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Behavioral Contracts a.k.a. Boundaries & Guidelines
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Implementing Contract Language
Joint Commitment &
Sustainment through Guidelines
The need.
A 2006 study by Michael
Schuster at the Syracuse
University revealed the top 4 reasons why union-management partnerships continue
to fail implementing successful change:
1.
Conflicting legal
interests of both parties.
2.
Joint decisions are
forced into local plants.
3.
Nobody taking
responsibility.
4.
Internal union
politics.
And yet, unions
and management continue to see below average results out of the
package they negotiated.
What typically results is a group of
employees discovering loopholes in the vague, legalistic contract
language. Some start behaving in ways that the union and management do
not like. The joint leadership team then decides to create new rules.
The employees cry fowl and say that the joint leaders are just making
up self serving rules as they go. The employees ultimately reject the
change because of their disillusionment.
Labor relations departments, because
of fractured relationships with their union counterparts, retreated
into a policing mentality.
 Something
different needs to happen. Joint
guidelines help align labor relations personnel and union
representatives. Joint guidelines provide commitment and sustainment
in implementing contract language. It is the missing ingredient in
contract language implementation.
What is the
Boundaries & Guidelines Process?
The mission of contract language is
to introduce change, not implement change. Because of this, contract
language is written at a high level. Given that, we facilitate a joint
agreement about exactly how to make the contract language work down in
the trenches. We then co-create a joint implementation plan. The
guidelines document includes almost every possible loophole or problem
that people know will happen with almost any change. A joint
leadership group then agrees on language that lets supervisors and
committeeperson alike to work out problems in a fair way for both
sides. The guidelines package contains an escalation process for
unforeseeable problems which aides in sustaining joint working
relationships.
What are the
results?
The Boundaries
and Guidelines process:
- Creates
commitment to the joint program
- Sustains
commitment to the change from the workforce
- Sets the
conditions for achieving the negotiated results.
Who are Fenwick
Koller Associates?
Rick Fenwick (rick@fenwickkoller.com),
PhD, pioneered this approach over the last 10 years. He built the
approach on his 30 years of experience as a represented worker and UAW
member. Ron Koller (ron@fenwickkoller.com) has worked with Chrysler
for 10 years and trained over 4,000 executives/employees.
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