tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15433982024-02-28T06:09:21.629+00:00InsideWorkOrganising ourselvesAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-30421537517907323792012-11-22T15:40:00.002+00:002012-11-22T15:40:56.120+00:00Communication skill #1 - listening<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It wasn't until well into my career (<i>mea culpa</i>, in this respect I'm a slow learner!) that I realised that 'internal communication' in organisations is far larger (and more complex) than the formal apparatus of intranets, magazines, emails, speeches, videos and events that I'd been focusing my professional attention on. And it's taken me a little bit longer still to come to a better understanding of what I think is probably the most important communication skill of all: listening.<br />
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Maybe I'm wrong about that, though - because I haven't heard much in internal communications arenas about developing the personal human skill of listening.<br />
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There are reams of references to the importance of two-way communication mechanisms, and to impersonal and programmatic manifestations of organisational listening in the form of surveys, polls, focus groups, online social media, and the like. But much of the literature of internal communication and employee engagement seems to treat listening as an institutional imperative and process, not a personal way of relating. And while many managers and executives get sent on speaking and presentation courses, I haven't yet met anyone who's been sent on a 'Listening Training' day.<br />
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(Perhaps I just haven't been listening . . . but if I've missed something, do please let me know about it).<br />
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I suppose one problem may be that we ordinarily take listening for granted: like breathing, it just happens, doesn't it?<br />
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Well, no. I think it's very difficult to listen to someone. It really does involve more than just hearing noise through those two small holes in the side of your head. Indeed, I suspect it may have very little to do with that at all. I think listening well is an act of will - demanding of us a commitment to sustained attention to ourselves as well as to another; a temporary suspension of our own judgments and agendas while we try to view the world through someone else's eyes; and an effort to hold in our minds many possible meanings, feelings, intentions and contexts in 'real time'. I know I find it hugely difficult, and that's after training and practice as a psychotherapist (more slow learning, I'm afraid).<br />
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So what's this got to do with internal communications?<br />
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Well, for just one example - last week I heard Paul Barron, the former CEO of the UK's <a href="http://www.nats.co.uk/" target="_blank">National Air Traffic Service (NATS)</a>, speak <a href="http://www.vmagroup.com/news_and_community/events/view.php?id=8893" target="_blank">at a VMA masterclass</a>. When he took on that job, he faced the difficult challenge of trying to transform a loss-making bureaucratic business, while trying to avoid a politically catastrophic strike by the professional union.<br />
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What interested me most about his success in turning NATS around was the personal time he committed to listening to the employees in the organisation. There seemed to be a wearying number of town halls, dinners and location visits at which he listened to employees across the organisation around the country. He started out in the role with a personal listening and learning phase, and it took him his first 11 weeks to visit all the company's sites to hear what employees had to say.<br />
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Of course he spoke too, and set out his personal 'brand' and goals. And yes, the transformation entailed far more than engaging employees. But it seemed clear from his description that his willingness and ability to listen to his colleagues - however strident, repetitive, mistaken or suspicious they might be - was an essential element of evoking the trust he needed in order to bring about the transformation without massive disruption. (Not to mention that he also learned more about the organisation than other senior team members had learned in a decade cloistered in their offices.)<br />
