14.change agents

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UNIT 15 CHANGE AGENTS:ROLES AND COMPETENCIES

Objectives

After going through this unit, you should be able to deeply understand:

� various roles of Change agents

� the competencies, especially the skills required for the effectiveness ofchange agents.

Structure

15.1 Introduction

15.2 Role of Change Agent

15.3 Competencies of Change Agents

15.4 Summary

15.5 Self Assessment Questions

15.6 Further Readings

Appendix 1. Designing and Implementing Performance Management System :The BHEL Experience

15.1 INTRODUCTION

Change is enevitable in the history of any organisations. Organisation that donot change or keep pace with the changing environment suffer from entropyand soon become defunct. Organisations have an internal environment, but existin an external environment. The internal environment is in terms of the task,structure, technology, social (people) and economic variables, while the externalenvironment is in terms of the larger social, political, economic and culturalfactors. To function effectively, organisations have to achieve an equilibriumwithin the internal variables in active interaction with each other and also withthe external environment. However this equilibrium is not static but dynamic.Hence organisations have to modify and change to adapt to the changinginternal and external environment. Thus no organisation can stand still and“tread water” for very long.

Different people have given different definitions. A few have been reproducedbelow :

“Persons who act as catalysts and assume the responsibility for managingchange activities.” — Anonymous

“People who stimulate, facilitate and co-ordinate change within a system whileremaining independent of it.” — Newstorm and Davis

“Persons who act as catalysts and assume the responsibility of managingchange activities in an organization.” — Robbins, P. Stephen.

Managers, non-managers, employees and outside consultants can bechange agents

OrganisationalDevelopment and Change

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15.2 ROLE OF CHANGE AGENT

Change agents have diverse roles. They create a state conductive to changeand also produce desired change.Some professionals consider three main roles of change agents, of coursesomewhat overlapping and with varying focus and emphasis. These three mainor primary roles are:

� Consultant;� Trainer; and� Researcher.

These three roles are have been briefly described below :

Consultant

A Consultant is a professional (internal or external) who applies behaviouralScience knowledge in an ongoing organization (or client system) with clearobjectives of managing change and improving effectiveness.

A consultant is a professional assisting managers and organizations in achievingorganizational purposes and objectives by solving management and businessproblems, identifying and seizing new opportunities, enhancing learning andimplementing changes.

According to Curtis Mial : “The Consultant may serve as the exhaust value,enabling the client to let off steam : as the ignition to spark action; as theaccelerator to buildup momentum; as the break for too quick action; as the radiatorabsorbing some of the heat of the controversy; as the shock absorber when thegoing is rough; or as the fog lamp when the future is hazy. The Consultantmay fulfill a variety of functions, but one thing he/she is not the driver”.

If we see the definition, we find that ‘Change agents’ and ‘Consultants’ have manyroles in common, and that’s why, these two words are used interchangeably.

The role of a Consultant may be ‘content role’, ‘process role’ or a combinationof both. In other words, a Consultant may have ‘Task orientation’, ‘Processorientation’ or a combination of both.

In the fully ‘Task oriented’ or ‘Technical expert’ role, the Consultant identifies /verifies the problem as an ‘expert’ or through an expert, helps in problemsolving by giving his/her ideas and opinions. His/her involvement is temporaryand confined to specific problem solving, relationship with client short-term andproblem focused.

In ‘Process oriented’ consultation, the Consultant is a Process facilitator not asolution (context / content) provider. He helps problem identification andverification by sensing and facilitating expression of feelings and attitudes, helpsin problem solving not by providing (solutions / contents) but by enhancingproblem identification and solving capability. The involvement, in ProcessConsultation, is with people and groups in the organization, relationship ispersonal, involved, process oriented and of long term perspective.

The Consultant’s role will merge with the role of ‘Change agent’ ultimately.

Trainer

A Change agent needs to be a trainer and educator. He has to educate peopleon the need and importance of change using a variety of methodologies —lectures, presentations, films, group discussions, role-plays and instruments, casesand experiential learning etc.

Change Agents:Roles and Competencies

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The trainer role is most widely and intensively used at all stages of a changeproject : unfreezing, changing (intervening) and refreezing.

Training is required for enhancing knowledge, skills and change in behaviour ,attitudes and beliefs. Training is used both in ‘content orientation’ and ‘processorientation’.

The Change agent, many times has to provide instruction, information on otherkinds focused learning opportunities for the client. In many helping situations,particularly when the client is expected to acquire competence in certain areas,the ability to train and educate is indispensable. A Change agent must be ableto assess training needs, write learning objectives, design learning experiencesand educational activities and use a variety of training / learning techniques fortransfer of learning.

Researcher

A Change agent has to carry out some research activities for the purpose ofgenerating valid information prior to and during the change process. Datacollection, diagnosis, generation of new behavioural science knowledge, evolvingbest strategies for change by assessing alternatives and the important stages ina change project where the Change agent has to be a Researcher. Usefulhypothesis are to be formulated and tested. A Change agent also searches andstudies literature, new developments and experiences of past interventions.

Change agents also generate new, useful knowledge about the process ofchange, about specific change methods or techniques about specific changes ofa technical, structural, or process nature, or about the means of resolvingcertain problems.

Goodstein and Pfeiffer consider managing change as a problem solving activity,and enumerate five roles of a Change Agent :

– Catalyst;

– Process Helper - Facilitator;

– Solution provider;

– Resource Linker; and

– Stabiliser

Catalyst

‘Resistance’ is most common response to any change effort; therefore one ofthe tasks of the Change agent is to break the inertia by causing dissatisfactionwith the status quo. Change agents sense the hidden problems and getdissatisfied with the status quo; start challenging the usual status or way ofdoing things and, thus, gradually intensify the need for change. They usestatistics, facts, examples, projections, comparisons for drawing attention to theneed of change. By sensitising people, they make them move towardsystematic steps in the change process.

Process Helper

A process helper / Facilitator, is a person who is acceptable to members of thegroup, substantially neutral, with no decision-making authority, intervenes to helpthe group improve the way it defines and solves the problems and makedecisions in order to increase the group effectiveness. To intervene means —to enter within an ongoing system for the purpose of helping those in thesystem (Argryris). Their main task is to help the group increase itseffectiveness by improving the process. ‘Process Consultation’ is based on this


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role. ‘Process’ in simple words means how group works together and includeshow members talk to each other, how they identify and solve problems, howthey make decisions, how they handle conflicts etc.

‘Content’ refers to what a group is working on e.g. finding ways and means ofproviding the desired service to customers. Content is the subject matter oractivities / efforts made for completion of a task. The status of a situation,group or problem has to be observed both in terms of ‘content’ as well as‘process’. For an in-depth understanding, an article titled “What to observe in agroup” by Edgar Schein in ‘NTL Reading book of Human Relations Training’(1982) may be referred.

A Process helper / Facilitator can help the group in all the stages of Changemanagement i.e.

– Recognising and defining needs (for change)

– Analysing problems and getting change — goals.

– Augmenting required resources

– Generating alternative solutions

– Evaluating alternatives and selecting the appropriate solution

– Installing the solutions

– Carrying out evaluations to ensure that the desired changes are helping.

Problem solving skills and Process Facilitation skills are highly used in this role.

Solution Provider

In many situations, the expectation of the group facing a problem is to get anappropriate solution. The Change agent, in such situations, by way of his beingan expert (technical / functional) provides appropriate solution. But this is notenough; he has to understand the explicit and implicit need of the people(users) and have to convince them about the solution, how it will satisfy theirneeds. The Change agent has to motivate them for adopting the solution. Ifneeded, the Solution provider will make them learns how to use the newsolution and make it really effective. In most of the organizations, this is themain expectation from a Change agent.

Resource Linker

In this role, a Change agent brings out people together, helps the organization todiscover and make optimum use of the resources — inside and outside theorganization. The resources may be money, specialized knowledge and/or skills,tools, techniques, ideas, experiences etc.

Stabiliser

Although the change process is initiated by creating a disturbance in theequilibrium, after successful change process the equilibrium has to be regainedonce again — the newly learnt mechanisms and behaviours have to getstabilized and become normal. A dynamic interplay between ‘change’ and‘stability’ is required continually in any organization. The successive changeefforts, it is the experience, should be initiated only when the previous changeshave stabilized. This does not happen on its own, the Change agents have tomake this happen again by using their process and other skills.

All these roles are overlapping as mentioned earlier, the role of ‘Consultant’ isall inclusive and that is why many persons use ‘Consultants’ and ‘Changeagents’ as synonyms.

Each of the roles may have many sub roles; the role of Consultant has been of


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maximum interest. There are a variety of models but two models appear to bequite necessary for a better understanding. In a change project, the clients andConsultants (Change agents) have different influence and involvement. Thisdifference in the degree of involvement and influence of activity gives rise todifferent types of consultancy styles or models.

One model is based on the involvement / influence of the consultant vs.Influence / involvement of the client in the change project.

The different styles or models may be enumerated here by broadly dividing theinfluence / involvement in ‘low’ and ‘high’ degrees :

i) Low Influence / Involvement of Client and Low Influence /Involvement of Change Agent:

This model is known as the ‘Marking Time Model’ or “Survival Model”.The change process is a formality without much seriousness.

This model is based on low mutual influence between client and Changeagent. When a Change agent is imposed on a disinterested client, therelationship becomes that of co-existence and there is no mutuality ormeaningful inter action. The Change agent is seen as an intruder markingtime with the client system and no real change may be expected.

ii) Low Influence / Involvement of Client and High Influence/Involvement of Change agent:

This gives a ‘Clinical model’ — like a Doctor diagnosing and treating apatient.

