Programs

Power Tools: Three Ways to Sharpen Your FM Planning Skills

Guidelines to help facility managers improve their understanding of workplace culture and their ability to deal with cultural change were offered to members of the Central Ohio IFMA Chapter at their January 11 meeting at the Fawcett Center at The Ohio State University.

The presentation, Power Tools:  Three Ways to Sharpen Your FM Planning Skills, was made by two members of BHDP Architecture—former IFMA chapter president Vicki Simons, associate principal and director of the firm’s Columbus office, and T. Patrick Donnelly, principal in the Cincinnati office.  

The two also spoke last October at World Workplace 2005 in Philadelphia where they discussed these methodologies and tools.  The presentations centered on three areas:

• Organizational Culture to help devise a strategy to move toward the desired goal for an organization’s preferred culture.
• Change Management to show the necessary steps for successful implementation of a plan.
• Workplace Assessment to explain how the “Seven Hallmarks of a Productive Workplace” may be used as a checklist during and after a cultural change.

Reiterating a recent conversation on the importance of workplace culture with Kim Cameron, co-author of Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture, Donnelly quoted Cameron as saying:
 
“‘(While) other information (work process or technology) is like a snapshot of an organization…culture is like a hologram, it’s a three-dimensional image.  It’s like the DNA of an organization…the strand that links all of those other pieces together and also relates you to one another….

“‘That is the power of understanding culture as the common ground…Using the right instruments, understanding culture can give you an 80 or 90 percent chance of predicting whether or not a merger is going to work, or whether you are going to get the full benefit or value of that merger.’”

In underlining the importance of understanding cultural as a foundation for successful change, Donnelly said, “We feel that if you get culture right (within the organization) there is a great chance that you are going to get everything right.  If you get culture wrong it is going to be an uphill battle.”

Simons said that by using a questionnaire developed by Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, companies will be able to “get a snapshot of their culture.” 

The questionnaire asks employees for a numerical response to questions of their company’s dominant characteristics, organization leadership, employee management, organizational glue or what holds the company together, emphasis on strategy, and criteria for success.

Once this information is compiled and reviewed, Simon said, it becomes relatively easy to determine where the company falls within one or parts of four basic cultures:  Clan, or one that is less structured and centers on employees; Hierarchy that focuses on stability, control, and workspace based on status; Adhocracy, or one that is innovative and creative with less control; and Market, or results oriented and customer centric.

To affect a successful change in the workplace, Simons and Donnelly said it is necessary to:

• Understand the dynamics of change—to recognize there probably will be a resistance, a drop in productivity and other workplace turbulence before change is finally accepted and the company moves forward.
• Understand human nature—identify the drivers of change and the early adopters as well as identifying and responding to the resisters of change.
• Communicate change—build support for change by finding and relating things the organization is doing now to help move it to the new culture, identify the new things the organization will do, and identify the things the organization will no longer do.
• Seek feedback and destroy roadblocks by being proactive and listening.
• Celebrate the success of the change. 

Simons said she “picked up” the hallmarks of a successful or productive workspace during a presentation at World Workplace 2004 in Salt Lake City by Stanley Kaczmarczyk, deputy associate administrator for the General Services Administration.

“He was fantastic,” she said, “and he gave a presentation based on seven hallmarks of the innovative workplace…Afterward, I thought there has got to be a way to use this information and create a tool that we can use in our practice and that facilities people can use to help them achieve their goal toward a higher level in each of these seven areas.  The seven are: 

• Spatial equity—a well-designed workspace that meets the functional needs of the users, with individual access to privacy, daylight, and outside views.
• Healthfulness—clean and healthy work environments, free of contaminants and excessive noise, with access to good quality air, light, and water.
• Flexibility—easily adaptable workplaces that support work strategies and enhance employee work/life balance, with systems and furnishings that can accommodate organizational changes with a minimum of time, effort, and waste.
• Comfort—occupant-adjustable thermal, lighting, acoustic, and furniture systems for personal and group comfort.
• Connectivity—full communication with access to people and/or data from any place whether in the office, at home, or traveling.
• Reliability—efficient, state-of-the-art, easily-maintained heating, ventilating, air conditioning, lighting, power, security, and telecommunication systems and equipment.
• Sense of Place—having a unique character and appropriate image that instills a sense of pride, purpose, and dedication, and some elements of fun.

Some 40 members and guests of the chapter attended the BHDP presentation, and Chris Rodriguez and Steve Holcomb won $20 Sears gifts certificates when their names were drawn from the Membership Committee’s fishbowl.

Sandy Stayrook, Program/Social Committee co-chair, said the chapter’s February event will be on the first day of the month in connection with the 22nd Annual Ohio Design and Construction Expo at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.  The chapter event, a FM Roundtable, will be from 8-10 a.m. in room W6 at the convention center.  A continental breakfast will be provided, and there will be an opportunity for networking.  A Monte Carlo night is being planned as the March activity.  A date and site will be announced later.