This is the second installment in a three-part series featuring a case study in large scale culture transformation. Read Part One now.

By Beverley Patwell, Donna Gray and Stevepiece Kanellakos

Leadership Development
While 2008 was spent on building aware­ness of SE, we devoted much of 2009 to leadership development. We first con­ducted several Senior Management Com­mittee (SMC) retreats to help us create a focused leadership development strategy to guide the development of the City’s Branch General Managers, Shared Service Directors, Department Managers and front line Supervisors. From their feedback, we soon rolled out dedicated initiatives to train each level of management and engage them in SE planning exercises. The follow­ing highlight some of the key workshops we held:

• Managers Forums—While the first round of manager forums in 2008 involved 300 department managers, this next round targeted 500. The goal, this time, was to provide updates on the SE strategy and obtain their input for next steps. Some of the educational components of the forums included: two workshops conducted by Disney focused on the “Customer Experience”; panel presentations and discussions focused on internal and external best SE practices; dialogue sessions between the Senior Managers and department managers on what it takes to advance SE in the City; and presentations about internal SE stories that allowed man­agers to begin celebrating successes already achieved.
• Supervisor Symposiums—Address­ing front line supervisors was a critical component of our leadership develop­ment strategy. In the city’s history, supervisors had never previously been trained or brought together in a collab­orative effort, yet they were responsible for managing employees and the cus­tomer experience on a day-to-day basis. Their engagement in SE was critical. As a result, we conducted a series of symposiums that ultimately touched nearly 1,500 supervisors. These helped establish a constructive new dynamic among supervisors, even inspiring them to form their own collabora­tive network to share experiences and ideas, thus breaking down some of the silos that existed among the many city departments.
• Employee Engagement—We also cre­ated initiatives to engage employees directly in participating in culture change. One of these was a city-wide employee survey we conducted in 2009, which collected data on current practices and solicited their feedback. From those results, we derived numer­ous insights about employee atti­tudes, motivations, and concerns that informed the actions we would eventu­ally take to address employees.

The Gallery Walk
Following the SMC retreats in 2009, we asked all 18 Branch General Managers and Shared Service Directors to develop a 3-year Service Excellence Plan as part of their operational planning process. This reflected again our notion that each branch had to define SE on its own terms. In 2010, they began launching their plans.

However, like most senior manage­ment teams, the SMC was challenged to create a shared understanding about SE plans, transfer knowledge, and identify mutual needs and interdependencies so they could more effectively achieve the organization’s vision and goals. It is not uncommon in times of change for people at executive levels to struggle with how much of their strategic plans to disclose to peers and superiors due to political and power conflicts, or wanting to protect their limited resources of people, time, and budget.

To address this challenge, we designed an event we called the “Gallery Walk” whose purpose was to encourage the SMC members to openly communicate their SE plans to each other and share innovative ideas among their peers. We took the 18 SE plans, enlarged them to poster size, and hung them on the walls like artwork in a gallery. We then invited the General Man­agers to walk around the room in silence, reviewing each plan, and writing their feed­back—questions, suggestions, recommen­dations—right on the posters. Each GM then gave a brief presentation about their plan and addressed the feedback written on the posters from their peers.

The process surfaced, in a very natural way, the many synergies and common challenges experienced by the GMs and reinforced the value of collaboration and knowledge sharing. Interestingly, it also highlighted how different each branch was in their SE process, con­cretely demonstrating that not everyone can be at the same place in devising or implementing their plan. But the general outcome was very positive. All branches were making progress towards their SE goals; culture shifts were underway in many places. Overall, the event proved to be a constructive experience that added synergy to the GMs’ planning and imple­mentations in a unique, engaging, and productive way.

The SE Leads Program
While the SE plans were being imple­mented in 2010, we recognized that depart­ment managers would need extensive advice and consulting as they put new prac­tices into place. To accommodate this, one of the core strategies we created was the “SE Leads Program.” The program sought to create a cadre of 55 “team leads,” selected from throughout the city, who would be responsible for interpreting and leading the SE implementation plan in their branch or service area. We designed a training program to build on the participants’ prior experiences and backgrounds, while providing them with new tools, techniques, and processes to strengthen their leader­ship competencies. The SE Leads learned how to “coach and influence upwards” so they could feel comfortable speaking with supervisors and General Managers about how their departments were moving for­ward with their SE plans.

One fundamental principle we fol­lowed in the SE Leads Program was to “use work, not make work.” We wanted par­ticipants to learn in real time, using their actual work assignments as the anchor for their training and development. To do this, we created three special assignments for the SE Leads:

• Individual SE Project: We asked the Leads to identify and work on a SE proj­ect of their own choice. The projects had to be within their span of control and aligned with their overall branch or departmental SE plan. Participants were invited to draw on the resources of other SE Leads to help shape and advance their projects. At the conclu­sion of the assignment, we asked them to report on their accomplishments. In December 2010, the 55 SE Leads presented 22 SE projects to Senior Management, who returned unani­mous approval. Many of these projects are still ongoing, with some utilizing cross-functional or, in some cases, cross-departmental teams, another confirmation of how we were slowly disrupting silos and making culture shifts happen.