The relationship is determined by the quality of professional expertise of theChange agent, the diagnosis and the diagnostic ability of the Change agentis a distinguished characteristic in this model. The client provides dataresponds to questions and helps the Change agent to find the way for him.The consultant diagnoses and articulates the problem, structures the situationand suggests way for solving the problem. The ‘expert power’ of theChange agent generates commitment for change in the client. Consultant ismore like a Guru.

iii) High Influence / Involvement of Client and Low Influence /Involvement of Change Agent:

The resulting model is called ‘Engineering Model’. The Change agent givesideas and broad direction when needed and the Clients on their own workfor the solution.

In this model the client determines the freedom to be given the consultantaccepts the assignment as given to him .He carries out the study, collects,analyse the data and presents a report generally comprising facts, analysisand recommendations. It is up to the client to implement therecommendations. The main assumption behind this model is that the clientneeds information and analysis and the job of the Change agent is tosatisfy it.

iv) High Influence and Involvement of the Client & High Influence /Involvement of the Change Agent:

The model is collaborative model popularly known as ‘Process Consultancy’.

In this model, relationship between the Change agent and the client is based onmutuality; there is a mutual influence and joint identification of goals. Consultingis seen as a learning experience for both. Problem solving is conducted in aspirit of enquiry where either party can terminate voluntary relationship. Thismodel encourages open exploration, which facilitates generation of valid datanot possible in other models. The interventions are to help the client, perceive,


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understand and act upon events, which occur within the organization or in itsinter-phase. The main assumption is that collaboration between client andconsultant economises the time, speeds up diagnosis and commitment to actionhelps the client to learn how to recognise the problem when they re-appear,contributes to the transfer of consulting skill to the client and knowledge oforganization to the consultant.

The second model (Lippit and Lippit, 1980) also presents a variety of rolesdepending upon the level of consultant and client activity in problem solving.The model starts as a continuum, starting from the least level of consultantactivity (corresponding to the highest level of client activity) to the highest levelof consultant activity (corresponding to the minimum level of client activity).The roles on the continuum are given in Figure 1.

High LowClient Consultantactivity activity

� Objective observer

� Process Counselor

� Fact Finder

� Identifier of alternatives / Linker to Researcher

� Joint Problem Solver

� Trainer / Educator

� Information Specialist

� Advocate

Low HighClient Consultantactivity activity

Figure 1: Roles of consultant and client

15.3 COMPETENCIES OF CHANGE AGENTS

Competency is an underlying characteristic of a person that results in effectiveand/or superior performance (Boyatzis, 1982).

After going through various roles of Change agents, it would have becomeclear that they have to be master of many competencies. It needs to clarifyhere that it is not possible for a particular Change agent to be the master of allskills / competencies, that is why, Change agents also engage other Changeagents / Consultants. It is very difficult to make an exclusive list of Changeagent competencies — the roles themselves indicate many of them. Thecompetencies include knowledge, skills, attitudes, traits, value, motives and it isdifficult to draw a line between theses. A skill is used for applications orworking for performing a task / satisfying a role, which is a result of a numberof visible and invisible competencies. In general, competencies for Changeagents may be broadly classified into :

– Cognitive Competencies;

– Functional / Technical Competencies;

– Personal (Effectiveness) Competencies(Self-control, attitudes, traits, values etc.); and

– Inter-personal Competencies.


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In addition, ‘Consulting’ / Problem solving competency comprising of all theabove mentioned competencies is also essential for Change agents. Each ofthese competencies have been briefly explained in the following paragraphs.

15.3.1 Cognitive Competencies

Cognitive competencies are required for perceiving and thinking and are again acombination of a number of competencies. For simple explanation, these can bedivided in two types of thinking :

� Analytical thinking; and

� Conceptual thinking.

Analytical Thinking enables a person to understand a situation by breaking itapart into smaller pieces, or tracing the implications of a situation in a step-by-step causal way. It also involves organising the parts of a problem or situationin a systematic way, making systematic comparisons of different aspects orfeatures, setting priorities on a rational basis, identifying time sequences, causalrelationships or ‘If .......... then ...........’ relationships.

According to Spencer and Spencer (1993), the main underlying dimension ofAnalytical thinking is ‘complexity’: the number of causes, reasons,consequences or action steps included in the analysis ranging from a ‘simple listmaking’ to a ‘complex multi layered analysis’. The second dimension is‘breadth’ or the size of problem analysis. This may range from the lowest level-- ‘concerns one or two people’s performances’ to the highest level - ‘concernslong term performance’ — relating to a major division or entered in a complexenvironment (economic / demographic changes and major improvements).Common behavioral indicators of ‘Analytical thinking’ dimension in a personare:

� Setting priorities (for tasks) in order of importance.

� Breaking down systematically a complex problem / task into manageableparts.

� Identifying / recognising likely causes of events or different consequencesof actions.

� Anticipating obstacles and thinking ahead about future / next steps

� Using a mix of analytical techniques to identify several solutions and weighsthe value of each.

Conceptual Thinking involves understanding a situation or problem by puttingthe pieces together and seeing the large picture. It includes identifying patternsor connections between situations that are not obviously related and identifyingkey or underlying issues in a complex situation. Conceptual thinking usescreative, conceptual or inductive reasoning for applying the existing concepts ofdefining novel concepts.

According to Spencer and Spencer (1993), there are two main dimensions ofConceptual thinking :

i) The complexity of thought processes and their originality — ranging from‘using basic thumb rules’ to ‘creating new theories explaining complexsituations’.

ii) The breadth or the size of the problem analysed.

A few behavioural indicators of conceptual thinking are :

� Using ‘thumb rule’, common sense and / or past experiences to identifyproblems and situations.


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� Comparing the crucial differences between the existing situation andprevious happenings.

� Applying and modifying complex concepts, which have been learned, andmethods in appropriate manner.

� Identifying useful relationships among complex data from unrelated areas.

By the above mentioned narration, the importance of cognitive competenciesmight have been clear to a great extent.

15.3.2 Functional/Technical Competencies

These are the skills required to perform effectively in a particular discipline,functional or technical area such as — Heat Treatment, Corrosion, Investmentanalysis, Designing a wage and salary administration system, OrganizationDevelopment, Structural Design etc.

The Change agent, who is working for identifying or resolving problems, musthave the necessary knowledge particularly as Problem identifier or/and Solutionprovider. Technical / professional competencies include mastery on a body orfield of Job related Knowledge and skills and also the motivation to enhance,use and disseminate work-related knowledge/skills to others. According toSpencer and Spencer, there are four main dimensions to Functional / Technical/Professional competencies:

i) Depth of Knowledge and Skills : This is described in terms of formaleducational qualifications, training , expertise gained through informal studyor working experience.

ii) Breadth of Knowledge and Skills : It is the managerial and organizationalexpertise necessary to manage, coordinate or integrate diverse people,organizational functions and units for achieving common objectives.

iii) Expertise Acquisition Motive : The efforts to maintain and acquireexpertise ranging from simple maintenance to extensive efforts to attainmastery in new areas.

iv) Distribution / Dissemination of Expertise : This ranges from ‘no specialknowledge’ to ‘share the knowledge/skill to the highest level’ or ‘publishingnew technologies or new methods in professional/ technical journals’. A fewbehavioural indicators are :

� Striving to keep abreast with emerging knowledge and skills.

� Exhibiting curiosity by exploring beyond one’s immediate fields.

� Readiness for helping others in resolving their problems.

� Interest for studying new subjects

� Volunteering to go out to share the expertise for disseminating new leanings.

Change agents / Consultants are engaged for solving problems, and all problemsapparently will emerge in one or more of functions/departments/ processes ofthe organizations. Functional / technical knowledge provides a perspective toperceive in a holistic manner and also quite essential for interacting with andconvincing the client. It adds to the confidence and credibility of the Changeagent. The author, as an interval consultant was processing the manpowerproposal of a large Engg company. While discussions one of the line managerswas insisting for additional Manpower for the newly installed 8000 Tonnespress. Knowing the designation of Dy Manager (Personnel), he thought him tobe a non-technical person and asserted quite arrogantly that only an Engineerwould understand the issue. The author challenged him to come to the pressand told that being an Industrial Engineer (and Metallurgical also), he hadassessed manpower for a similar press 10 years ago in my previous


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organization, hearing this, the manager became embarrassed and agreed what Iwas telling.

15.3.3 Personal (Effectiveness) / Self Management Competencies

These competencies help a person to be effective in achieving his goals,actions even amidst environmental difficulties and pressures. For effectivenessof Change agents / Consultants, the following personal / self management skillsare quite essential.

Self Control

It is the ability to keep emotions under control and retain / enhance one’seffectiveness even when faced with hostility and severe stress. Thiscompetency is described by the intensity, and resulting scope of the controlexerted by a person on him/herself indicating a wide range of controls rangingfrom the individuals’ minimal control of self by avoiding negative actions —controlling self in order to improve the situation to controlling or calming othersas well as one’s own reactions.

A few behavioural indicators are :

– not being impulsive;

– resisting one self from aggressive involvement;

– remaining calm even in hostile and stressful situations;

– exploring and using functional way of restraining stress; and

– responding to problems constructively even in hostility/and stressful situations.