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I could be wrong. Perhaps it was his self-professed plain speaking, his choice to not wear a tie, or how he spent Sunday mornings that really mattered to his employees (one did ask him about the latter!). But I don't think so. Not from what <i>I heard</i>, anyway. . .Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-10024470900139346342010-12-15T11:04:00.005+00:002010-12-15T14:23:53.325+00:00Recent sightings - links<ul><li><a href="http://bit.ly/eHnwAP">Real men lose their workplace machismo</a><br />This case study of oil rig workers showed how they had found ways to 'undo' the stereotypical demands of their 'manly' identities even in a normally 'macho' work environment. They did this by "having collectivist goals (especially putting safety first); defining competence according to task requirements rather than masculine ideals; and having a learning orientation towards work." Lessons here for the office environment too?</li></ul><ul><li><a href="http://follow.org.au/">Followership - the key to change? </a><br />Leadership is overrated, and the value of followership is under-recognised. This new blog addresses what it means to be a good follower. I especially like the short <a href="http://bit.ly/hfiChM">video clip of the dancing guy</a>, which shows how vital and courageous the 'first follower' is. (Case in point: you'd never catch me doing that...not in a million years...) -- via <a href="http://www.johnniemoore.com/blog">Johnnie Moore</a></li></ul><ul><li><a href="http://bit.ly/eKJxxe">The 99% of internal communications that isn't </a><br />Jan van Veen points to the vast majority of 'internal communication' that has nothing to do with his role as an 'internal communicator' and suggests how IC professionals might frame their roles into five 'playing fields' based on the work of a <a href="http://www.involve.eu/">Dutch consultant</a>. In the comments at the end of his post I've made a connection to some of <a href="http://bit.ly/fRhN6m">Chris Rodgers' writing</a> on the nature and importance of informal conversations in organisations.<br /><br /></li><li><a href="http://bit.ly/g4LT3G">Questions to develop team trust</a><br />In a sense it takes offering trust (taking a risk) to receive trust in a group. Here Dan Oestreich offers six questions for team members to answer that go help to bring the focus of trust in a group to what each individual can offer. He also offers some very useful thoughts and practical exercises about the 'gifts' and 'shadows' in each of our ways of being (see the link in the blog post to his paper).</li></ul><ul><li><a href="http://bit.ly/iinBHz">The limits of 'employee engagement'</a><br />"<em>Giving someone a job, benefits, bonuses and the rest does not entitle you to their every thought, action or emotion</em>." Tony Quinlan rightly challenges "communicators [who] don't seem to realise that there ought to be boundaries" when it comes to trying to communicate or 'engage' employees who choose to ignore them.<br /></li></ul>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-58371484596311765502010-10-13T18:44:00.012+00:002010-10-15T14:27:58.523+00:00Chief Psychoexecutives"Have you ever wondered if you work with a psychopath?"<br /><br />Well, no actually - but the question did catch my attention.<br /><br />It starts off an <span style="font-style: italic;">HR Ringleader</span> <a href="http://bit.ly/dpdtgM">blog article about psychopaths</a>, in which we learn that "there are an estimated 250,000 people walking freely in the US who fall into this category."<br /><br /><strong>"That means that they are with us in the workplace," </strong>is the author's somewhat sensational alarm bell (bold in the original) in an otherwise well-intentioned article. The piece continues on to the less alarming (and not bold) caveat that "most of us will never have to deal with a psychopath", even if HR and management have to deal with some "extreme employee issues."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">HR Ringleader</span> suggests that organisations may have some employees with dodgy 'paralymbic systems' (the bit of the brain believed to go wrong for psychopaths) who manifest one or more of the following:<br /><ul><li>Impulsivity</li><li>Poor behaviour control</li><li>Lack of realistic long-term goals</li><li>Superficial charm and exaggerated sense of self-worth</li><li>Pathological lying</li><li>Not taking responsibility for their actions</li><li>Committing crimes<br /></li></ul> <div>Erm . . . remind you of any chief executives?<br /><br />You know, the ones who are "walking freely" down a corridor near you, and are right now "<span style="font-weight: bold;">with us in the workplace</span>" and yet might one day end up doing their televised 'perp walk' to jail for fraud . . . or collecting their bonuses after destroying shareholder value in deep water. . . or lying about that gray area between love affair and expense account . . . or driving their company to bankruptcy through hubris and 'special purpose entities'?<br /><br />While <span style="font-style: italic;">HR Ringleader</span> is worried about employees "who have characteristics that seem to be uncontrollable" and conjures the "horrors" of serial killers with guns, I can't help wondering if the real horror in many workplaces is the serial executive with options. (No coincidence, perhaps, that 'execution' fits both compulsions?)<br /><br />Fortunately, <span style="font-style: italic;">HR Ringleader</span> has just the answer for dealing with these paralymbically-challenged individuals: "Learn the EAP offerings so that you can steer them in a positive direction."<br /><br />Over to you, human resource ringleaders. Go steer your chief executive to the EAP offering.<br /><br />I'll be right behind you. Really.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-8754380947193366582010-10-12T13:12:00.003+00:002012-11-22T15:43:56.486+00:00Employee engagement - theories X, Y, U & TOver at <span style="font-style: italic;">Strategy + Business</span>, <a href="http://bit.ly/cR8oVQ">Matthew Stewart celebrates the 50th anniversary of Douglas McGregor's Theory X / Theory Y</a> perspective on human nature in the context of managing people at work, which I think bears relevance to the present-day employee engagement fad.<br />
