Willa Seldon at Tides Center Case Analysis

Willa Seldon at Tides Center Case Analysis

Jennifer Pratt

Cultural Organizations in Transition

AADM 765-001

Summer 2009

August2, 2009

In 2002 and 2003, after 6 years of both fiscal and programmatic growth, the Tides Center began to suffer a sharp decline in both the number of projects they were receiving each year and their annual revenue. During this time the Executive Director also announced his resignation leaving the organization without leadership, and massive layoffs created both low morale and greater strain on the remaining staff. However, it was also at this time that the W.K. Kellogg Foundation decided to give a $1 million seed grant to a fiscal sponsorship organization in order to study if shared service models could be developed and utilized to greater extent. As the largest and most prominent fiscal sponsor, the Tides Center was chosen to receive the seed grant with the stipulation that if the feasibility study were successful, they would receive additional grant money to develop these best practices for the sector. This meant that the Tides Center needed to design a scalable business model that could be well utilized by a diverse customer base. The Kellogg Foundation recommended and offered to pay for strategic consultants to help, but the decision was made to hold off on hiring them until the Tides Center had a new Executive Director.

In September 2003, after a six-month search process, Willa Seldon accepted the position of Executive Director. Seldon’s background was in the for-profit sector and when she joined the Tides Center some were nervous this would affect the organization’s commitment to its mission. Seldon started making cultural changes quickly, conducting staff interviews, creating inter-organizational review teams and modifying organizational terminology. She hired outside consultants to conduct a market and strategic analysis. Seldon also tasked the Director of Human Relations to create a new employee review process, one that would include a 360-degree review form that not only evaluated against goals, but also evaluated the employee by their colleagues. In spring 2004 both the inter-organizational teams and the outside consultants concluded their studies and presented their findings. The next piece of the process would be to begin implementing a new method of employee review. However, on this issue there was disagreement – while Seldon felt the 360-degree aspect was vital to furthering the organization’s development, several members of the Senior Management Team did not share this view. In April 2004 Seldon had to make a choice – she needed to decide whether to implement the new 360-degree performance management review for all employees at the Tides Center or forgo the 360-degree component all together and implement a more basic review process.

Neither option was obviously right or wrong, but a lot was at stake. The Tides Center needed to create a sustainable, scalable model in order to secure the additional funding from the Kellogg Foundation. Seldon believed that a key part of this was raising staff accountability and performance standards. And she felt the 360-degree aspect was a big part of making that happen. In making this decision, Seldon needed to consider a number of factors. Seldon felt it was paramount to the Tides Center to become a more customer-centric organization. To do this she believed staff needed to have a better understanding of the job they were doing as well as how to improve. But staff also needed to feel united and positive. Recent layoffs and salary freezes had been detrimental to the staff’s spirits. Though some of her tactics had begun to unite the staff, there was still more room for improvement. Seldon needed to consider how this decision would affect staff morale and then determine how an increase, or decrease, in morale would affect the Tides Center staff’s investment in, and ability to contribute to, the more customer-centric approachshe was attempting to create.

One could hypothesize that significant change in an organization will inevitably affect staff morale, and in order to have the desired effect even a good idea must be implemented at the right time, otherwise it will be counterproductive. When Seldon joined the Tides Center she began making changes almost immediately. And while most staff recognized that changes were necessary, her approach was nonetheless unnerving to many. The level of anxiety at the Tides Center was high before Seldon arrived and her leadership style seemed to just fan the flames. People were leaving their interviews with her in tears because they were so intimidated. Especially upsetting to staff was her executive decision to begin calling the Tide Center’s projects “customers” instead.