Self Confidence

It is an individual’s belief in one’s own capability to accomplish a task. It alsoincludes the individual’s expression of confidence in highly challenging situations,in making decisions, forming opinions and handling failures constructively. Apositive self-concept perpetuates self-confidence.

Two main dimensions of Self-confidence have been enumerated as :

i) Intensity indicating how much challenge or risk the individual has confidenceto face — ranging from ‘simple independent functioning in a normal worksituation’ to ‘taking on extremely risky tasks’ or ‘challenging the boss orclients’; and

ii) Dealing with failure — ranging from ‘blaming others for failure’ to‘admitting own mistakes to others’ and ‘acting to correct problems’.

A few behaviours have been observed as :

– Making decisions / acting in spite of disagreements from others;

– Presenting oneself assertively;

– Making statements telling confidence in one’s own abilities and judgment;

– Stating one’s own positions explicitly and confidently even while inconflict with superiors;

– Taking or accepting/personal responsibility in case of failures, mistakes orslippages;

– Using mistakes as learning opportunities; and

– Analysing one’s own performance for knowing the causes of failure andwork for improvements.

A Consultant, very often has to face hostile clients or their employees, andvery uncertain and new problems, which he would not have handled earlier,


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Self confidence helps in retaining ones poise and facing the situationoptimistically and permeating confidence in others.

Flexibility

Ability to adapt to and work effectively in a variety of situations with differentindividuals or groups. Understanding and appreciating opposing and alternativeperspectives on an issue, trying to adapt to an approach in changing situationsand readiness to change or accept changes in one’s own work or organization —are crucial for flexibility. Flexibility may be assessed on two dimensions(i) Breadth of change — ranging from own opinions to adapting organizationalstrategy; and (ii) Speed of action ranging from slow to instantaneous.

A few indicators are :

– recognising the meaning in opposing view points;

– adopting easily to changes at work;

– flexibility in applying rules / procedures depending on the situations and thesuper ordinate goal; and

– changing one’s own behaviours to suit the situation.

Organizational Commitment

The individual’s ability and willingness to align one’s own behaviour with theorganizational needs, priorities and goals indicate organizational commitment.

According to Spencer and Spencer, it may be assessed on the dimension‘intensity of commitment’ indicated by the amount of sacrifices made for theorganization’s benefits.’

A few behaviours indicating organizational commitment are :

– Willingness to help colleagues to complete their tasks.

– Aligning one’s own activities, priorities, goals to meet organizational needs.

– Demonstrating cooperation to achieve larger organizational objectives.

– Meeting organizational needs rather than one’s own professional needs.

If the clients sense organizational commitment in Change agents, their credibilityshoots up and much of the resistance starts giving way.

Initiative

Initiative indicates a preference for taking action; doing more than is required orexpected in the job, doing things that no one has ordered or requested.Improving or enhancing the results and avoiding problems or finding or creatingnew opportunities on one’s own without anybody’s orders or instructions areindicative of initiative.

According to Spencer and Spencer, there are two main dimensions forunderstanding and assessing initiative (i) time dimension — ranging fromcompleting decisions made in the past to acting now on problems oropportunities that will be realized only in distant future; and (ii) Discretionaryefforts like self motivation or the extra or unrequited effort put forth tocomplete a task or goal.

Initiative is visible when a person refuses to give up after facing obstacles,recognises and seizes opportunities of improvement, performs far more than thejob requirement and anticipates and makes efforts for seizing an opportunitywhich is not visible to others.


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A few other Personal competencies may be enumerated as :

� communication — written / oral presentation;

� assertiveness;

� visioning;

� thoroughness; and

� persuasion

15.3.4 Inter-Personal Competencies

These competencies are essential for dealing with other people effectively.Inter-personal competencies are a bunch of different skills largely overlappingwith each other. It is very difficult to clearly enumerate all such slots.However, some of the inter-personal skills may be enumerated as :

� Inter-personal relations;

� Helping a person; and

� Developing and maintaining smooth, co-operative working relationshipswith colleagues, superiors, customers, clients etc.

In their behaviour, persons having such competencies show awareness of andconsideration for the opinions and feelings of others. Such skills put people atease. These skills can be interpreted, understood and assessed at differentlevels.

Some of the characteristics behaviours used for assessing the IPRcompetencies are :

� Maintaining composure in interacting even under stress;

� Demonstrating good judgement, poise and maturity in interactions withemployees and customers;

� Interpersonal style serving to enhance rather than undermine relationshipswith others;

� Treating others with respect and dignity;

� Exhibiting empathy seeing things accurately from the emotional perspectiveof others, and caring about their well being;

� Understanding own feelings and expressing them functionally;

� Showing genuine respect for the wishes, preferences and confidentiality ofclients, and advocating for them when appropriate;

� Managing conflicts constructively by searching for areas of commonagreement;

� Recognising and acknowledges the feelings of others, and demonstratesrespect;

� Showing empathy, sees things accurately from the emotional perspective ofothers, and cares about their well being;

� Using formal networks to accomplish tasks;

� Manages conflicts, dealing with others appropriately in difficult situations;

� Respecting confidentiality and exercising discretion when sharinginformation;

� Developing and leveraging a network of relationships / contacts with peopleand institutions capable of impacting business performance;

� Using social events to improve and strengthen professional relationships;


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� Using the network to identify opportunities, gather market intelligence andseek input into problem with a view to increasing the work effectiveness;

� Participating actively in relevant business fora and taking steps to bestrepresent the organization positively;

� Working effectively with relevant stakeholders to expand common groundand maximize buy-in into organizational priorities;

� Understands unique desires and preferences of significant others / externalbodies and uses personal touch to strengthen key business relationships.

IPR competencies, as mentioned earlier are a cluster of different skills /competencies. A few important ones are briefly explained below.

Communication

There are three purposes of communication :

i) Ensuring that the message conveyed has been fully understood;

ii) Ensuring that the conveyed message has been accepted by the receiver;and

iii) Ensuring that the receiver of the message has got motivated to act fordoing what he has accepted to do.

Communication includes grasping, processing and articulating thoughts and ideasto convey and use information in a meaningful manner. These skills also can beunderstood and interpreted at different levels. A few of the importantcommunication skills are :

— Speaking;

— Writing;

— Asserting;

— Listening;

— Questioning;

— Paraphrasing;

— Giving feedback;

— Receiving feedback; and

— Empathising.

Inter-Personal Understanding

For having effective inter-personal relations, a desire and capability tounderstand other person is essential. The ability to listen accurately andunderstand is not only for the spoken words but also for unspoken or partlyexpressed thoughts, feelings and concerns of others. Inter-personalunderstanding is often expressed by understanding the moods and feelings ofothers, developing an understanding based on listening and observation to predictand prepare one self for others response. The IPU includes (i) Understandingthe interests, attitudes, needs and perspectives of other people and(ii) Understanding the cause of others behaviour or patterns of behaviour,attitudes etc.

There are two key dimensions for assessing the inter-personal understanding(Spencer & Spencer, 1993):

a) Depth or complexity of understanding others ranging from — understandingmeanings of the statements and actions / feelings of the communication tounderstanding complex hidden reasons of the behaviours; and


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b) Listening and responding to others. This also has a very wide range ofbehaviours beginning from simple listing to going out of the way to helppeople with personal or inter personal problems.

Help / Service Orientation

These competencies are oriented towards a desire to help or serve others tomeet their needs. By these skills, a person is able to focus his / her efforts ondiscovering, understanding and meeting the other person’s customers’ or clients’needs.

Some of the indicative behaviours of this skill are :

a) Seeking information for understanding the explicit or underlying needs ofother persons beyond those expressed superficially by the person.

b) Taking personal responsibility for solving others problems promptly andundefensively.

This competency also can be deeply analysed and assesses on two dimensions-(i) focus on others’/clients’ needs behaviours ranging from expressing negativeexpectation of clients to acting as a trusted advisor or advocate of the clientsand (ii) taking initiative to help others / clients; behaviours ranging fromblocking others actions to taking extraordinary efforts.

Influence and Impact

These skills help in expressing an intention to persuade, convince influence orimpress others in order to get what one wants to get from them or gettingthem support one‘s agenda or the desire to have a specific effect on others.A few of commonly observed indicators are :

� Anticipating the effect of action on others.

� Making efforts to give reason, data, facts and figures for convincing others.

� Using examples, experience, demonstrations, audio-visual aids for betterunderstanding.

� Building behind the scenes support for the ideas.

� Using strategy in giving or withholding information for having the desired effect.

� Using group process skills for leading or directing the group.

This competency may also be assessed on two dimensions : (i) number(frequency) and complexity of the actions taken to influence others; (ii) breadthof the impact starting from one person to the whole organization and evenoutside organizations.

Understanding and Using Power Dynamics

For developing effective inter-personal relationships, the understanding of theprevailing power relationships in the organization or between people is essential.It means the ability to identify who are the key decision makers and centers ofinfluence. Also predicting who will be able to influence the situation better andhow.

The capabilities range from an awareness and impact within the individuals ownsection / department to that on outside organization, customers, clients, suppliers,government etc.

Common behaviours indicating the competency may be described along a scalefor the lowest to the highest levels :

� Misunderstanding organizational hierarchy/ structure.

� Concerned only with one’s own work, and ignores others signals or needs.


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� Understanding formal structure.

� Understanding informal structure.

� Understanding organizational policies.

� Understanding organizational issues.

� Understanding longer underlying issues.

