George's Employment Blawg

5 Resume Writing Tips to Help Veterans Land Civilian Jobs

George Lenard — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:09:09 +0000

While many civilian employers claim a commitment to hiring veterans, knowledge gaps and unfair assumptions can cause civilians to overlook qualified vets. For example, 61 percent of civilian employers say they do not understand how military skills qualify ex-service members for jobs.

Also, according to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), many employers hesitate to hire reservists or National Guard members because they fear these military members will start the job only to be redeployed.

Currently, service members with college degrees earn $10,000 dollars less each year than their civilian peers. Vietnam veterans saw a similar pattern — they earned less than their civilian peers until they reached their fifties. While a vet can earn a military scholarship to return to school and update his or her skills, many still need to obtain employment while they attend college.

While a good resume won’t guarantee a job interview, a well-written and properly targeted resume will increase your chances of getting to the next stage. When you’re writing a resume to look for a civilian job, follow these five resume writing tips to give yourself an edge.

Tip #1: Know What You’re Worth

As a U.S. Armed Forces veteran, you have earned a set of valuable skills. Make sure to spell out these skills to potential employers when you are applying for work.

Quick learner. As a member of the military, you underwent rigorous training to learn completely new skills in a short period of time. Combat conditions also helped you to learn on the fly.
Team player. Being part of a military unit requires a strong commitment to teamwork.
Leader. In the military, you not only gave orders; you also led by example.
Respectful of authority. You know that everyone has to play the proper role to keep an organization functioning without glitches.
Appreciative of diversity. Your fellow service members came from all ethnic and religious backgrounds, and you learned to serve together and to respect each other.
Performer under pressure. Combat conditions can bring you to the edge of life and death. You made difficult decisions and kept your cool when it mattered most.

Tip #2: No Resume is One-Size-Fits-All

In the civilian world, it is important to tailor your resume to each individual employer. You can develop a basic template, but you should then customize your resume for each individual job application. It takes more time to do this, but your effort shows the employer that you care about the position for which you are applying and your resume will be far more effective.

Start by looking at the important words in the job description. If you’re looking for federal employment, look at OPM Grade and Series information. Utilize those key words as you rewrite your objective, your skills and your job history.

A resume that is too generic will not grab an employer’s attention.

Tip #3: Accomplishments, Not Duties

When you describe your military experience, you may be tempted to write down the duties you were expected to perform. Instead of writing down your duties, list your accomplishments.

Notice the difference between these two statements from a former Army IT worker.

• Duty: Performed IT functions including network monitoring and troubleshooting.
• Accomplishment: Increased network uptime by 54 percent and implemented solutions that reduced e-mail malware by 17 percent.

How to Use a Phone Interview to Build Rapport and Win the Job

George Lenard — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 03:47:51 +0000

Introduction

As a job applicant notified of a phone interview, you have just survived the culling of the herd by resume screeners, taking you one step closer to your goal of a job offer. It is essential to grab this opportunity for all it’s worth and make yourself a stand-out candidate in the interviewer’s mind.

Employers’ Phone Interview Goals

Employers conduct phone interviews for several reasons:

To get a better handle on applicants’ knowledge and personalities
To target those who seem best suited to their needs and corporate culture
To cut down on hiring expenses for travel, while still including out-of town candidates

The bottom line for employers is that phone interviews reduce the number of candidates invited for in-person interviews, streamlining the hiring process to focus on only the best applicants in the final stages of the process.

How to Handle the Initial Contact

Applicants can be advised of their phone interview schedule by mail, email, or phone. The first two are passive contacts where you and company representatives have no direct interaction.

However, when the company contacts you by phone, it is important to be professional even if the call comes at a bad time. For this reason, its a good idea cants to remind roommates or family members that job-related calls may ring through on any shared phones.

You should make an effort to be perky and sound really interested in the company, even when just scheduling a phone interview. Clarify the date and time schedule of the phone interview. You can ask for the names of the interviewers and who else might be listening in on the call.

How to Prepare for the Phone Interview

Like any interview, a successful phone interview requires preparation. Review the job description as provided in the employment ad referenced in the application. Be prepared to match your skills and qualities with the requirements listed.

