What are the Stakes if Nobody Holds Them?
The Importance of Organizational Commitment and Support in Survey Deployment – By Jaime Jusidman
Over the last decade, the use of organizational surveys has become a mainstream practice in businesses worldwide. The question of its effectiveness has been raised and explored by many practitioners in the field of organization development, as well as by line management in organizations. In my 30 years of practicing OD, I’ve seen enough to understand the reason for this skepticism.
In my opinion, the issue is not whether the organizational survey is effective or not; the truth lies in how the survey is positioned. When I consult a client organization regarding the deployment of a survey initiative I always raise the following questions:
Who is/are the stated sponsor(s) for the program? What are their stakes in this initiative? Do they have the leverage and credibility to make it a success?
A client approached us with a desire to implement a company- wide survey based on a newly adopted set of organizational values. Their purpose was, “To use the survey as a way to create an awareness of the behaviors that managers need to exhibit in order to be successful in the new culture.” When asked about the organizational buy in, the VP of HR referred us to the CEO who clearly and unequivocally stated, “The company needs to shift its culture in order to survive the current business environment and my job is at stake if we don’t get our people to value and reward high performance and customer focus.” Obviously, explicit buy in at the top level greatly increases the chance of a successful survey implementation. However, endorsement from the “big boss” does not guarantee that the process will be effectively rolled down through the organization.
Who are the key stakeholders within the system who can ensure the implementation? Are they committed to the process, or are they simply complying?
Many times, key stakeholders are left out of the survey deployment process, particularly when there is strong sponsorship from the CEO or another senior executive in the organization. We often find that organizational surveys are organized by HR in response to a request from a senior executive, with little or no backing from other important members of the organization.
Case in point. Several years ago, the Senior VP of HR of one of the largest medical supply manufacturers in the U.S. asked us to help them develop and implement a 360° feedback program in conjunction with a Human Resources planning process. According to the Senior VP, the CEO had asked her to make this initiative a key priority, and even went so far as to designate it as one of her four performance management objectives for that year. We moved forward with the request, starting with a pilot at the corporate level. The corporate deployment went relatively smooth, and spawned some minor modifications/improvements to the process as a whole. With the pilot under our belt, the program was moved to the specific business units. To our surprise, we encountered tremendous resistance from the business units in the form of canceled meetings, low attendance to related training sessions, etc. At this point, we decided to have a meeting with the Senior VP of HR and the HR staff from each business unit. During this meeting it became abundantly clear that the presidents of the two largest divisions did not endorse the initiative and even viewed it as an intrusion of corporate mandate into their operations. They feared that the results of the survey would put them in danger of losing talent to the smaller, faster growing divisions. We realized that these division presidents were bowing to the request of the CEO but neglecting to commit to the initiative through endorsement within their business unit. The result was a full year’s delay in the deployment, as well as the tremendous cost of rounding up the disengaged stakeholders.
Effective survey positioning is the key to deploying a successful organizational survey. When developing a survey to deploy within an organization, there must be a sponsor for the initiative. This sponsor must have the credibility and influence to create buy in throughout the entire organization. Also, key stakeholders must be involved and be committed to the process in order to ensure successful implementation and development. When key members of an organization are not supportive of an organizational survey, the cost becomes greater than the gain.