The breadth of understanding ranges from one or two parts to the internationalorganizations as enumerated in the previous competencies.

Relationship Building

With the help of this competency, a person is able to build and maintainfriendly, warm and trusting relationship with people and need work within andoutside one’s organization for achieving work related goals. Some of thebehaviours indicating this competency are :

� Regularly and consciously working for building rapport and extending oneself to build rapport with others.

� Establishing rapport with others easily.

� Sharing personal information to others for creating a common ground forwidening the arena.

� Establishing friendly relationships with many people who may be useful infuture.

This competency has two main dimensions :

i) Closeness of relationships; and

ii) Spread or the extent of relationships / network.

Closeness of relationships building have a number of behavioural characteristicsand levels :

� Avoiding contact with others

� Accepting invitations

� Making formal contacts for expediting tasks or work activity

� Making informal contacts occasional

� Building rapport

� Making social contacts

� Making firmly level

� Making close personal friendships.

The spread of relationships also has different levels :

� One or two persons

� Work Team / group

� Department

� Division

� Entire organization

� Other organizations in similar to other business

� Political / Governmental, organizations.

Relationship building is one of the most valuable skills as much of theformalities in selection and identification of Change agents are eliminated due toa feeling of trust and mutuality. The diagnosis also becomes easy and perfectdue to openness.


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Negotiation

This competency also is referred as a cluster of traits and competencies andenables an individual or groups with differing / opposing wishes or views toreach a mutually satisfactory agreement. This skill can be observed in wide-ranging behaviours as indicated below :

� Being aware of the importance of negotiation and understanding theprinciples behind it.

� Realising that winning at all costs is not important and a win-win solution ismost effective in the long run.

� Arguing persuasively for getting what one should get.

� Preparing well for every negotiation .

� Researching the interests of the other side and uses own understanding tomake position stronger.

� Finding ways of gaining commercial intelligence in respect of leadingcompetitors, and getting complete relevant information both about theorganization and the individual that he will be negotiating with.

� Using different approaches and styles (i.e. avoidance, forcing, accommodating,collaborating and compromising) - to achieve the desired objectives.

� Demonstrating the need to plan for all major areas of the deal in the preparationphase, so that it is possible and plan the use of possible concessions.

� Using existing or new documentation to accompany the negotiations, andusing an agenda as a positive aid to negotiations.

� Gathering as much information as possible during the negotiation processand tries to assess the other sides negotiating style and level of conviction.

� Using informal and formal networks to accomplish tasks or objectives.

� Understanding what is meant by carefully analysing what is said, and theimportance of identifying the other side‘s non-negotiable items.

� Communicating the potential loss to both parties due to failure of negotiationprocess and ensures that the discussion does not end in a deadlock.

� Creating a win-win situation and influencing others to make sincere effortsfor this.

15.3.5 Consulting Competency

Although Change agents are also considered to be Consultants, however, in thissection, this is being taken as a specific competency of Change agents. Theseare needed to complete the various phases of a change project and adaptingthe consulting role as needed for a variety of situations.

General Skills

These skills are necessary for selecting and expediting different roles as aconsultant. These include :

– Self awareness about critical traits / competencies possessed,

– Understanding one’s own motivations in assessing need for change and thedrive to bring out the change.

– Understanding philosophy and ethics and process of change.

– Anticipating and predicting the relation of one possible change to otherpossible changes.

– Understanding the desired (coverage, character, structure of changes /group of changes.

– Determining the barriers, resistance and readiness to change.


16

� Determining the resources a valuable for change.

� Ability to determine his own role in changing situations.

� Understanding group processes.

� Distinguishing work and personal issues.

� Active Listening

� Handling Emotions, Emotional Intelligence

� Conflict Resolution

� Building a conducive climate — trust and openness.

Contracting Skills

It is the skill needed for building a verbal agreement with a client and includes :

� Communicating the understanding of problem — what problem has beenperceived by the consultant.

� Clarifying the client’s needs

� Expressing one’s own needs

� Documenting main decisions and commitments

� Obtaining clear agreement on the tasks (problems), scope, objectives, timeframe and financial implications

A few other contracting skills may be enumerated as :

� Promising only what can be delivered.

� Saying ‘no’ without guilt and fear.

� Setting realistic goals for self and client

� Working comfortably with authority figures.

� Letting some one else take the glory.

� Working with people one does not like

� Assessing personal needs that affect acceptance of the contractor.

Sensing and Diagnosing Skills

These skills may be split up into :

� Helping the client to discover and clearly understand the problem.

� Questioning — putting appropriate questions for explicit understanding.

� Helping in finding answers to questions.

� Inspiring trust of the client in the abilities of consultant

� Helping client generate solutions

� Skills to diagnose problems

� Determining the methods, which the clients believe, should be used for thechange.

� Creating awareness of the need for diagnosis and change in clients.

� Creating a perception of the potentialities for change expectations.

� Understand the values and cultures of the organization.

� Assessing readiness for change.

� Obtaining multiple perspectives on the problem / situation.

� Ability to gather and summarize huge volumes of complex data and toinvolve the client in understanding and interpretation.


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Problem Solving and Decision-Making Skills

� Involving others in problem solving and goal setting.

� Understanding the business environment and operative and the effect ofproblems thereon.

� Stating the problems and objectives explicitly.

� Setting one’s ideas effectively.

� Enclosing clients to generate alternative solutions — summing discussions.

� Evaluating alternatives — considering effects of various alternatives on thederived outcome and effect on other organizational components.

� Making sound timely decisions using appropriate styles — even amidstuncertainty and risk.

� Challenging ineffective solutions

� Seeking help from others

� Using a variety of techniques for creative problem solving.

Implementing Skills

These skills are essential for successfully carrying out a project of plannedchange.

� Conceptualisation and articulation of the activities required for implementingthe plan.

� Defining objectives in such a way that it needs to easy definition ofmethods.

� Attending to details

� Taking responsibility

� Helping clients use their strengths and resources optimally.

� Changing plans in case of emergency

� Controlling one’s anxiety while performing

� Intervening at appropriate time

� Admitting mistakes and working for rectification

� Building and maintaining morale and motivation of clients and users andproject team.

� Prioritisation of activities / use of resources.

� Time management

� Project management

� Team working / Team building

� Understanding the impact of change activities

� Deciding upon the amount of action to be made before making anassessment of the progress.

Evaluating Skills

For determining the success or failure of a change initiative / project, evaluatingskills are necessary.

� Diagnosis of cases when group action becomes inefficient using differenttechniques — instrument, interiors, focus groups etc.

� Assessing one’s own contributions.

� Project Evaluation.

� Soliciting formal / informal feedback from appropriate persons.

� Measure the success / status in comparison to the stated objectives.


18

� Evaluate content (what was done) and process (how the work was done).

� Acknowledging / accepting failures in a decent manner.

� Feeling comfortable in receiving the feedback / evaluation of the client.

� Ability to deal with unprecedented changes.

� Devising / using evaluation tools.

� Use of score cards, rating scales and other means.

� Rapport preparation.

� Leave the project gracefully after the task is finished.

� Attributing reasons of failures.

� Motivating the client / Team for rectifications / improvements.

Maintenance Skills

� Creating a sense of responsibility, passion for the new system, proceduresetc., after change.

� Motivating for active participation.

� A sense of collective responsibility for ensuring continuity and spread of thechange initiative.

� Developing a strong support for the change initiatives.

� Acknowledgements, recognition, rewards, reinforcements.

Menzel has interacted with a large number of consultants and Change agentsand has summarised the following list of Change agent skills.

Educating

Researcher

Writer

Designer

Teacher

Instructor

Trainer

Advocate

Conference Leader

Life / Career Planner

Diagnosing

Action Researcher

Diagnoser

Survey Designer

Data Analyst

Evaluator

Consulting

Role Model

Relater

Expert in Processes

Confronter

System Analyst


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Inventor

Designer / Planner

Adaptor

Linking

Resource Linker

Internal Linker

External Linker

Theorist - Experts for action research

Referrer

15.4 SUMMARY

This section provides a good exposure to the roles of Change agents andvarious competencies. Most of the competencies are not very unique to theChange agents, rather they are required for any manager because today themanagers are expected to be Change agents. Many organizations have madeplanned efforts for developing internal Change agents, Bharat Heavy ElectricalsLtd. is one of them who have as, a part of their OD efforts succeeded indeveloping a few Change agents of national and international repute. TheseChange agents have not confined themselves to only specific OD activities,rather they have contributed in identification of change opportunities andfacilitation in many organizational, technical, functional and personal andinterpersonal areas. They are also contributing in HRD policy formulation,introduction of new mechanisms and of course, as valuable trainers. There aremutual benefits and limitations of internal and external Change agents, but theroles and competencies are mostly identical. The internal Change agents haveto face additional problems for getting recognition and working within thehierarchy of power sector of the organization making their task more difficult.

In order to get an outline of a real life change initiative highlighting the changeprocess as well as various role Change agents are to play, paper entitled“Designing and Implementing Performance Management system : The BHELExperience” is enclosed in the Appendix 1.

15.5 SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1) Write an essay on role of change agent citing suitable examples.

2) What are the skills required for becoming a successful cahnge agent.

15.6 FURTHER READINGS

The author gratefully acknowledge the following authors and sources :

Spencer, Lyle M.Jr., Spencer Signe M, Competence at Work, John Wiley &Son, Inc. (1993).

Sarathi, Parth, Planning, Auditing and Developing Human Resource,Manak Book, New Delhi.

