, I need you to trust me on this, and the other is to have enough trust that people will tell me what's going on. It was at this time that David redefined his value as a leader. Listen to the way his own enhanced self-authorship leads him to support the selfdetermination of his people: If everyone in my team is not in their head getting what they're doing and why, then they can't make decisions to keep us going in the right direction. So spending this time up front ... I'm adding more value than when I did everything myself. In positive ways, I'm hearing from people that they're very appreciative about knowing what's going on. I've been telling them you need to make the call, the decision, don't ask for permission, and after you do, you let me know that you have and we can look at it. I'm hearing, 'I know why you're trying to get there, it makes sense. It's great you're letting us make decisions ourselves. In the past we just waited to hear.' Best, people are just starting to come to me and tell me ideas about how we could move ahead differently! That's been very fulfilling. More so than getting an individual task done by myself. Once again David responds to the question, \"How does it feel when you engage in the \"right\" work?\" but this time he says, \"I feel like that balloon [of assumptions] has popped. It's like looking at a picture. You stare at it and try to see it. Once you see it, boom, there it is and that's what's happened for me.\" David has stepped out of his own picture. He can look at it, rather than merely playing his part within it. David's story reminds us that immune systems can be constructed to save us from many forms of personal danger, including the danger of doing damage to the memory of those we love. In meeting the challenge of delegating adaptively, he shows us that we may need to move beyond the \"compositions\" we inherit, while retaining their cherished elements. Composing one's own mindset is never a bloodless, merely cognitive affair, and David shows us that at first it can feel like putting at risk bonds of faithfulness and loyalty that form the ligaments of our soul. But notice that his journey is not one that ultimately moves him farther from his roots, but one that enables him to form an even stronger relationship to them. He moves from being captive to his roots to learning to cherish them and incorporate them into his evolving mindset. He goes from seeing leadership as inevitably partaking in the \"pretend work\" of the \"enemy\" (and seeing the leader as overhead in an empty suit) to viewing leadership as an opportunity to pay the respect to blue-collar workers his forebears deserved. The most frequent complaint about ordinary leadership by the worker on the line, after all, is \"Nobody listens.\" This is at once a claim about the untapped value in the perspective of those closest to the work, and a sad or angry expression of feeling discounted. But David is no longer an ordinary leader. David is listening. Using the AMA 8 Step Case Analysis Process, evaluate the case, "David Doesn't Delegate" in Immunity to Change text, pg 125 text . Submit your answers in the Written Assignments area (Learning Hub) Introduction Develop a problem statement that summarizes the cause of the case problem and its symptoms. Body of the paper Address each of the 8 steps, applying them to the case, rewording each step / question as a heading before answering the step. Fully support your answers with evidence from the case study and material from the textbook reading. Use of additional resources is also encouraged. Be sure to cite in APA 6th Ed. format. Each answer / step must be covered in a minimum of one paragraph. Conclusion Summarize your own thoughts as a change manager about the issues in the case and what you have learned from them. References Provide a complete list of references in APA 6th Ed. format. Use a reasonable, brief heading. EX: Relevant Facts You should not be incorporating Kotter's 8 steps in these cases. use the 8 steps as headings as required, clearly address each of those 8 steps in full paragraph format. Please read instructions carefully, proof your work and your writing. the case study assignment required that you apply the AMA 8 steps to problem solving and analysis Instructions indicated that each step should be at least one paragraph long. use the AMA steps to analyze this case study. Be sure to always use / provide citations for all sources used, and review the format of reference page should be in APA format. A STUDENT GUIDE TO INTRODUCTORY & FOUNDATION LEVEL CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENTS Using the 8 Step American Management Association (AMA) Problem Solving and Case Analysis Process Sally Armstrong, May 2005. Davenport University. References Strategic Case Analysis. Davenport University. Boone & Kurtz, (2006). Contemporary Business 11th Ed. New York. McGraw-Hill Irwin. Introduction Case studies present you with real life scenarios and situations that help to develop your critical thinking, problem solving and decision making skills in the relatively safe environment of the classroom. Whether the situation described is fairly straightforward or highly complex, as in upper level courses, the entire problem solving process involves 3 stages and eight steps. However, in introductory or foundation level courses the questions at the end of case studies will typically focus on specific steps in the first two stages. This introductory guide will help you understand and practice all the steps of the process and will ensure that you are well prepared to tackle the more challenging cases in upper level classes when that time comes. It will also help you to become a better problem solver in your domestic, social and working life. Steps 1-3 - The Problem Identification Stage Step 1 - Review the case and identify the relevant facts Problem situations or cases often include extraneous information or irrelevant 'stuff.' Therefore, when you are trying to find a