4 Reasons Why Buzzword Workshops Hurt Your Organization
I once worked in a company that conducted 4 Value Stream Mapping program in 2 years without moving much of the status quo.
As an organization grow, its structure and culture becomes more complex and less transparent. When faced with complexity, we often feel the urge to find the solution quickly and put an end to the ongoing chaos.
The paradox of this urge for solution is that, despite the millions poured into Six Sigma, Agile, or Value Stream Mapping, many organizations still struggle to produce sustainable results.
Accountability-driven organizations are more likely to fall for buzzwords
“Accountability-driven organization”: If the first step of any problem-solving process is to assign an accountable person to the project, the organization can be considered accountability-driven as opposed to responsibility-driven.
In an accountability-driven company, a high-level manager or an executive is usually appointed to lead the initiative of solving a complex organizational problem. These project leaders are not deeply involved in the “works on the ground” but find themselves now in the spotlight where everyone looks to for direction.
The stake is high. The project leader may see this assignment as a great opportunity to shine and hype up their teams with the picture of a bright future. However, as time pass by and the deadline approaches, the inevitable reality hits: “do we really know how to solve this?”
The one workshop that’ll fix everything
The phrase "You can't solve a complex problem with a simple solution" appeals to both the fear and the hope of these project leaders. In strategic discussions, this uncertainty often pulls the project leaders down a rabbit hole of shiny new frameworks and theories.
A demand is followed by a market. These fancy frameworks often need multiple days of training, workshopping, and consulting, which come with a big price tag and a vague promise on the supposedly great result.
And so, a dozen of experts and managers were locked away from the daily business for a few days to learn to solve the complex problem of the company. Detailed action plans were designed and rolled out. A few more people under the project lead are assigned with some more accountabilities. On the ground-level, the hands-on workers resist the new proposal because it has nothing to do with the reality they perceive. Another quarter pass by, nothing gets solved and the accountability hat get passed to the next lucky star in the company.
Reason 1: Buzzword workshops are too simple
The promise of using one or two frameworks to fix an entire organization’s problem is a dangerous one. Organizations are made out of people and the relationships between them. To give you a rough picture: a 10 people organization contains 45 relationships; and a 100 people organization contains 4950 relationships!
Most of these thousands of relationships will inevitably be quite distant or indirect, but they contribute significantly to how each individuals make their local decisions. This is the reason why a 2-day workshop with only a handful of representatives can hardly create the transformation it is aiming for.
In this sense, the workshop is too simple of a solution. The group discussion in these workshop often doesn’t provide sufficient insights into the root causes of the problem.
Reason 2: Buzzword workshops become the negotiation table
Sometimes, the workshop participants are asked to do “homework” and bring “data” to the workshop, but they aren’t taught how to collect data properly. So, instead of bringing data, people brought their favorite ideas to the workshop, and the workshop became a marketplace for persuading others to their way of thinking.
Reason 3: Buzzword workshops are unnecessarily complicated
These workshops are also too complicated because the framework often requires learning a lot of specific jargon. You will also need a great deal of guidance to apply the framework correctly, which might be rather distracting during the problem-discovery phase.
Reason 4: Buzzword workshops give you false confidence
Another dangerous effect of buzzword workshops is that all this learning grants a false sense of confidence to the people in the workshop. After the training, we feel like we know what we’re doing. It numbs out the uncertainty that comes from a lack of understanding of the problem at hand. People feels energized and excited by the new concept and are encouraged to commit to blind decisions.
Taking expensive remedies without a proper diagnosis
Using buzzword workshops to tackle complex organizational problems is like taking newly developed, ultra-expensive drugs without a proper diagnosis of the sickness.
So what should we do instead?
Hear the things that are hard to hear
The best ideas rise from the ground – but not just a small area on the ground. Effective problem-solving requires a profound understanding of the whole landscape related to the problem.
To gain a good understanding of the problem landscape, leaders of an organization must learn to hear the things that are hard to hear and hard to say. Here are the 5 essential steps in the problem-discovery phase:
Budget sufficient time to investigate the problem: budget your own time, not someone else’s. This is the deciding factor of whether you’re operating in an accountability-driven mode or responsibility-driven mode.
Talk to people on all layers about how they perceive the problem: the initial answers you get will always be quite generic and loaded with emotions. Dig deeper with “what” questions such as:
“What makes this problematic for you?”
“What do you think are the root causes?”
“What will you change if anything is possible?”
