Detox your firm: How to improve organisational energy

Does internal destructive behaviour and toxicity threaten your client experience, damage your client base and ultimately impair performance? Is your partnership so poisonous that it is difficult to fill leadership posts with the right people? Do you struggle to retain talent while fiefdoms grow all over the place and partners are fighting for control?

When you have departments where anger, infighting and destructive conflicts dominate and meetings are toxic, that ?is corrosive energy. People collectively show high alertness and creativity, but ?it is used to harm others inside the firm and to weaken other divisions in favour ?of maximising their own interests.

Firms with corrosive energy invest time and effort in managing internal conflicts or micro-political activities and have individuals who mind their own interests instead of their clients’. Staff question if the right people progress in the firm and talent retention ?and lack of innovation become a real issue.

Organisations with high corrosive energy show 27 per cent less overall performance, 19 per cent less productivity, 23 per cent less customer loyalty and ?21 per cent higher staff turnover that ?those with low corrosive energy.1 The leadership challenge, therefore, is to ?cure the destructive forces quickly ?and to prevent corrosion in future.

Understanding collective energy

Collective energy captures the intangible soft factors of human potential that lie at the core of a firm’s performance. Organisational energy can be defined as the extent to which a firm, division or team has mobilised its emotional, cognitive and behavioural potential to pursue its goals. ?It is a cornerstone to effectiveness and high performance.

Organisational energy has three facets:?

1. activated emotional, cognitive and behavioural potential, such as shared enthusiasm and cognitive alertness or collective efforts towards shared departmental initiatives (or lack thereof);

2. collective energy considering the dynamics and interactions amongst people, their contagion processes ?and synergies – both positive and negative; and?

3. malleability – it can change quickly as a result of the actions of partners or changes in the context of the organisation.

Organisational energy states

The collective human potential in organisations takes different forms ?(see Figure 1).

Firms can differ in energy in two ways: in intensity and in quality. The intensity of organisational energy reflects the degree to which the firm has activated its emotional, cognitive and behavioural potential (whether high or low). The quality of organisational energy is the extent to which the human forces are constructiv ely aligned with the shared overall firm goals (positive and negative energy).

Combining the two dimensions results in an energy matrix with four different energy states:?

1. productive energy (high positive energy), characterised by high emotional involvement and mental alertness, along with high activity levels, speed, stamina and productivity in the organisation;?

2. comfortable energy (low positive energy), characterised by high shared satisfaction and identification, coupled with low activity levels and organisational inertia;?

3. resigned inertia (low negative energy), characterised by high levels ?of frustration, mental withdrawal, cynicism and low collective engagement in the organisation; and?

4. corrosive energy (high negative energy), characterised by high levels of anger towards collaborative cross-unit initiatives, high alertness and creativity to harm others inside the organisation for their own benefit, destructive internal conflicts and micro-political activities.?

These energy states are not mutually exclusive: firms typically experience all four different energy states simultaneously. Nevertheless, since corrosive energy is one of the most dangerous energy states, this article focuses upon how to cure ?and prevent it.

Curing corrosive energy

To refocus corrosive energy, the firm’s leaders should concentrate on detecting corrosive forces, cleaning up corrosive energy and recharging the firm with a strong organisational identity (see Figure 2).

1. Detect corrosive forces

Look out for corrosion

Accept that there is likely to be some level of destructive energy in the firm. It helps to regularly look for signs of aggression, conflicts and fighting to protect personal/team agendas.

Start with some reflective questions, such as the following: ?

• Is silo thinking prevalent in many of your firm’s divisions?

• Is it impossible to pursue new ideas or processes because at least one group is actively working against you?

• Is internal dispute resolution a dominant part of your work?

Face conflict head-on

Toxicity typically diffuses quickly within an organisation. Early detection is critical for highly autonomous business units that need to collaborate intensely on the firm’s products and services.

Thus, managing partners will have to respond swiftly to low levels of aggression, infighting or misalignment. One way is to confront the people involved early on with the fact that corrosion starts to spread and that they are part of the problem.

Assess and measure negative energy

Negativity can also be made tangible by a quantitative assessment of the firm’s energy. An assessment locates the negative forces in specific departments or business units and provides factual insights about the emotions and experiences of team members. The anonymity of a survey will encourage people to give candid accounts of destructive tendencies.

2. Clean up corrosive energy

There is one lesson that managers often learn the hard way: transforming aggression, in-fighting and internal rivalries directly into productive energy is rather unlikely because of the intense sense of betrayal, anger and/or mistrust that people feel.

