Mass Bay ODLG

Change Management in this current economic situation.

2009-02-05T21:13:00.002-05:00

I won the prize drawing at the last Program Meeting on Jan 27. In order to claim this prize, I must post a note to the blog. That got me to finally try out blogging, something I've thought about doing but never made the time. For me, it involves breaking out of my shell and doing something different. Which brings me to the subject at hand: change. I was prompted to make a change and do something different by something that happened (winning the prize). Would I have done this if that didn't happen? Perhaps something else would have happened to prompt me to do it. Perhaps my thoughts would have changed as a result of some experience, leading me to blog. The point is that change in experience (physical, mental, environmental, etc.) leads to change in behavior. This is well understood by change memnegement practitioners. So, as to the question of how the current economic situation will affect change management practices: I do not think the economic situation will substantially alter change management practices. We have a situation that has created some significant experiences for many people and organizations. That will prompt changing thoughts which will change behaviors. Some will be more open to changing, many by sheer necessity. This may allow change management practices (and practioners) to have more influence and credibility. However, the basics of these practices will remain the same. Things like recognizing and dealing with resistance will still have to be done. Coaching people to acknowledge and use their resilience will continue to be an essential skill for change management professionals. We will still have to work from where the client is and not where we think they should be. The big difference is that there may be more willingness on the part of clients to use the services of change managers and/or thier tools. But let's not forget that people are still people and organizations are still organizations. Changing them will still require a solid understanding and prudent use of the basics.

I'm Grant.

How does the current economic situation affect change management practices?

2008-12-31T11:38:00.000-05:00

Our December program meeting, with Rick Lent on “Change Management That Works,” was rescheduled to January 27. In anticipation of that event, we’ve chosen as our Question of the Month a topic that is much in peoples’ minds these days.

Is change easier to motivate in a “difficult times” – or harder? In “turbulent times” are different principles and tools for change management needed? Do change agents have to apply themselves to new areas in “tough times”? We invited members’ discussion on such topics.

Jim Murphy

The Seven Crown Jewels of Public Speaking Presence

2008-12-11T13:06:00.005-05:00

Summary/Review of DVD: The Seven Crown Jewels of Public Speaking Presence, by Carla Kimball

SUMMARY
7 jewels:

1. Where you put your attention, that's where your energy goes.
Change your focus of attention from "what might go wrong" to "what is success".
Notice/pay attention to what is going on for you. If anxiety begins to build, figure out what would be a more productive use of your energy.

2. Slow down. Take your time. Breathe.
Let the breath come.
Then, you can make some choices, pace yourself, in order to deal with whatever comes up in the moment.
"Entrainment": people catch up to the dominant rhythm in the room. So, you set the (slower) pace.

3. When we're anxious, we tend to be in our heads. We need to be in our bodies: an embodied presence.
Come back to feeling your feet on the ground, your connection to the earth.
Or focus on your center: your belly.
Let your energy drop down in your body.

4. Think of it as a conversation.
That takes pressure off ourselves to "perform."
You don't have to be perfect in a conversation.

5. Ask yourself, "How can I be of service?"
Be present. Be available.
Drop the need to be the expert.

6. Find the inner smile, the smiling energy that is inside.
Smiling and frowning have very different neurochemistries.
Don't take yourself so seriously.
When we smile, we end up being much more open and receptive to others.
Be kind to yourself.

7. Trust the power of silence.
Silence provides an opportunity to come back to yourself, to allow the possibility of discovery.
It also gives emphasis to what you just said -- gives it resonance. Gives folks time to assimilate.

REVIEW
I agree with the effectiveness of most of what she says in the DVD. It is entirely a "talking head" (or, more accurately, "talking torso") piece of media, with the camera scarcely moving (and then only horizontally), so don't expect the visuals to be at all enthralling. But she has good material and delivers it well herself.

Most of us omit one or several of these points in our own public presence -- so the DVD can offer a good refresher.

Ed Dolan

What challenges will OD face in the year 2009?

2008-11-20T12:51:00.000-05:00

Our November 18 program meeting was on “Six Challenges for OD Practitioners”. We had small group sessions and report to the whole group on “Defining and Explaining OD,” “External vs. Internal,” “Globalization and Virtual Worlds,” “Measuring OD Interventions,” “OD and Creativity,” and “OD as a Career Field”.

For the Question of the Month, we taken a focused view of the program theme and are asking members to provide their thoughts on what challenges OD will face in the next year – as well as ways that OD practitioners can meet those challenges. Of course discussion on the six specific areas covered is also welcome.

Jim Murphy

How can we tell whether what people tell us about organizations is the truth?

2008-10-24T15:28:00.001-04:00

Our October 22 program meeting was on “Getting the Organizational Truth”. Bruce Katcher of Discovery Surveys presented on "Designing Effective Survey Questions". Louise Mallette of The Telic Group presented on "Creating a Safe Space". Michael Nagle of Michael Nagle Consulting Group presented on "Open and Honest Dialogue”. Deepika Nath of Indica Consulting presented on "What You Need to Know Before You Seek the Truth".

This program was in part a follow-up our December 2004 “Interviewing and Surveying Customers and Employees” and July 2006 “Focus Groups in OD”. The 2006 program was a result of ideas from a brainstorming session at the 2004, and this program similarly originated from whole group discussion at the 2006 one.

Our overall theme was that we have to collect data in OD, using such methods interview, surveys, and focus groups? But since people don’t always want to tell us like it is and sometimes don’t even understand their motivations, how can we know that this data is “the truth” (or, if that is too philosophical a question, adequate ground for making sound decisions and taking effective action)?

This time we also considered what we would learn and what topics would be good to learn more about. The following were some of the ideas proposed:

· How can we get open and honest feedback? Is this situation different in virtual contexts?

· How can we build trust in organizations? And how can we rebuild trust after it has been broken (e.g., betrayal by management)?

· How can develop discernment? Specifically, how we practice “use of self” and build more reflective self-awareness?

· How can we find courage to speak up when it is not safe to do so? Or is this something that sometimes should be avoided?

· How can we avoid self-deception? How does this apply to leadership?

All of these would make for good program topics. In the meantime, we invite blog discussion on any of them or related topics. For the Question of the Month, we taken the overall question provided by the program title.

Jim Murphy

How can we better make use of reflection in our practice?

2008-09-26T18:43:00.000-04:00

Our September 25 program featured Grady McGonagill of McGonagill Associates on “Reflection on Practice: Moving Competence to Mastery”. Through small and whole group discussion, those attending gained new insights into model building and how it can be used to enhance one’s practice of organizational development. We gained new ideas and a new focus for understanding and aligning our abilities and values, expanding the deepening the scope of our practice, and having that practice naturally reflect what we are.

Reflection is one of the most important skills for OD practitioners but is rarely given the attention it deserves. This program was thus a very valuable learning on which reflective follow-up is particular appropriate. Whether you were there or not, we invite your ideas on how reflection can make us better practitioners.

Jim Murphy

Deep Change Musings

2008-08-25T18:35:00.004-04:00

Your Prize: Theory U

Terms and conditions (the fine print): write two blog postings on deep change – one before and one after reading the book.

Having not read the book, I am clearly in no position to comment on it. However, I felt compelled to turn to it as a place to start.

THE FIRST THING I DID was look at reviews and the executive summary of the book. The brief descriptions resonate with some of my experiences -- experiences that were designed to bring me to the same internal awareness that I believe is highlighted in the book. I'll know more after I read the book.

THE SECOND THING I DID was listen to my critical theory voice emerge. I started questioning the whole notion of change. Mind you, I identify myself as a continuous learner. I am motivated by engaging with others who are willing to change. At the same time, I believe we have become a culture where the notion of change has also become a sacred concept, an underlying Truth. Change as a Sacred Truth can serve as a red herring. By putting change on a pedestal, there is also the danger of the underlying message of “not good enough;” it can be easy to forget to celebrate and draw from our successes. Change as a Sacred Truth can be disconfirming.

THE THIRD THING I DID was return to Mary Catherine Bateson’s words on deep change. I’ll let her speak in her own words:

"Much of coping with discontinuity has to do with discovering threads of continuity. You cannot adjust to change unless you can recognize some analogy between your old situation and your new situation…If you create continuity by freezing some superficial variable, the result, very often, is to create deep change. This is something my father used to talk about in relation to evolutionary theory. He used the example of a tightrope walker. The tightrope walker is walking along a high wire, carrying a very light bamboo rod. To keep his balance, he continually moves the rod. He keeps changing the angle of the rod to maintain a constancy, his balance in space. If you froze the rod, what would happen to him? He would fall off. In other words, the superficial variation has the function of maintaining the deeper continuity. In evolution, the deeper continuity is survival. For the tightrope walker, it's staying on the high wire." (Mary Catherine Bateson) www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/03/con05110.html

I’ll be back after I explore Theory U.

But don’t wait for me. Please share your Theory U Musings!!

Polly Silva

How can overcome the fear created by conflict situations?

2008-08-22T17:36:00.000-04:00

Our August 21 program was on “Four Models for Conflict Resolution”. Deborah Bercume of Bercume Associates presented on “DiSC Indra,” Carol Bergeron of Bergeron Associates on “A Practical Approach to Conflict Resolution,” Debora Harkins of Harkins Coaching and Associates on “The Relationship Between Conflict Resolution and Diversity,” and Claudia Lach of Lach Training & Consulting on “The Consultant as Mediator”.

After the presentations we had a whole group session. In an experiment probably worth repeating, we solicited discussion questions in advance, producing a list longer than we could handle in the available time. Indeed, we were able only to consider one of them, which we have made our Question of the Month. But of course our blog allows us not only to consider this question more fully (and for participation by members unable to attend) but also to discuss any ideas members may have on conflict resolution and organizational development.

So join in and suggest new questions. The other questions were as follows:

· How can we measure impact, effectiveness and outcomes of conflict resolution strategies, tools and interventions?

· How can we demonstrate the value that we as consultants or internal OD practitioners bring to the organization?

· How can we "sell" or influence conflict management practices at all levels of the organization?

· How does a tool like Disc (or MBTI for that matter) which lead to an understanding of people's differences help in conflict resolution, particularly in the moment of the conflict?

· When there are approaches and methods that focus on the common ground (80% of what we agree), how does conflict resolution work?