Quantify achievements in previous jobs when possible. For instance, instead of claiming credit for sales growth, specify how much sales improved. Have important information like this written down and handy during the phone interview.

Find out as much information as possible about the company. Use reliable sources including corporate websites, government agencies and trade journals. Know the key strengths of the company, because this knowledge can be useful during the interview.

Some websites may include sample questions specific to the company, contributed by current and former employees. Study these questions and rehearse possible answers.

Have someone play along as interviewer, and record the mock interview. Listen to the recording, and determine what vocal improvements are necessary. Pitch, tone and delivery must come across as friendly, interested and natural.

If the interviewer’s name is known, research the person’s web presence. Try to find common ground with the interviewer‘s background. Having something in common with the company’s representative will definitely get a foot in the door provided the information is introduced at the proper time. Use social media to track down information about the interviewer, but do this selectively, as some of these sites let their members know if anyone has searched the database for their name.

The Phone Interview

These tips should help you stay organized and make a good impression in your phone interview:

Before the scheduled interview, find a quiet room to hold the phone session. Request that all family members, pets, and roommates vacate the selected area until the interview is over. Close and lock the door if possible.
Turn off call waiting to avoid any interruptions. If possible, use a landline instead of a cell phone to avoid missed calls and bad connections. Make sure your cell phone is on silent so it doesn’t ring during the interview.
Be prepared, and stay organized. Line up the files and papers near the phone. These references should be within grabbing distance in case the information is required during the phone interview.
Even with phone interviews, punctuality is a plus. Be prepared to answer the phone at the appointed time. Use a professional tone and formal greeting when answering. Smile during the interview to project a perkier personality.
Always address the interviewer formally unless specifically directed to use a first name.
Use a normal, friendly tone when speaking and enunciate each word as clearly as possible. Stick to concise answers and do not interrupt the interviewer for any reason. It is okay to have a few seconds lull to flesh out an appropriate answer to an interview question. Dead air is preferable to grunting and mumbling to fill up the time.
Demonstrate preparedness by having resume in hand; research notes at the ready. Have a list of questions about the job ready in case an opportunity arises to learn more about the corporation.

Post-interview Follow-up

Thank the interviewer at the conclusion of the session. Then thank the interviewer again by mail or email. More contact with the interviewer and hiring manager will draw attention to you, boosting your chances of inclusion in the short list of candidates who will make it to the final round of interviews.

This post was provided by Marie Warren. Ms. Warren has over 20 years’ experience in the recruitment field and has worked with various recruitment firms and individuals to help them achieve to progress their careers. She now works for Recruitmentrevolution.com, which provides a low cost flat fee recruitment service to businesses looking for the best candidates.

Employee Beware: The Ten Most Dangerous Jobs in America

George Lenard — Mon, 28 May 2012 23:24:58 +0000

Introduction

Although Deadliest Catch may make for compelling TV and high ratings, the reality for those such as commercial fishermen who face deadly vocationally-based hazards on a regular basis remains bleak. While we may be inclined to see fishing, logging, or flying planes as exhilarating and exciting occupations, the inherent risk for those employed in these sectors might shock you.

With an hours-based fatality rate of 203.6, fishing and fishing-related workers face the highest job fatality risk by far, trailed by logging workers with a rate of 65.5.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) routinely gathers data on various occupations, ranging from job salaries to career forecast information, publishing annual statistical reports. The BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) contains data on fatal work-related injury.

The most recent complete report, for 2010, does show lower figures than in past years, offering hope for safer occupational practices. 2010 saw 4,547 workplace fatalities, a significant improvement over just 5 years prior, with 5,734 deaths. However, we continue to see the same industries and same occupations topping the list. If you’re looking for a safe workplace, steer clear of the top 10 most dangerous jobs.

Table of ten most dangerous jobs, by hours-based fatality rate

Dangerous Jobs

EMBED

A more detailed look at the top 5 most dangerous jobs in America:

Photo by Linda Cronin

1. Fishers and related fishing workers

Commercial fishing remains the industry with the top fatality rate. This is due to hazardous weather conditions, poorly constructed ships, large storms, disease, and dangers associated with industrial fishing equipment.

