CHAPTER 13
Sustaining International Managers' New Behaviours in the Workplace

Change management within organizations can be viewed as consisting of two elements fixing the parts, and fixing the people. The former is concerned with the processes and systems that govern and regulate how people work. The latter is about ensuring that the right people are in place who have the knowledge and skill to maximize their contribution to the organization. One important element in getting the people right is training.

Ultimately, therefore, the success of the training will depend upon how the learning is sustained and reinforced by the company's management. This stage is concerned with tools and mechanisms to sustain learning, build skills and achieve better results. It ultimately depends on creating an organizational learning environment that shares best practice and continuously develops knowledge, skills, greater competences, different behaviours and attitudes. This is no small task. Indeed it could be argued that unless the changed behaviours are maintained, no real learning has taken place, despite the many training interventions that may have occurred. Sustaining the learning is highly culturally specific.

During the sustain stage the outputs from the training are integrated in the business in terms of the ways it goes about things, as manifested in its systems and processes and the behaviours of its people (see Figure 13.1). The implementation dashboard will give a readout on the extent to which the training is being implemented, its objectives are being achieved and the organization, systems, information and organizational enablers are in place. This then leads to activity to close any gaps in the enablers, motivating individuals, their managers and the whole team to continue with their changed behaviours and to share best practice. Further training is implemented to ensure that the changed behaviours are reinforced and extended. In turn the impact of the training on the business is assessed using the training portfolio analyser which then feeds back into survey, the first stage of SUCCESS.

Figure 13.1 Sustaining the training process

Some managers will thrive on change, often creating problems for colleagues who cannot keep up. Others will resist change and the discomfort it brings. This means that change must become the norm and strategic, operational, organizational and individual processes must be implemented to support the change. The methods used tend to be culturally specific. For example, in countries such as the USA which value and respect individual achievement it is not uncommon to put the need for change into an individualistic heroic context. Change is positioned as a life-or-death issue, and individuals who have brought it about successfully are lauded, rewarded and admired. This contrasts with South American countries such as Columbia or Venezuela where the value of group working is more highly prized. Change is positioned as an evolutionary process, which requires a team approach to which each individual contributes.

Objectives of the sustain stage

The main issues that need to be covered are:

• ensuring the enablers are fully in place;
• motivation of management and trainees to maintain changed behaviours;
• processes to cement new practices and share best practice;
• implementation of further training to re-energize participants and build momentum;
• a mechanism that continuously aligns the training strategy with the corporate strategy.

The tools

The Enablers

It is not uncommon for participants at a training course to feel that, while what they are learning is interesting, it does not connect with the practical reality they face in their day-to-day jobs. They see training as theoretical. They would like to implement it, but know that this will be difficult because one or more enablers may be absent. These enablers include:

• time
• priority setting
• information
• systems
• processes
• organization structure
• help and support
• coaching and mentoring.

The read-out from the implementation dashboard will indicate the extent to which the appropriate enablers are in place and what else needs to be done to prevent a disconnect between the learning and its adoption into the organization's change process.

It is not being suggested that it is the trainer's responsibility to ensure that all the enablers are in place. Rather, they need to communicate that, where there is a gap, it is impacting negatively on the return on training investment.

Manager and Participant Motivation

Managers are busy people subject to significant pressures that create stress. For international managers this is compounded by travel, operating in unfamiliar environments, cultural misalignments and different time zones. Seeking to do things differently after a training course merely adds to this stress. However successfully this is accomplished in the strengthen stage it is another matter entirely to maintain it in the long run. There is a natural process of attrition, pressures to conform to existing practices and the natural desire for an easy life. A vital element is therefore the motivation of international managers and their bosses to bring about change.

People in business respond to how they are measured and rewarded. Performance and talent appraisals, personal development plans and the training that results need to be integrated with the reward systems. Incentives linked to the implementation of change programmes provide the mechanism to focus the attention of busy managers. Naturally the manager must have an input in setting the targets against which the incentive will be earned. Whether these should be individual or team incentives or a combination of the two is a function of the prevalent culture.

One trigger for the sustain stage is to capitalize further on the debriefing that occurs between the training participant and their manager shortly after the training. As well as discussing the training course and the participant's action plan, attention should be paid to how 'things will be done differently around here' as a result of the workshop. What can be adopted and adapted from the course that will impact on the way the department functions, and how will this increase the effectiveness of the implementation of the company strategy?

