***Eliminating Beliefs in Organizations

Although the Lefkoe Institute is not doing much corporate work right now, we have helped over 10,000 employees from over 50 companies—ranging from Fortune 500 to small family owned businesses—to change their organizational beliefs and their individual beliefs about their jobs. As a result, those organizations were able to produce significant change and improved results. Here is a fascinating case history of how the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) was used effectively in one of those companies.

One small manufacturing company we helped a few years ago had a typical top-down managerial hierarchy, with the bosses making all the decisions and the workers doing little more than following orders. Morale was low. Results were only fair.

Our goal was to totally transform the way the company operated, with a focus on giving the workers a tremendous amount of authority to make day-to-day decisions, with the managers acting as support instead of as “bosses.”

We conducted workshops with all of the company’s employees during which each eliminated one personal belief and all eliminated a bunch of limiting beliefs about their company. We taught them how to use a simplified version of the LBP.

Within days many of the employees started making suggestions for improvements in the company. (Change beliefs and behavior changes effortlessly.) Supervisors were allowing workers to make more and more decisions on their own. A lot of excitement was generated; many of the changes workers suggested were instituted.

At this point Bob, the manager of a department of about thirty-five workers, went on vacation for a week. Two days after he left, Jean, one of the supervisors who reported to him, handled something in her own that everyone had agreed would be done by the workers. When Rick, one of the workers, complained to her, Jean said, in effect, “So what? I’m still the supervisor.” When Rick continued to protest, Jean took him to the Operations Manager’s office.

The other workers observed the heated argument and most of them concluded, “We’re back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get into trouble.”

The next week Bob returned from vacation to discover that morale and productivity had sunk to a new low, with virtually no suggestions or worker participation. What would most managers do in a situation like this? Talk to the supervisor involved in the altercation? Yes, but that in itself would have little effect on the other thirty-some workers. Talk to the workers individually and as a group, telling them that one incident isn’t really important and that the new era of openness and involvement will continue? Yes, but through what filter will anything the manager says be heard by the workers? “I hear what you’re saying, but you weren’t here last week, and you didn’t see with your own eyes as I did that ‘We’re back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get into trouble.’”

Here’s what Bob actually did. He called a meeting of the department’s entire workforce and asked that someone explain exactly what happened while he was away. One of the workers described the incident betwee Jean and Rick. Bob thanked him and replied, “So most of you concluded, ‘We’re back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get into trouble.’ Right?”

A scattering of “Yeah” could be heard.

Bob continued, “That’s a reasonable conclusion, based on what happened betwee Jean and Rick. Right now, however, I’d like you to play a little game with me. It’s called Possibilities. I’d like you to tell me at least four or five other things that last week’s incident could possibly mean. I’m not trying to invalidate your conclusion, which is as good as any other we’ll find. I’d just like you to tell me what other interpretations might be possible?”

After a few minutes the answers started coming from the floor.
* It could mean that Jean hasn’t bought into our empowerment program, but all the other supervisors have.
* It could mean that Jean has it in for Rick, but she wouldn’t be a problem for any other worker.
* It could mean that Jean was having a bad day and she is as committed to the new empowerment program as anyone.
* It could mean that Jean is willing to delegate most of her work except for the job involved in last week’s problem.

After several more responses, Bob said, “Can you see that what most of you concluded—‘We’re back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get into trouble’—is only one valid interpretation of what happened, but that a number of other explanations are just as valid?”

Heads started nodding up and down.

He continued, “Didn’t it seem last week when Jean and Larry were arguing that you could see right here on the factory floor, ‘We’re back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get into trouble?’”

One worker yelled out, “If you had been here, Bob, you’d have seen it too!”

Bob smiled. “Did you really see that? If you did, I’d like to know, was it on the wall or the floor? Was it red or green, striped or polka-dotted? Big or small?” Bob waited a few seconds … “Or did you just see Rick and Jean arguing, and the only place—‘We’re back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get into trouble’—has ever been is in your mind, as an interpretation of what you really did see?” They got the point.

Bob turned to Rick. “By the way, what happened when you went to the Operations Manager’s office with Jean?”

“He told us to work it out ourselves,” Rick answered.

Bob turned back to the group. “Anything else?” He saw a lot of sheepish grins. “Let’s go to work.”

In most companies, hardly a day goes by that some employees don’t observe something and then reach a conclusion that negatively affects their behavior from then on. Usually their manager will try to change their behavior using Information + Motivation. (See my blog post, http://mortylefkoe.com/111009, on why that doesn’t work.) Sometimes if the belief surfaces—“So-and-so can’t be trusted” or “That new plan will never work”—the Lefkoe Belief Process (or a variation) can be used easily, with one employee at a time or with a large group, just as Bob did.

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/a/selfg where you can eliminate one limiting belief free.

Copyright © 2010 Morty Lefkoe