More than half of all fatalities (279, 51%) occurred after a vessel disaster
Another 170 (31%) fatalities occurred when a fisherman fell overboard

2. Loggers

Beside the obvious risk of being crushed beneath a falling tree, heavy industrial machinery used in logging causes a number of serious injuries and fatalities every year. Weather variability and poor conditions exacerbate the threat. OSHA states:

Tools and equipment such as chain saws and logging machines pose hazards wherever they are used. As loggers use their tools and equipment, they deal with massive weights and irresistible momentum of falling, rolling, and sliding trees and logs. The hazards are more acute when dangerous environmental conditions are factored in, such as uneven, unstable or rough terrain; inclement weather including rain, snow, lightning, winds, and extreme cold and/or remote and isolated work sites where health care facilities are not immediately accessible.

3. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers

The sheer amount of time pilots spend in the air is one of the main reasons that this occupation is the third most dangerous. In order to get a job in the industry, thousands of hours of training and flight experience are required, which heightens the chance of something going awry.

This category also includes commercial pilots of smaller aircraft, including crop dusters, helicopters, and air taxis, that are far more likely to crash than larger passenger aircraft.

4. Extraction workers

A broad occupational category, extraction occupations involve mostly mining and drilling-based work. Much like farming, extraction work frequently involves dangerous machinery.

Another risk factor is the removal and transport of dangerous material, such as hazardous waste, toxic asbestos, or nuclear waste.

Mining, in particular, holds the added risk of tunnel collapse, cause of a number of fatalities each year.

5. Farmers and ranchers

The uncertainty of raising livestock, growing crops, and predicting profits, and long hours of physical labor in a wide variety of weather conditions cause this job to be one of the most emotionally burdensome occupations. This stressful toll manifests with hypertension, nervous disorders, heart disease, and ulcers. Additionally, heavy machinery regularly used in this industry is the cause of many serious injuries and deaths.

Conclusion

If this leaves you yearning for a new, safer job, look through the best job sites to find the right place to post your resume, find employment opportunities, and apply for jobs.

Guest post prepared by Kelsey Hennegen, Writing & PR, FindTheBest.

Jacksonville Firefighter Litigation Shows Perils of Using Improperly Validated Tests

George Lenard — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:36:56 +0000

Introduction

Recently, the U.S. Justice Department sued the city of Jacksonville, Florida over promotion tests that allegedly discriminate against black firefighters.

Jacksonville uses multiple-choice job knowledge tests for each competitive rank (Lieutenant, Captain, District Chief, and Engineer).

This employment discrimination case is a throw-back to earlier ones involving testing for employee selection and promotion in public safety departments.

There has been much litigation over police and fire jobs. This is probably because:

They provide secure, middle-class opportunities with good benefits for individuals without college education.
Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed it, many of these departments had a history of deliberate segregation.
These departments have been more aggressive than much of the private sector in attempting to institute objective standards that are intended to be completely fair and nondiscriminatory–but may in fact have discriminatory effects.

The discrimination alleged in the Jacksonville case

According to the Justice press release, the Jacksonville lawsuit alleges that:

[T]he examinations impact African-American candidates in two ways.

First, African-American candidates for promotion to the four positions pass the examinations at significantly lower rates than white candidates.

Second, even those African-Americans who pass the examinations are rarely promoted because the fire department selects candidates for promotion in descending rank-order based primarily upon each candidate’s written examination score and African-American candidates score significantly lower than whites.

In other words, the test is used not only on a pass-fail basis, but also to select among individuals with passing scores; indeed, potentially among those with very similar scores. In theory, someone could be passed over for promotion despite superior job evaluations and acknowledged superior leadership ability because they got one less exam question correct than the successful, but otherwise inferior, candidate.

Legal background on Jacksonville firefighter tests, qualifications, and disparate impact

There are two basic methods of proving employment discrimination: disparate treatment and disparate impact.