Sinha, Dharni, P, Consultants and Consulting Styles (Unpublished paper),COSMODE, Hyderabad.

Robbhins Stephen P, Organizational Behaviour, Prentice Hall of India, NewDelhi.


20

Shein, E, H, Process Consultation: Its Role in Organization Development,Addison Wesley.

Schein, E, H, ‘What to observe in a group’ (paper) in NTL Reading book ofHuman Relations Training, NTL, Bethel.

Lippit, G, Lippit R, The Consulting Process in Action, University Associates,Dan Diago.

Boyatzis, R.E, ‘Competence at Work’, in Motivation and Society, Jossey-Bass,San Francisco.

Rees, Fran, ‘Consultant Effectiveness Pyramid,’ in The 1998 Annual: Volume1, Training, Jossey-Bass.

Garavaglia, Paul L, ‘Change Agent Gap Analysis’ in The 2000 Annual, Vol. 1,Training; Jossey Bass.

Saskein, Marshall, ‘Models and Roles of Change Agents’ in The 1974, AnnualHandbook for Group Facilitators, University Associates, San Diego.

Block, Peter, Flawless Consulting, Pfeiffer & Company, San Francisco.

Sarathi, Parth ‘Designing and Implementing Performance Management Systems- The BHEL experience’ (unpublished paper).

Timothy, M. Nolan, ‘Consulting - Style Inventory : A Tool for Consultants andothers in Helping Roles’, in The 1003 Annual: Developing HumanResources, Pfeiffer & Company.

Newstrom, J.W, Davis, Keith, Organisational Behaviour

- Human Behaviour at Work, Tata McGraw Hill - publication.

Chartier, M.R. ‘Functional roles for facilitating organizational change,’ The 1985annual : Developing Human Resources’, Pfeiffer & Company, San Diego.

Sarathi, Parth. ‘Preparing Job description’ in Annual Handbook of HumanResource Initiatives 2003, Initiatives and Interventions, Manak (Pub), NewDelhi.


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Appendix I

DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING PERFORMANCEMANAGEMENT SYSTEM : THE BHEL EXPERIENCE

1.0 BACKGROUND

BHEL is the largest Engineering Company of India having over 47000employees in 14 manufacturing and a dozen services divisions catering to theneeds of Power, Industry, Defense and Transportation sectors. It is one of theleading Navaratna PSUs of Govt. of India and has been giving profitscontinuously since over 30 years. In 2001-2002, the company registered a netprofit of Rs 4679 Million ( equivalent to 98 Million US $s) on a Turnover of Rs72866 Million(equivalent to 1518 Million US$s). BHEL to day has its exportpresence in over 50 countries.

BHEL was the first organization to start Corporate Planning in a systematicmanner in 1973 and has been pioneer in formulation and implementation ofHRM / HRD policies. Developing Human Resource has been the key concernright since inception. Performance Appraisal System has been in use for allcategories of employees. For Corporate Cadre executives (E5 to E7 level i.e.for Sr. Managers, DGMs, Sr. DGMs and AGMs), there was a uniformPerformance Appraisal System throughout the Company, managed centrally byCorporate

Personnel. For General Managers, EDs and Board Members, Appraisal Systemissued for Govt. of India was in vogue. The author has played a key role indeveloping new Appraisal systems for Board level positions in Navaratna PSUswhich have already been implemented since 2000. For Executive levels (E1-E4)also, the Appraisal systems in most of the units / divisions was uniform. A newcomprehensive Performance Management System has been developed andimplemented for all levels of executives w.e.f. 2000-2001. This paper discussessome of the experiences of designing and implementing this System.

2.0 MAJOR AREAS OF SATISFACTION AND DISSATISFACTION WITH THE PREVIOUS SYSTEM

The previous system continued for many years in spite of a mixed feeling ofsatisfaction and dissatisfaction. The salient features of the positive and negativeaspects of the previous System (Performance Appraisal System) areenumerated below :

2.1 Satisfaction, Positive Aspects

� Very simple, takes very less time to fill up.

� Non-threatening to both Appraiser and Appraisee.

� Able to fulfil the administrative requirements.

� Does not lead to confrontation between Appraiser and Appraisee.

� Could sustain for a long time.

� Personnel Deptt. was the sole custodian of formats.

� Able to maintain a high degree of confidentiality about appraisal ratings.

� Provides opportunity to Appraisee to indicate his achievements and Trainingneeds, help required.

2.2 Dissatisfaction, Negative Aspects

� A Performance appraisal system only.

� A passive system having no involvement of subordinates.


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� No feedback either on performance or on training needs, helps solicited etc.

� Performance goals, parameters, expectations never clarified to Appraisee.

� Absence of performance standards.

� No dimensions / parameters for assessing performance.

� Appraisal of attributes / behaviours - main basis of appraisal.

� No feedback, counseling, coaching or improvement efforts.

� Appraisal ratings / outcomes not known to Appraisee.

� High degree of perceived subjectivity and bias.

� No linkage between Performance and Rewards.

� No appraisal of potential.

� Since only five grades of evaluation, many persons fall in the same grade -difficult to distinguish between them.

3.0 STIMULATING THE NEED FOR A NEW SYSTEM

3.1 Initial Efforts

The initial efforts for stimulating the need can be traced back to the year1986-87 when as a member of the Corporate Personnel, the author madeinitiatives to widen the HRD activities, which were at the time largely confinedto Training in most of the divisions and OD in a few. A one / two day trainingmodule on “Performance Feedback — a tool for HRD” was designed andconducted to encourage the involvement of Appraisee in Appraisal process andalso to make executives adopt Performance Feedback & Counseling forSubordinate Development. Six such Programmes / Workshops were held atCorporate Office and other divisions. This increased the awareness andmotivation for adoption of this intervention to a great extent. Since the ongoingAppraisal System did not have provision for this mechanism, it could not catchup.

A booklet titled ‘Performance Feedback - a Tool for HRD, was published in1988 and distributed to executives to adopt some of the practices ofPerformance Management. Another effort made after a few years could not gomuch ahead.

In various diagnostic exercises, Workshops, syndicate group discussions —dissatisfaction with Performance Appraisal System was often emerging sharplyand some of the HRD efforts also were constrained due to the existing system.

3.2 Training Programme on Performance Management

In 1996 at Human Resource Development Institute (BHEL), a six-day trainingprogramme on “Performance Management” was designed and conducted by theauthor with the hope of creating a critical mass that could stimulate the need invarious units. Personnel / HRD Heads from various divisions includingCorporate Office and some Line managers at senior levels were invited toparticipate in this programme. The expectations / requirements of a goodPerformance Management System could strongly emerge during the programmeand the limitation of existing system also surfaced. A number of structuredexperiences, instruments and cases were used in addition to experience sharingby a few other organizations.

As an outcome of the workshop, a strongly felt need of a comprehensivePerformance Management System emerged along with the main expectationsand motivation to influence others to contribute in evolving the PerformanceManagement System for BHEL.


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3.3 A Survey on Human Resource Practices in BHEL

Based on a survey in 1996-97, conducted by the author using a questionnairedeveloped by Dr. Udai Pareek and Dr. TV Rao, the average score for theIdeal Performance appraisal system was found to be 72.76% and that forExisting one was 37.6%, leaving a huge gap of 35.16%. Table enclosed atAnnexure I may be referred for further details.

This indicated dissatisfaction of respondents with the existing Appraisal systembut also indicated an excellent appreciation of the requirements of a goodappraisal system. The findings thus, served two valuable purposes :(i) convincing others about the need to revise the system and (ii) thehopefulness that people would be able to develop and appreciate a goodPerformance management system. On the basis of the findings, it also becameclear that mere new Performance appraisal system would not be adequate: acomprehensive Performance management system was the need of theOrganization. The Survey findings proved to be highly useful in future efforts.

3.4 One Day Training Module on Performance Management in all General Management Programmes

Encouraged by the responses of this programme, a one-day session onPerformance Management was introduced in all General ManagementProgrammes to be conducted by HRDI.

Normally, 10-12 such programmes were conducted every year for the BHELexecutives at the level of Senior Managers (E5) and above. After conducting afew programmes, a pattern emerged and this became attain our module.Highlights of the coverage are given below :

i) Where are You, Where do you want to go- defreezing. In order to stimulatethe need of Performance Management efforts, agreed indicating five stagesof organizational health developed by Robert Camp were projected andresponses of participants were asked indicating where did they find thecompany.

The grid was as follows :

World Class : A company recognized as the best in its area offunction, bench-marked by other organizations.

Best in Class : A company which usually exceeds customers’expectations, out performs all direct competition,provides a clear competitive edge.

Satisfactory : A company which meets all customer requirementsand internal requirements in respect of cost, margins,asset utilization and cycle time.

Unsatisfactory : A company which is a\not able to satisfy allcustomer requirements or internal requirements.

Unhealthy : An ineffective, inefficient Company which is at therisk of falling. Needs major redesign.

They were encouraged to share their perceptions and asked whether theorganization should remain at the same status for achieving BHEL Mission,Vision or something else should be done. Most of them got somewhatsensitised and expressed the need of concerted efforts to enhancingperformance of the organization. It would be further explained that the grid had


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been prepared consisting both efficiency and effectiveness aspects and furtherexplanation was given whenever required.

ii) Expectations from an Effective Performance Management System

Through brainstorming, the expectations from an effective PerformanceManagement System were collected. Some of the commonly statedexpectations are :

� Beneficial to the appraisee, appraiser, company and customer

� Objectivity in appraisal

� Able to provide information on what is to be done, what is to beaccomplished?