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Stewart suggests that "we're all Theory Y people now" - that we tend to favour employee freedom and self-realisation rather than autocratic command and control (a generalisation that perhaps doesn't apply outside some narrow cultural and geographic boundaries). It has been repackaged, he says, by many of the the big names of management 'wisdom' such as Tom Peters, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, and Charles Handy.<br />
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However, McGregor's theory of human nature has become confused with a theory of human conflict, says Stewart, who provides contrasting Utopian (U) and Tragic (T) theories of the latter to untangle the two kinds of theory. He puts the result, inevitably, into a 4x4 matrix:<br />
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<a href="http://www.strategy-business.com/media/image/00029_ex01v2.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" src="http://www.strategy-business.com/media/image/00029_ex01v2.gif" style="display: block; height: 514px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 468px;" width="182" /></a><br />
He concludes that much of the debate about Theories X & Y has been a confusing one, between Controllers and Freedom Lovers, and has obscured the distinction of Theories U & T:<br />
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"If it requires a more thoughtful approach to management to accept that people are active by nature rather than passive, it requires a still more thoughtful approach to grapple with the fact that they can be active and destructive at the same time. Of the four types of managers in the Human Relations Theory Matrix, it is the constitutionalists who must expend the most mental energy and governance effort."<br />
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What does this mean for employee engagement?<br />
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Taking Stewart's matrix as a provocation for thought and conversation rather than a map of reality, I suppose one question is to consider if your particular flavour of employee engagement corresponds with the theories that your organisation (tacitly) adheres to. If not, does it illuminate any ways in which your engagement efforts are going mysteriously astray?<br />
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Secondly, if your approach to employee engagement sprawls across two or more of the four possibilities conceived by Stewart, perhaps that's either a sign of enlightened postmodern complexity reflecting your organisation - or just a bit of a mess. Does that matter?Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-13836098687621744952010-02-26T09:49:00.004+00:002010-02-26T10:48:11.259+00:00Fun at work - revisiting the carrotI really do like the idea of making dull or costly activities fun - activities that have no apparent immediate or intrinsic reward for the individual performing them (the laundry, tax forms and toenail-clipping are my prime candidates). This is the idea behind <a href="http://www.thefuntheory.com/">The Fun Theory</a>, an environmentally-oriented VW award scheme in Sweden. It's the carrot rather than the stick.<div><br /></div><div>Fun has its limits, of course - ethical, psychological, economic (Making your choice of political candidate fun? Making long surgeries fun for the anaesthetists? Making volunteering for the military fun? hmm...). </div><div><br /></div><div>Having said that, is there something worth considering in taking fun more seriously at work? If you look at what fun means in the Fun Theory context, it represents an experience of some immediate (and quite transient) emotional pleasure based on a kind of competitive gratification (winning a game or a lottery) which engages attention and effort for a short period of time. </div><div><br /></div><div>How could this be applied to otherwise dull jobs (where perhaps the performers will supply their own fun distractions)? I'm not sure one can sustain attention with this kind of fun for very long - but it would be interesting to try applying it in situations where some intermittent or short attention is needed to otherwise boring or ignored tasks (hand-washing in hospitals?). </div><div><br /></div><div>Fun has larger meanings in a work context. There are 'fun' companies with game consoles and foosball tables <i>de rigueur</i>, and those organisations with more conventional sports and social activities, to foster relationships and 'culture'. And there are those who take 'fun' even more seriously, by looking at what fun work might really be about - the intrinsic needs of humans to be productive, creative, involved and recognised. That kind of fun is often harder - less fun? - to allow or enable, but puts other kinds of fun into perspective.