CASE STUDY:
Targeting the Middle Level at P&G
Why Start in the Middle?
The R&D Corporate College would serve over 8000 managers and technologists who were spread over five hierarchical levels, more than a dozen business categories, a half-dozen technical disciplines and eight countries on four continents at twenty sites. The question of “where to start?” was not insignificant.
The literature (Krantz, 1998) suggested that in many organizations, both large and small, there are the chaotic “middles”. While upper management has executive coaching and organizational training, and lower levels have team building and job training, there is little offered for the middles. However, the function of the middles in most companies has become increasingly complex and fraught with never-ending to-do lists.
At P&G, the middle managers are pivotal, because they are responsible for most of the Company’s projects and programs. They manage and coach 85% of the R&D employees. By focusing on the Band 3s first, RDU could have a positive impact on the greatest number of people.
Discussions with several R&D leaders and with Band 3 people supported this approach. We learned that, not only was Band 3 the most pivotal level, it was also the level at which there existed the most “pain”.
Several R&D VPs shared anecdotal evidence that Band 3 managers had insufficient skills to effectively handle the leadership situations they faced. Further, there was general frustration among the R&D Leadership with the inadequate level of coaching, mentorship and technical leadership which the Band 3 technologists were providing for the technical community. Data from the extensive corporate organization culture survey supported concerns about the need to strengthen the skills for the Band 3 managers and technologists.
In discussions with Band 3 people, we learned that these middle managers often work for several bosses (often located on different continents). They face too many priorities and live in fast-changing environments. The workplace is in constant flux as everyone tries to “flow to the work”. There are often questions about who is accountable for what, because roles are constantly morphing. Further, the market competition is fierce and competitors are always ready with another in-market surprise. The workload for middles at P&G, and, for that matter, in most companies, has increased. To their credit, middle managers work hard at their jobs and get involved in the latest program on quality, or excellence, or reengineering, and do the best they can for the people reporting to them. This situation among P&G’s technical professionals is common. Technical leaders in many companies are struggling to gain the skills to effectively lead, as documented recently in a study by BlessingWhite. Though this didn’t influence our decision, it did provide validation. In their September 2006 webcast, “Strategies for Leading Technical Professionals,” the presenters shared data from among nearly 900 global managers of technical professionals. When asked to rate nine areas of management skill for importance and to rate their own personal effectiveness for each area, there was nearly a 30% difference in rating of importance versus a rating of their own effectiveness (Figure 2). Clearly, middle managers see a need for skills, but do not believe they possess these skills.
The task force, having established that “the Middles” were likely to welcome training, and that this group can impact 85% of the organization directly, looked for any downsides of starting in the middle. One of the common concerns is that College attendees will return from the College, try to implement with they learned, and face barriers from their immediate managers. The task force believed this concern would be minimized by drawing on higher level R&D people as trainers in Colleges. The task force set a goal of 80% of the trainers being two levels higher than the College participants or highly recognized corporate experts in the topic they would teach. With Band 5s and 6s doing the training for P&G’s R&D Middles, the Band 3 participants would be re-entering a workplace that is reasonably supportive of changes related to the College. Further, the Design Team committed to rapidly putting the Band 4 College in place next to increase the likelihood of support from the Band 3’s immediate managers. The order for College development would be Band 3, 4, 5, 1, 2.
To summarize, starting in the middle with Band 3 R&D professionals, made sense because:
- The Middle professionals touch the greatest number of people.
- The Middle was not meeting upper management’s expectations.
- The Middle’s self-assessment is that they need additional managerial and leadership skills to be more effective.
- The Middle will get support from leadership because the leaders are the trainers.