Jim Murphy

Presencing, Theory U and Deep Change

2008-08-08T15:27:00.002-04:00

At our July meeting, I wished very hard to win the drawing and it happened! The prize was Otto Scharmer’s book, Theory U: Learning from the Future As It Emerges, published by the Society for Organizational Learning in 2007. One of the requirements for receiving the book is to make a post to the blog, which I’m happy to do.

The “U process” is based on a concept Otto Scharmer calls “presencing”—a blend of the words “presence” and “sensing,” a heightened state of attention that allows individuals and groups to shift the inner place from which they function. The shift requires, among other things, slowing down, employing “generative listening,” and shifting from reactive responses and quick fixes on a symptoms level to “generative responses” that address the systemic root issues—the single most important leadership challenge of our time, per Scharmer.

Look for more learning in my next post, after I receive the book! In the meantime, you can download an executive summary of Theory U from http://www.theoryu.com/.

Lisa Kleitz

Leadership Development Consultant, Executive/Leadership/Team Coach

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/b0/b13

Coaching for leadership

2008-07-23T13:15:00.003-04:00

OD practitioners can "coach for leadership" in a number of ways, depending upon their practice orientations. Leadership is exhibited at 3 areas within an organization: the individual, the group (team/Business unit/etc) and organization-wide. Therefore, coaching can occur on any or all of those levels. Furthermore, when coaching at any one level, one should be mindful of all 3 to achieve greatest impact.

"Coaching for Leadership" can occur as a formal program (e.g. executive coaching, leadership action learning) or informally, which is what happens very frequently with internal OD people and which, IMHO, is very effective when delivered by professionals who are highly respected within their organizations.

Betty Doo

Posted in response to:

Our July 16 program was on “Coaching with the Leadership Agility Compass” and featured Bill Joiner, author the award-winning book Leadership Agility and presenter at our February 2007 “Leadership Agility” and March 2008 “Four Types of Conversation” Program.

Bill gave an overview of the leadership agility concept and demonstrated the leadership agility compass. We then did an exercise and had paired discussion on using this tool, followed by a whole group consideration on applying these ideas in the workplace.

For our Question of the Month, we’ve taken the general question of how OD practitioners can coach for leadership. At the same time, we welcome members’ thoughts on related leadership and coaching issues.

Jim Murphy, July 17

How can we broaden the scope of OD practice?

2008-06-26T14:26:00.000-04:00

Our June 24 program was in our “six small group” format, with discussion and reports on “Branding Your OD Practice,” “Getting a Seat at the Table,” “OD and Project Management,” “OD and Sustainability,” “OD in the Public Sector and in Education,” and “Partnering with Business Sponsors”.

For our Question of the Month, we have taken the general question of how we can reach out to related disciplines, form partnerships, and make our work seen as more relevant. We also welcome discussion on any of the specific issues posed by these headings.

Jim Murphy

Non-Intercultural Assumptions

2008-06-04T16:45:00.004-04:00

I can't think of any particular formula for discovering and dealing with intercultural factors. I think it all comes back to applying what Jaime focssed on in his presentation: recognizing our assumptions, as hard as that is. No, no -- not recognizing our clients' assumptions. We're generally very good at that. We've trained ourselves to be good at that. It's recognizing the assumptions that we are operating on, still, after years of trying to model to others the need to get beyond assumptions.

Two comments stood out especially strongly for me from his talk:
1) That leadership is the capacity to align the organization's (conscious) vision, values, practices and policies with the diverse (unconscious) assumptions of its members. Leadership almost always gets talked about in the opposite direction. But, even we underestimate, time and again, the persistence -- and the rationality -- of employees' resistance to change, to nobly stated vision and values. I don't see this as abdication of responsibility for leadership and/or change; but we have to know and appreciate -- therefore, listen to -- the wisdom on the floor, if we truly expect to see change and growth (that sticks) happen.

2) There are consequences to distinctions, to the different assumptions we operate on. One of the key insights in that statement is the equivalence it implies between distinctions and assumptions. One of the ways we can discover our own assumptions is to look at the distinctions we make in conversation: between managers and employees; between professional and hourly staff; between "those who get it" and those who don't.

Ed Dolan

How can OD practitioners discover intercultural factors and how do these affect our practice?

2008-05-24T17:51:00.002-04:00

Our May 21 meeting, led was lead by Jaime Wurzel of The Intercultural Resource Corporation and Salem State College, was on “Applying Intercultural Concepts to Positive Organizational Change”. Via interactive discussion and a case study, we learned about how hidden cultural factors influence how organizations act and how awareness of these factors is important in promoting organizational change.

For our Question of the Month, we’ve posed the question of we can be aware of such factors and how they impact our work. Perhaps, too, members would like to provide some examples of the impact of intercultural factors in organizations.

Jim Murphy

Leadership and OD

2008-05-21T11:23:00.002-04:00

As to "What is role of OD practitioners in leadership development?" - is this a trick question?

OD and LD - simply that leadership development is a subset of organizational development. Successful OD turns on the commitment of the leadership of the formal leader and any substantial OD leap by an organization will likely be attended by development of the leader, too, for he or she moves with the system to the system's new place.I was struck by Brian McDonald's "be, do, have" switch from the traditional "have, do, be" in his April 24 presentation . His order embodies action learning. The other thing it does for me is invite the learner, let's say the leader learner, to shift focus from how do I get to be like THAT leader (some idealized form, if one could even settle on one) to "what leaderly action can I take now that will continue my leadership journey." For romantics like me it transforms leadership from destination to journey. Hey, I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance back then.

Jim Dezieck

Communication and OD

2008-04-30T22:10:00.011-04:00

When thinking about communication and OD, what seems most important is engaging employees’ hearts and minds. This happens at all levels of the organization through both formal and informal communication channels. When the communication channels are bi-directional, employees feel more engaged. When there is clarity in the organizations’ central mission and employees understand their specific part in achieving the mission, they will be self-motivated to set expectations on their own that are often higher than those the organization may ask of them. Their actions will become more intrapreneurial with a strong sense of accountability. Effective communication plays a key part in the engagement and internalization by each employee toward the mission.

A good example of a communication platform that enables the voice of the employee to be heard is through Forums and Blogs. In our company, in addition to traditional forms of communication such as email, conference calls, town meetings and employee sat surveys, we use Forums and Blogs on a number of topics to create communities of practice within the organization. This is especially powerful given our rapid, global expansion over the past several years. Forums and Blogs help to level the playing field by enabling all to participate without geographical constraints. In particular, we have had the request to create Forums/Blogs for participants of our leadership development programs so they can continue to exchange ideas and support each other regardless of their geographical location after the training is over.

Because people are now accustomed to having so many distractions (TV, iPod, etc), many are missing self-awareness due to lack of down time and subsequently impacting their ability to relate effectively to others. We have a challenge to capture the members hearts and minds, and an obligation to engage them in the mission of the organization by providing platforms for them to have a voice in shaping the mission.

Gillian Orlinsky

Di.a.logic training report

2008-04-27T21:46:00.003-04:00

Hello all!
As mentioned, last month I won a day's training on "The 4 D's of a Dialogue Culture" (run locally through Weisman Consulting) on the condition that I report back some learnings. The training was last Thursday, and I was grateful to have gone.

The Di.a.logic technique organizes information about how to improve effectiveness in individual and group conversations, primarily targeting a business setting.

Two parts of the day I liked especially well. We spent some time working through an exercise based on the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, swapping cards until we had a hand which reflected our personalities. The cards were color-coded to show what traits often went together, and sure enough, I ended up completely "red-handed". It was a personal way to bring home how different people bring different skills and perspectives to the group, and how that provides creative potential as well as stress and difficulty.

When the training covered "surfacing undiscussables" participants started figuring out how this principle might apply to their own situations. This, of course, is when it gets juicy. Real life situations are complex, but we did a valiant job struggling with them, and had a very nice talk about how to handle cultures where trust had disintegrated. Some points in that particular discussion included:

Trust is built on stepping out without getting killed. You connect on one little thing, take one little risk, and see what happens. If you don't get killed you can take a little step further.
You can only affect yourself, not the other person you're (talking, working) with. If you want more trust, ask yourself - what can I do to be more trusting, more trustworthy?
What is the lack of trust based on? How do we understand the assumptions we make about another person's actions?
What is the role of forgiveness, what does this look like institutionally/in a business setting
If you're waiting for the other person to do something that will restore trust, you're going to be waiting a long time. You have to take the first step.

I'm pretty fascinated by this and would be glad to hear other thoughts.

As a student of trainings, I was also paying attention to how the day flowed. The trainers broke up the reflection into individuals alone, discussion in pairs, table conversations (two pairs) and the full room. I thought this worked well - it felt predictable enough to be safe while introducing variety in the level and amount of perspective. Generally, I thought the activity level and type of exercises worked really well in sequence. Even standing up in a circle and holding a sign while talking felt like a meaningful switch in activity from discussing the concept sitting down.

Thanks for sending me!

Susan Loucks

What is the role of OD practitioners in leadership development?

2008-04-26T20:56:00.001-04:00

What is the role of OD practitioners in leadership development?

Our April 2008 program was on “”Four Types of Conversation”. Led by long-time Learning Group member Brian McDonald of MOR Associates, we used a key Learning Group principle, action learning, to explore the role of life experiences in making us into leaders and how that organizations can create similar opportunities to enhance and expand leadership.

For our Question of the Month, we have selected a related question: how OD practice relates to leadership development. Of course we welcome member discussion on related issues in this area.

Jim Murphy

it depends on your definition of OD...

2008-03-20T18:00:00.003-04:00

and I'm just starting to suss out the possibilities there. But in an interesting conversation I had this morning, I understood more clearly the parallels between personal change and growth and organizational change and growth - and it's hard for me to think of times when I changed and grew without being in conversation with those around me.

As the priveleged prize winner of the March meeting I'm charged with reporting back on the April 24 seminar on "the four D's of a dialogue culture". If there's anything that anyone wants me to especially pay attention to, let me know - I'd be glad to have assignments from the body that allowed me to participate!

Susan Loucks

What is the relation between conversations and OD?

2008-03-19T16:04:00.000-04:00

Our March 2008 program was on “”Four Types of Conversation”.

Leslie Becknell Marx of Conversation that Matters showed us “The Conversation Meter”.

