Introduction
I have been arguing that we need to re-imagine ERGs for some time and reading Make Work Fair and Humanocracy confirmed to me that there is both a need and an opportunity to re-invent the ERG.
My sense of what we might do has been stimulated by Humanocracy. Its subtitle is Creating organizations as amazing as the people inside them. The essence of the book is that bureaucracies are not organizations that optimize the potential of the staff, and that other forms organization are better.
ERGs are micro-organizations that are also vulnerable to bureaucratic sclerosis.
Here I want to explore some ideas that might free up ERGs to be more effective.
What is an ERG?
There are 3 words here – Employee, Resource and Group. Some call these Staff Networks, but I will stick with ERG.
Employee needs no deeper exploration. The people we are thinking about are employed by the organization.
Resource leads us to ask what that is. What is the resource that is being tapped – or exploited. Here I don’t use ‘exploited’ in any negative sense – though some may beg to differ.
Group leads us to ask about the nature of the group – how it is formulated and structured and operates.
The ERGs with which I am familiar operate like a club or a committee. There’s a traditional leadership structure with office holders and a membership. The most common approach to selecting office holders is via elections.
ERGs are created to address problems. (More about that later). These problems may arise because of the bureaucratic character of the organization. This poses the question as to whether the ideal way to tackle such problems is via a bureaucratic ERG.
Contemporary organizations increasingly rely on teams with a light touch leadership. This is especially the case when team members may be more expert in some aspect of the organization’s operations than those in management roles. Hence there is now a greater emphasis on leadership as a skillset.
Humanocracy also observes that bureaucracies generate hierarchies which overtax the individuals in senior roles relative to the workplace demands – more complex performance challenges and less time to respond.
As well as core business demands, there has been a massive increase in demands to address staff rights as reflected in the DEI related concerns as well as universal concerns for staff welfare, health and safety. These greatly increase the pressure placed on middle-management – with the result that efforts at reform often stall.
So, if the problems that ERGs are expected to participate in addressing are in part generated by bureaucratic structures, freeing up the ERGs to deliver optimal effort makes a lot of sense.
What might this look like in the real world?
Clarification of an ERG’s purpose.
ERGs don’t hold responsibility for solving the problem they are created to address. But they have an implicit responsibility to their members to drive resolution of those issues. For example, a disability ERG isn’t responsible for ensuring workplaces are accessible. But they are accountable to their members on the matter of the organization’s progress toward that goal.
It’s one thing for an ERG to have a sense of mission and quite another for there to be a clear understanding of what the problem to be solved is. Maybe ensuring the workplace is accessible is part of the problem, but it certainly can’t be just that.
The question as to why this is a problem the organization itself can’t fix must also be larger part of that problem. If the people with the authority, power, money and means can’t make a workplace accessible – why is that? How can an ERG contribute to addressing that issue?
In medicine it is well known that what ails the patient must be determined as accurately as possible before the remedy is applied. The same logic applies in machine maintenance and other areas of skilled endeavor. Human behavioural services are notoriously far more complex than machines but are often far less well understood than medical services.
We guess about the causes of behaviors and frequently misdiagnose. We often assign blame to individuals who are powerless to act as we desire. The remedies we apply thus have little remedial impact and often exacerbate the problem. For example, anti-bias training is shown to (a) be ineffectual and (b) sometimes make the ‘trainees’ even more biased.
This is an important observation because ERGs are in the human services business. Hence, they are vulnerable to misdiagnosing their own mission and misapplying remedies.
The organizations which sanction ERGs are also in the human services business – as well as other kinds of business. Human Resources is acknowledged as part of an organization’s core business – hence HR departments are staffed by paid skilled workers.
But the relationship between the organization and its ERGs in relation to a shared human service concern is not seen as part of core business. This is even though the organization is technically responsible for solving the problem – and has a duty to do so. And because it’s not seen as part of core business it’s okay to have volunteer and amateur ERGs be part of the ‘solution’.
Often, however, HR also hasn’t done a good job of defining the problem – mostly because it is a relatively novel problem and there is no expertise in this kind of identification and analysis.
Accessibility is a handy example because it raises a host of questions about duty or responsibility and commitment to action. There are often tensions between the demand for action and the ability or willingness to act. This poses the question – why it is a problem that requires any intervention at all.
