Amy Freeman - Project Manager at PrimeStar Solar

Great Question- it is interesting that large organizations also generate a healthy or non-healthy emotion feel to them. To answer your question, however, for non-healthy organizations - obvious signs in management are (1) defying team decisions for personal or immediate corporate gain (these are generally short term gains) (2) management rejecting data that supports a sound, or just decision, and moving to a decision that is politically correct instead of the right thing to do for the company, its employees, or it's long term gains - (This is another short term gain.) (3) Laying off employee(s), then transferring the job(s) to a current employee with a full workload. Not so obvious: (1) Abusing management privileges by terminating employees within their own organization, then bring in another set of employees (working at the same company in a different area) to replace them! (2) Senior management having outside businesses and manage these businesses at work, and openly discuss with their employees, or regularly be seen on the phone discussing these businesses (even though this is a violation of company policy). The entire company affect after such events: a)morale lowers and stays low; b) retained employees leave the company c) management distrust occurs Sound Crazy? Truth is often, stranger than fiction. Originally Posted on Linkedin Groups

Bart Stevens - Quality management and capacity development expert at Caritas International

I agree fully with Ronald and Wayne. I would add a serious discrepancy between the official organisation structure (blueprint) of the organisation and the real information flows and power balance between various non official sub groups. These sub groups are vying for power in an internal structure that is amongst other things the source of gossip and slander campaigns. They refuse to share information freely and guard information as a means of increasing their power. They spend a lot of energy and time on this power struggle, which means that normal production will suffer. There are plenty of other negative effects. Also, I've seen leaders/managers promote such internal strife between groups, as a means to 'divide and rule', as a means to hide real problems (usually related to their own performance), or as a way to improve overall performance of the organisation through internal competition (but things got out of hand).  Originally posted on Linkedin Groups

Wayne Bills, MA Organizational Effectiveness Consultant, Speaker and Seminar Leader

Low trust! I have based much of my consulting, training and speaking on this answer to your original question. When trust is low, or absent, the emotional health of an organization suffers. I have developed a nine-point framework for understand some of the fundamental factors that help build high-trust cultures. The ninth factor in my model is Consistency. Clearly, the lack of consistency would produce low trust, and damage the organization's emotional health. I apply this factor to all of the other eight points in the model. A lack of consistency in any one of the other factors can produce low trust. A frequent infraction is when managers fail to "walk the talk." We all want to talk a good game, but when actions aren't consistent with words ... well, the hypocrisy undermines trust and the health of the organization suffers. Originally posted on Linkedin Groups

Ronald Tedjasasmita Independent HR for Business Consultant & People Developer

In my experience in Indonesia, I recognize an emotionally unhealthy organization as a strained organization. People become stressed, suspicious, or don't care, usually due to unclear direction, inconsistent policy or overly strict management style. Employees work like robots and do fire-fightings instead of developing and growing. The company then relies heavily to the chairman/ CEO and few people in the inner link. Originally posted on Linkedin groups.

John Murphy
President at Venture Management Consultants, Inc.

Hein, I like your quotes. Thank you. Sometimes, a good one-liner can speak volumes. May I offer two more insightful comments, one from W. Edwards Deming and the other from Mr. Cho, Vice Chairman of Toyota? Deming once said, "Put a good person in a bad system, and the bad system wins, no contest." Mr. Cho explains, "Brilliant process management is our strategy. We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes. We observe that our competitors often get average - or worse - results from brilliant people managing broken processes."

These two comments both speak to "culture," but explain it through the relationship people have with business processes and systems. Think about this. If people are given a lousy system to work with, one that really doesn't provide meaningful value efficiently and with ease, how long will it be before they become frustrated, stressed, overwhelmed and even angry? This is exactly the problem I see in many organizations. They are trying to fix "culture" by changing people's attitudes (think team-building seminars) without improving the day-to-day processes and systems that make or break the business. Culture change is not an independent, exclusive project to be managed by HR or OD. It is a mindset that permeates all. Contemplate this: do people in your organization "feel" like they are on a winning team (effective business system) because they actually are? Or, is management trying to convince them of something they fail to see for themselves day after day?