Allyn Bradford of the University of Massachusetts at Boston facilitated a session on Dialogue.

Bill Joiner of ChangeWise presented on “Power Styles in Pivotal Conversations”.

Tom Matera of HiComm Consulting discussed “Conversation by Design”.

In the follow up whole group session, we brainstormed on lessons learned, how we would like to follow up on that learning, and what the Learning Group could do to promote such follow-up. It was also noted that the various ideas of the presenters were interesting from a comparative point of view and that conversation might not (on the face of it) be thought of as on OD topic.

For our Question of the Month, we have selected one of these ideas: “What is the relation between conversations and OD?” Of course we also welcome members comments on any related topic and especially invite those who attended to share their learnings and help provide a synthesis between the different sessions.

Jim Murphy

What are the best new ideas in OD?

2008-02-29T11:32:00.001-05:00

Our February program was on “Best Practices and New Ideas in Six Areas of OD”. In our very popular “six small groups” format, participants had their choice of shared learning on culture change, on leadership development, on managing generations, on organizational communication, on organizational effectiveness, and on performance management.

For our Question of the Month, we are posing the general question of “What are the best new ideas in OD?” Of course we also welcome members comments on any of the six subject areas of this meeting.

Jim Murphy

OD View of Performance Improvement

2008-01-25T13:16:00.000-05:00

Here is a very preliminary answer to my own question about the OD view of performance management:

Traditional PM thinking implies that the performance of the organization is the sum of the performance of its individual members. By contrast, the OD view is that the performance of an organization depends primarily on the organizational culture.

Methods to improve individual performance will always be needed, but unless these are linked to and supported by the organizational culture they are not sufficient to create excellence. Many thinkers (such as Peter Block) therefore actually oppose formal performance reviews systems, espousing instead ongoing discussions, relationships, and cultures that foster continual improvement by all members, and of all aspects, of the organization.

“OD-approved” methods for performance improvement would rely on systems thinking, culture change, and intrinsic motivation. Efforts for performance improvement should be designed and implemented via fully participative methods.

A very important aspect of Harvy’s “OD Meets PM” program is its view of performance improvement efforts as an OD intervention. For some more of Harvy’s thinking, see his article “Getting Quality Performance from Your Performance Management Practices”.

Jim Murphy

What is the OD view of performance management?

2007-12-23T19:03:00.000-05:00

In anticipation of our postponed December program, featuring Harvy Simkovits on “OD Meets PM,” we are for the Question of the Month asking members to share thoughts on the relationship between organizational development and performance management.

What does OD have in common with other disciplines and what makes it different from them?

2007-11-22T21:02:00.000-05:00

Our November 20 program meeting was on “Six Ways to Do OD” and featured small group discussion on “Directing an OD Function,” “OD and Coaching,” “OD and Evaluation,” “OD Consulting,” “OD within HR,” and “Virtual OD”. Following, we had reports on best ideas and discussed some of the commonalties and new learning discovered.

One theme that was cited in several of the reports is the overlap between OD and other fields of practice. We’ve thus taken as our Question of the Month the general issue of “What does OD have in common with other disciplines and what makes it different from them?”

Jim Murphy

How can the disciplines and practitioners of OD and of project management cooperate and learn from one another?

2007-10-11T20:45:00.000-04:00

For our October 10 program meeting on “Systemic Project Leadership” Joe Turner and Ken Kerber showed us a model and training us on a tool for combining systems thinking, project management and organizational change techniques in a way that might be described as making project management and OD intervention. Their model is based is on connecting the three streams of project management: the project stream, the change stream, and the systems stream. Their tool involves considering twelve different aspects of the project.

Those attending found this session to be valuable learning. We’ve made our question of the month the general issues of the relationship project management and organizational development. Perhaps contributors can give their ideas on this subject, as well as some examples backing these up and their thoughts on the Systemic Project Leadership model.

Jim Murphy

How we can reach a deeper field level as individuals, in organizations, as a society, and the global level?

2007-09-21T15:00:00.000-04:00

For our September 19 program meeting on “Learning from the Future As It Emerges: On the Grammar of the Social Field” we fortunate to again have Otto Scharmer as our presenter. We will following this up with a program on "Presencing and Theory U" in Second Life.

Based on his great new work, Theory U, Otto explained, among other things, the four levels of “the field” (which Otto defines as “the total set of connections that are mutually dependent). These levels are applicable at the individual, group, institutional, and global level.

Level One involves operating by ourselves (“the old me level”). It is characterized by “downloading”: talking nice and telling people what they want to hear. At the institutional level, it means centralized “machine bureaucracy”. At the global level, it means hierarchy and central planning. This is where we spend most of our lives.

Level Two involves operating from “the current it-world”. It is characterized by debate: talking tough, opposing viewpoints. At the institutional and global levels, it means decentralization and market competition. We have pretty common experience of this level.

Level Three is operating at the current “you-world”. It involves empathetic listening and dialogue. At the macro level, it means networks; at the global level, mutual adjustment. OD practitioners often work at this level.

Level Four is operating at the highest possible future possibility that is ready to emergene. It is marked by collective creativity. At the higher levels, it means ecosystems and collective presence (seeing from the emerging Whole). Our experience with this level tends to be fleeting and aspirational.

We discussed how deep we have gone in personal and organizational levels. For my part I have had some brief level three experiences when using dialogue, but no experience at all of level four.

Accordingly we’ve made our Question of the Month one the favorite discussion items in our Deeper Inquiry Group: the overall theme: How can we help people, organizations, and societies reach a deeper level of discourse and understanding? Perhaps, too, members can give some examples of how they have able to reach and act in deeper levels of thought and action.

How can OD practice benefit from the use of the arts?

2007-08-23T20:16:00.000-04:00

Our August 21 program was on “OD Meets the Arts”. Our four presenters illustrated the use of one of the arts in organizational contexts and then served as a panel of experts for general discussion on connections between the arts and organizational development.

Crystal Brown of Arts for All Occasions explained how she has linked art and OD in the context of the insurance industry and the importance of the arts in the workplace.

John Cimino of Creative Leaps showed how music can promote leadership, creativity and renewal and be a powerful source of insight and transformation.

Jonathan Mirin of Piti Theatre Company traced the connections his training experience as an actor and his organizational development work.

Storyteller Laura Packer offered a discussion on why stories matter in organizations and demonstrated the power of listening to and telling stories.

Those attended found this to be a rich and stimulating learning opportunity. We’ve made our Question of the Month the overall theme: How can OD practice benefit from the use of the arts?

Jim Murphy

How can we better promote organizational development?

2007-07-20T23:03:00.000-04:00

Our July 19 program was on “Promoting OD” and offered small group discussion on six topics.

Julia Geisman and Joe Turner co-facilitated “Demonstrating Return on Investment for OD Interventions”.

Carol Bergeron and Harvy Simkovits co-facilitated “Partnering OD with Business”.

Ed Dolan and Gabriella La Monica co-facilitated “Promoting OD Within the Organization”.

Tom Matera and Jade Watson co-facilitated “Promoting Yourself as an OD Job Candidate”.

Debora Bloom and Jamie Resker co-facilitated “Starting a Consulting Business”.

Bruce Hoppe and Mal Watlington co-facilitated “Using Web Sites, e-Newsletters, Blogs and Wikis”.

We’ve made our Question of the Month the overall theme connecting these six discussions: How can we better promote organizational development?

Jim Murphy

Web basics for OD

2007-07-19T11:47:00.001-04:00

Mal Watlington and I co-facilitated the section on "Using Web Sites, e-Newsletters, Blogs, and Wikis" at our July 19 "Promoting OD" program.

We have set up the following webpage as a follow-up activity. It's currently set up as a very short primer on web tools for OD. Because it's a wiki, it could also be modified by others as they wish.

http://socialtext.net/mass-bay-odlg

Bruce Hoppe

Diversity - important to OD

2007-07-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

Organization development is focused on the ability of an organization to meets its business goals by effectively optimizing and engaging the talents of its employees, its technology and its processes. To that end, organization development encompasses diversity as one of its key success factors.

Diversity encompasses ethnicity as well as gender, religion, work styles, age, race, creed, capabilities and lifestyles. Some even include body size as a factor or diversity.
The workforce has become increasingly multicultural in nature over the last 10 -15 years with the increase in outsourcing and immigration. This increase means we will hear many languages spoken by our customers and our employees; it means there is the opportunity to share and learn about many clutures and languages. The increase in multi-cultures also means that we will see different races, religions and work ethics in an organization.

Diversity is a word that connotes differences that are to be respected and understood. The word inclusion , however, is a word that implies the integration of these differences effectively to achieve common results.
Inclusion is important for an organization's leadership to fully embrace as part of its core values and business practices. It is only through creating an enviornment of inclusion that all employees will feel valued and engaged to bring their best forward. For example, if an employee is asked not to eat the ethnic diet at work due to the odor, then that person will feel they are not respected as a person and therefore, may not bring their best to their work.

I am currently working on diversity training for my company. We are shifting the focus from diversity awareness to fostering inclusion. The tone of the training is that each of us are diverse. As a leader in the organization, we each are responsible to foster inclusion. To achieve this point, our role plays are real examples where misunderstandings and assumptions have negatively impacted morale and therefore impeded getting results. We are moving away from the unintentional tone of tolerance to an intentional focus on inclusion.

Catherine Mason

[Catherine was the winner of our April 2007 program giveaway, a webinar on "OD Is Diversity" in the OD Network "Theory and Practice" series.]

Stance

2007-07-11T17:46:00.000-04:00

I enjoyed Steve's presentation and think our stance and adaptability of stance are key issues in any facilitation or consulting engagement. It's easy to get sucked into a client system or stuck in your stance. While challenging to maintain perspective, it's essential to your success in changing the client system. The best way I've found to do this is intentionally go to the balcony on my own intervention. By regularly going to the balcony and looking down on the system and my own position in the intervention, I gain perspective.

Al Nierenberg

How can we be aware of our consulting stance and adapt it as indicated?

2007-06-29T18:24:00.000-04:00

Our June 28 program was on “Structural Dynamics” and was led by Steve Ober of Chrysalis Executive Coaching and Consulting.

Steve led us through discussion and exercises on understanding human systems, our own role in them, and how to help them change. We learned about the three levels in human systems: face to face; larger social structure; and individual structures. We considered how to “map” our client systems and to understand how we react to it. We saw how understanding of our own role is necessary to the success of our change efforts.