The answer to these questions can be found in organizational behaviour and culture. We can pick any area of traditional DEI interest, and the answers will also converge on organizational behaviour and culture. The advantage of thinking fairness instead of DEI is that the answer is still the same, but the question is less complicated, less political.
In Humanocracy we see a similar stripping away of complexity in framing the critical question to get to a clearer, but still complex answer. Here the traditional bureaucratic organizational structure isn’t ideally suited to deal with contemporary needs – so alternative organizational models are employed. They are often thought to be innovations. But they are not – they are just more effective behaviors in achieving the intended outcomes – and applied to an organizational context.
This matters for ERGs for several reasons:
- They are often formed to address pain points for their members – so there is an imperative to get results.
- They are run by volunteers who already have a full-time job and are often time poor.
- Changing behaviour in organizations is so difficult professionals are frequently engaged to make it happen- and even so the success rate is still low. Hence, is it fair to expect time poor amateur volunteers to do a great job?
The question we must ask is whether the ERG as currently conceived can ever be up to the job of being an effective change agent.
So, forget about ERGs?
No. That won’t help at all. In re-inventing ERGs, the role of the organization must also be re-imagined. ERGs are not separate from their organization, but an expression of it.
They are an expression of a shared healing impulse. They are part of the remedy, but they can’t be effectively employed if the diagnosis is off the mark, or if the rest of the remedy is not also being applied.
In Make Work Fair Bohnet and Chilazi observe that DEI needs a rethink because of the adverse political climate, but what they don’t make fully clear is that what they recommend is the fruit of contemporary research. Humanocracy is likewise research driven. Contemporary scientific data (psychology and organizational behaviour fields) tell us that while our social instincts toward fairness and inclusion are on the money, our ways of doing things must be far more effective.
ERGs re-imagined are potentially an outstanding way to positively influence organizational behaviour in favour of staff – which is, after all, what ERGs have always been about – albeit in a less clear way than we might now be able to see.
Redefining how ERGs function.
ERGs happen when staff come together to respond to a need to address a problem (maybe many). The normal thing has been to organize in traditional ways. However contemporary work environments don’t favour traditional thinking and behaving any more. Placing demands on a small hierarchical leadership team doesn’t work if they don’t have the time to devote to the tasks at hand, or the opportunity to learn to be more effective.
An alternative is a leadership peer-to-peer group of 12-15 members who choose how to organize to meet the challenges they identify. Some of the benefits are:
- You can get is a mixture of skills and experience blended with enthusiasm to make stuff happen.
- The group can include allies and champions to ensure the skills/experience mix meets needs. Because it’s a peer-to-peer group difference in ranks or grades don’t apply.
- Peer-to-peer groups don’t do freeloading. Instead, they have a high sense of ownership and mutual accountability.
- A leadership group of this type has potential to form in novel ways – including splitting into sub-groups in a large organization and then forming a coalition. They get to choose how to organize.
- A leadership group of this kind can model high quality team behaviour and hence be an outstanding learning environment in effective teamwork and leadership.
- If the membership reflects the organizational hierarchy and has manager and executive members, it can also be a development ground for coaching and mentoring.
- In addition, with the right mix of skills and experience group members will enhance critical skill development in analytical and strategic thought, planning and problem solving.
- Finally, peer-to-peer groups communicate better, and build more effective relationships with other groups. Their internal cohesion enables more mature thinking, and more nuanced behaviour.
This approach can be win-win-win. The organization solves its problem. ERG members have their concerns addressed. All parties involved grow their skills and are recognised for the extra work put in.
Creating such an environment not only increases the chances of creating a more effective ERG it also creates a professional development opportunity for team members. The organization gets a return on its investment and leadership team member also can get a return on their investment of time and effort.
I know from direct experience that this approach can seem risky. The stages of group development can get passionate – and may need gentle guidance. When I created the 15-member Guidance and Action Team (GAT) it took 12 months to craft a passionate and dedicated team as we worked through the stages of group formation. The payoff was worth the risk. The Disability ERG that I lead was very effective and influential.
Another reason to keep ERGs and enhance their effectiveness
Large organizations (300+) not only create cultures but manifest the 20:60:20 rule. This is an expression of the normal curve/distribution and asserts that 20% of staff will actively support, 60% will be passively supportive and 20% will be obstructive on any given matter.