solution to a situation or to answer a case question, the first step is to identify the key facts so that you can figure out what is going on before deciding what to do. In advanced courses, this usually involves extensive research but in an introductory or foundation level course, you will typically only use the information in the case. However, to do well in any case study assignment, it is important to read the case carefully and make sure you fully understand what the assignment and/or case questions are asking for. As you review the case, identify what you need to pay attention to and what to ignore. That's what relevance means - eliminating 'stuff' and identifying the important facts in a situation. Let us assume that you have just read a case entitled XYZ Company and are trying to answer the following question: What are the current challenges facing XYZ Company? You must identify and list the key facts which, for the purposes of our example, are those listed below: The government has recently deregulated the industry to stimulate competition. Telecommunications advances have led to increasing Internet use. More and more users are comparison shopping on the Internet. Price competition in the industry is increasing and average net profit margins have fallen 1% in the past two years. XYZ recently laid off 10% of its workforce in an effort to lower costs and remain competitive. Management believes that this is enough to allay the effects of competition for the next 3 years. Many companies in the industry are now forcing their employees to make a contribution to healthcare benefits. The company's employee survey indicates that morale among employees is at an all time low. Management believes that low morale is the cause of the recent 2% fall in productivity. The employee survey also indicates that employees would be willing to pay a contribution towards healthcare if it stopped job losses. Although the company remains profitable and made over $11,000,000 last year, net profit decreased by $1,000,000. The company's net profit margins also decreased by 1% last year. The company advertises regularly and its overall marketing costs are in line with its competitors. The company estimates that if employees pay 50% of their healthcare costs they can save $1,500,000 per annum. Step 2 - Determining the Root Problem & Step 3 - Identifying the Problem Components. To identify the root or cause of the problem and the purpose of each question, consider how past experience or the concepts in this or previous courses may be useful. Bear in mind, that end of chapter cases in introductory or foundation level classes are generally assessing your understanding of the concepts discussed in that chapter. Also, not every concept will be relevant to every case or case question. However, you must decide what evidence or facts in the case are contributing to the problem and/or are symptomatic of the concept. Ranking each fact or item of evidence will help you to decide how important it is and the order in which it should be addressed. Working through steps 1-3 is sometimes all that is required to answer case questions, such as: Case Question: What are the current challenges facing XYZ company? Continuing with the example from step 1, let us assume that the chapter concepts include the external forces that affect an organization such as political/legal, economic, socio-cultural, technological or competitive and also the internal forces such as management problems, staffing problems or financial problems. From reading the case, the key facts indicate that there are some external legal, technological and social forces that are causing competition to increase and are having an effect both outside and inside the organization. As you write your answer, state the cause of the problem, describe the components you have identified and the effects they are having. So, an answer to this type of case question from our example might look something like this: The current challenges facing XYZ are how to remain competitive and profitable, improve productivity and maintain good employee relations. A number of factors are contributing to this situation. First, the government has recently passed laws to deregulate the industry. This is causing competition in the industry to increase. Second, widespread adoption of telecommunications and the Internet means customers are finding it much easier to shop around and compare prices. This is also stimulating competition and is driving down prices industry-wide. Lower prices have led to lower profits in the industry and the 1% fall in XYZ's net margin is reflected in the $1,000,000 decline in net profit. Consequently, XYZ has been downsizing and recently laid off 10% of its workforce in an effort to cut costs. A recent company survey indicated that downsizing has adversely affected employee morale which the management believes is responsible for the 2% decline in productivity. (XYZ, pp 214-215). Steps 4-6 - The Decision Making Stage As you have seen, questions relating to the first 3 steps usually require you to provide a descriptive answer. Here are some typical examples of questions that make you think more creatively and critically and will require you to proceed through steps 4-6: Do you agree with Wal-Mart's position or the union's position on organizing Wal-Mart's employees? Why? What else do you think Stacy's Pita Chips could do to promote its products? Be specific. How do you think Toyota can protect its reputation for quality while growing rapidly? (Boone & Kurtz, 2006). Do you see how these questions require you to express an opinion, make a decision about a future course of action or propose a solution? Also, did you notice that they all call for you to explain your reasons? Let us look at how you should tackle this type of question using steps 4, 5, & 6 but, remember, you must always work through steps 1-3 before proceeding to this next stage. Step 4 - Generating Alternatives If the case assignment or question requires