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-13791057824233682007-12-23T12:31:00.000+00:002007-12-23T12:58:05.971+00:00Tools of the devil - employee surveysI enjoyed Chris Bailey's rant on <a href="http://baileyworkplay.com/2007/12/11/tools-of-the-devil-employee-surveys/">one of the "idiotic things that organisations do" - employee surveys</a>:<br /><br />"If you really want to know what your employees think about their work, their managers, their colleagues, and most importantly, their relationship to the organization, step out from behind your desk and start asking questions face-to-face. Stop relying on surveys and making ritual sacrifices to the gods of quantitative measurement."<br /><br />I agree. While some surveys may have their place, too often I suspect they end up as a routine and superficial anxiety-management tool for an organisation. Perhaps the anxiety may arise from an inability to conceive of and engage in certain kinds of conversations, or it may arise from need to be seen by peers to use 'best practice'.<br /><br />The sad thing is that talking with people naturally leads to creative solutions, while many survey reports naturally lead to inertia. (And perhaps that's a further kind of anxiety avoided - the fear of the kind of change that makes personal demands on 'leaders', not just on 'employees'.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Technorati</span>: </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/internal%20communications">internal communications</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/employee%20engagement">employee engagement</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/organisation">organisation</a>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-84048235100876851982007-12-21T09:59:00.000+00:002007-12-21T10:41:19.629+00:00Communication - not a 'sending' processCorporate communications as it is practised today seems to rely often on the notion of communication as a conduit process - a sender sends a message to a receiver. This metaphor underlies many practitioners' thinking about their roles, the objectives and measures they devise, and the processes they use to 'reach' their 'audiences'. Indeed, the suggestion that this notion is a metaphor, and not a factual description of reality, would be seen as contentious by many practitioners.<br /><br />From my own metaphoric bias - that communication can be seen as a behavioural coupling - it's helpful to hear that an empirical cognitive scientist such as <a href="http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2007/12/a_faulty_knowle.html">Stephen Pinker has doubts about the validity of the conduit model</a>: "Another misleading conceptual formula is the conduit metaphor, in which to know is to have something and to communicate is to send it in a package." That comes from his latest book, quoted by Shawn at <a href="http://www.anecdote.com.au/">Anecdote</a>.<br /><br />The question of how these metaphors conceal or reveal aspects of our work (or lives) needs a longer conversation, but my view would be that the metaphor we adopt (consciously or not) in part determines the intention and outcomes of our working. In organisational terms, if practitioners explore and adopt a variety of metaphors, that might lead to more flexibility in intention, and more variety in outcomes.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Technorati</span>: </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/internal%20communications">internal communications</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/metaphor">metaphor</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/Pinker">Pinker</a>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1153604677881518842006-07-22T20:31:00.000+00:002006-07-22T21:44:37.946+00:00Meaning and money: why do we work?What motivates us to work, or satisfies us about our job? I've just caught up with two recent posts on this from different internal communications consultants that are worth reading in tandem.<br /><br />In his post, <a href="http://talkingic.typepad.com/foureightys_lee_smith_tal/2006/07/engagement_in_t.html">Lee Smith refers to a new survey</a> by the UK-based Work Foundation on job satisfaction. As he says, <a href="http://www.workfoundation.co.uk/aboutus/media/pressreleases/workersoverwhelminglysatisfiedwiththeirjobs.aspx">the study gives some mixed messages</a>: a majority of workers derive personal fulfilment from their jobs, and regard their work as stimulating and meaningful, while about half also view their work as a means to an end.<br /><br />Meanwhile <a href="http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/davidferrabee/archive/2006/07/20/3781.aspx">David Ferrabee sets off a ripple of comments with his observation</a>: "I like to remind people of something unbelievably simple: people come into work <span style="font-style:italic;">to work</span>." David makes his point in the context of asking whether or not organisations should reward employees for making changes the employer wants.