Disparate treatment (not involved in the Jacksonville case) involves a claim that someone was discriminated against intentionally. The Supreme Court’s decision in McDonnell Douglas v. Green (1973), discussed in this post, is the leading case on disparate treatment.

The other method, disparate impact, is the basis for the claims in the Jacksonville case. The basic law on tests and other job qualifications that have a disparate impact based on protected characteristics such as race and gender was pronounced by the Supreme Court in 1971 in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., discussed in some detail in this post.

These legal principles were codified by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, in response to a Supreme Court decision that Congress saw as having unduly restricted the application of Griggs.

Proof of a Disparate Impact Claim

There is a three-step process for proof of a disparate impact claim:

Prove that the group with a protected characteristic (here, African American applicants for firefighter promotions in Jacksonville) was selected (promoted) at a lower rate than others, with this disparity being statistically significant.
Once this is proven, the employer must show that the test or qualification is valid, meaning that it predicts job success in the target job.
If the employer can succeed in proving this, those challenging the practice can then attempt to show there were valid alternative employment tests or qualifications that could have been just as predictive of success, but with less adverse impact.

It is easy and commonplace for the law concerning testing and other objective job qualifications with a disparate impact to be viewed as requiring hiring or promotion of less-qualified individuals just because of their protected characteristics.

If the law strikes down an employer’s use of a test or qualification because minorities are less successful at passing the test or satisfying the qualification, it can appear that the employer is being prevented from selecting the best employees–and that this amounts to “reverse discrimination.”

Such a view is absolutely false.

To the contrary, the law facilitates hiring and promotion of the most qualified individuals by ensuring that qualifications are properly defined and measured. The Supreme Court in the 1971 Griggs case made this crystal clear:

Nothing in the Act precludes the use of testing or measuring procedures; obviously they are useful. What Congress has forbidden is giving these devices and mechanisms controlling force unless they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance.

Congress has not commanded that the less qualified be preferred over the better qualified simply because of minority origins.

Far from disparaging job qualifications as such, Congress has made such qualifications the controlling factor, so that race, religion, nationality, and sex become irrelevant.

What Congress has commanded is that any tests used must measure the person for the job, and not the person in the abstract.

The long, sad history of Jacksonville Fire Department discrimination litigation

In 2009, Folio Weekly (which bills itself as Northeast Florida’s largest circulation and most influential newsweekly) published a story about Jacksonville Fire Department discrimination allegations entitled, The Fire This Time, by Susan Cooper Eastman. The following sketch of the four-decade history of Jacksonville firefighter discrimination litigation is based on this article.

In 1971, a federal consent decree found there was racial discrimination in the Jacksonville Fire Department’s hiring, and required that future hiring be racially balanced 50-50. As a result, Jacksonville hired large numbers of black firefighters, and by 1991 more than 20% were black.

But black Jacksonville firefighters lagged in promotions, and in 1991 more than 90% of leadership positions were still held by whites. As of 2009, this figure had improved a bit, but only to 88%.

”The department remained plagued by incidents of racism and allegations of race-based favoritism.”

In the ’90s, “[n]umerous discrimination lawsuits pointed to the city’s failure to promote black firefighters.”

”In 1992, the city decided it was free of the consent decree, saying the ratio of black firefighters in the city was comparable to the city’s white/black ratio, although it provided no proof” and did not obtain a court release from the decree. By this time, about 20% of the department was black, compared to the citywide black population of 30%.

Also in 1992, the department changed its promotion progression, allowing only those with the rank of engineer to test for a lieutenant position. Before this change, “215 black firefighters were eligible to test for lieutenant. After the change, only four were. And because there were already 300 white engineers, there was no point in testing to become one. Black firefighters say the change effectively blocked them from moving into the officer ranks.”

“[Tt]he city’s post-consent-decree hiring practices were clearly a step backward in terms of diversity. Between 1992, the year the city declared it had met its obligation, and 1995, the city hired 136 firefighters…. [O]nly two were minority.”