Finally we considered our client stance. Are we working within the system? Are we outside? Or above it? How does our perspective affect our work? And can we change our stance to achieve different ends (such as promoting our own personal growth while fostering organizational change)? This very important but often unrecognized issue has been selected as our Question of the Month.

Jim Murphy

Learning from Mistakes

2007-06-16T21:52:00.000-04:00

Back in October 1995, Abby Yanow posted a question on the relationship between encouraging creativity and tolerating mistakes. I made a short answer and subsequently made another post on organizations that are famous for giving employees who make a mistake (including theft!) a second chance.

Years later, I would like to extend that discussion to the issue of how organizations actually learn from employees’ mistakes. We could probably all give personal examples of learning from out mistakes, but examples of organizations doing that presumably are harder to think of.

In that connection, I would cite two additional references available in our Library: David Dotlich and Peter Cairo’s Why CEO’s Fail and John Maxwell’s Falling Forward. But while both of these have some suggestive material, neither addresses organizational learning.

Jim Murphy

Some employee-manager conflict is unavoidable

2007-05-25T14:24:00.001-04:00

Here are four reasons why I believe that "some" of the hatred between employees and their managers is unavoidable.

Attribution theory - According to Jones and Nisbett (1971), individuals typically make dispositional attributions when looking at the causes of the behavior of others and situational attributions when looking at the causes of their own behavior. For example, if someone in your class flunks a test, you would most likely think that it was due to something about the person (e.g., they are not smart). If, however, you were to flunk a test, you would be more likely, instead, to say that it was because you didn't study, didn't care, or got no sleep the night before. Employees make dispositional attributions when looking at the behavior of managers because they don't understand the situational factors that are underlying the behavior of managers. Managers do the same when trying to understand the behavior of employees.

Roles - The roles that individuals are placed in effect their behavior. Consider the 1971 Zimbardo prisoner study in which volunteers were randomly assigned to be guards or prisoners. Within less than a day individuals started to assume the roles. Guards became demeaning, dehumanizing, and sadistic. Prisoners became depressed and rebellious.

Intergroup theory - Most organizations are hierarchical systems with upper, middle, and lower groups. Just by the very nature of their place in the system and their differing perspectives, hatred emerges. Uppers stereotype lowers as incompetent and lowers stereotype uppers as not worthy of trust.

Self-fulfilling prophecies - Rosenthal (1968) told 3rd grade school teachers that certain students were late bloomers and their IQ scores would increase dramatically. Lo and behold that's what happened. Somehow the teachers consciously or unconsciously treated these students differently. The dim view managers have of lower-level employees is often confirmed because they don't empower their employees to demonstrate their competence.

The job of OD practitioners is thus like salmon swimming upstream. There are many forces working against employees and managers respecting and cooperating well with each other.

Bruce Katcher

Is hatred between employees and managers inevitable?

2007-05-24T18:59:00.000-04:00

Our May 23 program was on “How To Make Organizations More Employee-Friendly: Lessons from Surveys of Over 10,000 Employees.” It was led by Bruce Katcher, President of Discovery Surveys, Inc., and author of 30 Reason Why Employees Hate Their Managers, recently published by Amacom.

Bruce put us through a “point counterpoint” exercise, where we divided in half, one group listing reasons why conflict between employees and managers is inevitable and one group listing reason why it is not. Among the former was the fact that the two sets of people have different interests; in the latter camp, it was suggested that the fact in some organizations there is harmony between employees and managers means that such conflict is not foreordained. Some noted that without the hope that employee-conflict can be resolved OD practice would be pointless; others suggest that OD practitioners may be too inclined to ignore realities from outside the workplace that cuase such conflict to be expected.

This thus proved to be a question that led to a stimulating discussion and provoked insights about our work. We’ve thus chosen it as our current Question of the Month.

How can we promote alignment of teams and organizations?

2007-04-22T16:22:00.000-04:00

How can we promote alignment of teams and organizations?

At our April 19 “One Group, One Voice” program meeting, we had four presentations on organizational and team alignment.

Bonni DiMatteo presented an interactive exercise on “Achieving Alignment from Corporate to Teams.”

Paul Kampas presented on the topic of his book, “Mastering Organizational Architecture: The Journey from Simple Alignment to Strategic Advantage

Louise Mallette presented on “How Stories and Imagery Enable Alignment for Vision, for Teams, for Work”.

Tom Matera presented and led discussion on “Template for Teambuilding”.

We’ve thus chosen as our current Question of the Month the question of how as OD practitioners we can promote alignment of team and organizations.

OD Annual Conference - What OD Delivers to the Bottom Line

2007-04-02T12:02:00.000-04:00

by Steve Frigand

[Steve was the winner of our January 2007 program giveaway, the video archive of the OD Network 2006 Conference. In this report, he covers of the many presentations in that source.]

Marcela Perez de Alonso
Exec. VP Human Resources Hewlett Packard –Delivered 10/24/06

Marcela is a Chilean psychologist who has worked and lived in many countries. For some of her professional career, she was an independent consultant. Most of it however has been in senior positions in HR and OD.

Today’s corporate Landscape is dominated by:
Ø Globalization
Ø Rapid Technological advances
Ø New regulatory framework
Ø Workforce ages (baby boomers to generation X)
Ø Recruiting and retaining talent

HP has a tremendous number of stakeholders:1 billion customers, 150k employees, 145k sales partners

HP Challenges: (Managing large scale change)
Ø Large scale transformation
Ø Managing the largest merger in the IT industry
Ø Recent restructuring

OD role is to
Ø drive the human dimension of business
o alignment of strategy with Organizational design
o Processes
o Culture
Ø Enhance productivity

New Operating Model (OD Lessons- Era of High Performance)
Ø Organization architecture- clear alignment with strategy
Ø Accountability
Ø Simplification (agility and ability to focus)

HP way of Measuring Progress in OD area is via an annual survey (Voice of the Workforce) in 20 languages. ¾ of employees filled it out. Benchmarked against peer companies. A measure of how they are living their values.

Lessons from HP (OD is not an afterthought):
Ø Business results demonstrate OD effectiveness (Which she didn’t attempt to quantify)
Ø Goal is to have OD be practiced by all HR professionals
Ø OD needs to be part of any change or business transformation

Human Change within Organizational Change

2007-03-26T07:24:00.000-04:00

Change…Change…Change

So I win a book which is about change and I’m expected to write a blog about change. I haven’t read the book yet!!

I am a teacher – I was a Manufacturing Manager; I was a Human Resource Manager. I am a father – I was a husband. I am an American – I was British. I am self-employed – I was on several corporate payrolls. Lots of “am’s” and “was’s” so I guess that I don’t need to read the book, I have experienced change throughout my life. As I reflect on the changes, I know that the changes that I have put in place have not been tough. When I first came to America, it was an adjustment, some disorientation but an excitement about the possibilities – newly married; in love. Change was easy – I even managed to learn how to drive on the wrong side of the road. New home, new job, new car, new children, new friends and a new life – I embraced it. I would think to myself – change is not so bad, you just have to go with it. I would talk to the people that worked for me and tell them that “change has to be a constant”, I would encourage them to embrace it and had difficulty understanding why it was so tough for people.

I would teach my students about change - talk about Lewin’s Forces Field Analysis for Change; I would talk about strategies within organizations to put change into place. Kotter was able to support the discussion with his Change Model – Urgency; a Guiding Coalition; Vision and Strategy; Communication of the Vision; Empowering Broad-based action; Generating Short Term wins; Consolidating Gains; Anchoring new approaches in the culture (“Why Transformation Efforts Fail” Harvard Business Review (March-April, 1995). I would show the Stages of Change as defined by Bridges in Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes in 1980: Endings; The Neutral Zone; The New Beginning. We would discuss change – how we feel; why it is so important; how to lead it and how to manage it. Oh…how easy it is to discuss it. If we take these models and implement them, we can create change in our organizations. We have the code. It looks so easy when it is on the screen in front of the classroom. Yes… Yes… create a culture of change – continuous improvement, agility, adaptability, as long as you can make the case it will move forward and people in the organization would move towards the new vision.

How different it is when you are going through your own personal change. You are divorced; you have moved out of your house and the community that you have been living in for the past 23 years, you have a new home – an apartment, no back yard, people upstairs and people downstairs. It is an ending and you are starting all over again. You have new furniture, new everything and a lot of anger. You have gone past the denial stage – you have moved, you can’t deny it anymore. You sit in your apartment and you feel sorry for yourself – you get into the victim mentality- “poor me”. You recognize that you have resilience; you must move through it; this is what you’ve been teaching for the past few years; change; yes - it is happening and you need to manage it; you must strategize; you need to stop feeling pathetic; you must get your work done and you must create the world that you want to live in. Thus it goes on – some days you feel strong; some days your anger overwhelms any logical thoughts; some days you want to contact your friends, make sure that you are continuing the relationships that you have had for many years and some days you don’t want to talk to anybody.

For me this was a whole new journey. I felt fortunate that I had been teaching change but realized that the information and discussions had come from an academic perspective. In the classroom, we discuss the model, we throw out scenarios of change, we talk about this organization, that organization and as much as we talk about the obstacles, the concerns that employees have, the need for communication and the need for clarity of vision and action. I found teaching change while going through it was not as easy as it used to be. Each day would affect my energy, excitement, preparedness, and desire to interact fully with the classroom. One day, one of my students, Sue Tobin, took over the class for me. She was a coach and truly a remarkable person. Sadly, she passed away suddenly and it is a great loss to the world. It was a great class with exercises, activities and leadership concepts. There was a lot of learning for every participant.

To a certain extent, Bridges kept me going. Endings, Neutral Zone, New Beginnings. I knew that there would be new beginnings and realized, in a more logical moment, that it would only happen if I took all my learnings and internalized them. I had to take the knowledge and turn it into a skill then turn it into a behavior. I had to strategize, I had to look into the experiences and my capabilities and use them in order that I could move forward. It is so easy to know this stuff but not use it. So I started reading Bridges again and started use the wisdom that he offered as my guide and advisor. To quote Bridges, “Endings are, let’s remember, experiences of dying. They are ordeals, and sometimes they challenge so basically our sense of who we are that we believe that they will be the end of us. This is where an understanding of endings and familiarity with the old passage rituals can be helpful.”(Bridges, 1980, pp 109-110). This is true. Yes – I wasn’t the first person to go through change, I wasn’t the first person to get divorced, I wasn’t the first person to experience these feelings. Disengagement; Disidentification; Disenchantment: Disorientation (Bridges, 1980) – yes…I have experienced it all.