Seldon explained her decision as a way of clearing up any confusion as to how the projects should be treated, “People know what a ‘customer’ is and how they should be treated; nobody knows what a ‘project’ is and how it should be treated.”[1] However, during Seldon’s interviews with the staff, many people raised grievances about this new word choice. Nonetheless Seldon pressed ahead with the change in terminology. The 360-degree review process was another example of Seldon pushing an unpopular idea forward. In fairness to Seldon she was hired to change things at the Tides Center and was doing a good job of creating opportunities for that change. But as the Executive Director, Seldon needed to understand the balance of leadership. She needed to not just listen to the staff, but also to integrate what they were telling her into her vision. In some cases, people had not had performance reviews for several years. To suddenly ask them to review their co-workers would likely leave most of them feeling unprepared for such a task. Additionally they would not necessarily feel confident that others would be able to effectively review them.

The first iteration of the 360-degree review process was tested at the February 2004 M-Team Meeting and was unanimously considered unsuccessful. There was a lot of confusion. Seldon herself tabled it because, as she explained, “I wanted it to be well executed and rewarding to the staff; implementing it in its inchoate form was asking for disaster and anxiety.”[2] Yet this would be the same result were Seldon to implement it two months later. They were in fact in a weaker position because the Director of Human Resources, who had developed the system, resigned in February of 2004. No one argued that establishing a comprehensive performance management system with mutually developed goals and mid and year-end reviews was necessary for the Tides Center. But the 360-degree aspect would prove too much for an overworked, anxious staff already adjusting to enormous institutional change. Linda Parker-Pennington, the interim Director of Human Resources, did not feel it should be implemented, explaining, “the 360-degree component – where employees rate each other’s performances – was, I felt, too sophisticated for Tides at that juncture.” She added another reason the review concerned her was that “even if people stepped up and improved, we couldn’t necessarily pay them for it. Beyond the potential anxiety it could cause, I believed it could generate frustration and even animosity.”[3]

Every evaluation, including those done internally by Seldon herself and those conducted by the outside consultants, found that the Tides Center staff was highly committed to their work and the mission of the organization. Additionally, Seldon had hired several senior managers, who she trusted and with whom she had had past professional relationships, since she assumed the Executive Directorship. The majority of the Tides Center’s senior management, including the interim Director of Human Resources, reacted negatively to the 360-degree element. If, as all the evidence suggests, Seldon already had the right people on the bus, she needed to listen to their concerns and opinions and allow for the possibility of adjusting her plans accordingly at least for the present time.

The biggest downside of not implementing the 360-degree element would be that Seldon would have to compromise on one of the points she believed was most important to fully change the culture and process of the Tides Center and make it a sustainable, scalable model. Parker-Pennington explained, “Willa was convinced the 360-degree was the right thing to do because she believed it would improve employee performance and, in turn, customer service.”[4] However, she did not need to table the 360-degree aspect of the review forever. This element could be added at a later date when implementing it would not be as anxiety inducing to the staff or arduous to administer. The strongest evidence against tabling the 360-degree aspect was Seldon’s belief that it was the right thing to do, that it would improve employee performance and as a result improve customer service. This belief came from previous successes Seldon had had with this element in other for-profit organizations with which she had worked.

If implemented, each staff member would receive “a 360-degree evaluation from peers, managers, and as appropriate, subordinates and sometimes customers. Goal-setting and multi-rater feedback elements were expected to positively impact overall customer relations and help Tides to better focus on the critical behaviors required to meet the many challenges of its projects.”[5] One staff member called the new review process, “a real cultural change and a way to take development seriously, to bootstrap the organization in terms of performance.”[6]

While these changes would certainly be beneficial to the organization, the recommendation to table the 360-degree element remains, because at that time, the potential benefits to including that element were outweighed by the potential costs. And a comprehensive performance management system with mutually developed goals and mid and year-end reviews would still begin. It would just not include the element most likely to confuse and upset a staff already immersed in change. Waiting to add the 360-degree element at a later date would be the choice most likely to accomplish the intended goals without negatively impacting the overall process.

1

[1]Linda A. Hill and Emily A. Stecker, Willa Seldon at Tides Center (A) (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2006) 10.

[2]Hill and Stecker 16.

[3]Hill and Stecker 21.

[4]Hill and Stecker 21.

[5]Hill and Stecker 20.

[6]Hill and Stecker 21.