Disjointed workgroups are
more present in a maintenance environment.
Many organizations suffer
from disjointed, low-performing workgroups.
As a result many also have a maintenance environment.
A maintenance environment is one where there
are few if any new ideas forthcoming. Status
quo is the standard. A maintenance environment,
where it exists in organizations, has a numbing,
restricting and disillusioning affect. In this
environment, leaders tend to be more command
and control driven than collaborative. Employees
learn to expect that their opinions do not
matter. They learn to not participate unless
specifically instructed to do so by those in
charge. They learn not to take risk but instead
to protect themselves. In this type environment,
all employees (executives, managers and supervisors
included) become less confident and risk aversion
runs high. A maintenance culture has the following
symptoms:
- High turnover of staff
among more recent employees
- Low turnover/low productivity
among veteran workers/high entitlement attitude
- Low accountability
of managers for employee engagement
- Low emphasis on understanding
and utilizing talent for maximum productivity
- Large variation in
measurable performance (non-existent documentation/poorly
kept performance records) Poorly defined
expectations for performance at work group
level
- ‘Us versus Them’ mindset
between various departments or locations
How do you execute change
in a maintenance environment?
The type of environment
that exists within an organization begins with
the decisions made about employees, processes
and human capital management systems.
Our organizational effectiveness
and development work is outcome-focused and
strengths-based.
We begin by improving
decision making and execution at the leader
and manager level first. Then we teach strategies
on how to increase the performance capacity
of each employee, be they leader, manager or
frontline staff. Next we implement cascading
accountability to ensure that each employee
is receiving the communication, tools, training
and clear measurable expectations needed to
perform their job function at an ever increasing
level.