“A 2006 report by the city’s Human Rights Commission, undertaken in response to the incident in which two black firefighters found nooses on their gear,…[and b]ased on questionnaires given to 525 department employees, interviews about specific complaints and a … focus group with 50 employees, … characterized the department as racist, sexist and routinely discriminatory, a place where patterns of harassment and retaliation ensured that power remained in the hands of a select few.”

While many changes were made in response to the report, and to a subsequent task force’s recommendations, one of the study’s recommendations that was rejected was to fire the department’s industrial psychologist, human resources manager, and compliance officer.

The Folio Weekly article mentions a few recent lawsuits:

Three African-American lieutenants sued over a 1994 captain’s test. They alleged the city had improperly abandoned the 1971 consent decree, favored whites by adding “seniority points” to test scores, and had allowed questions and answers from past tests to be used to help white job candidates. The city settled the case, and in 2001 promoted the plaintiffs to captain.
As a captain, one of these plaintiffs sued again in 2007, alleging harassment, including that when he was promoted to lieutenant after he scored in the top five on his test, “rumors circulated that he’d cheated. Some
white firefighters in the department made up T-shirts that read, ‘I studied.’”

Criticism of the promotion test

Promotions are based on a multiple-choice job-knowledge test, with points added for time spent in rank and overall time in service.

The lawsuit challenges this promotions process on the basis that the results show whites faring better AND that “the written exams don’t test for leadership, decision-making abilities, or other qualities that make a good officer.”

One of the plaintiff’s lawyers cites by analogy “a lawsuit filed by the Boston Chapter of the NAACP about similar testing in 1974, in which lawyers noted that if the Boston Red Sox chose players based on their understanding of baseball history and terminology, the team might have a really knowledgeable team that couldn’t bat, pitch or catch.”

This is where many critics of such litigation miss the boat. For example, the “Screwball Central” blog asks: “[1] Don’t you want the people who score highest on their test to be promoted? [2] Don’t we want the smartest and best qualified people in the top positions?”

Second question first. Answer is “yes.”

First question second. Answer is “not necessarily; they may not in fact be ‘the smartest and best qualified people.’” Just like those hypothetical ball players who aced the test on baseball history and terminology.

Any more questions?

Alternatives rejected by the Jacksonville Fire Department

According to the Folio Weekly article, those challenging the Jacksonville fire promotion test note that “[s]ome cities…have phased out written exams, and started using assessment centers, which incorporate real-life scenarios, such as administering discipline or prioritizing tasks — all actions observed by an assessment team.”

Years ago, the Jacksonville task force recommended consideration of switching to such a broader-based assessment method, but “the local union has fought fiercely to keep the current exam in place…[a]nd it has enshrined the test as the department’s only method of promotion in its collective bargaining agreement.”

What were they thinking?

Dr. Cassi Fields, President and CEO of Fields Consulting Group, is a nationally known expert in the design, development, validation, and administration of public safety testing projects, with special expertise in assisting departments that have been accused of bias in their personnel practices.

She says:

It’s 2012. How do cases like this still occur? This is an especially good question given that similar cases have been tried in the past and the court decisions have favored the test-takers.

In addition, most industrial psychologists agree that multiple-choice employment tests adversely impact minority candidates, and that there are alternative methods of valid testing that result in less adverse impact.

I find it strange that Jacksonville chose to give these types of tests for so long knowing that they would likely receive an internal challenge or a lawsuit.

I also find it strange that they were willing to settle all their lawsuits without fixing the cause of the problem-–especially since discrimination settlements are costly and can result in negative publicity.

The right solution: developing compliant, fair, and successful promotion systems and standards

Though the right solution may be time-consuming and expensive on initial inspection, it’s well worth the investment and saves dollars spent in paying settlements and fighting lawsuits. Dr. Fields says an unbiased solution for a promotional system may have multiple components. Employment tests must be valid and must allow candidates from all different backgrounds the opportunity to demonstrate that they possess the necessary qualifications to succeed if promoted. This means not relying on a multiple-choice job knowledge exam alone.

The right solution also requires properly preparing candidates for the promotion they desire. This is the most important aspect of all. Candidates are often missing key information when they compete for promotions. Even worse, candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds may be less prepared in this regard to contend for the promotion.

