Learn From the Lifers, Don’t Repeat Their Mistakes

Episode #373 Learn From the Lifers, Don’t Repeat Their Mistakes

LIFERS REALLY DON’T LIKE CHANGE

Every organisation has them: long-standing employees who’ve built their reputation on a deep knowledge of the business. They’ve also built a power base using this knowledge that they’re reluctant to surrender… and they won’t do so without a fight.

If you are brought into an organisation with a mandate for change, that’s exactly what you have to do. Sometimes, the lifers aren’t inclined to help you with that.

I’ve done a number of podcast episodes over the years on change resistance, which are worth going back to have a listen to. Just remember:

• The people who built the house can’t renovate it;
• No Noise = No Change; and
• You WILL have to shoot a hostage (metaphorically speaking, of course).

You can even work out how to read between the lines, and work out whether the CEO is genuinely committed to culture change.

In this newsletter, I examine specifically how to handle long-tenured employees (“lifers”), whose driving instinct is to resist any change, and to bring down the leader who’s attempting to implement it.

I start by looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly of long-tenured staff; I explore the psychology of why they resist any change so ferociously; and I give you five tips for integrating lifers into a newer, healthier culture.

FIRST, LET’S TALK AI…

Before I get into today’s topic, I just want to reaffirm our commitment to not using AI for our podcast.

It has become increasingly obvious to me over the last few months that there’s a huge amount of AI-generated drivel infecting the business landscape.

Blogs, LinkedIn posts, and even books now reek with the pungent odour of AI and, make no mistake, this inevitably devalues the whole leadership space. Good writing that might stand on its own merits is being crowded out by an ever-increasing volume of blancmange tripe, courtesy of ChatGPT.

Even some of the most heartfelt stories of personal adversity being shared on LinkedIn have the unmistakable hallmarks of AI-generated prose.

After producing last week’s episode on AI and the consulting industry, I really got to thinking more deeply about where this is all heading. We’ve crossed a line with AI: now, companies that get paid for their advice are substituting AI-generated fluff in place of deep analysis.

Houston, we have a problem…

This is a slippery slope, and it’s one we don’t intend to step anywhere near. Em and I have an absolute commitment to keeping the bullsh!t out of No Bullsh!t Leadership. Of course, we use AI in our business as a productivity tool – we’d be crazy not to — but there’s no way we’d ever let it bleed into our podcast.

Just to give you some idea of how serious we are about this, every week I spend somewhere between 10 and 12 hours producing the 20-minute episode that drops on a Wednesday; that’s research, scripting, and recording the episode, and then producing this newsletter.

Once I’ve done that, the team gets everything ready to go to production. 

This effort doesn’t even include the weekly Moments episodes that we introduced in 2023, which normally takes me another couple of hours to do on top of the main podcast episodes.

We have been doing this religiously for seven years. We haven’t missed a week, even when I was in hospital in 2019 with three broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a collapsed lung. Em found a way to get an episode out.

Every week we release a new episode with original content, driven from my practical experience of leadership and business. I’m sure you can tell this is authentic by the way I script and deliver the subject matter… and, let’s face it, some of my more colourful expressions wouldn’t be found anywhere near a large language model.

This is what’s earned the podcast such a huge global following, and we have no intention of messing with that.

I want to make our commitment to quality really clear. There are no shortcuts to becoming a No Bullsh!t Leader

So, I’ll continue to use ChatGPT to tell me how to cook the perfect beef tenderloin, or to select the right bottle of red in a restaurant. But when it comes to the podcast, we eat our own dog food.

This is an AI-free zone.

LIFERS – THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

Okay, back to today’s topic.

There are benefits and drawbacks to having long-tenure employees in your team, and I want to start by going through the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Let’s start with the good.

The first good thing is that lifers tend to know some parts of the business really well. For example, they might understand the supply chain; they might understand the technical evolution of the products they sell; they might understand the distribution network really well.

All of these things can be highly valuable.