<br /><br />Motivation to work, and the satisfaction we have in our job, may be closely related but distinct issues to untangle elsewhere. Notwithstanding that, I believe we are motivated or satisfied by a mix of factors that change as we mature, or as we encounter different contexts during our lives. Maslow, of course, had one view of this, and there are many others. Over my career, I have certainly felt social status, intellectual stimulation and companionship among my own fluctuating needs. And I know that money has and will always motivate me in some of the work I do. But from experience of voluntary work, I also know that the genuine thanks of another human being for helping them meet their own needs is priceless.<br /><br />Technorati: <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/employees" rel="tag">employees</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/internal communication" rel="tag">internal communication</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/motivation" rel="tag">motivation</a> </span>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1152708449482862772006-07-12T11:17:00.000+00:002006-07-12T12:47:29.536+00:00Storytelling: the particular and the abstractYesterday afternoon I spent a couple of thought- and feeling-provoking hours in a workshop led by organisational consultant Geoff Mead on storytelling, for the Organisational Development Innovation Network. <br /><br />After we told and re-told the variously truthful and fantastic stories of our shoes (by way of introducing ourselves) Geoff engaged us in thinking about the nature of stories and why they are so powerful as an expression and shaping of our identity and thought.<br /><br />One of the things he suggested which caught my attention was the idea that <span style="font-style:italic;">we relate to the particular in a different way than we relate to the abstract</span>. I'm curious about the origins and nature of this difference.<br /><br />Enlarging on this 'different way', Geoff cited the ideas of Hugh Brody, an anthropologist, and Jerome Bruner a psychologist. The former apparently distinguishes needs for the particular and abstract between hunter-gatherer and farming communities, and the latter distinguishes two forms of thought, the narrative and the paradigmatic.<br /><br />I will need to read more about their ideas. Meanwhile, I'm still left wondering about the 'different way'. The most obvious difference to me about my own relating to the particular and abstract is emotional. Stories evoke emotion in me more often or more strongly than abstract discourse does, not least when they are 'untrue' in the form of fiction, fable, myth and so on. They also have a greater tendency to evoke my own fantasy in response - I imagine more than I hear, as I am listening to a story, and my own fantasy extends, embellishes and leads elsewhere.<br /><br />The insight for organising seems to me to be to notice our various preferences for particular and abstract forms of communication, to ask how we are relating to others as we express those preferences, and to notice what the consequences are. I don't believe that storytelling is inherently superior to more abstract conversation - they each have their time and place. And I'm not keen on storytelling being used as a means of convincing people of the greatness of leaders, or the rightness of plans, or the wonderfulness of organisations - that kind of organisational storytelling practice seems to be another kind of sales method.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Technorati: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/storytelling" rel="tag">storytelling</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/narrative" rel="tag">narrative</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/organisational consulting" rel="tag">organisational consulting</a></span>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1150812664140613442006-06-20T13:53:00.000+00:002006-07-13T11:05:13.233+00:00Does size count?In answer to the perennial management question about the best size for a team, the answer from the academic frontline is . . . wait for it . . . 'it depends'.<br /><br />This is an undoubtedly too-flip summary of a more sophisticated <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1501.cfm">discussion by professors at Wharton business school</a>, who suggest that while optimum size can be an important consideration and depends partly on the team's role, it's not the most important feature in putting a team together. The team's tasks and the mix of skills required are likely to be primary.<br /><br />By the way: if your team has more than five people in it... oh-oh!