For example, a technical support person may attend a course on effective presentation techniques to improve their impact in customer and internal presentations. Takeaways from the course might include a structured planning format for presentations and a methodology to ensure that benefits to the audience rather than features of the product/service are communicated strongly. The strengthen stage is concerned with the way the particular individual implements the learning and measures how effective this is through improved customer relationships, better feedback from internal audiences, reduced customer errors in ordering technical support and so on. The sustain stage is concerned with obtaining these benefits across the department, function, division or even the business unit as a whole, not just for one individual. This may involve adopting the presentation planning procedure and presentation methodologies across the whole technical support function. Targeting the whole department on the measures described above will provide the focus and incentive to sustain the change process.

Team Motivation

As well as incentive schemes, team meetings provide a good opportunity to motivate the team and stimulate change. Unfortunately all too often the reverse is the case. With an international team, coming together for a meeting is costly and tends to be relatively infrequent. Virtual team meetings happen more often. A meeting planning checklist is shown below, which can be used as an aide memoir.

It must also be appreciated that the way meetings are held and their purpose varies

between cultures. The Japanese will, for example, hold many informal meetings to consult with colleagues. Their open-plan offices facilitate this process. Anglo-Saxons tend to expect specific outputs from meetings; in particular they expect decisions to be taken and action to be specified. The French tend to have more formal meetings and view them as primarily a communication device to keep all the relevant people informed on a particular issue. Naturally, the meeting checklist needs to be adapted to the culture.

Sharing Best Practice

With implementation occurring at different geographic locations, sharing information on the practicalities of implementation and learning from successes is problematic. The company intranet provides a good medium for sharing best practice as discussed in Chapter 12. However, merely publishing information in this form does not guarantee that it will be read or acted upon. After an initial flush of enthusiasm many systems lapse. Updating becomes less frequent as do the number of hits on the site. While training participants may be keen to put their successes on the website, they are often less enthusiastic to post their problems and failures, particularly in cultures where saving face is an important dimension.

E-mail is extremely useful in providing another method for communicating and sharing best practice. One client sent a monthly e-mail summarizing progress in each country.

Implementation of Further Training

The successful management of the sustain part of the SUCCESS process will almost certainly involve further training. Usually the initial training will consist of one or two courses on the fundamentals, designed to build basic knowledge and skills of participants. Then additional, more advanced modules may be undertaken as the initial implementation is successful, in order to build on this success and generate additional momentum.

In this manner the training is an integrated part of the change process within the business. Generally level three and four organizations as discussed in Chapter 6 will be more inclined to view training and change in this manner than level one and two organizations.

Output from the sustain stage

The final step in the sustain stage is to make sure that, in the light of the changes occurring, the balance of training that is taking place does indeed facilitate the implementation of the company strategy. The training portfolio analyser, shown in Figure 13.2, is a good tool to assess this. It provides the means to manage the overall training task and the training and development activities that are taking place within the organization.

The training portfolio analyser assesses each training and development activity in terms of its impact on the business and the total associated investment. The resulting chart shows the balance of different types of training activity and what they should achieve, enabling a judgement to be made as to the most appropriate balance.

Different trainings will have different objectives and their business impact can be assessed. These can be classified into four main categories shown on the horizontal axis:

• Profit protection - the training is designed to respond to perceived competitor activity. Without it and possibly other associated activities the business is likely to suffer possible relative or actual decline in profits and/or revenues. This type of training may be the result of benchmarking exercises showing, for instance, that costs or productivity are out of line with competitors. Often this is driven by relatively short-term pressures and is more common in Anglo-Saxon cultures with a relatively short-term focus.
• Steady change - the training is focused on improving/strengthening existing activities. Success should result in some improvements to profit, revenue and some aspects of business efficiency; for example fewer complaints, speedier order processing and so on. Quality improvement programmes also fit into this category.
• Major improvement - training and development and probably associated activities are aimed at generating significant enhancement in business performance. Organizational and systems issues are likely to be addressed in a substantive manner and as part of a change programme on which the company is embarked. Typically, this will involve changes in behaviours as well as working methods.
• New way of doing business - fundamentals of the business are re-examined, redefined and redeveloped. This is likely to involve adopting new ways of doing things, which have not existed before in the business or the industry. It may mean adopting new technologies, new organizational forms and entering new markets - all of which may demand new attitudes and perceptions.