The second benefit is their institutional knowledge and corporate memory. They’ve been with the company through thick and thin. They’ve seen mistakes being made, and being fixed; they’ve likely seen multiple management teams come through, each with a different approach; and they know where the bodies are buried (which can often come in pretty handy).

The third benefit is their informal networks. They’ve worked out how to get sh!t done, they know who to talk to about every issue that arises. And often, these informal networks extend beyond the reach of the organisation to external stakeholders as well.

All of this can bring value, but let’s talk about the bad.

The first problem is change resistance. Have you ever heard one of the lifers say, “Oh, yeah, we tried that once, but it didn’t work“? This is a really common problem, and it stops you from moving forward.

There will never be a shortage of reasons why you can’t do something.

The second problem is key person risk. Lots of your lifers spent a huge amount of time and energy protecting their patch; they have deep knowledge that they’re not inclined to share, because they think it makes them indispensable.

They resist capturing any of their unique knowledge in processes or systems because that would democratise that expertise. It would make it available to everyone, thereby reducing their own value.

And the third problem is their historical power base. In founder-led businesses, this can be particularly tricky, because it’s likely that the lifers have a very strong relationship with the business owner.

As the company grows and the founder wants to bring in competent management underneath to manage the growing business, the lifers are sometimes displaced. This causes all sorts of problems, and they’re not afraid to use the back door to go around management and leverage their relationship with the owner.

Lifers often seek founder support to resist the change, and convince them to use the power of veto to stop management from making the very improvements that they were brought in to make.

This happens in non-founder-led companies as well, but it’s just a little harder to spot.

And then, there’s the ugly.

One of the most common traits of your lifers is they’re driven to protect the status quo; they’ll come up with all sorts of reasons why you can’t make the changes you want to make… and the tricky thing is that some of those reasons are actually valid, so you have to be astute enough to sort out the real issues from the red herrings.

You should expect a concerted campaign of disinformation to be mounted, which is designed to dissuade you from changing anything.

Another common response from long-tenured staff is white-anting. They’ll try to undermine you personally, and they’ll try to discredit your change agenda. I’ve seen people come up with some pretty outrageous stuff to try to stop me when I’ve been asked to bring change into a company.

Personal attacks and ludicrous conspiracy theories aren’t below a lifer who’s committed to protecting their own power base.

And the final “ugly” is holding you to ransom; it’s not unusual for one of your lifers to be an opinion leader whom everyone in the organisation listens to and trusts.

Over the years, they’ve managed to create a mystique around what they do; they’ve convinced everyone that they have unique knowledge that no one else could possibly acquire. Occasionally, I’ve seen lifers refuse to share their knowledge when asked to, because they think withholding this knowledge will guarantee their continued employment.

They’re the first ones I sack.

WHY IS CHANGE SO UNWELCOME?

Apart from the fact that it’s human nature to resist change, there are three main reasons why your lifers are not going to want to do things differently.

1. The erosion of their power base.

People with very specific and unique knowledge often find that they’re valued highly by their company; this has been reinforced over the years with performance ratings, pay rises, and promotions.

They’re typically not leaders. Most often, they’re content experts whom everyone believes have irreplaceable knowledge.

So, if your power base has been built on knowledge, what are you incentivised to protect? Preserving the power base ensures your ongoing employment, your generous remuneration, and your social status.

2. Lifers are often just convinced they’re right.

They typically flourish in a knowledge-based organisation and, on top of that, they’re typically insulated from competitive forces.

If knowledge is at the center of your corporate values, then that’s where your focus will be.

There’s a big difference between a knowing organisation and a learning organisation, and in terms of the way the culture feels, they are totally different.

Knowing organisations tend to be risk-averse, conforming, and passive/defensive; they’re most often focused on compliance and procedures, not on innovation and growth; they are protectionist cultures that try to avoid any dissent or deviation from the conventional wisdom.

No one questions the experts, which is how these lifers come to see themselves. Over time, people who are in these positions of power just believe they’re right.

3. Tenure illusion.

Because of the value placed on knowledge, it’s assumed that knowledge increases over time… it’s also assumed that the value of that knowledge increases over time.