Dr. Fields explains that the missing key information is not just the type of knowledge tested by a multiple-choice exam:

Generally, candidates need to know the key qualifications of the job they are seeking and the characteristics of the selection process.
Once they are made aware of these important details, they will be able to ask themselves, “Is this the job for me?”
If they then decide they want to pursue the promotion, they must ask, “How can I better prepare myself for the selection process and position?”
In some cases, they may have to decide if they need additional assistance with converting the information into successful strategies for advancement.

Dr. Fields calls the impact of missing information on employment and promotion success “Limited Exposure Theory (LeT©).” She calls the solution to information barriers “Missing Information Analysis (MiA©).” She has measured and successfully proved her theories in several situations similar to the Jacksonville lawsuit, and she comments, “Knowledge gives people choices and a way to succeed!”

According to Dr. Fields, the right solution to this type of assessment problem may be time-consuming and expensive. However, the correct solution would be ‘win-win,” resulting in benefits for both candidates and the employer, because:

Candidates would benefit because the right solution would invest in them and help improve their chances for advancement.
The employer would gain a better qualified workforce.
A fair and validated promotional system would also improve morale, reduce hostilities between different groups of people, and allow candidates to be fairly promoted. At the end of the day, establishing an unbiased promotional system is far less expensive than lawsuits, bad press and low morale.

Expert analysis for this article was contributed by Dr. Cassi Fields, President and CEO of D.C.-based Fields Consulting Group.

Dr. Fields developed the Limited Exposure Theory (LeT©), which suggests that those from disadvantaged backgrounds lack access to the vital information they need to gain employment or advance in their careers. Dr. Fields also created the Missing Information Analysis (MiA© ) strategy, which identifies information obstacles, methods to obtain that information, and strategies for converting newly-acquired information into effective behaviors for job acquirement or career advancement.

LeT© and MiA© have helped more than 10,000 people from disadvantaged backgrounds and women advance in their careers.

Fields Consulting Group has also pioneered the use of assessment center exercises to measure community-oriented policing competencies and has directed and administered hundreds of performance assessments to businesses nationally.

The Worst Types of Resistance to Change That Get in the Way of HR Efforts (and What To Do About Them)

George Lenard — Thu, 03 May 2012 04:20:37 +0000

By Reut Schwartz–Hebron

Introduction

HR leaders are often responsible for perhaps the single most important component for orchestrating organizational change: overcoming resistance to change.

Resistance has many shades and colors. It may be direct and confrontational, passive, or even invisible. When people say – and even believe – that they want to cooperate but their cooperative attitude is not backed up by needed actions, resistance to change is likely involved.

Managers tend to look to HR executives to help them overcome change resistance in situations such as dealing with a difficult employee or supporting the goals of a strategic initiative.

Just as often, however, HR executives find themselves struggling to get a change-resistant manager to cooperate, or to get seemingly cooperative managers to actually execute needed changes.

While there are many change-resistance responses, some are worse than others. Here are the top three types of change resistance, along with why they are so difficult to overcome and some thoughts on what you can do about them.

Doubtful analyst resistance to change

This type of change resistance is exhibited as skepticism, dismissive behavior, argumentativeness and overall disagreement.

People who resist change in this way believe there is a very clear distinction between right and wrong, which creates rigidity and often leads them to treat others with superiority.

Doubtful analyst resistance blocks teams from optimizing productivity in many ways, but perhaps the most painful is the negativity that ultimately halts progress. Instead of focusing on what could work, or on how to build agreement, teams or individuals in which doubtful analyst change resistance predominates focus on what isn’t working and why others are wrong.

Example–doubtful analyst change resistance in an IT department

An example of doubtful analyst resistance occurred when a client in the security software industry was given the task of improving customer care levels in his organization’s IT department. His efforts met with glazed looks and dismissal. People in the IT department simply couldn’t see why customer care would have anything to do with them.

In their rigid viewpoint, that’s what customer service staff was for. It wasn’t in their own job descriptions. To them, prioritizing customer care above functionality didn’t make sense, and therefore they dismissed it and refused to cooperate.