� Enable role and goal clarity

� Provide clarity on standards of performance

� Ensure adequate support to the performer

� Able to make distinction between performance of employees

� Provide opportunities for performance dialogue and periodic feedback

� Able to motivate for achievement oriented target setting

� Periodic monitoring and evaluation of Performance

� Enable the Performer and his superior to know the extent to which thetasks / targets have been completed

� Facilitate identification of Training and development needs

� Able to improve performance in future

� Creation and development of trust and openness between boss andsubordinate

� Provide feed back to the Boss also

� Active involvement of Boss and Subordinate at all stages

� Provide rewards for superlative performance

� Provide valuable inputs for Career and Succession planning.

Apart from building an inventory of expectations, it stimulated the groupprocess, enhanced participation and helped in creating a risk free environment.This also proved to be the foundation for identifying and designing thecomponents of the system and convincing the participants at later stages whenthey experienced discomfort or difficulty in carrying out certain activities.

iii) Clarifying the Understanding of ‘Performance Management’

It was also found essential to arrive at a common Understanding on term‘Performance’. Taking the help of available literature and our own perceptions,a definition was evolved after presentation of a number of definitions —“Performance is a definition of what is to be accomplished or carried out.” It isalso a process that leads to results. Performance Management, therefore, maybe conceived as a continuous process of working with people to accomplishdesired results. This process should aim at :

a) Establishing a shared understanding about what is to be achieved, how is tobe achieved and

b) Encourage involved persons to work in such a way that possibility ofachieving results is maximised.

Some research findings indicating requisites of getting good performance werealso discussed.


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The group by this time would become able to enumerate important componentsof a Performance Management System.

iv) Achievement Oriented Goal Setting

Experiential learning has been extensively used in this module and a few gamesand exercises commonly used in behavioural science have been used with awide perspective. For example, a ‘Ring Toss’ exercise was used for clarifyingsome of the basic assumptions of achievement orientation and goal setting atindividual level. The exercise of ‘Tower Building’ was also used some timesalong with ‘Ring Toss’ and sometimes independently for stimulatingachievement oriented target setting, understanding the process of joint decisionmaking (consensus) and activities to be undertaken by supervisor and boss forenabling the worker perform better. These exercises were also used forinternalizing achievement imageries given by McClelland and examining thestatus of one-self and providing insights. The ‘achievement syndrome’ modelwas used to independently emphasise the strong need, positive goal anticipation,strong positive feelings, urge to identify the blockages and minimizing orremoving the blockages by the self initiated efforts and help of others. Thisproved to be very relevant at the later stages of system implementation.

v) Power of Expectations

The concept of Pygmalion effect (Power expectations) was very helpful inmotivating the participants. On the basis of the experience gathered in theprevious exercises, the concept was very effectively driven in. It is expected tovitalize the process of goal setting and subordinate development.

vi) Giving and Receiving Feedback

The felt need of Feed back also emerged during the exercises.

This exercise along with the Job Diagnostic Survey (developed by Hackmanand Oldham) helped the participants to understand the role of ‘autonomy’ and‘feedback’ in enhancing the performance of subordinates. Also the need of jobrotation for optimizing ‘skill variety’, ‘task identity’ and ‘task significance’ wasalso demonstrated vividly through their own scores on the above mentionedsurvey. This exercise, in turn, crystallized thoughts regarding the role ofsuperiors in enabling the superlative performance of subordinates.

The three cases on Performance Counseling (Gupta…, Punjabi…, andWelsh…) developed by TV Rao also helped the participants to understandsome of the factors, which facilitated the effects of Performance Feedback andCounseling. The group work and presentation were highly effective andinternalizing some of the important requirements of Feedback and Counseling.

Input on ‘Giving and Receiving Feedback’ was given adding some otherfeatures on the basis of experiential learning.

vii) Inter-personal Factors Affecting Performance

In order to experience some of the very simple but fundamental factorsaffecting performance, an exercise was carried out in which 9 volunteers wereinvited and given separate head bands on which different types of designationsand messages were written in such a way that others could read it but not theperson concerned. They were given a small task of arriving at a consensusdecision on certain controversial issues with the instructions that they have tobehave with each other according to the other person‘s head band whileinteracting with each other. This exercise within a short time made very seriousimpact on the behaviour of the participants. For example, those who hadpositive headbands got energized and their performance went on increasingwhile others who had negative ones felt ignored in the discussions and their


26

performance dropped drastically. By sharing their feelings and responses ofsome questions demonstrated that for positive performance, positive feed back,involvement and participation of the incumbent is essential. It also demonstratedthat if they were ignored, their performance fell down. This helped inhighlighting vulnerability of Appraisee / appraisers in real life work situation.Many got an insight that in order to remain effective, one has to develop theattitudes and competencies, which would help them, remain energetic andperforming even at adverse situations. The explanation of Self-concept provedvery effective.

viii) Developing an Outline of Good Performance Management System

On the basis of the entire days work, the sketch of a good performancemanagement system emerged every time along with the cautions which are tobe taken every time. In the one day module in the later programmes, formatswere also given to the participants for performance planning etc. for beingtested.

ix) Performance Management - Key Elements

In the background on the experience, insights, andexpectations, the participants were able to visualise (in linewith Vroom’s theory) that the Performance of a person dependsat least on three factors :

� Ability (Knowledge and skill) of the person to do the specific job.

� Willingness (Motivation) of the person to do that job

� Support (resources, guidance, feedback) provided by the organization.

Some Indian insights were also quite helpful at this stage, especially a quotationfrom ‘Chandagya Upanisada’ –

“Whatever is done with Vidya, Shradha and Upanisada; that alone becomesefficient.”

Vidya – (Science of) Knowledge and Skill.

Shradha – Faith (and Conviction); faith in oneself, the impulse from within.Totality of positive attitudes.

Upanisada – deep thinking, meditative thinking on the subject concerned.

Superior efficiency will come when we combine knowledge with the energiesof Shradha and Upanisada.

Knowledge

Doing - behaviour (outer world)

Skills

Shradha

Being - attitude, values (inner world)

Upanisada


PERSONALEFFECTIVENESS

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3.4 Testing the Formats

In some of the GMPs and Strategic Management Programmes, the newlydeveloped PMS formats got filled up by the participants and this exercisehelped us in testing the formats and validating the provisions.

3.5 Other Interventions

For stimulating the need of a new system of Performance Management andbringing in clarity of expectations and approaches a few Workshops had beenconducted by us at Units and HRDI. In addition, this has also been a topic forSyndicate discussions in General Management Programmes and otherprogrammes. Some Summer trainees (MBA) also conducted surveys / studiesin Delhi based Divisions and Units which have been quite useful.

3.6 Corporate Personnel Exercise on Identification of Thrust areas in HRM

BHEL evolved its Vision, Mission and Values in 1996 and as a part of theimplementation efforts, it was decided to identify thrust areas for the HRMfunction in line with Vision 2001 / Perspectives 2002. A Corporate task forcewith the author of this paper as Leader was set up drawing 9 other membersfrom various units / divisions of Corporate Office. Some of the task forcemembers had earlier (1996) undergone the first six day programme (mentionedearlier) on ‘Performance Management’ which was designed and conducted bythe author. A weeklong intensive exercise was conducted by the task force,which brought out 17 thrust areas. Broad objectives for each were alsodefined. After presentation to top management, 5 thrust areas were selectedfor further work. Performance Management was one of them. Theidentification of this area as a thrust area gave a big fillip to the earlier effortsof developing a new PMS.

4.0 DEVELOPING PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

4.1 Constitution of Cross Functional Teams

A cross functional team with 4 executives including one from CorporatePersonnel and 2 from major units, with the author as the leader was constitutedby Corporate Personnel. After a few days of discussions, consolidation of thedata of surveys and experiences of all the training programmes, syndicate worketc. an outline (sketch) of a Performance Management System was created.This was presented to ED(P&A), Corporate Office who gave the green signalfor further development.

4.2 Preparing an Approach Paper - Presentation to Director (Personnel), Preparing Draft System

The system was developed around the seven components identified earlier.

Five formats covered in 8 pages were also designed. The New System wasquite different from the old one. The highlights of the system were :

� Shift of focus from ‘Performance Appraisal’ to ComprehensivePerformance Management.

� Increased involvement of subordinates in Performance Managementactivities.

� Introduction of individual level goal setting.

� Increased objectivity in appraisal.

� Emphasis on development not on control.

� Introduction of Potential Appraisal.

� Introduction of Performance based Reward system.

� Shift from ‘grade’ based to ‘mark’ based appraisal.


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� Introduction of appraisal discussions (twice a year) but marking to remainconfidential.

� Introduction of Performance Improvement plans for individuals.

The System was presented to ED(P&A), Corporate Office and Director(Personnel) and a few changes were made thereafter.

4.3 Presentation to Personnel Heads

The system was presented to Personnel Heads who reacted sharply on someaspects. A copy of the document was later on sent to them for presentation atunits and getting comments of other executives in Personnel Department andLine Managers. Presentation was also made to the Members of ExecutiveAssociation. Comments were received and studied by the CFT Members.

4.4 Examination of Issues Raised and Testing of Assumptions

In training programmes of HRDI, the issues emerging out of the variouspresentations and comments received were specifically raised directly andindirectly and assumptions were tested. This helped in retention and change ofsome of the provisions.