Gather data to distill facts from perceptions: Don’t ever debate – debating is a battle between perspectives. All perspectives need to be backed up by data. Sometimes, data could be easily extracted from the existing operational records; sometimes you need to put in some effort to set up the measurement. Comment below “data” if you would like to see a dedicated blog post on how to collect data and the pitfalls to avoid. 😉
Form hypotheses and talk to people again: The stories and data you have gathered will certainly contain some contradictions. Identify these contradictions and form hypotheses assuming each side of the contradiction. Expand the hypotheses by describing further using “if this statement is true, then what else might be happening on the ground? What could be a possible solution?”
Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have everyone related to the problem aligned on the same hypothesis. This hypothesis is now likely the true story of the problem at hand.
The hard thing in this? You will very often hear stories about someone who is perceived incompetent or ill-intentioned (or both.) Psychologically, we humans have the tendency to blame others for the misfortune that’s happening around us; it makes us feel a little better temporarily but does not bring any improvement.
Sometimes that person your employees shift blame on might be you. In this case, getting a coach to help with the problem-discovery phase might be exceptionally helpful for processing the feedback constructively.
Don’t rush the problem discovery phase
The most heart-wrenching thing for any employee to watch is when the management team confidently presents a plan that has nothing to do with reality and wastes millions of dollars implementing it. To save your people from pulling their hair out and also save you from the awkwardness of facing failure later on, you must do the problem-discovery phase properly.
Here I find the 80/20 rule helpful: If you’re given 10 months to solve an organizational problem, you shouldn’t feel uncomfortable spending the first 8 months getting clear on the problems, symptoms, root causes, solution ideas, and their associated risks and impacts.
However, taking your 80% of time for problem discovery doesn’t mean that you only start thinking about solutions when the last 20% comes. Solution designs (note the plural) are a great way to help people understand each other’s perspectives and tease out possible objections. A tangible image of the design helps us visualize how things would change when the design is implemented and spot potential risks and false assumptions.
The Value of Organizational Coaches
In contrast to the quick-fix workshops and buzzword-laden strategies, investing in organizational coaching represents a mindset shift. Organizational coaches are the opposite of one-size-fits-all consultants; they are the facilitators of understanding in a market dominated by quick resolutions and blind initiatives.
Like any other type of coach, an organizational coach adheres to the coaching principles:
Acknowledge and respect that the responsibility of problem-solving belongs to the client, not the external consultant.
Empower the client to tap into the organization’s knowledge and experience, instead of fearing and avoiding it.
Support the client to unpack pressures, priorities, emotions, and facts so that a clear and workable understanding of the problem can be formed.
Help the client to develop the competencies needed for discovery conversations and foster transparency and trust
Guide the client to evaluate different solution frameworks instead of prescribing it.
It is also common to see that, after coaching, the organization becomes better in problem-solving also in other areas beyond the initial coaching topic. According to a case study by the International Coaching Federation, an organization can expect a significant increase in employee engagement, cognitive flexibility, and innovation management after receiving coaching.
5 Main Functions of Organizational Coach
Provide structure to problem discovery activity: In this function, the organizational coach is similar to a workshop trainer, but the coach focuses on discovering the pattern that arises from the interviews, rather than trying to apply certain frameworks to fit the reality.
Facilitate conversations: Sometimes a crucial conversation is mixed with assumptions, expectations, and emotions. A coach helps the conversation partners to organize their thoughts and gain clarity.
Support feedback processing: After data is collected, the organizational coach supports the project leader or project team in processing the data, digesting any contradiction, and ensuring that the project team does not jump to conclusions prematurely.
Ensure sufficient exploration: Through holding the big picture and asking thought-provoking questions, the organizational coach ensures that all doubts are sufficiently explored and the project team has identified all the possible options to choose from.
Help overcome cultural blindspots: An organizational coach may conduct organizational assessments when they see the need. The results of the assessment should help the project team understand the strengths and blindspots of the organization and adjust their strategy in problem-discovery and solution design.
The organizational coach is not a new addition to the business toolkit; their importance, however, has been on the rise in the increasingly complex and diverse business world. Coaches, positioned at the intersection of psychology and strategy, are uniquely equipped to guide organizations through a process of self-discovery.
In doing so, coaches render high-level management less susceptible to the allure of complexity for complexity's sake and empower them to leverage the knowledge intrinsic to the organization to ensure sustainable results.
Reality is where the teams align and unite
Moving away from buzzword workshops and towards organizational coaching is a shift in emphasis from solutions that sound good on paper to solutions that are authentically grounded in reality.
The complexity that often marks high-level strategy discussions can be alienating, leading to a disconnect between theoretical problem-solving and actual, tangible results. The remedy, as counterintuitive as it may seem, lies in a return to simplicity—a simplicity that is cultivated through understanding, transparency, and the alignment of diverse perspectives.
Organizations that grasp this concept and invest in the process of deconstruction will find themselves not only solving the present dilemmas with innovative simplicity but also cultivating a climate that thrives on adaptive and centered problem-solving.