<br /><br />Technorati: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/teams" rel="tag">teams</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/management" rel="tag">management</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/organizational development" rel="tag">organizational development</a>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1150730611899905532006-06-19T14:50:00.000+00:002006-06-19T15:23:31.936+00:00Will dialogue build trust?If lack of trust is an issue in your organisation, would dialogue be a helpful way through it? In this short excerpt from his book on conflict, <a href="http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=5351&t=leadership&wkrss=y">Mark Gerzon makes a case for using dialogue in organisations</a>, and usefully summarises some of what distinguishes dialogue from debate. <br /><br />I can't see that Gerzon provides much evidence in this excerpt for his assertion that dialogue fosters trust (though I'm biased to believe this). And if it isn't obvious, I would add that I think the assumptions and attitudes inherent in dialogue can also represent a frame of mind with which you can approach any conversation: it doesn't have to be a facilitated process for groups as a whole to follow.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Technorati: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/dialogue" rel="tag">dialogue</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/organization" rel="tag">organization</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/trust" rel="tag">trust</a></span>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1150567876526807962006-06-17T17:54:00.000+00:002006-06-19T15:36:09.870+00:00Storytelling - ownership and meaningLast week I went to the international conference of the <a href="http://http://www.iabc.com/">International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)</a> in Vancouver. One of the recurring themes (fads, some might say) running through some of the presentations was that of story telling, or narrative.<br /><br />The most important insight, for me, on this topic was not found at the conference, however. I found it on a card at Vancouver's <a href="http://www.moa.ubc.ca/">Museum of Anthropology</a>, in front of a display of Native American totem poles:<br /><blockquote>"Only those who know and have the right to the stories can tell the meaning of the totem poles."</blockquote> This raises questions in my mind about story telling in an organisational context. Who owns the stories? What totems acknowledge that ownership? Who can tell the meaning of the stories? <br /><br />The idea that different stories might be owned by different groups, that we might create artifacts to remind a community (or organisation) of different stories, and that ownership and meaning are somehow integral to each other, suggest a highly developed social and conceptual framework for narrative that both intrigued and delighted me. I wonder to what extent business communicators' relatively recent enthusiasm for storytelling rises to the sophistication of the communities that carved these poles.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1148895408331702492006-05-29T09:18:00.000+00:002006-05-29T09:36:48.386+00:00Telling stories to elicit training needsAt <a href="http://www.anecdote.com.au/">Anecdote</a> Shawn Callahan suggests a simple but compelling <a href="http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2006/05/a_simple_traini.html">method of eliciting training needs</a> by asking groups of people to share stories of times when they have not had all the skills they might have needed. I can imagine variations on this to include about examples of where a training course helped them perform better, or about skills they already have and value, and which ones they believe they could train others in and which - if any - they could not.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1142507621724365662006-03-16T11:07:00.000+00:002006-03-16T11:16:30.586+00:00Training in organisations is uselessDavid Maister <a href="http://davidmaister.com/blog/37/">writes persuasively</a> about how many organisations fail to understand and make good use of training:<br /><br /><blockquote>I now believe that the overwhelming majority of all business training, by me and by everyone else, is a complete waste of money and time, because only a microscopic fraction of any training is ever actually put into practice and yield the hoped-for benefits.<br /><br />The main reason is that companies keep trying to bring about changes in behavior by training their people in new things, and then sending them back to their operating groups subject to the same measures and management approaches as before. Not surprisingly, little, if any of the training ever gets implemented.<br /><br />What companies don’t seem to understand is that training is a wonderful LAST step in bringing about changed behavior, but a pathetically useless first step.</blockquote><br />The rest of his comments are well worth reading.<br /><br />[via <a href="http://www.anecdote.com.au/">Anecdote</a>]Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1133992136125655482005-12-07T21:23:00.000+00:002005-12-07T21:48:56.160+00:00The language of knowingI'm a near-convert to the view which holds that our language creates the worlds we live in. So when it comes to the language of 'knowledge management', I believe the words we use to talk about it and the way we talk about it determine what we know about knowing.