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BRIDGES: Internal Consultants for Change and
High Performing Work Cultures
 A learning organization
requires a mindset where employees choose to build
BRIDGES, not walls, where collaboration is the rule,
and internal competition is the exception. Many of us
were raised to have the right or the best answers, be
the best in the class, or in some way to compete.
Those interpersonal traits of an I.K.E. (I Know
Everything) were rewarded. Many IKEs became young
leaders, then the future leaders of organizations and
institutions. Reward came through being first and
first alone, with rarely a word about sharing or
creating through the collective talents and wisdom of
those around us.
In today’s organizational environment with
greater competition and higher service expectations,
the IKE style does not always serve us well. As
leaders, IKEs often create “knowing
organizations,” where people can’t
possibly be told by another of a different
way—or even worse, where people are afraid to
ask for help, even when they realize they need it. On
the other hand, a learning organization evolves in a
work culture where employees are able to build
BRIDGES, to collaborate even when that means being
vulnerable, to take risks, and to not know
everything.
Failures abound when organizations seek to bring
about work culture change for high performance.
Reasons include the lack of a strategy to teach the
necessary collaborative interpersonal skills, as well
as a way to integrate those skills as the new norms
in the work environment.
If people are to learn and then change something
about how they work together, constant and real use
of new interpersonal skills is needed. Growth is
about using new skills and getting open, honest
feedback. Feedback focuses on how well I am doing in
terms of what I want to keep doing, stop doing, or do
more frequently to be effective with people while
getting work accomplished.
In Minnesota, Hennepin County’s Economic
Assistance Department implemented an effort that
improved the work culture, sustained positive change,
and increased the potential for moving from that
knowing organization to one of learning and higher
performance.
The three questions and their answers discussed in
this article present our methods and experiences and
show the following:
- A specific approach and strategies that can be
modified for an organization of any
size.
- A menu of interventions that directly support
work culture change and learning that can be taught
and used by internal facilitators.
- The knowledge of previous success and failures
from actual implementation.
- The methods to sustain positive change to
support the shift from a “knowing” to a
“learning” organization.
It’s important to remember that effective
change cannot be sustained through quick-fix
programs, such as flavor-of-the-month, magic-bullet
expectations, or leadership changes. When leaders
attempt a cheap and quick fix, they’re likely
to get results quite different from what they
expected, including a series of false starts and the
surfacing of resistance. Quick fixes are not an
effective approach for driving and integrating change
and learning.
One proven strategy for creating sustainable
change involves the use of a champion or change
agent. Although an external consultant can help
create a road map for change and provide the tools to
make change happen, internal consulting facilitators
are those who live in the organization and are there
for the long term. Internal consulting facilitators
are the holders of sustainability, guiding the
organization to the new behavioral practices and
standards.
So how do you create a sustainable effort to
improve your work culture from a human resource
perspective? Improvement begins with clear leadership
direction and expectations, followed by a solid
infrastructure of interpersonal and communication
skills for all employees. Improvement requires
organization champions willing to model those skills
and behaviors and hold others to those standards of
new behaviors. Trainers are selected who exemplify or
are willing to learn the values and skills
taught.
After training, real-time application of skills is
led by a group of internal consulting facilitators
who are actual organization leaders. They serve as
role models by facilitating individual and group
learning.
Interventions to use during these facilitated
sessions include:
- Leader feedback:
This is a structured experience for a leader and
direct reports. It allows direct reports to give
feedback to the leader in a safe and helpful
environment using a small group approach. This
ensures the leader will get the most useful,
reliable information to grow as a
leader.
- Third-party conflict resolution:
This is a structured approach for two people who
have hard-to-resolve issues. The process uses issue
identification and requests for agreements to
improve the work relationship. This can be
peer-to-peer, supervisor-to-direct report, direct
report-to-supervisor, or for any other
co-workers.
- Team building and group conflict
resolution:
This approach helps the work group to explore
issues that prevent higher performance and to make
agreements for improvement. The session can be
effective whether there are specific issues to
address or the desired result is to improve an
already high-performing team.
- Interpersonal styles exploration:
Survey instruments can reveal work groups
similarities and differences based on a personal
strengths orientation. Awareness of styles and
strengths leads to a more effective work
environment. The session can raise awareness about
conflict resolution responses based on
interpersonal styles.
- Transition management for leadership or
organization structure changes:
This is a process to assist with leadership or
organizational structure changes by engaging the
group in the move. This is especially helpful when
a new leader comes to the work group or the role or
mission of the work group changes
significantly.
- Inter-group image exchange:
This intervention is used to build stronger work
relationships between two groups with common
overarching objectives: Workers can improve and
make agreements on how they interact together. This
enables a work group to learn how others view them
and to give feedback to the other work
group.
Visual Explorer ™, a photo-imaging tool for
picturing approaches to complex challenges, is
available from the Center for Creative Leadership,
Greensboro, NC, and can serve as a resource for
groups seeking to explore complex topics through a
variety of perspectives.
Internal consultants can demonstrate how to build
BRIDGES and provide the forum and tools to make that
happen for employees. Through these interventions,
some employees with long-standing interpersonal
issues clear the air and make firm, specific,
actionable agreements to rebuild credibility and
trust, resulting in improved organization
performance.
What support do internal consulting facilitators
need as they build BRIDGES? First, it’s
important to recognize that the time commitment and
learning curve for the internal consulting
facilitators is substantial. Also, facilitators may
be uncomfortable with the intensity of some sessions,
or they may become discouraged with the lack of
change or progress. A support system to continue
their technical development, as well as to provide
emotional buttressing is needed.
Building BRIDGES sounds like it requires a lot of
work and a lot of money!! What is the payoff for the
organization to do this? Hennepin County’s
Economic Assistance Department found this effort
worthwhile because it was moving from internally
competitive silos to collaborative lines of business,
from individual case workers to teams. The
organization also recognized that one-time training
wouldn’t do the trick, as evidenced by earlier
false starts. The department was willing to invest
the time and expense necessary to build long-term
BRIDGES to introduce and sustain change in people
because it realized that generating new behaviors and
cultural norms takes time. There are no magic
bullets!
 MARGARET SEIDLER ,
M.P.A., is an organization development consultant and
master trainer. Her practice involves organization
assessments, work culture advancement, leadership
development, team building, and work relationship
training. She has extensive experience as a Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award examiner through
service in South Carolina, Georgia, and Minnesota.
She can be contacted at www.margaretseidler.com
.
 CRAIG FLYNN is an internal
organization development consultant for the Hennepin
County Economic Assistance Department in Minnesota.
He leads a team of facilitators in providing team
building, interpersonal, and growth services to a
department of more than 1,000 people. Flynn has
coached and provided services to leaders from
first-line supervisors to department directors.
Additionally, he does independent facilitation,
training, and consulting for teams, groups, and
individuals.
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