Workplace Assessments: Find out what's really going on in your organization

Got morale issues, or brewing conflict?  It may be hard to know where it's coming from and why.

Better than a survey, far better than informal methods like gossip, workplace assessments (sometimes termed ‘environment assessments/audits’ or ‘conflict assessments’) provide the best analysis of what’s going on in a workplace.  Typically, an outside assessor interviews all staff, compiles a report preserving anonymity, and offers recommendations to address problems.  Then Management knows where to focus its energies, and has the legitimacy based to take overdue action.  However, assessments need to be done ethically or they will violate some important ethical principles.

Having done many assessments, I can say that the circumstances can dictate variations in method and focus.   An assessment is appropriate when the issues are more widespread and general, often unknown.  The anonymity offered in assessments, and the fact that the assessor is external to the work unit and usually to the organization, invites people to share their true concerns.  Assessments are aimed at healing, rather than just fault-finding (like investigations).

What’s wrong with anonymous surveys?  They are fine, but only a human interviewer can elicit deeper information and follow up on leads.   People often complete surveys in a hurry, and their answers are often unclear.

Here's an excerpt from the chapter of my e-book, Dispute Resolution 101:

"For multiparty conflicts, with many different issues, competing perspectives and histories, and subgroup dynamics, the assessment will be more lengthy and require more of the third party’s perceptiveness and strategic thinking. The assessment will want to explore the questions above, and more:
• How has this conflict changed over time, and what does that tell us about the factors affecting it?
• How does the mission, structure, culture and politics of the organization and group affect the situation?
• How (well) has Management managed the situation?  
• Who, aside from the parties, might be a useful resource to influence change?  
...
Where are the ethical guidelines for conducting such assessments?  The assessor learns sensitive information and passes considerable amounts on (in writing or verbally) to those in authority, along with recommendations that could impact lives.  None of the mediation associations I know have codes of conduct for this, nor do any texts cover them.  Here are the ones I abide by:
• Impartiality:  I don’t shape the assessment with my bias, or my client’s.
• Anonymity:  I don’t divulge my source (except with permission), and I warn the source where I think his/her identity can be guessed.  In the rare cases where all is ‘on the record’ by the employer’s insistence (e.g., a safety concern), I ensure all know that up front.
• Rarely Name Names:  I don’t mention an employee that others have named as a problem unless I feel it is necessary.
• Voluntariness:  I don’t require participation, and even if employers do, individuals do not have to share information.
• Focus on Organization’s Best Interests:  The organization, not the specific person who hires me, is the entity that above all should benefit from my report.  The team I am assessing is a close second.
• Diplomatic Sharing:  When sharing the information with the group, I use discretion to protect the client and individuals.
• Transparency:  I explain the process upfront.  After, I share an honest summary with staff, though I use discretion, and allow the client some influence in what is shared or not.
• Procedural Purity:  While I would generally be willing to carry out an interest-based process following my assessment (providing the parties were comfortable with that), I would not conduct an investigation or rights-based process for I would be tainted.  I will also need to justify my recommendations against a concern that I am creating work for myself."

Visit me at www.common-ground.ca.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Still a hot topic

The ongoing allegations about Jian Ghomeshi, formerly of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the cross-border show Q, have demonstrated how old-fashioned sexual harassment can be new again.  It's got people talking.

Too much talk, as people have been too vocal on either side of the issue in social media.  Many were quick to defend Ghomeshi, and blame the CBC ("The Mother Corp") for prudishness.  At least now people are inquiring about the barriers that keep victims/survivors from making complaints.

What does this have to do with family businesses?  It applies the same as other workplaces, and maybe more.  I worry, with some basis in experience, that the informality of some family enterprises, the inexperience of some family members, and the desire to protect loved ones, may leave the business and the employees vulnerable.  If your business has grown quickly into one with several managers and employees, your company structures will need to keep up.

In short:

• Does your business have a harassment policy?  How about suitably arms-length procedures?
• Is everyone, especially managers, informed about the law, the policy, and the procedures for handling issues?

If you say, "We never have had a complaint," just reflect on whether that's a good sign or a sign of fear in your company culture.

Given what I've said, in the context of the police investigation into Ghomeshi, it may seem odd for me to mention informal options to handle complaints.  However, informed complainants (i.e., who understand their options) and respondents may sometimes prefer mediation, for instance.  Particularly where the allegations are likely restricted to one victim, perhaps as a first offence, mediation can offer a less punitive education, with more privacy for respondents and complainants (and less costly and disruptive to employers).  It helps to have a mediator with harassment experience who will to stop the mediation if it seems more appropriate to investigate.  Luckily, mediation is "without prejudice", so it will not likely harm a subsequent investigation.  Sometimes mediation happens post-investigation, if the parties must return to working together.  That type of meeting requires great skill in the mediator.

There is also good value in sensitivity coaching for those who did, or likely did commit unwelcome and inappropriate conduct.  But employers need to invest more than a token amount of time (i.e., more than a couple hours) to such coaching.

If you answered 'no' to those questions above, now's the time to harassment-proof your company.

Daryl Landau is a mediator, coach and investigator.  He once worked at the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

For more on Ghomeshi:
- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/ghomeshi-gate-proves-opinion-minus-fact-all-too-common-on-social-media/article21376025/

- http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/sex-lies-and-the-cbc/

Holiday Thoughts About Relatives

I had a nightmare - perhaps the result of undigested food from Thanksgiving through to Halloween - imagining that my most colourful relatives living and deceased gathered together for a feast.  Perhaps you have your own nightmares of this sort.  If you ever need my services to make your gatherings more pleasant...well, maybe we can make a trade in kind.