<br /><br />Knowledge managment researcher and consultant <a href="http://www.laurenceprusak.com/">Larry Prusak</a> touches very briefly on this in his <a href="http://www.babsonknowledge.org/2005/12/the_four_names_for_knowledge.htm">comments on four Greek terms for knowledge</a> - episteme, techne, phronesis and metis. While this may seen arcane to some, he implies that in the absence of such a sophisticated knowledge about knowing, some businesses have wasted tens of billions of dollars on 'knowledge systems'.<br /><br />I'm sure he's right, and I also think we could look even further at the way our language in this field presupposes certain assumptions. In particular, talking about the subtle implications and possible illusions of reifying a process of knowing into a substance we call 'knowledge', might be another interesting and useful path.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1133372999013175392005-11-30T19:02:00.000+00:002005-11-30T18:59:39.433+00:00Designing conversations that matterI sometimes think conversations that matter just emerge, as an unexpected intimacy. And I sometimes think that all conversations matter, even if we don't notice that they do. <br /><br />In an organisational context, Chris Corrigan makes a compelling case for <a href="http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/2005/11/conversation-changes-world.html">the need to design conversations that matter</a>, and offers some ways to encourage them. I suspect there are more aspects that are important, but his list is a great place to start.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1133032238390771652005-11-28T21:08:00.000+00:002005-11-28T21:07:36.740+00:00Recent sightingsFrom my wanderings, some things worth a glance:<br /><ul> <li><a href="http://www.diyplanner.com/node/411">Round-robin method for brainstorming</a> using index cards [<span style="font-style: italic;">via </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://communicationnation.blogspot.com/2005/11/group-brainstorming-with-index-cards.html">Communication Nation</a>]</li> <li>What <a href="http://37days.typepad.com/37days/2005/11/surprise_gravit.html">jumping in the air</a> might do for you, or reveal about your colleagues...<br /></li><li>Consultant Dick Grote argues the case for <a href="http://hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=5091&t=organizations">forced rankings in performance management</a><br /></li><br /></ul>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1132352418013911052005-11-18T22:20:00.000+00:002005-11-20T11:20:02.590+00:00On conversation...From Lisa Haneberg via Johnnie Moore, <a href="http://www.johnniemoore.com/blog/archives/001156.php">a lovely quote about conversations that matter:</a><br /><p><blockquote>Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. Dinah Craik, <i>A Life for a Life</i>, 1859</blockquote></p>Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-1132136763345027852005-11-16T10:26:00.000+00:002005-11-16T10:28:23.736+00:00Multitasking and conflictDale Emery suggests <a href="http://www.dhemery.com/cwd/2005/11/multitasking.html">multitasking is a poor way of avoiding conflict</a>, which makes sense to me. I wonder also if multitasking isn't sometimes about a need to feel important and busy - a means of establishing self-worth for oneself or for others, or to ward off boredom or purposelessness? I've worked in a few environments where I have sensed that 'busy-ness' in itself was valued or rewarded, at least by implication.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-783535682002-06-29T16:40:00.000+00:002005-11-16T11:01:51.370+00:00Mi casa, su oficinaFaster internet connections means <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=63&Section=ReportLevel2&amp;amp;Field=Level2ID&ID=496">more telecommuting</a>. That's at least one - possibly unsurprising - workplace-related implication from the Pew Internet Project's report on "<a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=63">The Broadband Difference: How online Americans' behavior changes with high-speed Internet connections at home</a>". And two-thirds of telecommuters say they do more work-related tasks at home since they have gotten broadband. Telecommuters also seem to help out with groups in their local communities a little more. Broadbanders number 24 million people in the US (about a fifth of all internet-connected Americans).Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-782353022002-06-26T19:30:00.000+00:002005-11-16T11:02:35.056+00:00An idea bubbles up through the buildingThe thing that interests me most about the <a href="http://www.guinnessstorehouse.com/">Guinness visitors centre in Dublin</a> is the notion of <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/online/58/marketing.html"> a physical token that both enables the visit and serves as a reminder of it</a>. For the Guinness centre, the token is a plastic 'pebble' that contains a little drop of the black magic itself. Apply that to a corporate work environment: instead of the standard visitors' badge, what physical token might serve - for example - as both a temporary pass and as a tiny memory of the visit? Is there some value in that? One for the brand people to ponder.