Jan 12

Written by: John Quereto
1/12/2011 6:39 PM 

So much of how we view life is through the lens of history.  In most cases it is our own personal history, our collection of experiences and emotions.  For the scholar, history can include local, national, or international  experiences that color the way in which we view the current.  I'm not different, I'm innately biased by my experiences and in fact use history to determine future actions.  Organizations are not different.

Creating future change is very muuch about history.  The culture within an organization is the result of its history.  The unique stories, the architypes, the reason certain behaviors are reinforced and others discouraged, all have something to say about an organization's ability to execute on a change.  One reason that change efforts fail is that they fail to contemplate the historical context in which change is taking place.  There are many aspects to historical context but the one I'm interested in today is the internal organizational project or initiative history that affects individual expectancy.

In 1964 Victor Vroom developed what is now commonly referred to as Expectancy Theory.  For my purposes the theory can be reduced to a simple equation:

Motivation = Expectancy + Instrumentality + Valence

Expectancy = the likelihood that effort will result in a desired performance
Instrumentality = the likelihood that the desired performance will result in desired outcomes
Valence = the relative positive or negative impact of those outcomes to an individual

What does this have to do with historical context?  A persons history with change in an organization and even a particular kind of change, affects how they view participating the next change.  They develop expectations that:

• Effort will or will not lead to changes in performance
• Negative behavior will not lead to negative individual outcomes
• Good or bad performance will not have a significant sway on the overall organization outcome
• The organization's outcome will or will not result in any personal benefit

If we consider our own history for a moment, we are all familiar with our own failures or successes.  We've all broken a few new year's resolutions.  We've all watched others go through joy and pain.  If the failure or success is emotionally strong enough or often enough it affects the way we believe.  "I can't lose weight!"  "I always land on my feet."  "I seem to have a knack for ____________(fill in the blank).  These beliefs color what activities we are willing to participate in and the activties in which we refuse to take part.

Organizations experience the same things.  Failed projects, successful acquisitions, or good market strategies and how the organization deals with these come to be part of the fabric of the organization's beliefs.  In the same way we, as individuals, become hesitant to set new year's resolutions because we know we'll break them, individuals and organizations come to believe that their efforts will fail or succeed because of history.

To break out of this history (or capitalize on it), sustainable change programs need to contemplate and plan for addressing/changing beliefs, culture and people's expectancy about their efforts and future.  There are some simple tools/approaches that can help:

1. Communications - about the change should articulate WIIFM (what's in it for me) for each level of the organization.  They should reinforce the liklihood of success either by talking about what is being done to ensure success and how that is consistent with or a departure from past successes.
2. Engagement - Any implementation should involve engagement, the two way dialogue and personalization that helps individuals and departments understand how their efforts support the successful strategy execution and what it means to that individual or department.  This is also referred to as organizational alignment.
3. Quick Wins - communicate that effort does lead to a change in performance and help individuals and organizations change their expectations that effort and performance will create change.
4. Don't Ignore Culture - for some companies, creating change is culture change.  This is particularly true where cultures have ignored failure, or even rewarded mediocrity.  This means that you need to tell new stories, reward new behaviors, and reverence new icons.  If culture is a shared paradigm, then you must change the paradigm of belief and expectancy to get different results.   

 Each of these address key questions that Expectancy Theory is concerned with:

• What is the likelihood that my extra effort will really yield a change in performance? 
• What is the likelihood that the performance change will really produce what the strategy intends?
• What is the likelihood that the strategy outcome will really influence me?
• Will that outcome be positive or negative (or more positive or negative than other options)?

A wise professor once told me that the benefit of a particular theory isn't derived from whether it is right or wrong, but from what it can help you see, even better what it can help you predict.  If this is true, then Expectancy Theory helps us see how to better leverage individual and shared expectancies (history) to create future success.  Do you know how your history is shaping your future?  What are you doing about it?