Overcoming doubtful-analyst change resistance

Frequently, to overcome change resistance, one must address the way people resist. One of the most important changes doubtful analysts need to undergo is to “rewire their brains” to see reality from different perspectives, allow seemingly contradictory truths to co-exist. This way, they can see that their perspective may be right, but that doesn’t mean the perspective of those in the organization who are pursuing the change is necessarily wrong.

To generate a change in customer care values in the IT team mentioned above, the client first needed to support the IT team to engage differently with their change resistance.

Rewiring the brain to respond differently to something as fundamental as seeing different points of view is not trivial. It requires reinforcing relevant experiences to create new response patterns that are stronger than the old “dismissive” and “one sided” responses and must be supported by a deeper understanding of how the brain works.

The biggest obstacle getting in the way of people’s ability to change is learning to follow the stages the brain needs to go through in order to acquire new response patterns.

For people to change they need to learn how to go through five stages:

Define the goal of the change in a way that will motivate them, in this case the goal was new customer care behaviors and the motivation was to comply with the declared expectations of their superiors (people can change even if their initial motivation is more complacent than committed, but they need some motivation to get started)
Define the new experiences that will lead to desired results. For people to acquire new response patterns and change the way they respond to change, people first need to define new patterns in experience terms. The “intellectual” or “knowledge-based” definition of seeing that different points of view can be valid in principle is very different than the experience-based definition of being able to truly see different points of view as valid in a situation being personally experienced.
The latter is acquired by working with an expert and reviewing examples and case studies. Initially, after sharing the knowledge-based definition, teams almost always have a hard time thinking of examples that are aligned with the new desired response pattern. At this stage, doubtful-analyst people find it almost impossible to give examples in which more than one point of view was valid because their mind is not wired to notice those examples. They must learn to be able to readily provide such examples.
Overcome resistance triggered by the need for change by practicing choices in actions that reflect the change, continuing to reinforce new patterns despite resistance. Resistance is actually helpful for change because without resistance there is no choice to do something differently and hence change is less likely to be permanent.
At this stage, the task the team has to meet is kept small enough so that it is very easy to hold the team accountable and make sure they keep making little steps that reinforce in practice the new response pattern. It is this stage, reinforcing choice in action, that gives the brain the ability to make the new response pattern stronger than the old one.
Create Sustainability so that the acquired new response pattern won’t fade away. Old response patterns were reinforced in the brain for years. Each time teams practice a new response pattern it is further reinforced in the brain. The key to sustainability is creating enough experience based reference points so that the new pattern is strong enough to compete with old patterns.
Application is the fifth and final stage. Here the new response pattern, after it has been clearly defined and generalized in acquisition so it is strong enough to compete with old patterns, is now applied to the specific goals.

Once the team acquired new response patterns and thus became able to see and understand multiple points of view, specifically, that customer care was important to their jobs, it was able to execute on the new customer care values.

Emotional oscillator resistance

This type of resistance is characterized by an outburst of aggressive, overly dramatic, impatient, and exaggerated behavior, followed by withdrawal, as well as a tendency to jump quickly to action without thinking things through.
Add to this type a rich variety of control -driven manipulations designed to take the spotlight off the need to change.

Emotional oscillator resistance blocks teams from optimizing productivity mainly by:

Not being open to discussing the needed changes.
Refusing to accept feedback.
Creating an environment in which a pushy minority dominate a submissive majority through fear-based dynamics.

Example– emotional oscillator resistance in a hospital

An HR executive in the health industry was trying to support a change in the behavior of the head of one of the hospital’s departments. This senior doctor’s teaching style and interpersonal interactions were described as: “demeaning, impatient, harsh, and directive.”

When presented with the need to make changes, the senior doctor claimed that the way other staff members described him was “ludicrous” – and that it was they who need to improve their performances, not he.

Overcoming emotional-oscillator change resistance

To create a breakthrough in results when working with emotional oscillator teams or individuals, one of the most important things to change first is the relationship these individuals are wired to have with control and responsibility.