Figure 13.2 The training portfolio analyser

The vertical axis shows the level of training and development investment for each training activity, assessed both in terms of money and time as discussed in Chapter 5. Care must be taken to include both the direct investment in training and the opportunity costs of the time involved.

To obtain a complete picture of the training and development activity it is necessary to include all forms that the organization undertakes. Typically this will include the following:

• Self-study - a process whereby the individual learns on their own by reading, multimedia study, computer-assisted learning and so on. Subsequently some interpersonal exchange/explanation may be involved.
• Mentoring - an explicit process whereby trainees can refer to one or more named individuals to give discussion, advice and support in the implementation of specific aspects of their job.
• Distance learning - a programme of study, directly related to the business situation, consisting of a number of units or modules, each of which is reviewed, discussed and assessed on completion.
• External training course - participation in a job-related learning event that will involve members of other organizations.
• Internal training course - an off-the-job learning event including conferences, seminars and workshops. The event may involve external as well as internal speakers/trainers.
• External qualification programme - the trainee will be aiming to obtain a generally recognized qualification. This is likely to involve a structured programme of learning over a period of time. Although it is likely to have some relevance to the present/future job of the trainees it is likely to be of a general, rather than company-specific, nature.
• Total integrated change programme - although all training and development activities can be viewed as a part of an integrated approach, this refers to specific, identified initiatives. The programme is likely to involve a large number of different activities. It is likely to be viewed as a project, given a name/brand and take significant time to implement.

Each training and development activity is plotted on the training portfolio analyser and represented by a circle. The size of the circle gives an indication of the total number of managers who should go through the training. The resulting chart classifies the training into four broad categories:

• Benchmarking - training aimed at improving current activity. Typically focused on improving knowledge and skills to perform current job.
• Evolutionary - training aimed at bringing about change in a controlled manner through enhancing knowledge and skills to carry out new jobs.
• Upgrading - enhancing competences to meet the requirements of new job roles which are only broadly defined.
• Breakthrough - preparing managers to implement substantive change, fundamentally altering the nature of their roles in situations which are only generally specified.

Naturally there is significant overlap between these categories in practice, and the resulting picture must be interpreted with care. It will show whether the weight of training effort is directed at the right corporate priorities with the appropriate level of cost. For example, if a company is embarked on a major change programme involving reinventing itself, moving into new markets and product areas and adopting new systems and processes then it would be expected that significant numbers of breakthrough training activities would be organized. The pattern shown in Figure 13.2 shows that there is only one such training activity, albeit a totally integrated change programme but only involving relatively few people. On the other hand there are quite a number of maintenance and evolutionary programmes which may be more appropriate to a company seeking to do better what it currently does. Perhaps training resources need to be shifted from benchmarking and evolutionary training to upgrading and breakthrough training.

The training portfolio analyser provides a total training picture that can be reviewed in respect of the investment and the impact of the business. There is no ideal pattern. The balance reflects the training strategy derived from the company's strategy. Ideally low-investment training activities with high business impact are desirable, although rare in practice. Conversely, high-cost initiatives which change the business little or not at all are questionable.

The total number of training activities can be reviewed on a job grade/department level, or any other sub level, as well as for the business as a whole. This will lead to further prioritization of the training effort with the less impactful/higher cost activities being lower priority.

One of the major advantages of the training portfolio analyser is that it produces a pictorial representation of all the training on one piece of paper. This is particularly helpful in discussions with individuals from numbers of different cultures as it avoids possible language ambiguities and the misunderstandings which may occur.

Summary

Sustaining the impact of the training in the long term is probably the most challenging element of SUCCESS. It requires strong support systems and processes, particularly for international managers operating from different geographic locations in virtual teams.

The key to success with SUCCESS is having the enablers in place and having managers and their bosses who are motivated to continue the change process after the immediate positive effects of the training have worn off. One important factor in maintaining this motivation is having a reward scheme linking personal and team rewards to the changes desired. This needs to be supported with good systems that share best practice with those involved with the management of its implementation. Supporting the activities of individuals and the team, the manager needs to have the appropriate knowledge and skills to provide effective coaching/mentoring and to run motivating team meetings.

Finally the training strategy needs to be reviewed regularly to ensure it aligns with the corporate strategy through the application of the training portfolio analyser which shows whether the balance of the training is appropriate.

Action plan

Consider the next training intervention you are planning to make. Identify the extent to which you have legislated for the the considerations outlined in the Action plan below.