It is the Neutral Zone, which is the most lonely and powerful place to be. At first, you travel backwards and forward between the Neutral Zone and Endings. The anger gets in the way but once I started recognizing the steps that I had to take it became easier.
1. Find a regular time and place to be alone.
a. Easy, I live alone. I go to the gym every morning.
2. Begin a log of neutral zone experiences.
a. Bridges suggests, “...we need to resist the tendency to imagine that what is needed is external to our situation.”
3. Take this pause in the action of your life to write an autobiography.
a. I had to start looking at my past – traveling, moving to America, continuing education, managing, leading, teaching and much more. Many different experiences, some of which I had not thought about for a very long time.
4. Take this opportunity to discover what you really want.
a. I know that I want to want to make a difference in the world that I live. I know that I want to be able to afford it. I know that I want the competencies that will allow me to enroll people in living their own future. I know that that I want to do it because if I can’t do it –how can I support other people do it.
5. Think about what would be unlived in your life if it ended today.
a. Traveling; the people that I haven’t been able to support; the book that I haven’t written; the unknown possibilities around the corner that I haven’t yet been around.
6. Take a few days to go on your own version of a passage journey.

Bridges talks about the neutral zone as a ”…time for inner reorientation. It is the phase of the transition process that the modern world pays least attention to. Treating ourselves like appliances that can be unplugged and plugged in again at will or cars that stop and start with the twist of the key, we have forgotten the importance of fallow time and winter and rests in music. We have abandoned a whole system of dealing with the neutral zone through ritual, and have tried to deal with personal change as though it was some kind of readjustment.” (p. 130) I continue to work on it.

I work toward the New Beginning – some days I’m there and some days I’m not there. It is a step by step process and I discover new information and knowledge every day. Today, I am excited about going into the classroom – no knots in the stomach; no disorientation; no wishing for the class to end and a confidence about who I am and the life that I lead.

Now I look at the transition that I am traveling through, I am beginning to understand more fully the human aspect within organizational change. I have returned to reading Darryl Conner’s Managing at the Speed of Change (Villard, 1992). I am thinking more about the human side of change in organizations. I am wondering if he stresses enough the need for leaders to understand change – not just the model, but the human aspect. How receptive are managers to employee concerns? How much do managers understand the emotional aspects of change? How do managers lead their groups through transition? There are many questions that I have around change and I hope that for those of you have read this can educate me and add more knowledge.
I continue the journey.

Hugh McGill

HMV Consulting

[Hugh was the winner of our March 2007 program giveaway, The Change Handbook.]

How can case studies be used in our work?

2007-03-14T15:41:00.000-04:00

At our March 13 “Learning From Experience” program meeting, we had two presentations on“Case Studies for Your Edutainment”.

In the first, Anne Litwin, with the aid of the “ODLG Players,” showed us an actual case illustrating the importance for both externals and internals of the entry and contracting phase of client-consultant collaboration.

In second, Harvy Simkovits led us through some “mini-cases” and showed us how these can be constructed from our experiences.

As with our June 2005 “Case Studies” program, those attending found it to be entertaining and rewarding evening, in the Learning Group tradition of experiential learning and “learning as fun”.

We’ve chosen as our Question of the Month the general question of how the case study method can be used in OD practice. If members are interested, we could also do case study learning via this or a specially dedicated blog or even via a new special interest group.

What makes leaders effective?

2007-02-18T19:29:00.000-05:00

Our February 15 “Leadership Agility” program meeting was led by Bill Joiner of ChangeWise. Bill showed us the Leadership Agility model and how to conduct an assessment of the five levels of leadership agility.

Leadership agility is a vital quality in today’s world of fast-paced change and growing complexity. The model recognizes nine stages of development that leaders go through (explorer, enthusiast, operator, conformer, expert, achiever, catalyst, co-creator, and synergist) and four leadership agility competencies (context-setting agility, stakeholder agility, and self-leadership agility). It is more fully explicated in the book Leadership Agility, written by Bill and Stephen Josephs and the subject of the blog AgilityMuse.

Expanding upon the theme of this very well received program, our Question of the Month is thus, “What makes leaders effective?”

Jim Murphy

How Have You Translated Squishy OD Interventions into Tangible Benefits/Financial Terms?

2007-01-30T12:06:00.000-05:00

[Jamie was the winner of our special January giveaway. The was the first installment of the new OD Network Business Acumen webinar series, presented by ODLG member Julia Geisman of Millennium Learning, Inc., who also deserves thanks for getting ODLG this prize.]

I wanted to share some key learning’s from Julia Geisman’s webinar on "Understanding ROI: Measuring the Value of Your OD Interventions".

First, Why Bother? Translating OD/Learning interventions from an expense to an investment can accomplish the following:

*Set priorities

*Gain management support

*Justify the OD budget

*Create a direct link between OD and business initiatives.

The key challenge is transforming “squishy” OD program initiatives into hard data that translates to financial terms. For example, a program to increase employee performance is important why? Well, to increase productivity. By what per cent? Answer: by increasing revenues by 5 percent. OK, so what is the dollar amount of 5 precent of revenues? Now, what is the intervention going to cost and does the outcome/benefit outweigh the cost and effort? Julia has some powerful yet easy to understand and communicate (ie: can be explained to other in 2 minutes or less) calculations for demonstrating cost vs. benefit.

Julia has a knack for drilling down into the business impact of an intervention by asking why, why, why until the “bottom line result” of the intervention is uncovered.

Have you translated OD interventions into dollars and helped clients or internal folks understand the cost/benefits of your work? What’s your approach?

Jamie Resker
Principal, Employee Performance Solutions

Do different work environments make for different best OD practices?

2007-01-18T18:55:00.000-05:00

Our January 17 program meeting was another in our “Best Practices” series. This was the third time we have done one of these “by industry”. On this occasion we had small group discussion of best OD practices in biotech/pharmaceuticals, external consulting, health care, internal consulting, nonprofits, and virtual work environments.

In the reports back to the whole group session, there were many similarities in best ideas. At the same time, there were references to specific characteristics in the particular industry/environment. Just as many job advertisements refer to “three years asparagus industry experience required,” so, too, many business leaders seem to feel that someone who does not have experience working in their industry cannot effectively consult to them. Similar considerations apply, to nonprofit vs. profit-making environments and in government organizations. So the question arises, are there generally applicable best OD practices or does what is best depend on the nature of the particular industry or work environment?

Jim Murphy

Which level creates the most challenges for you and why?

2006-12-13T19:13:00.000-05:00

At our December 12 meeting we had a dramatic reading of the play “What a Way to Make a Living” by Barry Oshry, with a cast and crew constituting the “ODLG players”. As in our August 2005 “Organization Workshop” meeting with Barry, we learned about life in organizations as seen by tops, middles, and bottoms. In the play an angel (i.e., OD practitioner) intervenes to show each group how it can avoid being stuck in negative role playing and learn how to exercise responsibility, develop teamwork and acquire appropriate power.

Following the dramatic presentation, Barry facilitated the follow-up discussion. He asked us to consider which of three sets of people have presented the most challenges in our work and what light the play sheds on those challenges. You don’t have to have seen the play to answer the first part of that question!

Most of those attending reported tops as the most challenging, some said it was middles, and a smaller number bottoms. So it will be interesting what others think on this issue and about top, middle, and bottom relations generally.

Jim Murphy

How can OD practitioners better get their message out?

2006-11-17T15:28:00.000-05:00

At our November 16 program meeting, Garry Berman of The Speech Improvement Company showed us how to achieve “Authentic and Effective Communication.” In some ways, this program followed up on our November 2005 meeting on “The Future of OD,” at which marketing and promoting OD and its practitioners were featured on our list “things OD must do”. Hence our Question of the Month: “How can OD practitioners better get their message out?”

Some related questions for this discussion: How can we promote more understanding of what OD can do? How can we individuals and as a group create more opportunities for the practice of OD? And what is our message?

Jim Murphy

Assumptions

2006-11-14T14:37:00.000-05:00

What are your assumptions about actors and playwrights? Mine included the following:

- Actors audition for their parts & the best one gets the part
- Actors have some experience or training before they audition
- Actors know to read the play before they show up for meetings
- People who write plays are theatre people

Now imagine how I felt when I learned that none of these were true, and that I was to be the “director” of the ODLG Players’ production of Barry Oshry's play "What A Way To Make A Living” at our December 12 program meeting. "Deer in the headlights” might capture my first reaction. But that reaction lasted only a moment.

I am after all an accomplished OD practitioner and, if nothing else, I am fast on my feet! My innate curiosity and my enthusiasm for all things related to the theatre really helped me coach the actor out of each of the OD players. The facilitator in me helped build the teamwork needed to pull off a staged reading. And, of course, it helped that I believe in stealing ideas shamelessly --- I have a cousin who directs all the theatre productions at a local high school and loves to brainstorm.

To my delight, I found terrific talent and gusto in each player. I was thrilled to see our normally low-key, level headed OD practitioners discover and project sarcastic, loud, angry, pompous, depressed, robotic, and fearful voices they would never use in their jobs.

And I was not surprised at the casts’ creative ideas for handling tough situations such as missed cues even though they had no training in how to handle them. After all, they are OD professionals!

Barbara Bates

Large Group Interventions

2006-11-01T15:43:00.000-05:00

Terry Seamon, whose blog on OD and other topics has been mentioned here before, has posted some thoughts on when large group interventions are needed. Check it out at http://learningvoyager.blogspot.com/2006/10/large-scale-change.html and you can reply there and/or here!

Jim Murphy

21 Secrets to Finding a Job

2006-10-29T15:45:00.000-05:00

This is a report on 21 Secrets of Finding a Job by Bruce L. Katcher, which I won as one of the giveaways at the October 2006 Learning Group meeting on "Large Group Dynamics".

There are several steps to find your next dream job—21 in all, according to Dr. Bruce L. Katcher President of Discovery Surveys, Inc.; however, 10 of the 21 steps resonated with me. They are the following:

Ø It’s all about Focus: Get focused, look inside and think about what you really enjoy in life and what you want to do in life.