a solution, a decision or an opinion then you need to consider all the options; just like you might before buying a new car. Brainstorming will help you generate a list of possible alternatives. In this step, you do not need to be judgmental; virtually any idea goes but, if you do not list it, you cannot then choose it as the best option. Going back to our example in the problem identification stage, we will assume that the next question you have to answer is: What do you think XYZ should do to overcome the challenges they are facing? Before we move to step 5, let us brainstorm for a few moments and list some alternatives for XYZ: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Close XYZ down - the future is bleak. Do nothing - the company has already cut costs enough. Increase productivity- to reduce unit costs. Employ more sales people- to increase sales revenue. Run some extensive advertising campaigns- to increase sales revenue and product awareness. Discontinue company benefits - to reduce costs. Continue to lay off staff as needed - to reduce costs. Implement voluntary reduction in force/retirement and a hiring freeze - to reduce costs. Ask employees to pay a proportion of medical benefits - to reduce costs. Step 5 - Evaluating Alternatives Once you have listed all your alternatives, the next step is to narrow them down to those that seem most attractive; much like whittling down a long list of new cars to a few potential makes and models. After you've screened your list, take the relevant facts that you gathered in step 1 and apply them to each of the remaining alternatives. This provides you with the necessary supporting evidence to reject most of the remaining alternatives and decide on the best. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. There is no need to close down - the company is still profitable. Deregulation and consumer shopping habits mean competition is likely to be a fact of life for a long time to come- doing nothing is, therefore, not an option. The company must look for more ways to cut costs. Increasing productivity would help the company but without the commitment of the workforce this is unlikely to be successful. Employing more sales people is an option but would increase costs without any real guarantee of success. The company already advertises regularly - doing more would push costs up higher than the industry average making it less competitive unless revenues greatly increase as a result. This seems unlikely with the advent of increasing competition. Reducing company paid benefits would decrease costs but may damage employee morale still further. However, it is a longer term possibility as employees have indicated they would rather pay for benefits than lose their jobs. Continuing to lay off employees will perpetuate the downward spiral of morale and productivity. 8. 9. Voluntary reduction in force/retirement and/or a hiring freeze may be a more acceptable alternative to enforced layoffs. Employees have already indicated that they would be willing to pay a proportion of their healthcare costs so this is a good option. Also, this is becoming the industry norm so it should not adversely affect future recruitment. Step 6 - Choose an Alternative After evaluating all your options, choosing the best alternative is usually a straight forward next step but it is also one that is often skipped, even by business professionals. So, make sure that you state your preferred solution simply and clearly. Keep in mind that your readers aren't as familiar with the case as you. So, even if you think the reasons for your solution, decision or opinion are obvious, you must still explain which facts led you to that conclusion. Imagine that you had decided to do nothing because you think things will settle down. It is not enough to say, \"XYZ could close down or spend a lot of money on advertising and promotion to boost sales but the best solution is to do nothing, I think things will settle down.\" Using the evidence/information from the case, other research (typically only necessary in upper level classes) and your experience to clarify your reasoning, you would have to state that you are recommending 'Do nothing' because ... , say what you mean by 'things' and why you think they will 'settle down'. An unsupported decision, solution or opinion does not fly in business and it will not get you many points in your case assignments either. So, going back to our screened list of alternatives, our answer would read something like this: Although management believes that the recent 10% reduction in staff has reduced costs sufficiently to allay the effects of competition for the next 3 years (XYZ), they cannot afford to stand still or do nothing further because competition is increasing and is here to stay (XYZ). Increasing promotional activity would also increase costs with no guaranteed results and more job losses would result in a further decline in morale and productivity. Bearing all this in mind, XYZ's best option, therefore, is to introduce employee healthcare contributions. This will save the company $1,500,000 per annum and employees have already indicated that they would be willing to accept this option in preference to further job losses (XYZ) so, productivity is likely improve once the changes are communicated and implemented. Steps 7 & 8 - The Action Planning Stage. The first two stages of the case analysis process focus on identifying and making decisions about the big picture. In this last stage, steps 7 & 8 call for you to define how you will turn your solution or decision into action, how, when and what you will monitor to ensure things are working out as planned and what you will do if they are not. Steps 7 & 8 are often not required when answering introductory or foundation level case questions. However, learning about them and starting to use them appropriately will serve you well in future classes, impress your instructor and probably aid you in earning a better grade in your