Originally posted on Linkedin groups.

The following responds originally posted on Lean Six Sigma- Linkedin Groups

Peggy Barnett - Procurement & Supply Chain Professional 

It is comforting to read the comments above as having recently worked in an unhealthy culture, I totally agree that it drains your energy, poisons creative thinking, and creates cynical, untrusting, depressed individuals. As John comments, many people are not conscious of this negative energy as it cultivates and spreads like a disease. After being layed off and out of the "sick" environment for two weeks, I felt my energy and creativeness return.

Currently job seeking, are there any signs that would alert me of an unhealthy environment or culture. P

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Dr. Manijeh Motaghy - Senior Consultant at Unite in Vision

Hello everyone, I am truly impressed by all your keen observations and thoughtful explanations. It is obvious, we all have experienced the pain and the joy of working with either emotionally healthy or unhealthy organizations. I have posted this question on other networks and continue to receive responses. From responses I have received from different networks so far, this seems to be an important subject matter and one that can help all of us enhance our process to attain better results with more fulfillment. Please continue to respond if other points come to mind or if you'd like to ask anyone clarifying questions about anyone's comments.

Thanks again,

dr. Manijeh www.uniteinvision.com

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Bernard Rosauer - President, Evenbetteryet, LLC

I like your post. It reminds me why the Net Promoter Score is so important. Companies measure customer satisfaction, but that really doesnt get at the ultimate goal for a company, which, from my perspective is really retention AND customer advocacy. Many customers leave even when satisfied or very satisfied. If you havent heard of NPS it's asking customers one simple question: "Would you recommend this company to a friend, family member or colleague?" I have found the question much more motivational to front line employees and middle managers than 'satisfaction' or any other measurement....because they can personally relate to it.

You can www.netpromoter.com,  www.theultimatequestion.com,  or my website www.evenbetteryet.com  for more on this subject.

Manijeh, some thoughts: What is the likelihood that the businessowners of ventura county would recommend it to a family member, friend or colleague as a place to start a new business?" Survey and evaluate the responses and develop Ventura County's Net Promoter Score and hold the county's leaders responsible for improvement. This where lean comes in. Take their written reasons for 'problems' and drill down using simple root cause analysis, then fix the problem completely and then keep asking and fixing. You may want to ask the same question to targeted visitors to your community. Rember always that, as Toyota says: "problems are good" and shouldnt be avoided but faced head on by every stakeholder.

Again, just some thoughts!

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Hein Winkelaar -  Founding Owner at PSTAMP.COM (inspection = improvement)

Hein If I go back to 1950, where LEAN was called TPM, the major goal was: "Improving a production system, by stimultating the daily awareness of all employees. Where Morale was one of the 6 KPI's" They told: "Move from a reactive mode to a predictive mode" I think you will find your answers (as a LEAN expert?) in these 2 lores of the founders..... to translate them into your corporate emotions.

Regards, Hein Winkelaar

Practical TPM/LEAN expert

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John Murphy -  President at Venture Management Consultants, Inc.

I like your quotes. Thank you. Sometimes, a good one-liner can speak volumes. May I offer two more insightful comments, one from W. Edwards Deming and the other from Mr. Cho, Vice Chairman of Toyota? Deming once said, "Put a good person in a bad system, and the bad system wins, no contest." Mr. Cho explains, "Brilliant process management is our strategy. We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes. We observe that our competitors often get average - or worse - results from brilliant people managing broken processes." These two comments both speak to "culture," but explain it through the relationship people have with business processes and systems. Think about this. If people are given a lousy system to work with, one that really doesn't provide meaningful value efficiently and with ease, how long will it be before they become frustrated, stressed, overwhelmed and even angry? This is exactly the problem I see in many organizations.

