I believe that every important change presents unanticipated difficulties. I also believe that the way people and organizations cope with challenges tells much about their values and ability to grow. This report is about a change and its unintended consequences and challenges.

I’ve worked with Paul in the past on hiring and organizational issues at his company. This time, he asked me to interview the key managers in his organization about how the organization was functioning. I expected to hear that it was time for Paul to stop personally solving every problem and to focus on developing individual managers and the team as a whole.

I did get the feedback I expected, but I also received a surprise. Five months before, I helped Paul hire Marlene as Director of Sales. She had worked in other companies of similar size, and been successful in every company she had worked in. I expected her to do an excellent job in this company.

The surprise was that her peers were very negative about Marlene. She had made some serious errors of judgment and hadn’t gotten off to a good start. Her peers found her style disruptive and didn’t like the way she with them and others in the company. Part of the problem was that she seemed disorganized to them. They said that she did not think things through before handing work off to other people—this created inefficiency and bad feeling. They didn’t see her working out or being a positive force in the company.

How should I interpret what they were saying? Was Marlene the problem? Or was she taking the blame for other organizational problems? Should I counsel changing the person or the organization?

I knew that Paul saw Marlene as bright, energetic, and a good businessperson with the know-how to create the structure that the sales force needed. However, he was dismayed by the feedback and couldn’t help but begin to wonder if Marlene was right for the company.

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In our conversations, Paul and I focused on two issues:

• Have some of his management practices undermined the achievement of important personal goals?

Like many founders, Paul was the greatest strength and the greatest weakness in the company. He was the company’s strength because he understood his industry in depth and had a passion for it and his business. He was a very smart business owner and a visionary. He has successfully positioned his company in the forefront of his industry.

He was also charming and quite persuasive. As mentioned, he jumped to solve problems. Because of his many strengths, he often intimidated other managers who had a more adaptive or reactive style and weren’t able to communicate dissent or participate in his decisions. They reacted to him rather than driving decisions or processes in their areas of responsibility. Paul was only meeting one-on-one with staff members. He had no team meetings where process issues or issues between departments could be worked out. Everyone depended upon Paul for decisions on a wide variety of topics.

The result was that Paul was not making progress toward his primary personal goal—being able to spend more time away from the business.

• Is Marlene the problem?

Although it was true that Marlene had committed errors of judgment that alienated other members of the staff, it was also true that it was a confusing culture, and some of her “errors” had to do with lack of knowledge of the culture and uncertainty about her role. Was the situation salvageable? To help understand the dynamics, I used an instrument called DiSC Indra, which gives insight into relationships.

The Indra data reinforced two ideas. First, it predicted the possibility of a style clash between Marlene and her peers. Second, it advised that Paul would need to provide more structure for Marlene to increase her comfort in the relationship with him and in her role in the company.

There were other insights. Paul and Marlene had very similar styles. Both sought control and influence by developing relationships with others in their environment. They both also had impulsive sides to their personalities. Could a new person (like Marlene) who didn’t have the knowledge or understanding of the business, get away with the impulsiveness displayed by the owner? (You know the answer to that!) Could Paul, who was used to working with people who didn’t have his need for control, learn to work with someone who also sought authority? (You know how hard this is for any entrepreneur.)

Paul thought that with patience Marlene would be accepted and he didn’t want to start over with someone else.

We decided on a three-part solution. Initially the challenge is for Paul and Marlene because it requires both to change behaviors that have been successful for them to date. Later, others will also receive similar challenges. The three parts are:

·        Giving Marlene feedback and coaching to improve her peer relationships consisting of: (1) helping her better understand the company’s culture so that she would not continue to violate norms, (2) getting her to use her active listening skills in dealing with peers, and (3) helping her translate her right brained creative style into a linear left brained means of communicating with the balance of the organization.

·        Paul agreed to provide more structure to Marlene and the rest of the staff and to implement specific suggestions that would reinforce Marlene’s role in the company. He is also making it clear to her peers that Marlene is not going to be replaced and is requesting that staff learn to work with her.

·        Later we plan to extend the process to other managers so they can sort out relationship issues and authorities and processes for working together.

The solution outlined here is not easy, but it is the one that allows the Paul to achieve all of his goals. If he can support the integration of Marlene into the company and strengthen management processes, he might even find that besides working less, he is having more fun. We all know that no single person, no matter how talented, can be as effective as a strong team. Having said that, it is still hard to build a true team. I am hopeful that this effort will be successful. I’ll report on the progress of this project in a later issue.

To learn more about DiSC Indra, use this link or give me a call.

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