Instead of trying to get things done by gaining and exercising strict control over other people, emotional oscillators need to develop the ability to influence other people with a more effective version of supervision and direction, which requires that they effectively listen and integrate other people’s needs into their considerations.

Since confronting emotional oscillators about relevant changes immediately and directly leads to mountains of change resistance, it’s important to first get them to develop and reinforce new patterns of responding to change using neutral examples and case studies.

Getting the senior doctor to cooperate was not easy. The key was focusing on a new way of responding to change away from any direct threat. To do that the goal is first defined with great honesty but in a way that provides a genuine benefit for both sides.

In this case, the leadership team was very clear about the complaints and their need to see improvement (it is vital to maintain honesty in this process, otherwise it feels manipulative and it won’t work). The main focus, however, was on the benefits to the senior doctor. Wouldn’t he want his team to meet his performance standards? If he could invest in a solution that would get both what his team wants and what he wants, would he be willing to spend approximately 15 hours over the next several weeks to achieve that?

Sometimes managers like this senior doctor are not willing to cooperate with this process. It’s said that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, and that is certainly true when it comes to getting people to change. This process isn’t designed to force anyone; instead it is set to make the environment ripe for change, making sure it’s a really hot day, letting the horse build enough of a workout, and making sure the water is clear and fresh, to follow through on the analogy.

As the senior doctor started seeing that new response patterns gave him effective tools for better achieving what he needed, he was able to let go of his old patterns. Once the new response to change was acquired, the senior doctor changed how he interacted with change and, as a result, how he interacted with people.

Pleaser resistance

We may think of pleasers as people who can easily change, because their motivation is to meet the expectations of others. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Pleasers are extremely difficult to change; far more, in fact, than the other two types discussed above.

The motivation for change with pleasers is external, completely passive, and leaves the responsibility for choice to others (whom they will then follow in order to please them). Because pleasers are followers, they can’t be relied upon to implement changes in the face of resistance by others. If you try to get them to change their response patterns, they will happily cooperate -but changes they make will be short-lived unless everyone they try to please goes along with the changes.

Example– pleaser resistance in a small IT company

A CEO in a small IT company was looking to get his leadership team to change their communication patterns. He wanted them to be more assertive in holding each other accountable and setting healthy boundaries with clients to avoid over-promising service, and in building accountability in the sales team.

The leadership team openly discussed these issues. They admitted the need to change and seemed very cooperative , but their talk was not being followed by lasting actions. Team members were not changing, and leaders were passive and timid in the face of this inaction.

Overcoming pleaser change resistance

Pleasing teams can move away from this highly passive way of resisting, but they need to acquire a new way of responding that we call KindExcellence™.

This is an emotional ability to balance the need for connection and togetherness with the need to maintain boundaries and communicate expectations. To get the team to acquire this new response pattern, the team explored examples and case studies that are aligned with KindExcellence™.

As these case studies were initiated by the team and reinforced in the brain as new experience, the brains of team members literally started to create a new default response pattern.

In the case of pleasing teams, the need to maintain harmony becomes so important that it trumps assertiveness and expectations.

With this new emotional ability in place, however, after learning which steps the brain needs to go through in order to acquire change in a lasting way, in only a few weeks the leadership team developed the levels of accountability and assertiveness the organization was trying to achieve. The results in the team’s interactions with clients and with the sales team were most satisfactory.

Conclusion

There are, of course, many other types of change-resistance responses that block HR leaders from being able to provide the needed change support to both managers and teams.

Identifying which type of resistance to change is blocking either a team or an individual is an important first step so that you can know which strategy would best serve the situation.

Whether it’s getting people to acquire new values as part of a culture change, resolving a conflict, or getting teams to execute best practices, understanding the type of resistance you are facing and how to overcome it is of vital importance.

Reut Schwartz–Hebron is the founder of Key Change Institute (KCI) – a national organization that provides groundbreaking business performance improvement and strategy execution consulting services rooted in brain science and experience-based learning. KCI helps businesses overcome resistance to change and optimize productivity and profitability to achieve impactful, lasting results.

She is also the author of the new book The Art And Science Of Changing People Who Don’t Want To Change.