It’s a general rule but the principle seems universally applicable. Personally, I find a 10-80-10 rule more useful. Essentially the normal curve is the rule, but how we employ it is up to us. The essential takeaway seems to be that in any given population [over a certain number] there will be a portion that is polarized in either positive or adverse ways. So, to put this into context, in an organization of 10,000 people you could reliably assume you will have 1,000 who are very enthusiastic about X and 1,000 who are very negative about X. But, here’s the thing, the middle 80%, can be broken down in the same way – so there’s the foundation of a way of thinking about how to go about changing behaviour in such an organization in a strategic way.
If you think that 60% or 80% of staff are persuadable in varying degrees toward supporting a cause you can plan better. It also means that you have to be realistic that 20% or 10% of a given workforce will not be persuadable and may even be actively hostile or quietly obstructive. The point being that this isn’t random, it is reliably predictable. Depending on how pessimistic/realistic you are you can calculate the challenge ahead.
Hence, back to the 20-60-20 rule, that resistant 20% might be anywhere in a bureaucracy, including in key authority roles. In fact, there is good reason to think that authority roles will have more of that adverse 20% than roles with less formal power. The upshot is that ERGs can have a more critical role in influencing workplace culture than might be generally believed.
There’s a critical role to be played by executive leaders in shaping organizational culture but that isn’t sufficient by itself. ERGs whose membership is drawn from the 20% active and positive responders working with the positive 20%ers in key formal roles can shape organizational culture powerfully. The negative 20% will eventually change in order to conform – or they will stand out and leave or be removed.
ERGs can not only key influencers of organizational culture, they can also be critical collaborators with other business areas on informing decision-making and feeding back on how the changes intended to address member concerns are working out.
ERGs can be essential partners for driving desired behavioural change. This idea of partnership is central to the potential efficacy.
An accountability contract
Any ERG must be bound by a code of conduct and terms of reference to ensure its conduct remains accountable. Freeing up how we think about ERGs doesn’t mean easing off on accountability.
But this plays both ways. What is often missing, from the ERG perspective, is a corresponding actionable commitment to accountability from the organization. This is an immensely complex subject, and I am drafting a separate blog post on the theme. Here I want only to flag the necessity of it being recognised as a mutual and balanced expectation.
The bottom line is that ERGs must negotiate an accountability contract with their organization, and this should include a resolution mechanism for when the need arises. This seems to be absent from the thinking of most ERGs I have encountered.
Resourcing and recognition
By seeing ERGs as part of an organization’s core business several things can change:
- ERGs can be resourced commensurate with the shared understanding of their role and value. This is something that must negotiated in a spirit of mutual understanding and commitment to shared goals.
- The professional skills need to run an effective ERG can be recognised formally and membership of an ERG leadership acknowledged as a high-status position that has a meaningful place on an individual’s CV.
Conclusion
ERGs must evolve along with thinking about DEI. They have a high potential to act as significant highly effective behavioural change agents supporting the work done by organizations to meet their obligations and aspirations concerning fairness and employee wellbeing.
There is an abundance of research that is changing how we understand the challenges facing, and opportunities open to, organizations and their staff. This research must be employed to give access to updated insights into individual and organizational behaviour.
This research also converges upon a crucial and inescapable observation. The future of organizations and the wellbeing of those who work within them will depend upon the willingness of influential actors to engage in intentional personal growth.
There is virtually no source of commentary on contemporary organizations that does not implicitly or explicitly convey the message that there is a critical need for greater psychological maturity and emotional intelligence. Our capacity for behavioural change remains resistant to efforts which are still employing last century beliefs and methods.
The evolution of ERGs into effective behavioural change agents is a theme I will return to regularly in the coming months. It isn’t easy or simple, and I am continuing to research and refine my arguments.
Resources for further exploration
There isn’t any specific research into ERGs. I reached out to Iris Bohnet who outlined methodological challenges for formal research – and there’s probably not a strong motive to do that research given the general agreement that ERGs aren’t effective in line with a lot of other DEI activity. With this in mind, I have cast a wider net to tap onto insights generated by contemporary research. The following resources have an organizational focus and have a consistent message.
- Make Work Fair [Fairness is a universal value]
- Humanocracy [Organizations should foster human potential]
- Tribal Leadership [On understanding a staff member’s stages of self-expression and awareness]
- Google themes like peer-to-peer groups – and anything else you are curious about.
- Podcasts – there is a range of useful podcasts that support the overall theme. I particularly like Your Brain at Work and HBR IdeaCast.