assignments! It is also very good business practice. Step 7 - Implementation Plan If the case questions ask you for a solution or to decide on a course of action, it is important to describe how you will execute or implement it. Without this section, the plan is not complete and sometimes, particularly in upper level classes, your case assignment will not be either! An implementation plan outlines who will do what by when and is often conveyed in a simple table, as the following example for our XYZ case illustrates. In our XYZ example, we have decided to introduce a new benefits program to reduce costs. Let us assume that the benefits team in the human resources department will be responsible for communicating changes in the benefits program to employees. This communication must be complete by mid May so that employees can make informed selections in the open enrollment period during the last two weeks of May. Communication Plan for New Benefits Program Action Required Action by Time required/Deadline Identify volunteers for focus groups Benefits Director 1 week/ 31st Jan to identify appropriate communication methods Conduct focus groups Benefits Team 2 weeks/14th Feb Prepare communication & Benefits Director & PR Consultants 4 weeks/14th March enrolment forms in formats identified by focus groups Send draft communications & PR firm 1 week/21st March documents to printers Printer proofs edited Benefits Director/PR consultants 1 week/28th March Print communications & enrollment Printer 4 weeks/21st April forms Deliver communication materials & Benefits Team 2 weeks/5th May enrolment forms to employees Open enrollment Employees 2 weeks /14th May - 31st May E-mail deadline reminder Benefits Director 1 day/ 21st May Priority E-mail deadline reminder Benefits Director 1 day/28th May Priority E-mail & phone stragglers Benefits Team 2 days/30th & 31st May Step 8 - Alternative Choice Finally, as with any plan, it is very important to build in measures so that you can periodically monitor whether it is working. Therefore, you need to state how, when and what you will measure, for example: quarterly reviews of new accounts opened, sales volume or number of units sold, increases in customer awareness or satisfaction levels, gross profit margins or net profits. You must also have a contingency plan in case things do not go as expected. Will you make modifications to your existing plan? Will you start the process over? Will you choose some other alternative that you've already identified? Let us take a final look at our XYZ example and decide how, when and what we would measure if this were a real life situation and what else we could do if things do not go according to plan: XYZ Measurement & Controls Month end reviews of management accounts to monitor costs/productivity. Month end financial reviews to monitor profitability. Quarterly employee satisfaction survey to monitor effects of new benefits program on morale. XYZ Alternative Strategies Assuming interim employee survey indicates restored morale, further employee contributions to benefits may be possible e.g. retirement contributions, reduction in paid time off. If morale insufficiently restored - Voluntary lay offs/reductions in force and hiring freeze may be necessary. Writing Up Answers to Case Studies. Good writing that presents the reader with clear, understandable information and is free from errors of typography, grammar, spelling and punctuation is one of the skills that most impresses instructors and employers. That is why written communication is listed in the D.U.E.S. and why DU provides LInC tutors to help you improve your writing skills. Working through the 8-step case analysis process requires a lot of effort so here are a few additional tips to ensure that poor mechanics do not undermine all your hard work: Include your name, assignment number and submission date on a cover page or as directed in the assignment guidelines. Use one inch margins, double line spacing and 12pt font - an APA 5th Ed. style requirement that also makes your work easier to read and grade. Use APA 5th Ed. style appropriately in the body of your work to cite evidence from all your sources, including case study information. It is plagiarism to use other people's ideas and writing without acknowledging them. DU instructors use http://www.turnitin.com to detect plagiarism. Always assume that the reader does not know the question you are answering. Therefore, do not respond with statements that begin \"Yes, they should.\" or \"No, I don't agree.\" Review the sample answers in this document if you are unsure how to restate questions in your answer. Generally, it is better to write in the third person perspective and active voice, for example: \"The company faces the following challenges...\" rather than \"I think the following challenges are faced by the company...\" again, use the examples in this document to guide you. Create signposts for the reader by using headings for large sections and use subheadings, if necessary. Note: As in this document, business writing typically does not adopt APA style headings. Use formatting such as bold, underlining or italics judiciously and consistently to emphasize important points. For example, this document uses bold. Include charts and graphs if they can convey information more clearly than narrative -for example, in comparisons of statistical or financial data. Include an APA 5th Ed. style reference page that lists all the sources of information you cited in the body of your work. Run the spell and grammar check feature in Microsoft Word to correct errors. Proofread and edit your work to identify and correct additional errors. Have someone with strong writing skills check your work before you submit it. Review the assignment guidelines carefully to make certain that you have fulfilled all the requirements before you submit it. Sally Armstrong, May 2005. Davenport University. References Boone & Kurtz, (2006). Contemporary Business 11th Ed. New York. McGraw-Hill Irwin