WHAT NEXT AT WSI?

(See the previous blog for more about WSI)


It’s been a difficult year at WSI (Workforce Safety and Insurance): negative internal audits and employee surveys, criminal charges later dismissed, employee whistleblowers, and search warrants, plots and conspiracies.

And that is only what we read in the newspapers. I assure you, what you see in the lethargic newspapers is only the tip of the iceberg of the troubles within WSI. This is an organization in serious distress for reasons broad and varied.

Morale is low and productivity suffers. People are too preoccupied with what happened yesterday and anxious about what will happen tomorrow to concentrate on their work today. People take their frustrations out at home, and suffer stress symptoms. Yet, despite the difficulty, many people do good things—for WSI, for workers, for employers, and for one another. Adversity truly is the test of our goodness.

The Gallup organizations reported that 74 percent of American workers are disengaged clock-watchers who cannot wait to go home at night. They sleepwalk through their workday putting time but not energy or passion into their work. Fully 19 percent of employees are actively disengaged—employees aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.

I wonder what the percentages of disengaged and actively disengaged employees are at WSI.

What to do?

Based on my 40 years experience as a senior executive at the Star Tribune newspaper, academic (Ph.D. in Leadership and Organizational Change), organizational consultant specializing in leadership and organizational transformation, globally-read writer about leadership and organizations (www.amorenaturalway.com) and Secret Service agent, I suggest:

1. Do not knee-jerk into reorganization as called for by The Fargo Forum in an editorial on October 30, 2007. The calls to return control of WSI to the governor remind me of the quote of Petronius Satyricon in the First Century A.D.:

Beginning to form up into teams, we would be
reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we
tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing. . .
and a wonderful method it can be of creating the
illusion of progress while producing inefficiency
and demoralization.

Any changes in structure/reporting relationships should come from expert recommendations for organizational effectiveness, not politics.

2.Understand that all involved bear their share of responsibility for the mess at WSI: employees (past and present), the legislature, the board of directors, the management team, the North Dakota auditor's office, the Burleigh County attorney’s office, and the local media whose lethargic failure to investigate the Burleigh County attorney and to dig deeply into what is happening at WSI explains partially why newspapers are in decline.

3. WSI needs to undergo a brutally honest assessment and soon. This assessment should be done by outside, experienced, and independent consultants who have no “dog in the fight” and who have the courage to tell the truth to the various people in power--consultants who know what they are talking about.

I recommend the Gallup Organization. Gallup has powerful research about how to grow an engaged workforce where “employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.”

State leaders could use the WSI fiasco to elevate not only WSI but the entire state government through Gallup with direct impact on budget, productivity, customer service, and the retention of the best employees. The one-time cost for Gallup would be offset by annual savings and other benefits that far exceed the initial investment.

4. Assessments by professional and detached consultants who are educated, experienced, and knowledgeable and only interested in finding the truth of the organization to help it grow go below the surface and the headlines and provide a broad and deep diagnosis and recommendations for systemic change. Everyone gets their share of critical feedback. Recommendations include replacement of employees, structural changes, developmental needs for all concerned, and reporting relationships.

5. Competent external consultants should replace credibility-challenged state auditors and conduct the follow-up to the 2006 internal audit in 2008. Experienced and unbiased consultants can put issues in context and separate the important from the insignificant and will, in 2008, remove the 2006 audit from politics.

6. Citizens of North Dakota should ask the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court to investigate the conduct of the Burleigh County attorney to determine if professional and ethical standards have been violated in this case (Secretary of the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court, 600 East Boulevard Avenue, Dept. 180, Bismarck, ND 58505-0530).

7. It is easy to scapegoat Sandy Blunt. I suggest people avoid the temptation. I despise bad leadership; I hate the sabotage of decent people even more. I have serious concerns about the actions, ethics, and motivations of many involved in this sad situation and an assessment can sort it all out. I suspect Blunt is as much or more a victim than a bad leader; the assessment can answer whether he can lead WSI through a process of renewal.

I hope North Dakota leaders will do their jobs and will put a process in place that will be fair to all concerned—a process interested only in truth, justice, and renewal of WSI. In the process North Dakota can elevate the state’s management thinking, knowledge, and skills to 21st century levels.

In the meantime leaders at WSI, at all levels, should lead and people who care should speak up.

Postscript: On November 9, 2007, North Dakota Governor John Hoeven urged the WSI board to bring in outside consultants of national repute for a comprehensive review of the agency's operations. "It should include any and all issues...The investigation needs to be thorough, it has to be transparent and it has to be inclusive, said Don Canton, Hoeven's chief spokesman.