The Story Part 1: The Conundrum When Lynn, long time leader of a growing organization, drove into office parking lot at 7:41am, something didn't seem right. He had arrived home late night before after an extended overseas trip. He was still experiencing jet lag but parking lot seemed empty to him when compared to six months earlier. He remembered feeling that things were going well then, that everyone seemed motivated, excited and happy. They came in early and stayed late. They were genuinely happy to be back each morning and cheerful when greeting co-workers. The pace of action was quick and efficient. Now, in contrast, people seemed to be dragging. They were just doing their jobs. Morale, it seems, had sagged. As he parked and walked, he made a mental note: "Our leadership activity needs a shot in arm," he thought.

Analysis and Perspective In his leadership role, Lynn was appropriately, if informally, monitoring a leading indicator of performance when he noted waning level of engagement by organization's members. He appropriately hypothesized that this decline was related to a reduced "velocity" of leadership across organization, amount of time spent on leadership activities. Because reduced engagement and intrinsic motivation are expected outcomes of a decline in a specific type of leadership influence, called deep blue leadership influence, he realized that he needed to initiate programs to reenergize this type of leadership in organization.

Lynn's experience and training had taught him that three steps were required: first gather information about current situation and diagnose issues; second, initiate specific leadership activities designed to shore-up deeply held, social identity of team members with respect to his organization, sense of purpose that provides intrinsic motivation; and third, institutionalize change by integrating these initiatives into organization's culture.

Lynn realized this would not be easy. His leadership teams must find ways to influence members' deeply held sense of identity, toward an organizationally appropriate collective purpose. This sense of purpose, identity and vision would provide intrinsic motivation to increase engagement, quicken everyone's pace and fill parking lot.

Case Study Examples Many organizations face periods where weariness or ennui sets in, where motivation drops. Up and down cycles naturally occur in individuals, even Lynn was dragging that morning, but when reduced motivation occurs broadly across organization, leadership intervention is required. Otherwise, culture itself may change permanently.

When Lucent Technologies was preparing to spin-out from AT&T, employees felt discarded. Their identities were injured, their motivation low. Although CEO Henry Schacht didn't have a name for it at time, he knew that deep blue leadership influence was needed.

He began with an intense data gathering effort and a thoughtful assessment and diagnosis of situation. This was followed by an organization wide identity creating effort that used as many people as practical to develop a shared vision for IPO "road show". Over and over he and his team communicated essence of their collective experience using theme "the opportunity of a lifetime." They were careful to hone their vision statement in a cascading effort that energized organization.

In a matter of a few months, Lucent employees went from being crushed to being enthusiastic leaders in their own right. Their motivation soared and pushed organization to a successful IPO and years of strong growth1.

* * * When Steve Jobs returned to Apple after many years, he found a demoralized team and a shattered identity. Apple had lost desktop wars. Collective identity was shattered. There was no vision to motivate people.

This article also assumes that selection of CAD providers has been completed with due diligence (the methods are described in an earlier article).

As I mentioned in those prior articles, one of most important ingredients for successful outsourcing is management of ongoing project by you, client. To quote from those articles (here 'outsourcer' means 'provider'):

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"This may sound obvious, but probably biggest stumbling block to offshore outsourcing is that after all contracts have been signed, companies abdicate responsibility for projects to provider..."

--- Deepak Khandelwal, McKinsey, Worldwide

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TASKS IN OUTSOURCING MANAGEMENT:

(1) You have to assume moral responsibility for project.

A very senior executive should be made champion of CAD project. S/he will need technical and administrative people to help with project, and these people should be informed of their induction explicitly. Let's call this group of people "the task force".

(2) The task force should define objectives of proposed CAD outsourcing.

Subjects to address:

* Which input documents will you be giving provider? (Consider rough, dimensioned sketches, specifications and photographs of included objects, written instructions on what you want in output, libraries of CAD symbols, design rules for elements not in libraries of CAD symbols, drawings or sketches showing how objects in target area interface with immediate environment, sample output documents).

* Which CAD platform do you want work done on?

* Which output documents to you expect?

* What is weekly project schedule?

* At what interval do you want provider to send you work in progress?

* What is procedure for acceptance of product?

* What is your payment schedule?

* What is payment method? (Check, credit card, wire transfer?)

(3) The task force should put above documents into a contract.

The contract should also contain non-disclosure clauses. The provider should sign and return contract.

(4) Put robust communication mechanisms in place.

* Email is fine provided mailbox capacities are large. Without a doubt provider should have a broadband connection, and if your CAD files are large and frequent, so should you.

* Instant messenger programs are good for discussion sessions.