Ø Figure out what work really means to you: when you wake up each morning, is your goal to help people or make a lot of money? For me, it’s to help and educate people in areas of career development, culture, travel and international relations.

Ø Be the detective: be an individual and gather the information to ask people (in the industry/job area of desire) what their recommended path is in the job/field you want.

Ø Understand why someone wants to hire you: your making the company money and you’re doing a favor for them; say that. You are creating value for the company and also adding valuable job skills to help you move forward in your career.

Ø Know how people find jobs: 5% find a job through advertising media (ie: web, flyer, listing); 10% go through the direct approach: ie: walking right into the company and saying you’d like to work for them and why; 15% through agencies (headhunters, search firms—remember, they’re really working for the client, the company, not you. Be careful and do your research. The rest: 70% through personal referrals. If you know 1000 people and each knows another 1000; that means you can utilize 1 million people to assist in finding you a job.

Ø Have a 30 second elevator speech: say who you are, your skills, and what you want in a job.

Ø Emphasize accomplishments more than experience: put added value and help organization make money, save money, or have created new product/service not previously offered in that company.

Ø Maintain your respect & dignity: don’t send salary information. Instead indicate I’d be happy to talk about salary once I get a better handle of the organization and learn of its objectives. Also ask if hired and interviewer gave you exact starting salary, say, “thank you for your offer. I was wondering if there is any flexibility in the salary?”—worth a try but only once you’ve been offered the position.

Ø Referral services are very powerful: if you call someone, have referral’s credibility on the line. They can call on your behalf (hot lead) then you call the prospect afterwards.

Ø Go for the close: want to thank each interviewer individually by sending thank you cards and directly ask, “One have questions say yes, how do I compare to your other candidates so far?”

Each of the 21 steps is intended to help utilize the vast resources available, but it begins with the researcher—you, to determine what type of position will work best.

Crystal Brown

When are large group interventions called for?

2006-10-12T19:08:00.000-04:00

At our October 11 program meeting, “Large Group Dynamics,” we had a masterful experiential presentation led by Katharine Esty of Ibis Consulting Group. We learned how to understand the culture of large groups and how they differ from small ones. For our question of the month, we’ve chose on the issues considered at the meeting, namely, when is the use of a large group process indicated?

Jim Murphy

OD and KM

2006-10-09T15:55:00.000-04:00

Terence Seamon, who maintains a blog on OD and other topics at http://learningvoyager.blogspot.com/, has noted an interesting take on KM as it relates to OD on yet another blog.

The blog is "How to Save the World" (http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/) and is maintained by Dave Pollard . The post is entitled "An Approach to to KM and Learning That Embraces Complexity," http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2006/10/04.html#a1664 .

Jim Murphy

Play rehearsal

2006-09-23T17:40:00.000-04:00

Our rehearsal last week felt like we were becoming actors. We practice reading lines in "one of 1,000 different ways". It is a good way to remember about there not necessarily being a "right way" to do something.

Mimi McGrath
Cast Member
December 2006 Learning Group Program
"What a Way to Make a Living"
Play by Barry Oshry

What can organizational development practitioners learn from Knowledge Management?

2006-09-15T19:28:00.000-04:00

Our September 14 program meeting was on “OD Meets KM” and was presented by Patti Anklam and Bruce Hoppe. We learned what knowledge management is and we discussed how it relates to OD. We explored the Learning Group Directory system as a tool for knowledge management and talked about issues relating to KM in our practice, including finding people and being found, making sense out of the wealth of currently available information, and ethical issues relating to organizational information.

KM involves many concepts (such as learning organization) practice areas (such talent acquisition) associated with OD. We have thus chosen as our Question of the Month, “What can organizational development practitioners learn from Knowledge Management?”

Certainly, too, as was observed at the meeting, KM practitioners can learn from organizational development! Perhaps someone has something to suggest on that topic as well.

Jim Murphy

Shepherding Business to Your Door Winner Report

2006-08-18T20:10:00.000-04:00

I was fortunate to win the drawing for our February meeting, OD Meets MBA. Here (at long last) are my notes regarding the prize from Harvy Simkovits, Business Wisdom’s 2006 Guide: Shepherding Business to Your Door. Having enjoyed two of Harvy’s ODLG presentations, I looked forward to digging into his guide on how to gain more business.

This 118-page guide is a hands-on workbook that aims to help business owners, sales executives, and professional service providers win at what Harvy calls the Outside Game of business. The Outside Game is the external part of developing a business, which includes being clear about your business vision and mission, focusing your business-development strategy, finding business opportunities, identifying prospects and developing a good pitch, and carrying yourself with confidence and certainty about your value. It is logically organized into five sections to help you answer a series of questions that will help you shepherd business to your door: WHY should customers buy from you? WHO is your customer & WHAT do you offer them? WHERE is your business coming from? HOW do you get your prospects to buy? WHEN: continually planning your work & working your plan. Each section includes pearls of wisdom, diagrams and worksheets.

Being a baseball fan, my favorite diagram and metaphor was from section IV, How do you get your prospects to buy? Harvy writes, “Gaining a contract with a prospect is like going around the bases in the game of baseball.” The batter’s box is where you try to make contact with a prospect. Following this contact, you circle the bases: first base is where you have an initial conversation with a buyer, second base is where you conduct a meeting with the buyer to understand their needs and build trust, and third base is where you submit a proposal or quote. You reach home plate when you've signed a contract/agreement. The guide has a page or two describing each base, including the issues involved at each stage and questions to think about. Now when I see Big Papi standing at first base, smiling and chatting up the opposing team’s first baseman, I’ll imagine that he’s “creating a desire to connect and engage” by building awareness, tension, and credibility.

While I found the supporting materials important and informative, I found the worksheets to be the heart of the guide. Most of the workshops are structured around a series of thought-provoking questions to answer. Reading a self-help book can certainly be useful. But actually working through exercises can really help clarify your thinking and increase the likelihood of actually changing your behavior. I found the exercises to be clear, practical and useful. For example, in the first section on why customers should buy from you, the guide has a series of worksheets that ask questions to help you elucidate your values and beliefs, define your professional/business mission statement, and derive your vision statement. Several of the worksheets have example answers that provide inspiration and clarity.

The guide is structured in way that allows you to focus on only one or two sections, or work your way through the entire workbook. Thus, it seems like it could be a useful tool for a wide range of people, from those who are thinking out launching a business to experienced business-owners and consultants who want to upgrade their business. I imagine that it could also be very helpful to individuals who are on the job market; with some adaptation, many of the exercises and lessons might help you prepare for informational or job interviews.

The guide also includes a CD that contains a copy of the entire workbook as well as several articles Harvy has written about ways to increase your business.

At this point I find myself wishing I could add a testimonial about how I worked through the guide and used the results to enhance my own business. Alas, I am not currently a business-owner and do not have significant sales and marketing responsibilities in my current position. That said, I did find the guide helped me to think about various possible directions I could take with my career in the future, and pushed me to think more creatively about how I could contribute to the “outside game” as an employee in my current position.

I have one minor quibble, which seems almost too petty to mention. The size of the notebook binder is too small to contain the quantity of the guide’s useful materials. A binder with rings that were a size or two larger would make it much easier to turn the pages and to remove sheets to do the exercises.

A copy of the guide is available to check out from the ODLG library. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning how to better market their business.

Ginger Fitzhugh

SpeakingPresence Winner update...

2006-08-16T20:12:00.000-04:00

Hi ODLG,

As per the agreement for the June program giveaway, I am passing along my "learnings" from my recent ODLG "winnings" - one session of a SpeakingPresence workshop facilitated by Carla Kimball, the Founder and President of RiverWays Enterprises.

First, as someone who has been diligently looking for new work, though unsuccessfully finding any, I sensed my luck beginning to change once my name was pulled from the raffle envelope at the ODLG June "Going Around in Circles II" meeting. It was announced that I had WON a training session! How appropriate ! A training session related to a skill that I could use not only in my upcoming interviews, but also in the type of work I was seeking.

After some e-mail correspondences with Carla, we coordinated a mutually optimal date for me to attend my complimentary SpeakingPresence workshop. At this point, I don't remember the exact date, but mid-July seems about right. Carla requested that I arrive 15 minutes earlier than the other students so that I can learn more about the workshops and Carla could learn more about me.

If my memory serves me right, I ate up most the time talking about myself, while more experienced students trickled in, eager for another session. Carla reassured me that the session would be easy to follow along and with the crowd gathering, it seemed best to transition into introductions and becoming part of the group.

We started the sessions with some timed exercises. Instructed to focus on some pictures for an alloted time and then assigned partners for another time slice. I must admit I felt a little giddy looking over at a partner while they looked back at me, feeling the urge to crack a joke. As time went on though, my uncomfortability with the mutual attention started to wane, especially since the more experienced students didn't seem as adolescent about it all.

This introductory exercise was a lead into the idea of focusing your attention towards a connection with your "audience" members rather than focusing on yourself. A brief catch phrase used to summarize this shift was "arrows out", as opposed to the more self-focused "arrows in".

Over the course of the evening we took turns speaking, again during timed segments, to our fellow classmates. At each turn, we each tried to practice this idea of "arrows out" and connecting with our audience. To emphasize our shift in focus, we even spent time looking at each of our individual classmates. These turns were followed up with feedback comments from the class and an opportunity to reflect on how you felt while speaking or some of the qualities you felt your talk embodied.

The grand finale of the session was when we took turns speaking, about ANYTHING, for 5 minutes. Though 5 minutes normally goes quite fast in the rest of my life -suddenly, the time felt extended during this exercise. I watched participants take the time to connect with their audience, but also with themselves. It seemed like a continual "re-grounding" or "re-centering" was practiced while the flow of their talk seemed uninterrupted. Carla taped each of us while we spoke so that we could bring our tapes home and review them in privacy.

During my recent graduate school work in education, I had the experience of being taped many times along with the requirement of reviewing my tapes in private and writing papers which included my reflections on what I observed. The tapes were a great way for me to break some poor habits fast, as I didn't want to see myself fiddling with chalk, triple checking my watch, or talking too fast, ever again. But my focus during these earlier tapings were usually on the content I was attempting to present, the nature of my interactions with a student, or the pitch or pace of my voice.