4.5 Presentation in Management Committee Meeting

The author at the Management Committee Meeting made a presentation. Thisevoked a mixed reaction — welcome, appreciation, criticism etc. A committeeof EDs was set up for in-depth examination of the system. The committeeafter detailed examination asked for simplification.

4.6 Simplification of System and Formats

Simplification of the system was not an easy task for the CFT as it was at thecost of some compromise on the expectations. It was a question of a very tightropewalk - at one side quality of the system on the other acceptance - strikingthe balance was a really difficult task. There were sharp and hot discussionsamongst the CFT members on specific issue a number of times. Some amountof ‘Quality’ had to be sacrificed for ‘Acceptance’.

After simplification - again a series of presentations were made - to HRDIparticipants and top management including Director (Personnel) and others forknowing their responses.

5.0 SELLING THE SYSTEM TO USERS

5.1 Presentation of the Draft System at Units / Divisions

As advised by the Director (Personnel), full presentations at all major units /divisions were made by two of the CFT members. Around 100-120 senior levelmanagers at a time attended presentation sessions of 4 hours duration at everyunit. Two such sessions were held at every unit. These sessions were reallystormy as strong emotions emerged everywhere. All the pent up dissatisfaction,anger and hostility to power erupted severely and a very high degree ofprocess facilitation skills were required for facilitating such interactions. Snapsurveys, to get their perception on a few critical and controversial issues wereconducted through a semi-structured questionnaire in a few of the units.

5.2 Amendment of the System and Simplification

A few major changes into the draft system were made subsequently. One suchexample is making the appraisal completely open; even the final points wouldbe allotted in presence of the Appraisee. The simplification also had createdsome problems.


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5.3 Presentation to Full Time Directors

The system was presented to full time Directors including CMD and commentswere very valuable.

5.4 Presentation to Management Committee

Finally presentation was made to the Management Committee, which is theapex decision making body (having CMD, Directors, Executive Director andUnit / Division Head as Members. Discussions were very lively, analytical andprobing. One senior member of the committee wanted to introduce 360 degreefeedback system. It was clarified that ultimately 360 degree feedback would beintroduced but after running the system for 1-2 years. In the meantime, plannedefforts would be made to enhance the readiness of the users. The system wasissued by Director (Personnel) for implementation giving an implementationplan.

6.0 HIGHLIGHT OF THE NEW PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

On the basis of extensive work of developing Performance ManagementSystem in the above-mentioned Company, the following seven components havebeen found to be essential in any Performance Management System.

a) Performance Planning

b) Performance Appraisal

c) Performance Feedback and Counseling

d) Performance Enabling

e) Rewards

f) Performance Improvement

g) Potential Appraisal

Highlights of each of the systems have been given below :

6.1 Performance Planning

Performance plans will be made by every executive at the beginning of theyear identifying the activities to be performed during the year and thecompetencies required for accomplishing these activities. The activities to beperformed will be identified primarily on the basis of the “Performance budget”of the unit / division but other activities to be accomplished during the year willalso be included. Performance plan will form the basis of appraisal and shall beprepared jointly by the Appraiser and Appraisee.

6.2 Performance Appraisal

The Appraisee and Appraiser will do appraisals twice a year - once in Octoberand again in April both. The financial year starts on 1st April and ends on 30thMarch. Appraisal will be done on a 100 point scale, a maximum of 70 pointswill be available for Appraisal of Performance (i.e. activities and tasksexpedited during the year) and 30 points for appraisal of the competencies.Every time, appraisal will be initiated by the Appraisee, and would be carriedout by the Appraiser subsequently after discussions with Appraisee. TheAppraiser in the presence of the Appraisee will award marks.

6.3 Performance Feedback and Counseling

In order to provide an opportunity to know the areas of performance up to thedesired level, areas of further development and to motivate the Appraisee forimprovement, Feedback and Counseling will be carried out along with everyappraisal. Training and development needs for the year will be identified jointlyby the Appraiser and Appraisee.


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6.4 Performance Enabling

The appraiser will take necessary steps to ensure that the Appraisee is able tocarry out the desired activities to the best of his ability. A few guidelinesincluding using appropriate Leadership style, Feedback and Power ofExpectations have been given in the system.

6.5 Reward and Reinforcement

A reward scheme linked to Performance has also been proposed in two slabsfor those getting Appraisal points of 85 and above and those who obtainperformance appraisal rating of 91 and above. This is initially equivalent to oneincrement and two increment for an year Relative weightage of differentfactors in promotion decisions has also been indicated.

6.6 Performance Improvement

Planned efforts will be made to identify the gaps in expected and actualperformance, and Appraiser and Appraisee would jointly involve a plan forimproving Performance.

6.7 Potential Appraisal

Potential appraisal will be conducted once a year for lateral as well as verticalmovements of executives. For vertical movement, Potential will be apprised ontwo parameters : (i) knowledge and skills (on 10 points) and (ii) criticalattributes (40 points). The Potential appraisal System is supposed to nowprovide valuable inputs for the newly developed ‘Career and SuccessionPlanning and Job Rotation System’, therefore is being modified. (Consideringthe importance of Potential Appraisal in the forthcoming system on Career andSuccession Planning, this system was not implemented. It was decided tointroduce Competency mapping and assessment techniques and then bring out amore effective Potential Appraisal System.

7.0 IMPLEMENTATION EFFORTS

The implementation of this system has been the prime concern at all levels ofthe activities and one of the reasons of depending totally on Internal resourcepersons was to ensure elimination of gaps , if any, in this direction. Salientfeatures of the implementation efforts are briefly described below :

7.1 Corporate Level Steering Committee

Much of the work had been done before the formal issue of the system.A steering committee at Corporate level was set up with GM (Personnel),Corporate Office as its leader. The author was also a team member but hismain responsibility thereafter was to provide professional guidance and supportto ensure effective implementation. Units were asked to constitute suchcommittees for monitoring the efforts at Unit level.

7.2 Developing Facilitators

It was proposed to train adequate number of Facilitators who would conducttraining programmes at all Units / Divisions for in depth exposure of users ofthe system. Nomination of specified nos. of Facilitators for being trained wasinvited by HRDI - 50% from Personnel / HRD and 50% from Line Managers.Over 80 such facilitators were trained in 4 nos. of 2 day intensive trainingprogramme designed and conducted by the author supported by Shri KK Seth,DGM(Personnel), Corporate Office and Shri MP Jayakjumar, DGM(HRDC),BHEL Trichy.


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7.3 Training of Users

There are around 10,000 users.

The Facilitators did a commendable job by training all users in the Units. Thefacilitators would ensure smooth implementation of the system and would nowtraining the remaining executives. Their motivation is at a very high level andthey have accepted this mammoth task voluntarily in addition to their normalwork.

7.4 Pilot run of System

A real life pilot run of the system was conducted in one of the medium sizeunits (Jhansi) where the system was really operated for trial. Only a few minormodifications in format and procedure were made subsequently.

7.5 Implementation Directives, Distribution of the Manual of Performance Management

The system document was printed and a copy with the formats was sent to allusers along with the Implementation Order. Additional copies of formats insufficient nos. were sent to all Units / Divisions.

7.6 Training in Giving and Receiving Feedback

While conducting the Training programme for facilitators, it was strongly feltthat every user will have to undergo an intensive training programme of in‘Giving and Receiving Feedback’. A few such programmes (2 days duration)have already been held at a few small divisions by HRDI. There are very fewtrainers who can conduct in depth programme in Performance Feedback andCounseling and over 9,000 users are to be trained by October, 2001. Therefore,again 100 Trainers, in four batches, were being developed internally by makingthem undergo a 4 day intensive training module designed and conducted byauthor. A model design of one day programme on ‘Giving and ReceivingFeedback’ has been designed and given to all trainers along with a training kitcomprising Floppy, CDs having three small films, cases and instruments etc.This kit also has been prepared by the author.

This is going to be a very powerful intervention and these internal resourcepersons are going to contribute tremendously on various dimensions.

7.7 Constitution of Performance Planning and Review Committee

PPRCs at all Divisions have been constituted at all units in 2 tiers for smaller /medium size units and in 3 tiers for major units and guidelines have beenprepared.

8.0 BEHAVIOURAL IMPLICATIONS

Designing and implementing Performance Management Systems has very wideand intensive Behavioural implications. Some of the issues which the Leader ofthe Project (the author) experienced may be enumerated as :

� Pains, dilemmas while initiating proposal.

� Coping with ambiguity

� Risk taking in new proposals.

� Creativity, pressure for bringing something new and innovative.

� Envy of others

� Listening, make others listen

� Influencing others, getting influenced by others.

� Frustration - of not being able to convince.


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� Hostility of Superiors, colleagues, users.

� Team working - with his own team and other temporary teams.

� Asserting - to Superiors and Peers.

� Encouragement, appreciation, receiving and giving.

� Achieving involvement and co-operation of others.

� Conflicts - coping and resolving.

� Outburst of feelings

During various interactions with Top / Senior level Executives also a fewcritical behavioural issues surfaced. A few are enumerated below:

� Fear of getting exposed - lack of work load, tasks, excess manpower etc.

� Fear of getting questioned by subordinates regarding assignment of task,allocation and award of points

� Fear of committing help, guidance and resources to subordinates

� Fear of loosing autonomy

� Pressure for making more comprehensive annual plans

� Discomfort due to the requirement of giving Performance feedback andCounseling

� Discomfort due to perceived need of changing management style fromcontrol to facilitation

� Fear of transparency, even disclosing the points awarded.