For example, a team from the Public Works Department sought to develop a communications plan to promote SE in their branch. Their goal was to educate both internal employees and the public about the important role that Public Works provides for residents and visitors to the city. In planning their project, they realized they could benefit by involving the city’s communications group, IT, OD, and several other depart­ments. They put together a shared action plan to collaborate, and piloted their idea on Canada Day. They gave cameras to all Public Works employees and asked them to capture “A Day in the Life of Public Works” by photo­graphing themselves doing their jobs that day. The photos were collected and turned into a video, which was shared with all SE Leads and internal branches of the city government.

The project spawned many inter­esting results. It inspired other SE Leads to replicate the idea in their own departments. It also became a model at the corporate level, as city-wide videos about SE improvements and successes were produced. Finally, it taught many managers about what is required to empower and engage their employees.

• Service Excellence Field Study: A second special “use work” project we created for SE Leads was to undertake a field study in which they had “to walk in the shoes of their clients.” The goal was to have them experience a city ser­vice first-hand, by being “the customer.” They were required to take notes dur­ing every step of their experience to evaluate the quality of the service, and even to write down their feelings about how they were treated as a client. Many participants discovered real “moments of truth” about the quality of city services. Some Leads were so inspired, they proposed new strategies to create “WOW” moments and eliminate “OW” moments in the client experience.
• Friendly Consulting Exercise: Lastly, we gave SE Leads a third unique exercise based on the work of Henry Mintzberg and the Advanced Leadership Program at McGill University. Called “friendly consulting,” the exercise asked teams of Leads to research and analyze a key SE challenge or issue in a department or branch other than their own. They then had to present their observations and recommendations for change in a positive way to the Challenge Cham­pion Team responsible for leading that improvement. The goal was to teach the SE Leads how to use their own knowledge and expertise to provide con­structive criticism to their peers thr exercise stretched them to go beyond their own personal experiences to understand how cultural and systemic issues can impact service excellence across the City.

Following this exercise, many SE Leads achieved a significant breakthrough, a sort of epiphany, in their understanding of culture change that aligned them with the SE philosophy and strategic approach. When we asked them to reflect on the com­mon themes and patterns that emerged across the City, the SE Leads recognized that many departments shared common challenges. The importance of being truly client focused, collaborating, and shar­ing information as well as valuing team­work became viscerally evident to them. They recognized that a common formula for success could be applied to every challenge explored.

At the same time, they also saw how positive change was already starting to happen, moving departments towards authentic SE practices. One participant referred to the City as a big tanker ship that takes time to turn around. The transforma­tion happens not all at once, but in small movements that eventually alter the direc­tion. It takes the efforts of many people to make these shifts, and they must happen at the right time and in the right sequence. As the SE Leads concluded, if we look at change this way, it becomes less threaten­ing, less overwhelming, and more purpose­ful, powerful, magical, and rewarding.

These exercises, reflections, and check­point meetings began bridging the gap that had existed between senior city leaders and their employees. The SE Leads became far more effective in mobilizing the efforts of their departments to adopt the SE practices and keep progress moving forward.

Continue to Part Three now.

Beverley Patwell, MA, CHRP, is President of Patwell Consulting Inc. She is an organizational development practitioner with over 25 years experience. In addition to her consulting practice she teaches in Mendoza College’s Executive Leadership Program at the University of Notre Dame and American University’s Masters in Organizational Development. She is an associate coach with the Niagara Institute and co-author with Edith Whitfield Seashore, of Triple Impact Coaching: Use of Self in the Coaching Process. She can be reached at bpatwell@patwellconsulting.com. 

Steve Kanellakos, MPA, is the Deputy City Manager of City Operations at the City of Ottawa. In this role, he is responsible for Community and Social Services, Emergency and Protective Services, Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services, Public Works, Public Health, Corporate Communications, Human Resources, Information Technology Services, and Organizational Development and Performance. He can be reached at Steve.kanellakos@ottawa.ca.  

Donna Gray, Director of Organizational Development and Performance Department at the City of Ottawa, has over 19 years of experience with the City of Ottawa and is responsible for organizational development, corpo­rate planning, performance management, corporate policy administration, strategic community and client initiatives, corporate project management, and the corporate implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. She oversees the delivery of services to citizens through the 311 Contact Centre and the seven Client Service Centres. She can be reached at Donna.gray@ottawa.ca.