As a result of this one workshop, without viewing the tape, I could already tell that the quality of my speaking was calmer, slower, and more connected than it probably was on those previous grad school tapes, although granted I had less I was simultaneously trying to do.

Well, it seems I'll just have to trust that feeling, as the day I tried to view my tape in private, my old VCR started acting up, and the darn thing wouldn't play. All I saw was "static " :< ! It wasn't just my tape from Carla, the other old tapes won't play now either. In spite of my lack of video documentation, I tried to keep the principles of the SpeakingPresence workshop in mind during a recent interview, during which I needed to teach a 15 minute class to a room full of instructors and the assistant dean of the school. I know I focused on my PowerPoint animations about as much as I did my audience, but lo and behold, this past week, I was offered the job ! In, the ODLG giveaway, like the Massachusetts State Lottery, you have to "Be In It to Win It". One factor that tilted the winning odds in my favor is that I not only filled out my form, but I also stuck around until the end of the meeting. Two other folks has their names drawn before me, but they had headed out early. You need to be in the audience to claim your prize. Well, thanks Carla for an interesting perspective on public speaking. And, thanks ODLG for providing me with a mini-success during my arduous job search. Marianne Smith

What is the relationship between organizational development and organizational strategy?

2006-08-16T14:41:00.000-04:00

Our August 15 program meeting was on “Supporting Strategy Implementation,” presented by Jeff Stone and Nick Craig of Potentia Consulting. We learned the “law of organizational gravity,” the limitations of the strategic planning process, and, in particular, the method of backplanning and its value in increasing the success of strategic planning.

As with many of our programs, this is one served to foster connections between the OD community and other areas of practice, in this case strategic planning – a key concern of all organizations, but not generally of OD practitioners. Hence our “Question of the Month” is “What is the relationship between organizational development and organizational strategy?”

Jim Murphy

How can organizations communicate better?

2006-07-19T15:24:00.000-04:00

Our July 18 program meeting was on “Focus Group and OD”. In a popular format that we intend to use more often, those attending has their choice of two out of four presentations. Bonnie Gorbaty and Karen Stahl of Pathfinder Innovation did “Building a Brand from the Inside Out: A New Employee Roadmap for Linking OD Insights to Business Performance”. Bruce Katcher of Discovery Surveys, Inc. explained the “Do’s and Don’ts of Focus Groups”. Louise Mallette of The Telic Group considered “How Can I Get the Truth?” Mal Watlington of City Square Consulting covered “Virtual vs. In-Person Focus Groups”.

As an OD organization, our focus was on how organizations can use focus groups to support organizational communication. Hence our “Question of the Month” is “How can organizations communicate better?”

Jim Murphy

What is the connection between personal transformation and organizational transformation?

2006-07-18T12:04:00.000-04:00

Our Deeper Inquiry Group was formed in February as a follow up endeavor to our December 2005 program meeting with Otto Scharmer on Theory U. This new “subgroup” is for Learning Group members who wish to explore presencing and related topics through unstructured, open inquiry, dialogue, discussion and, oftentimes, simply being present to what comes up for us as a group. It meets monthly using a rotational system for leadership.

The “DIG SIG” topic for July was one that should be of interest to many members, and we have thus opened up discussion here for those who have thoughts on the relationship between individual and organizational change. The August 1 Deep Group meeting will be about sharing members’ experiences with personal transformation.

Jim Murphy

How can we promote deeper communication in organizations?

2006-06-14T15:11:00.000-04:00

Our June 13 program meeting was “Going Around in Circles II”. This was a revised version of our very popular May 2005 “Circles I” meeting. Both programs provided experiential learning on Dialogue Circles, Learning Circles, Speaking Circles, and Study Circles.

These techniques offer powerful tools for improving communication at the personal, team, or organizational level. Inasmuch as they are (somewhat like, say, swimming) only capable of being learned by doing them, the chance to experience and compare them provided a virtually unique opportunity that was much appreciated by those attending.

This time we did things somewhat differently than in the predecessor program, which was done in our “four presentations given twice” format. On this occasion, we had a first round in which participants had their choice of Dialogue, Speaking, or Study circles, followed by a second round in which we had a Learning Circle whose topic was comparing the experience of the three other forms of communication.

In the Learning Circle, we reflected on our prior circular experience, considering what feelings it brought about, how it differed from our usual conversations, and what we would take from it for application in our personal and work lives. We then compared our thoughts, first in pairs and then in groups.

One point that was the subject of much discussion was the difficulty in introducing these practices in the workplace. In part, this seems due to the novelty of the methods; they are not easy either to describe or to show. Moreover, in environments in which emphasis is put on results and the “bottom line,” advocates of what are perceived as slower and more indirect methodologies have a hard time making their case.

Indeed, when we’ve covered these topics in other Learning Group meetings, the biggest problem does seem to be “there is not enough time”. This problem was also the topic of the June 6 meeting of our Deeper Inquiry Group.

Accordingly, we’ve posed as our Question of the Month, “How can promote deeper communication in organizations?” Of course many of the other issues that arise in relation to these techniques are also very worth discussing. So let’s hear what our members and presenters think!

Jim Murphy

Jump Start Your Consulting - Final Report

2006-06-11T08:38:00.000-04:00

Jump Start Your Consulting with Bruce Katcher of Discovery Surveys

*Session 6*

Building a Sustainable Business

In the last of our gastro-seminars, Bruce revealed his recipe for building a business that lasts. Here are the key ingredients:

1. Leverage – use content, contacts, knowledge in as many ways as possible

2. Discipline – stay focused and follow through.

3. Fear - of poverty or working for the man, etc

4. Fight loneliness – by getting involved with professional associations, colleagues

5. Develop New Service lines – keep innovating

6. Set Long Term Goals – go beyond your one-year plan

7. Know when to punt
8. Say 'No' to work (appropriately)

9. Invest in your business, make decisions ahead of time

10. Get an accountant

The lunchtime piece de resistance was Bruce’s favorite East meets West recipe, a delicious hot, sweet and spicy, creamy curried sweet potato soup. Symbolically, I saw it as a fitting final piece of advice: do what you love to do, keep different elements of your life in balance, and even when there is sweetness, you may still have to reach for the Kleenex from time to time.

Thanks, Bruce, the group, and the ODLG, for an enjoyable and enlightening experience.

Fredia

Fredia Woolf, Principal
Woolf Consulting
www.woolfconsulting.com
contact me at: fwoolf@woolfconsulting.com

Jump Start Your Consulting - Fifth Report

2006-06-01T11:24:00.000-04:00

Jump Start Your Consulting with Bruce Katcher of Discovery Surveys

Session 5

This week, our topic was How to Sustain your Marketing Program

Marketing a consulting business takes discipline and follow through. The first two questions you have to ask yourself are: What’s the budget? What’s the plan? Bruce has a number of suggestions to keep you on track and to build awareness of your business.

1. Create an activity spreadsheet

• Each column represents a month
• Each row is color coded for different service lines or marketing activities eg monthly newsletter, mailing to network, three articles, four free speeches, send holiday card
• Keep it on your screen all the time – and check off as you do them
• Ask yourself: What can I do on a regular basis?

2. Write an e-zine/electronic newsletter

• Brainstorm a list of topics, items that interest you and will give value.
• Create a template eg problem solution format, start with a statistic, think of a catchy title
• Start by sending it to the people you know, then it will grow (caution: it must be useful)
• Have the discipline to keep to a monthly deadline.
• Use it to build your brand – include logo, photo. Consistency helps.
• Create a procedure. As your list grows, you may need to hire an editor and a webmaster. There are services such as Topica or Constant Contact which make sending e-newsletters very simple.
• Offer people the option to unsubscribe, rather than to subscribe
Potential drawbacks:
o Is it still appropriate in 2006 – it is no longer novel?
o You have to be always thinking: What’s the next topic?
o Spam filters and bouncebacks
o It is a lot of hard work
But don’t be discouraged.
• Remember to be sure it is useful and keep it short.
• Content can be recycled – book form, podcasts, workshop etc.
• Links on newsletter to blog, website

3. Network

BE SYSTEMATIC
• Create a list of people who are critical to your business
• Think of 50 people who could refer business to you
• When should you contact them? How? (send an article, phone, lunch etc) How often?–
• What organizations can you join?
• Find one to three to be active in. Committee work pays off in many ways
1) organizations for learning - to help you stay at the top of your field
2) other consultants – share how to bill, build referrals, social part
3) prospects –some are tough eg you may have to be licensed; other welcome suppliers, vendors, consultants. Professional associations, chambers of commerce etc
• Follow up after you’ve met people
• Set small goals eg meet 2 people - and follow up immediately.

4. Advertise in selected publication

5. Give speeches, for example 3 times in the year

6. Write articles or papers - push yourself to call editors

7. Send direct mail – create postcards (vistaprint.com do oversized ones) and send a few each week to your target market.

8. Make cold calls – they work for every business, but you have to be willing to do this.

9. Build your contact database – whichever method you use, manage it actively.

Any and all of the above will build your marketing program.

And after all this inspiring – yet intimidating for those of us who can slip up from time to time in the self-discipline department – advice, we were ready to adjourn for lunch. But, once again, self-discipline was the theme. Challenged by my last comment about calories, Bruce headed to his weight watchers recipe book for lunch. The good news was that the vegetable quiche he turned out was very tasty. As was the Asian fusion salad he created with Boston lettuce, avocado, cranberries, walnuts and blue cheese, with a five-spice sesame oil dressing. And dessert was brought from my favorite European style bakery in Brighton.

Fredia

Fredia Woolf
Principal
Woolf Consulting
www.woolfconsulting.com

Contact me at: fwoolf@woolfconsulting.com

Report from Facilitation Teleclass

2006-05-19T22:48:00.000-04:00

As one of the winners of last month's prize, I agreed to post my thoughts from the Teleclass on Facilitation offered by Roger Schwarz. He sent out a case and some slides of the model he used beforehand. He reviewed these on the call and then took questions and cases of difficult situations from participants.

He advocated a Mutual Learning Model, and most of his advice was the fundemental and yet still radical idea of saying out loud what you observe going on and letting the group see why you are doing what you are doing.