Dreams exaggerate the truth.  In reality, my family gatherings on all sides have nearly always been comfortable and fun, despite or because of the characters involved.  And I get along with all of them most of the time.  And my family was quite open (not many unspeakable topics, though I'm learning some secrets as I get older), and also very accommodating, and generous.

From my experience I glean these lessons:

1. Make an effort.  Otherwise you make others, and yourself, miserable.  These events are important to others, and you might consider it some pay back for the help family provides.  Be thankful, and contribute what you can.

2. Set your limits before you reach your limit.  When I said 'no thanks' to something, people accepted it, perhaps because I'd made an effort at other times.

3. Read body language.  It's not hard to tell when you're annoying someone, and if you can't tell then you might have an empathy gap.

4. Make traditions flexible.  That's a bit of a paradox, but if you meditate on it you might see the wisdom of striking a balance.

5. Pick your battles.  If it's a recurring problem, and the person has some capacity to learn, then give a firm but diplomatic response at some time and place other than the dinner table.

6. After months or years of not speaking, just decide to 'bury the hatchet.'  Everyone else in the family will breath a sigh of relief.

I realize not every family has it as good as I do, but it's worth some effort to improve it.  After all, it's inescapable.

Marriage Contracts and Mediation for Family Businesses in Ontario

One of the best ways to protect a family business from the impact of divorce is for the shareholders to have marriage contracts.  Without one, an owner can have the value of his or her shares included in the division of property, and support payments could be very high. If he/she cannot pay, will shares have to be sold, will business assets need to be sold, and how will the company be affected?  In the uncertainty, how will the emotional spillover affect the children, the managers, employees, customers, and extended family?

But a hastily, poorly executed marriage contract may be worse.  It will create a false sense of security, plus a sense of injustice.

Two cases that illustrate this.  In both LeVan v. LeVan (2008, ON) and McCain v. McCain (2012, ON), the court set aside marriage contracts because they were improperly done.  
Here are the problems to watch out for:

• Pressure to sign:  Don't ask a spouse to sign a contract a few days or even weeks before the wedding.  Sometimes the parents or other owners do not appreciate how their requirements create such pressure, as was found in the McCain case.

• Unfair terms:  Don't create a totally one-sided contract, with no provision for a long-term marriage, as occurred in the LeVan case.

• Don't hide assets:  In both those cases, the husbands did not disclose their true net worth at the time of the contract.

• Don't impede independent legal advice:  For instance, in LeVan the wife's lawyer was fired when he advised her not to sign, and the husband's family assigned a lawyer with connections to their corporate lawyers to advise her to sign.  

In both those cases, judges awarded millions of dollars in equalization payments and spousal support to the women who had stayed in the marriage for many years.

So what should you do?  Start addressing the issue months before the wedding, or do it soon after the wedding (or a combination of both).  Cooperate with the requirements of full financial disclosure.  Use a family mediator to have the discussion - after all, it's a sensitive one - and each should get an independent lawyer to offer advice and assist with the final drafting of the contract.  The mediator can help cut the costs and ensure that the negotiation does not undercut the love and wedding bliss.   

Contact Daryl Landau for your marriage and cohab contracts.  www.common-ground.ca


  

Lessons from my Father

In my middle age, what I feared most as a child came to pass. My father passed away. In the world of family enterprises, this is often what constitutes a promotion. Now that the initial chaos of the transition and the main grieving period has passed, I have time to reflect on what I learned from Sy Landau, my dad.

My father was special, and a scholarship was named in his honour.[1] It recognizes his contribution as a trainer of mediators, a designer of our training program, and for his general consulting skills and special qualities.

When I was young, I took some jobs at Manulife Financial where my father had spent most of his working life, as VP of Human Resources. Driving home together, he would tell stories of the characters at the top of this iconic company. The stories helped humanize (and ‘humourize’) that corporate world. They also showed how determined change agents could reshape company culture.

Much of our business was, and is, training people in mediation skills.  It is not a pure family business because it has non-family partners, as well as employees. It is here that my father’s key lesson was to be fair to all, whether family or non-family members.  Most of us can identify with the desire to have your children follow in your footsteps, and there is often a business benefit from the loyalty a family member gives to the business. He was also a stickler for high quality, and he was not one to sacrifice that just to see his child ‘succeed’.  Fortunately, Sy had cultivated relationships of trust and respect with everyone that made it possible to navigate tough issues as he grew less willing and able to work.

Family businesses notoriously do not plan and manage their successions well. My father, fortunately, did not have his self-esteem too invested in the business, nor was he too afraid to contemplate change. Experienced in strategic planning, he responded to requests for a plan of gradual succession. Still, my father’s early, prolonged and erratic decline taught me that crisis will always spur the important discussions, even as it also interferes with good planning. The timing is rarely in your control and transition is rarely predictable.

As a speaker and consultant, my father had prized qualities that are hard to replicate. He translated the big theories into pictures, charts, and above all, stories. He created most of the materials we still use in our courses. The methodology of interest-based negotiation and mediation was logical to him, and he knew how to demonstrate that logic to others. These traits were a huge asset when we co-authored our book, From Conflict to Creativity (2001).

The final lesson from my father that I will impart is a very important one: work isn’t everything. Family businesses have a tough time with the boundary between family and business. Some of us struggled with that, but not Sy. He valued his free time too much. He also knew how to make family time fun.

It is a time to reflect on the past and chart a new future. Sometimes I feel an inner struggle between my increased role in the family business and my desire for independence and self-determination. My parents never tried to force a path on me. If I listen to my father’s voice, I can hear it advising me to choose wisely and thoughtfully, with confidence and without regret. I like the sound of that voice.

[1] The Landau Family Scholarship (my father’s choice of name), created by the ADR Institute of Ontario, available through Conrad Grebel University College for their academic or certificate conflict resolution programs for someone who can make meaningful social change. Sy passed away from cancer in December 2012.