They are trying to fix "culture" by changing people's attitudes (think team-building seminars) without improving the day-to-day processes and systems that make or break the business. Culture change is not an independent, exclusive project to be managed by HR or OD. It is a mindset that permeates all. Contemplate this: do people in your organization "feel" like they are on a winning team (effective business system) because they actually are? Or, is management trying to convince them of something they fail to see for themselves day after day?

John Murphy
President at Venture Management Consultants, Inc.

Every organization, as well as any united group of people with a common mission, has a collective mindset and an emotional state of health. We call this culture. In fact, one of the key deliverables from any sustainable Lean Six Sigma improvement or CI effort is a positive change in culture. This is frequently misunderstood by leadership teams and practitioners, leading to isolated, independent changes that often end up being "reworked," an unfortunate irony.

Because "culture" is often hidden in the subconscious mind (i.e. not something most people are consciously aware of on a day to day basis), they sometimes fail to understand its very powerful effect. Think of it like gravity. It is not something people think about often, but make no mistake. It has tremendous impact and can be used as competitive advantage. Having worked with organizations deploying L6s in some 50 different countries, I find some very telling characteristics, good and bad, that influence the success and sustainability of organizational change. The most compelling positive characteristics are: people are optimistic, positive, curious, open to creative ideas and innovation, pioneering, relaxed, fun, focused, competent, confident, interdependent (team) minded and credible. They are also very dependable, accountable and tenacious. In fact, these are some of the key characteristics we use in selecting blackbelt candidates to serve as change agents. People who fit this "culture" thrive in kaizen events and process improvement projects, but become quickly bored in stodgy bureaucracies.

Characteristics that I find very challenging to work with are: people in doubt, afraid, distrusting, suspicious, "past-oriented", blaming, dependent-minded, careless and irresponsible. If you are you consciously aware, you actually "feel" a drain of energy when you walk into a culture like this. There is very constrained "flow" in human energy. It takes a true master to turn this around. Of course, culture is often a reflection of the leadership, so it is helpful to assess the emotional intelligence and health of the management team to examine any "cause and effect" relationship leading to dysfunctional, fearful organizational behavior. To sustain a postive change in culture and "health", the organization has to be in alignment, harmony and balance - just like the individuals working for it. Hope this helps! Sounds like an interesting project.

Originally posted on Linkedin groups.

Lee Gardenswartz, Ph.D.
Partner at Emotional Intelligence and Diversity Institute

Our Emotional Intelligence and Diversity model, system and materials are designed to develp and support emotional intelligence in individuals, teams and organizations. You can find out more by going to our website: www.eide-results.org where you can also download an article that explains our approach. If you want more information, we'd be happy to talk with you. Contact us through our website.

Best Regards,

Lee

Originally posted on Linkedin groups.

Dr. Manijeh Motaghy

Hello everyone,

I am truly impressed by all your keen observations and thoughtful explanations. It is obvious, we all have experienced the pain and the joy of working with either emotionally healthy or unhealthy organizations. I have posted this question on other networks and continue to receive responses.

From responses I have received from different networks so far, this seems to be an important subject matter and one that can help all of us enhance our process to attain better results with more fulfillment.

Please continue to respond if other points come to mind or if you'd like to ask anyone clarifying questions about anyone's comments.

Thanks again,
dr. Manijeh
www.uniteinvision.com

Colleen McCarthy
Associate Human Resources Director at California Lutheran University

Having worked at a few unhealthy organizations, I'd say that there are some real obvious characteristics that pop up:

Fear of talking through issues - responding in passive/agressive mode depending on whether you're being questioned or the questioner.

A sense of "one-upmanship" - I must win, therefore you must lose.

A joy when other staff missteps.

No sense of collaboration/teamwork.

I could go on and on, but would only bore everyone!

Originally posted on Linkedin groups