Instead, energy can be refocused by firstly phasing down negativity and secondly charging up the firm again by building a strong organisational identity and purpose.

To phase down corrosive energy, apply three crucial leadership instruments: ?

(i) create ‘release valves’ to let off steam;

(ii) instigate emotional shakeups to cut though vicious circles of corrosion; and

(iii) identify and support toxic handlers.

Create release valves

Corrosive forces often develop over a long period of time before they break out. Events where members can express their anger, aggression or frustration help to release and identify corrosion. These purposefully-provided occasions to let off steam are also release valves for negativity.

To have calming effects, the process should take place in a protected environment, such as in a series of workshops with external facilitators. ?Once the corrosive forces are in the ?open, managing partners can refocus ?or abolish them.

One manager used the ‘pussycat and tiger’ tool to identify opposition and potential aggressive forces at an early stage. He gathered his team for a meeting and divided it into two groups. The ‘pussycats’ were asked to identify the positive aspects of a new idea, while the ‘tigers’ were asked to search for negative arguments against it. Both presented and defended their arguments in an initial debate.

For a few days, each team gathered further information and presented it in ?a new meeting. It was not until then ?that a decision was made by the team. This process acted as a release valve ?and diffused underlying dissent and corrosive forces, making the decision unanimously accepted.

Instigate emotional shakeups

Once negativity has become part of the firm’s seemingly acceptable behaviour, partners tend to fend off efforts to overcome corrosion. In this situation, a drastic emotional shakeup and shocking experience can help to open people up.

One approach is to candidly confront the partnership about the firm’s corrosive energy. The surprise effect creates a window of opportunity where people are willing to let go of their learnt paths of aggression and negativity.

Another technique is destructive brainstorming. In a workshop setting with the corrosive parties present and contributing, invite the group to develop worst-case scenarios for the firm, to highlight the consequences of continued destructive behaviour. Ask the partners to brainstorm responses to questions like ‘how can we drive the firm into bankruptcy as soon as possible?’

This somewhat ironic, even funny approach helps to dissolve mental and emotional blockages. The collectively developed worst-case scenario shows partners plainly in which direction they are moving with their corrosive behaviour.

The group should then examine every idea and inverse it for concrete joint actions. Partners will then begin to experience positive interactions with former ‘enemies’.

Identify and support toxic handlers

Tackling corrosive forces in the partnership is essentially the managing partner’s responsibility. However, other people in the firm – namely toxic handlers – can help.

Toxic handlers are people whom fee earners, partners and leaders alike trust and thus share their negativity with. Toxic handlers absorb negativity from various individuals, acting as a human release valve.

Through intimate conversations, they help their colleagues to avoid or overcome anger, aggression and annoyance by actively listening to them. Firm members regain emotional balance by sharing their negative experiences and receiving support.

Toxic handlers can: ?

• keep aggression from spreading destructively throughout the firm;?

• notice corrosive developments early on and diffuse them so that the firm can maintain its productive energy; and ?

• have a catalyst function by combing critical information about corrosive energy in the firm and providing it as aggregated and anonymous feedback to the managing partner.

3. Recharge the firm

It is only when corrosion has calmed down in the organisation that leaders are able to successfully charge up the firm again. This needs an explicit investment in positive behavioural norms and attitudes, or people will fall back to old patterns and negativity will resurface.

Managing partners can reignite their partnerships by developing both a strong organisational identity which rebuilds firm pride and a shared perspective of the firm’s future.

Rebuild organisational pride

Once the corrosion has been cured, ?a strong organisational identity can ?help to prevent destructive forces from coming back.

Organisational pride is the extent to which people share a sense of achievement from the firm’s past successes. Organisational pride builds up when managers reinforce a sense of achievement about concrete joint successes. Employees and partners feel more linked to the firm and proud to be a part of it. This makes them contribute together to meet the firm’s overall shared goals.

Employees and partners who have a robust shared organisational identity develop a sense of ‘we’ deriving from past achievements and, equally importantly, aspire for the same future goals. This helps to ensure ongoing fruitful collaboration after times of conflict, mistrust and other destructive activities.

Develop a shared future perspective

A shared perspective of the firm’s future is the extent to which people share a strong vision, ambitious goals or a common focus.

Once a shared perspective is established, employees tend to engage fully for a joint overarching purpose and to create aligned actions.

bernd.vogel@henley.reading.ac.uk;  ?heike.bruch@unisg.ch

 

Endnote

1. For further information, see Fully Charged, Heike Bruch and Bernd Vogel, Harvard Business Press Books, 2011