That’s how length of tenure becomes a proxy for knowledge and capability, but it’s not necessarily the case. There is a massive difference between 20 years’ experience, and 1 year’s experience, 20 times over.

But people lean on the fact that they have long tenures in all sorts of interesting ways: they may dress it up as loyalty, playing that card as if it’s irrefutable evidence that they’re committed to the company; or they may just become increasingly protective of the knowledge they’ve managed to acquire… the more complexity they can build around their knowledge, the better.

Whichever way you look at it, long-standing employees have a vested interest in the status quo, and the only way for you to move forward is to break that link because when a culture becomes insular and protective, performance collapses.

And that’s precisely why they bring in leaders like you from the outside to make change.

FIVE TIPS FOR INTEGRATING YOUR LIFERS

Here are my five tips for integrating long-tenured staff into a new performance-focused culture. And, let’s face it, if the old culture was focused on performance, we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place.

1. Listen and absorb.

It’s important to realise that, for all the drawbacks, long-term employees have a lot of potential value that can be harnessed. They understand the business profoundly; they know where the landmines are; but often, they don’t view it through the right lens – which is why you are there!

So listen to them carefully, and try to root out the value in what they know. Often, it can stop you from making rookie errors while you rush to shift the culture.

2. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Leading on from the first point, it’s really important that you try to preserve the good bits of the culture: try to respect the history of the organisation, and those who helped to build it.

What I learned in my career when leading teams into a new culture is that your success depends almost entirely on how well you can blend the old with the new.

Look for opportunities to integrate the knowledge of the lifers, as opposed to discarding it or ignoring it. As long as you have a focus on value above all else, you’ll be able to find many ways to apply the wisdom of those who’ve gone before you.

3. Explain clearly why you can’t just stay where you are.

This is change management 101. There has to be a compelling reason to change.

If you want someone to give up their power base, their status, their job security, their professional reputation, or their sense of self-worth? Well, you’d better have a pretty compelling reason why they should.

What’s in it for them?

Why should they want to do things differently?

Their whole belief system is predicated on their experience of the last 10, 20, 30 years, and that’s why it’s critical to create a burning platform that they realise they can’t stay on forever.

If you don’t do this, they’ll resist you, albeit covertly, for as long as they’re on the team.

4. Change the language.

Language is built up around the culture to keep people aligned with expectations. In companies that place a premium on tenure, the language centres around experience, knowledge, seniority, effort, hard work, and compliance.

These things are incredibly poor proxies for value, so that language has to effectively be replaced.

The new language has to describe and support the cultural focus that you want: value, accountability, performance, innovation, excellence, and growth. These words have to be part of your everyday language until such time as people begin to understand what they mean, and how they’re different from what they’ve always known.

5. You have to make it clear that not changing is not an option.

One of the things about lifers is that over time, they become emboldened. They feel indispensable, even  untouchable, as if all their knowledge and experience in the company is going to keep them safe from any external shocks.

And because they’ve seen management teams come and go, many of which weren’t truly committed to change, they learned that they can outlast them.

When I first took the reins at CS Energy, a worker at one of our power stations said to me, right to my face: “Mate, you are the sixth CEO I’ve seen. I was here before you came, and I’ll be here long after you’re gone.”

And you know what? He was right.

Just imagine how confident and secure he must have felt to say that to me directly. If you let this happen, you’re going to lose the change battle. The lifers need to know that change isn’t optional; they need to know that you are going to make a difference to the company.

If anyone doesn’t want to get on board, it’s completely their choice… but if that’s the choice they make, then they can’t be there. It’s that simple.

And sometimes, unfortunately, you are going to have to make that decision for them.

IF YOU COMMIT TO CHANGE, THEY MAY JUST FOLLOW

Wherever you have long-standing employees, there will be a culture of change resistance. As a leader, you need to decide whether or not that’s okay.

It’s completely up to you, but just know that if you don’t take an uncompromising position on the need for the lifers to get on board with the change agenda, the whole agenda will fail.

Lifers already have a massive armoury that they’ve built up over the decades to repel any change, and if you aren’t at least equally committed, they’re going to chew you up and spit you out.