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-781497022002-06-24T21:51:00.000+00:002005-11-16T11:02:11.313+00:00Organisational network mapping: a cautionary noteSocial network analysis is one way of figuring out who knows what inside an organisation - or at least, who thinks who knows what. But <a href="http://www.skyrme.com/updates/u59_f1.htm">network mapping has its pitfalls</a> inside organisations, as Xenia Stanford argues in this thoughtful piece.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-777137112002-06-13T21:47:00.000+00:002005-11-16T10:58:51.260+00:00Third-generation knowledge managementI'm not sure why my heart sinks when I hear something prefaced with the epithet 'third generation'. Perhaps too often the hype exceeds the innovation. In this instance, though, David Snowden - a leading protagonist in the organic approach to knowledge management - makes a compelling case. Having been one of the founders of the <a href="http://www-1.ibm.com/services/kcm/kcm_ikm.html">Institute for Knowledge Management</a>, he's founded another new IBM-sponsored venture, the <a href="http://www-1.ibm.com/services/cynefin/">Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity</a>. It's described as "global network of members and partners applying complexity theory to organisations by developing a diverse portfolio of pragmatic sensemaking methods and models that can help solve problems for which structured approaches have failed." Anyway, if you want to know what this brave new generation is all about, take the time to read <a href="http://www-1.ibm.com/services/files/Complexactsofknowing_1.pdf">his article describing a sense-making model [pdf]</a> that treats knowledge as both a thing and a process, and embraces established scientific management practices even as it borrows newer approaches from complexity and chaos research. It's exciting stuff, but you'll find it heavy going if you view knowledge as a set of documents and databases, rather than as a socially-mediated phenomenon.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-777115352002-06-13T20:47:00.000+00:002005-11-16T10:59:25.896+00:00It's not the book, it's the borrowerBooks are a likely to be a great way to share knowledge in an organisation. Not for their content - but because of the people who borrow them. I've suggested to our company librarian to provide a space inside library books for borrowers to record their names, if they want (a bit like that little sheet where the due dates are recorded). That way, anyone who borrows a book can see who else may have similar interests - a possible benefit in large companies where knowledge of who knows what, or cares about what, is harder to get to.<br /><br />Meanwhile, I've just found another example of something similar, albeit on a global scale.<a href="http://www.bookcrossing.com/">BookCrossing</a> is a kind of open book club in which people can 'track' and review shared books that they pass on to friends or just leave lying around for others to pick up. The attractive aspect are the reviews, where I can see who has read a book and what other books they've read. (Yes, it's a bit like Amazon without the purchasing element.) I get a sense right away if an individual betokens a productive conversation. You can of course be 'anonymous' in this very public environment -- but imagine taking this kind of approach inside an organisation, where anonymity might be less of an concern.Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1543398.post-775268142002-06-09T10:23:00.000+00:002007-12-21T10:58:24.329+00:00The way we talk at work - DeLilloWhen it comes to language and innovation inside the corporation, in my darker moments I'm convinced <a href="http://www.ksu.edu/english/nelp/delillo/index.html">Don DeLillo</a> has it about right, when his protagonist describes the climb up the greasy pole:<br />"Once out of the mailroom, I began to learn more about fear. As soon as fear begins to ascend, anatomically, from the pit of the stomach to the throat and brain, from fear of violence to the more nameless kind, you come to believe you are part of a horrible experiment. I learned to distrust those superiors who encouraged independent thinking. When you gave it to them, they returned it in the form of terror, for they knew that ideas, only that, could hasten their obsolescence. Management asked for new ideas all the time; memos circulated down the echelons, requesting bold and challenging concepts. But I learned that new ideas could finish you unless you wrapped them in a plastic bag. I learned that most of the secretaries were more intelligent than most of the executives and that the executive secretaries were to be feared more than anyone. I learned what closed doors meant and that friendship was not negotiable currency and how important it was to lie even when there was no need to lie. Words and meanings were at odds. Words did not say what was being said nor even its reverse. I learned to speak a new language and soon mastered the special elements of that tongue." [From his novel <i><a href="http://perival.com/delillo/americana.html">Americana</a></i>]Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10039095138082095039noreply@blogger.com0