Practical HRO: Optimizing Operational Risk Management using High Reliability Organizing

HRO & Corona 1 Small Thing - Performance Management

Manage PerformanceEven in crisis, especially in crisis, you have to manage performance if you want to maintain any continuity across your routine business operations. We are running lean and pulled in different directions, but:If outcomes matter, you have to manageIf talent matters, you have to manageIf quality, safety and delivery of service or product matter, you have to manage performance.If culture matters…Preoccupation with Failure: Recognizes that big threats usually start as small problems.There is nothing more important than aligning your employees, resources, and systems to meet the new reality.Employees are likely to be the single biggest determinant in how fast and how well an organization recovers from a crisis. How you manage performance, goals, expectations and talent during the crisis will have a direct impact on your ability to move forward.Putting people first now, protects the future.Reluctance to Oversimplify: Look to simply the solutions do not oversimplify the threat.Maintaining the normal functions feels normal. Which is a comfort for most people when everything is not normal.Uniting your employees around the common goal of doing their best to run “business as usual” is a relief to people during a crisis.Sensitivity to Operations: More can always be done to improve the function of an organization in real time.More can always be done to improve the function of an organization in real time if you know what needs to be done. Managing performance provides leaders with a certain sense of what needs to be done.Commitment to Resiliency: Organizations ability to adapt under stressful circumstances.The way that you work undoubtedly changed.It’s very likely that your traditional approach or understanding of performance management may need to be deconstructed and re-conceptualized. You just need an abbreviated approach to managing that focuses on setting new goals and new measures …with a heavy emphasis on coaching and feedback that moves people forward.People learn faster through feedback. Deference to Expertise: In high reliability organizing, every individual in any and every role should be trained and encouraged to see themselves as an expert in that particular operation.This is the time to encourage initiative and empower people at all levels of the organization.Experts are born during crisis.I’ll give you an example…You have teams and individual performers who are problem-solving their way out of challenges every day. You want to know who they are- you want to recognize their roles. Some of them will surprise you. You want to invest in those that are invaluable to the organization.Another way to cultivate expertise is to invest in expertise. If you have the resources and the capacity, you should be invested in developing talent at every layer right now. You can’t know who needs what unless you are managing performance. 

HRO & Corona 1 Small Thing - Reinvigorate Our Headspace

We were forced to adapt to change that we weren’t ready for and didn’t want. And more change is coming, but we don’t know what it looks like or how it is going to affect us.All of which is exhausting.When the rate of change won’t change, we have to adjust our headspace… Otherwise …we’ll be reduced to reactive zombies.Your organization is full of people uncertain about the future. They might be showing up every day, working from home, or furloughed. Doesn’t matter. They might love you, hate you, trust you, distrust you…Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you dig deep and refocus the contributors on all that we do know: who we are, why do we matter, what are we doing and are we prepared for what’s coming next. In times of uncertainty, we listen for the confidant for direction. Remind everyone that despite all that you don’t know, somethings, the most important things are certain.  Answer the questions that are going to carry you forward whether you have all the concrete answers or not.What questions?What do you do and what are we doing that actually matters?Why are we doing it?And what are we accomplishing?The answers to these simple questions are bigger than the daily grind, of absorbing stress and fighting off all the threats.Be vulnerable.There is a higher order purpose to your work. Define it, communicate it and reinvigorate everyone’s headspace while we are in this weird lull.  

HRO & Corona 1 Small Thing - Clearly Communicating

We have a lot working against us right now.  Your 2, 3, 4 weeks into a radical transformation operations, complete re-organization of how and where. Your infrastructure's stable, but, completely consumed by disruptions.So for that reason, One thing, one seemingly small thing that exhausted leaders can do today is to focus on being clear and very definitively specific when communicating plans, expectations, and changes. Fatigue effects our performance especially our speech and listening capacity.  It’s important to remind yourself that you are exhausted, remind yourself that you have to think differently about how you communicate right nowPreoccupation with Failure: Recognizes that big threats usually start as small problems. Big threats are consequence of not enough words, so use clear speech, don’t start rapid firing directives,  slow down, take a breath, organize your thoughts.  Speak in full sentences. Outline the steps. Give context. Define the measure or clarify the boundaries. Take the time to communicate precisely to the stressed and fatigued people around you. Look to simply the solutions do not oversimplify the threat. Right now, it’s a mistake to believe that anything is obvious! Consider it your role right now to communicate the obvious. Do not assume that everyone knows what you know. Remember, we all have our own mental contexts and life experiences that complicate our ability to understand each other in low stress states. Now in high stress states, we need to go to the next level when communicating. The only way to ensure that the meaning of your message is understood, is to clearly define the specifics.  Organize information in simple steps and plain sentences.  More can always be done to improve the function of an organization in real time. Consider, essential employees report exposure. But, what does expose mean? My definitions of exposure, not yours? Does exposure mean that you spent 15 or more minutes within a 6’ range of someone that is waiting for a test, has tested positive or is hospitalized? Use whatever definitions that you trust, but by defining the specifics you are accomplishing four goals: One: Minimizing a threat to your workforceTwo:  Protect scarce resources Three:  educating your working culture by offering one more clear safety standard for them to observe. Four: By defining the ask and tasks in detail, you are more likely to realize the  outcomes you have defined.  Now isn’t the time to be vague

HRO & Corona 1 Small Thing - On The Same Page

One Small Thing - On the Same Page

HRO & Corona 1 Small Thing - Get Ahead of the Curve with Processes

You have team members that you are trying to keep employed while they juggle childcare or whose roles are so radically altered by working from home that they have capacity to own process review work. Utilize these human resources to organize and update the backbone of your operations.   HRO TIP - Use Remote Work Staff to Improve/Write processesOne thing that every contributor can do while working remotely is review the processes and work instructions that define the tasks and the workflow within their department and across departments.  If you have never developed processes or work instructions, now is the time to start. All any employee has to do to begin the process is document the steps that they take to achieve any particular outcomes. If you want your working culture to adopt an aptitude for continuous improvement, you have to cultivate it.  Operational reforms are most effective and the least disruptive when they empower, recognize contributor’s expertise and make sense. Common pitfalls and obstacles companies put in front of their staff include:No role in creating the processes that define their work. You do not recognize your people as experts if you do not allow them a role and a voice in defining their work.  If a process is being followed, but it isn’t working, I guarantee you that the team that runs that process knows why it isn’t producing the desired impact.  Not every employee is qualified to review company policy, but every employee should have a critical role in reviewing and designing processes and work instructions that define their functions.Now is the time, seize the moment to attend to all of those big needs that never get the attention that they deserve. A simple set of bullet points will lay a solid foundation. Applying resources towards process reviews is an investment in achieving uncommon outcomes when everyone returns back to work. Keep the ask simple. Have the teams identify the processes that need updating. Pop the processes up on a collaborative site that allows multiple users to work together on shared documents in real time.  Ask for very practical feedback:Is the process clunky or difficult to follow? Does the process produce the intended objective? Can they define the objective?Are employees using new technologies that the process doesn’t acknowledge? Has the department grown, adding new roles and functions that aren’t identified? And finally, once the review is finished, request that all comments, notes, and recommendations are submitted to one “owner” that will set a date somewhere down the line, when we aren’t combating a crisis, to organize process development pow-wow that gets the updates into practice.