� Rigidity - old dog syndrome.

� Jealousy, envy with other Top management Personnel

� Fear of ambiguity

� Locus of Control (external)

� Poor motivation for excellence

� Self concept (poor) related issues.

All this resulted in resistance to change.

However during discussions in many Top/ Senior level Executives very positivebehavioural characteristics were observed which at times helped in raising themotivation of CFT members. A few may be enumerated as:

� Encouraging creativity and risk taking

� Internal locus of control

� Willingness to change

� Balance between quality of the system and acceptance of users

� Consensus building

� Use of appropriate Power bases for influencing users

� Belief in Human capabilities and convincing others for the same

� Setting higher expectation on the CFT leader (the author) and the team(Pygmalion effect)

� Collaborative approach in conflict resolution, some times Power strategyalso, it generally proved to be functional.

� Eliciting support of opposing / neutral Top management personnel

� Encouraging Confrontation

� Tremendous confidence in internal resource persons.


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Some of the behavioural issues / dimensions characteristic of each system arealso enumerated below :

8.1 Performance Planning

� Trust and openness between Appraiser and Appraisee.

� Achievement motivation of both

� Motivation of Appraisee to set higher goals.

� Expectancy of getting help, guidance, socio emotional support.

� Assertiveness of both

� Trust and openness between group members,

� Hope success vs fear of failure

� Locus of control.

8.2 Performance Appraisal

� Trust and openness

� Objectivity

� Distinguishing content and Process

� Willingness to know others opinions, perceptions to be evaluated.

� Clear, supportive communication.

� Self-concept - match between self and others perceptions - significance,competence and lovability.

� Coping with fear, anger

� Interpersonal needs - Inclusion, Control, Affection (Openness)

� Power perception (Self & others) of Appraiser and Appraisee.

� Listening.

8.3 Performance Feedback and Counseling

� Perceptual process

� Perception of Care and Concern

� Openness, trust

� Power perception (Self and others)

� Coping with feelings

� Inter-personal needs (Self and others)

� Credibility (of source and recipient)

� Perceived intentions

� Supportive Vs. Defensive communication.

� Assertiveness

� Empathy

� Willingness to improve.

8.4 Performance Enabling

� Sense of responsibility (ownership)

� Locus of control (internal vs. external)

� Manager vs. Leadership, Leadership style effectiveness

� Persuasion, influencing

� Giving and receiving feedback


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� Understanding the maturity level of Subordinate.

� Use of appropriate leadership styles and Power bases.

� Supportive vs Defensive communication.

� Result vs. Process emphasis.

� Interpersonal relations

� Resourcefulness

� Helping behaviour (attitude)

� Need to own success / failure Self vs Subordinate

8.5 Rewards and Reinforcements

� Motivational Style and process

� Care, Concern, Sensitivity

� Self esteem

� Achievement orientation

� Recognition

� Coping with failures

� Affection/ Openness needs

8.6 Performance Improvement

� Desire to achieve, error correction

� Trust, openness

� Cause - effect analysis

� Reward, recognition

� Motivation style.

8.7 Potential Appraisal

� Objectivity, overcoming biases

� Confidence in Human capabilities

� Understanding competencies

� Visualisation, Imaginativeness

� Tolerance to ambiguity,

9.0 PROBLEMS BEING FACED IN IMPLEMENTATION

� Fear of getting exposed — Subordinates demand more work load fromSuperiors hence they feel threatened, as they would get exposed if not ableto provide enough job.

� Uncertainty of orders creates problem in planning.

� Quantum of Job

� What could be the optimum workload - in spite of the ‘Standard workload’concept, there is confusion.

� Aversion to giving ‘time frame’ and ‘Performance Indicators’

� Perceived difficulty in identifying ‘tasks’ and estimating the ‘work content’

� At senior levels (Sr. DGMs and above), lukewarm response due tostagnation (low prospect) of promotion to higher levels.

� Potential appraisal included in PMS is inadequate hence need of newPotential Appraisal System.


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� Initial fears and apprehensions in giving and receiving feedback(especially negative).

� Target population is very large and scattered - difficulty in monitoringimplementation.

� In spite of all efforts taken fear of subjectivity.

� Lack of support to PMS Coordinators / Facilitators.

� Monitoring efforts not up to the mark.

� Time pressure (compulsion) for both sides for meeting the requirement.

10.0 BENEFITS PERCEIVED BY USERS

� Message that everybody would have to work has gone deeper and deeper.

� Ineffective Managers are getting exposed.

� Demand of more workload by Superiors.

� Role clarity will increase , people will learn goalsetting.

� Beginning of a culture of individual level planning, evaluation and monitoringleading to Performance oriented climate.

� Availability of an objective base for rewards.

� Very distinct identification of Performance (levels and targets).

� Linkage with Top managements goals, perceptions and orientations.

� Enhancement Credibility of Appraisers and Appraisal system.

� Efforts to understand and enhance competencies.

� Creation of openness and trust.

� Enhancement of Achievement Orientation.

� Opportunity for development.

� Identification of appropriate training programmes.

� Pressure for understanding

i) Work content estimation

ii) Identification of value addition activities

iii) Competencies of subordinate and

iv) Learning strategies of subordinate development

� Training efforts linked to competency

� Initiation of competency based HRD efforts

� Appreciation of joint responsibility for Performing

� Projecting lack of work load or excessive work load at thebeginning of the year, hence proactive efforts

� Encouragement of healthy competition

� Some linkage between Performance and Rewards

� Facilitating reduction of cycle time

� Excess / surplus manpower getting exposed

� Providing objective data for career/ succession plans etc.


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11.0 FUTURE STEPS

After having an years experience and feedback efforts will be made to reviewthe system where ever essential. The following new initiatives would also bemade for strengthening the system further :

– Performance Plans for the Head of units would be made using theBalanced score card approach. This would encompass Long-range plans,MOUs and Revenue budget. Scorecards for other senior executives wouldbe prepared on the basis of the above and Performance plans will beprepared accordingly. At least 6 Training programmes will be conductedfollowed by a number of workshops at the unit level.

– Identification and development of competencies for each role / position isvery essential for PMS. Planned efforts will be initiated for Competencymapping and assessment. Training will be made competency based.

– Efforts would also be made to computerize the system to the extentpossible once the system stabilizes.

– Rewards based on Performance would be further strengthened.

– Utmost effort would be made to use the System for developing themanagers , interventions like Coaching and Mentoring would be encouraged.

12.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS

This project, right since the beginning, has been exciting to many persons. Thisis a major change effort and large system intervention.

How the Top Managements’ support, learning attitude, clarity, conviction andconfidence in internal resources can help in introducing such major change —this system is a living example. Although many leading consultants ofinternational level were considered but ultimately the top management reposedconfidence in internal resources. The inspiration, openness, future orientationand spirit of confrontation of the Director (Personnel) of BHEL not onlystimulated the thinking process but also provided a big challenge before theteam. The blending of Behavioural Process skills, Quantitative techniques, Workstudy and Business Systems processes - proved to be very effective. Rightsince beginning an induction process (learning then doing) was used and this isthe best example of using Training interventions for design and implementationof PMS. The cohesion of the task force members, their openness and mutualtrust and their dedication to bring out something new and effective not onlypaid dividends but also provided a memorable experience. The patience andperseverance are a few other factors responsible for success. It is a trueexample of collaboration.

The amount of interactions generated in development of the system is anexample in itself. This system is going to streamline many of the businessprocesses and contribute very significantly in achieving the organizational goals.One year of experience of running this system has established a strong needfor Performance Management System. It is now widely recognized as aneffective HR intervention in which the line managers and top management hasto play the pivotal role. These experiences and realizations have resulted inengaging an International consultancy organization to further enrich the systemand make it e-enabled.

Subsequent to the implementation of the System an evaluation exercise wasconducted and suitable modifications made., The system has been furthermodified and implemented with the title” MAP–Moving ahead withPerformance’ and at this stage external Consultants were used. The activitieshave been e-enabled for fastness and transparency with the help of. Theactivities and ratings have been made fully transparent. Continuous efforts arebeing made to get the feedback of users and update the system wheneveressential.


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Annexure 1

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL OBJECTIVES

S.No. Objectives Ideal Existing Diff.% RankScore % Score % Diff.

1. Role clarity 80.0 45.5 34.5 8

2. Work Planning/Task Planning 75.5 43.0 32.5 10

3. Gain insight into Strength &Weakness of self 72.5 40.5 32.0 11of subordinates. 66.5 33.0 33.5 9

4. Identify developmental needs, 73.5 45.5 28.0 12of self of subordinates 64.5 38.1 26.5 14

5. Increase Mutuality between 66.5 38.5 28.0 12self and subordinates.

6. Increase communication. 79.5 38.5 41.0 2

7. Preparation for higher level of job 81.0 41.5 39.5 4by recognition of qualities neededfor them.

8. Promoting reflection and 76.5 40.0 36.5 5motivation through self appraisal.

9. Internalize organizational norms, 66.0 30.5 35.5 6values, culture.

10. Creating a positive, collaborative, 73.5 33.0 40.5 3and problem solving andhealthy culture.

11. Ensure optimal performance and 76.5 28.5 48.0 1accountability through rewardsand punishments.

12. Control employees behaviour 66.5 31.0 35.5 6and output through ratings.Any others.

14.change agents

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