Situation
The CEO stepped in with a clear assignment from headquarters to repair everything broken down in the company, which had a reputation at headquarters as the most problematic but still the most profitable in the entire corporation. Expat, influenced by this perception, threw himself into work in a way that has been able to deliver results elsewhere in the past. The result was the indirect resistance of the majority of the management team, which meant a worsening of results and, in addition, the departure of key employees at all levels of management. The perception of society at the corporate level has worsened. Several members of the local management began to show negative moods towards the corporate even more intensely than usual. The director started to point out the structural problems of the company, while the management team highlighted the partial problems as those that need to be solved as soon as possible. The overall asynchrony between the director and the team meant that the director tried to maintain the results in the form of micromanagement, which he did not like but chose for. The team’s response was in the form of passivity and non-involvement.
My perception
Both sides had completely different expectations of each other. Neither imagined such a bad and unpleasant joint start. Expat influenced by the corporate perception of reality with the determination to fulfill the assignment, while the local team still tried to prove that the perception of the corporate is not correct. The two-way struggle to prove the truth paralyzed both sides in communicating and functioning with each other.
My role
Find the real cause of not listening to each other.
What is the story
The long-term failure of the plant’s advocates at the corporate level caused the difference in cultures to affect the real perception of the local situation. The fact that the local management constantly complained about the situation was perceived as an expression of inability and incompetence from the corporate point of view. For the local management, it was an expression of distrust, which was incomprehensible about it, after years of long-term complete starting of the organization. For local management, the new plant manager has become the embodiment of this mistrust and, over time, the reason not to deliver the performance that is required. Local management resigned himself to bringing solutions and waiting for what would come from the boss. By not having a chance to retrieve the reasons why things were happening because he did not understand and could not retrieve the details of the dispute, the expat tried to resolve the situation in a way that literally insulted local experts and past successful leaders. The team began to struggle with forced, planned or sudden departures, but an atmosphere of mistrust persisted. Expat tried to apply more and more ways of management, but each of them failed, due to a misunderstanding of the situation. Since it was always just an attempt to solve a poor performance, it meant a constant reminder for the local team that it was not good enough and the “blanket” of incompetence made it difficult for him to perceive reality. At one point, Expat resigned himself to all the established procedures and tried to find a way to identify the problem by a method other than “problem solving”. In the meantime, only the remnants of those who internally believed that the situation was not as it seemed remained from the old team. And these two points were the starting point for changing the perception of attitude from being against each other to attitude, we are on one trunk in the middle of a flooded river.
Situation today
The whole organization currently rocks. Not only did it reach the pre-expat level, but it broke all internal company records in delivering results two years in a row. The change in the attitude of both parties, where each individual created a space for reflecting on the problem, not just solving it, made it possible to understand and especially formulate the feelings of all participants from the situation and to understand each other what happened to the team as a whole. This released tension for everyone and freed them from unnecessary solutions to problems that seemed unsolvable and really focused on the substance of the matter. The expat left, but left behind a compact, hardened team by common experience and choosing a successor from among the members of the team, which is still pushing the boundaries of records.