Below are the notes:

Facilitator Training Notes from Schwarz Teleclass May 16, 2006

How We Contribute to Our Clients' Challenges - and How to Change That

Applying models from Chris Argyris

Espoused theory - the way we say we interact

Theory-in-use – what you actually do - often theory that we’re unaware of

90% of us design our behavior based on values that get us what we don’t want

Unilateral Control Model (UCM) (Model One in Argyris work)

2^nd slide – UCM

example of facilitating to get someone talking too much to talk less, by cutting him off, saying we want to hear from others, and we’ll come back to you (but not really)

3^rd slide – Mutual Learning model

How do I get all of the info out so that group can make informed free choice with their commitment, and compassion?

So speak up and say to person who is talking more frequently that others “Jeff, I notice that you’ve been speaking each time any other person speaks and that you’ve been talking for a longer period of time – is that right?” “I also notice that Sara and Ron have been rolling their eyes when Jeff has spoken the last 2 times, am I right?” “So I’m wondering if you all have some concerns about Jeff’s participation – am I right?”

You’ve got some sort of contract with the group to make these kind of interventions – let them make an informed free choice to engage in this kind of interaction

3 principles with Mutual Learning Model:

Curiosity – remain curious, not wedded to my interpretation

Transparent – about what I’m thinking and why I’m doing what I’m doing

Accountability – expecting each person to be accountable for this behavior and I’m accountable for mine

We often collude with our clients ahead of time about the “difficult person” and we agree to “manage” them for the client instead of inviting them to take accountability and do it in a mutual learning model.

Talk to the client ahead of time and respect their informed free choice

Transparency – let your clients know why you’re doing what you’re doing

Think about how you could say it out loud and how that would sound – unilateral control stuff will sound crazy, but mutual learning will sound okay

Question from participant: How to build the trust needed for this?

Roger answers: The general assumption is that you need to have trust with the client first to use this, but Roger says that using this approach is what builds the trust with the client

Trusting yourself enough – stems from ability to trust the process and be willing to try it to see how it works

Examples from participants:

She finds herself in situations where she feels like she made a mistake and how to get back on track

Meeting of leadership support of a specific team – one person was talking about her individual feelings vs. the team

She felt like she should have intervened to check in with the team

She did not intervene – why? – b/c she wanted the individual to talk and was concerned about her, felt blinded to the rest of the group

Roger suggested that she could have said all of this out loud in the group

How to be curious and compassionate when questioning someone rather than thinking about it as challenging them.

Remember that they have the ability to make an informed free choice to not participate.

If there’s an underlying assumption that the people are there not under their own choice, but b/c the boss made them come – how to surface that assumption and discuss it

Avoid as facilitator becoming the central repository of information by meeting separately with individuals. Let the group be the repository of information.

Have others there to give you feedback in the moment to catch you when you go toward unilateral control model

Or talk to people beforehand to strategize options beforehand

Or listen to recordings of yourself afterwards to notice patterns, then work on those patterns

Offer 2 teleclasses a month – 1 is free

Radical and powerful approach to nonverbal behavior in groups is the next theme.

Jump Start Your Consulting Session 4

2006-05-12T18:47:00.000-04:00

Jump Start Your Consulting with Bruce Katcher of The Discovery Group

Session 4

This week, our topic was Sales, the bugbear for many consultants.

Q: How do you get round gatekeepers?

A: Consider what could be in it for them. How could you make them look good? Remember that you have to get to decision makers/people with budgets. It takes time to build the relationship and build credibility.
Transaction vs relationship selling – it is more likely that you’ll be invited in if you do the latter.

Q: How do you know when it’s over and you haven’t made the sale?

A: Recognize clear signs (send me the literature etc). Bruce found that a course in sales training was useful for him – workshops on different topics, cds, immersion – try things out.

Q: How do you run sales calls efficiently?

A: Some principles:
• Up front contract – clarify ahead of time – how much time do we have together? During this meeting, this is what I hope will happen, at the end of that time, if it makes sense for us to work together, I’ll…..ask you to sign/write a proposal…are you prepared to do that? I want to know, yes or no. Let me know if you don’t think there is a good match. Could you agree to that? (This approach works for warm/qualified conversations where you have already prepare the ground).
• In some businesses, go for the close at the end of the hour. Have some sort of agreement. At the very least, you should end with “What is the next step?” - get them to say what they expect.

Q: What are the 3 things you should know about every prospect?

A: They lie.
They don’t often tell the truth
They lie.
So, get them to make little agreements as you go along.

Q: What is the “negative reverse”?

A: It is a selling technique analogous to a clock pendulum – push back to 9 and it’ll come back to 3, not 6.
“We don’t have a lot of money.” “Ok, but I’m expensive. You probably don’t want to talk to me.” They may say ok and walk away. More commonly, they come back. Maybe we can find some money. High risk strategy, but effective. Alternative reply: “If you want low cost, no frills, I can recommend someone else. I’m quality/can save you money/will give you stuff they can’t etc” is the basis of your argument and can be implicit or explicit.

Q: Should you bring lots of samples to show what you can do?

A: No. The focus of the meeting must be on them not on you.

Q: How should you handle the hardest questions in any sales call – “Tell me about your firm and what you do. What’s your philosophy? What’s your track record?”

A: These are questions to put you on the spot. Change the dynamic – you want them to talk. Answer – “That’s a good question, I’ve not been asked that before. Tell me why you are asking that? What is important for you? What has gone wrong? What do you want to avoid? What are your challenges? Fears?” Be brief about yourself: “I’m so and so, done such and such – we try and find needs, solve problems…” and turn it around immediately. You must get them to talk so that they will reveal objections etc. Remember, it’s all about THEM.

Q: What kind of audiovisual equipment do you need?
A: Nothing. Come with a list of questions. You want to probe, find out about them, what makes them tick, what do they want? Try and meet face to face with people. And ask open ended questions, such as: “What are your objectives? How will you know this is successful? What do you think the challenges will be to make this work?”
Elicit desired RESULTS and FEARS. Then address these in your proposal – your approach is based on their identified fears.

Q: What is the most productive selling mindset?

A: Play the game. See it as a process. Come with a point of concentration – you have a state of mind that is curious and inquisitive – you want to learn things – ask dumb questions. Have a mind set, don’t anticipate what they want. What do they really need? What would be helpful to them? Find out if they are looking for expertise or for implementation. Maybe they just want something less sophisticated.
Turn things so you have control again – you must be asking the questions. You won’t know what you need to fix or change.

Q: What should you avoid?

A: Chasing. When you have met with a lead, don’t call over and over. Sometimes it works, but usually it doesn’t. It is bad for price negotiations. Draw your own limits. Sit tight. Show yourself more respect than prospect is showing you. Spend time and energy on looking for others. Leave message –“It sounds like it wasn’t the right time, I won’t bother you again.” Don’t be angry, and don’t guilt trip them. If the circumstances are right, you might ask them to give you feedback on the process “…it will help me with my next opportunity”.

Q: What are good indirect selling techniques?

A: Remember that loose connections are often more powerful than your closest friend. Networking, picking the right environments, volunteering, being out there – all eventually bring business.

Lunch was Italian in inspiration. Calorie laden eggplant parmesan with a thick crust of melted cheese and deep red tomato sauce, accompanied by a Caesar salad (well, Roman emperors are Italian, in a sense!). Dessert was a selection of anise pizzelle, cannoli and pignoli, picked up from her local bakery by one of our group who is a long standing resident of the North End. A little prosecco would not have gone amiss, but sparkling water did just fine to round off our hearty Friday afternoon fare.

Fredia

Fredia Woolf
Principal
Woolf Consulting
www.woolfconsulting.com

Contact me at: fwoolf@woolfconsulting.com

What is the role of "tools" in OD practice?

2006-05-11T22:38:00.000-04:00

Our May 10 program meeting was “OD Toolbox III”. Reviving a format we used in March 2001 and November 2001 and exemplifying the Learning Group tradition of shared learning, we had four presentations of OD tools.

Mindy Fried (who also won our Member Recognition Award) showed us Logic Models, a tool for assessing the effectiveness of a program or an intervention.

Steve Ober illustrated the Kantor Four Player model, which is based on identifying the four basic actions that make up the structure of all interactions.

Jim Webber demonstrated a matrix tool for self-assessment by facilitators.

Larry Stybel of Stybel, Peabody and Associates presented an “owner’s manual for managers,” a tool that gets that the data that a 360 degree assessment would get from people who would not go through a 360 process.

Following the presentation, we had a facilitated discussion on what we learned from the presentations and how we could apply such tools in the workplace. One comment that was made was how tools can be used in contexts other than those in which their inventory originally intended. Likewise, it was noted that the true value of such tools often is their role in provoking consideration of issues that otherwise would not been seen as in need of discussion.

Time did not permit more extensive discussion, but fortunately we have this blog as a resource for such further exploration, including contributions by members who could not be in attendance. We’ve framed the Question of the Month to open discussion generally about these and other tools and about part that “tools” play in OD.

I remember in discussing a similar program proposal years ago, a former member, a senior consultant with decades of OD experiences, expressed disapproval. “OD,” he said, “is not about tools”.

I would actually concur. OD is about values. And the most important “tools” in OD practice are authenticity, objectivity, and reflection.

At the same time, OD practitioners do use tools. Since every tool has only limited applicability and potential, there is certainly some truth in the common belief that the more tools one knows, the better practitioner one can be.

What do others think?

Jim Murphy

Jump Start Your Consulting - Third Report

2006-05-04T19:33:00.000-04:00

Jump Start Your Consulting with Bruce Katcher of The Discovery Group

Session 3

This week, our topic was Proposals.

Ideally, you would not need to write one. All you would have is a statement of work, confirming the scope of work that you have already agreed with the client. However, consultants are often asked to write proposals in a competitive bid for business.

A cover letter should outline who you are, which organizations you have worked with (preferably in the same industry), what you offer, what benefits arise from working with you, and what makes you stand out from the crowd.
As for the proposal itself, there was some debate in our group, but here are the commonly agreed essential ingredients:

• Table of Contents (if longer than 3-4 pages)
• Background and objectives – remember to focus on client’s issues, not yours
• Your approach – this may outline every step of the process or could be a broad outline (differences between the maximalists, such as Bruce with his 19 page proposal, and the minimalists, who would go no more than three, with an appendix, if necessary).
• Timeline (it is better to estimate in weeks than set actual dates, because project may be delayed)
• Staffing (no need to hide if you plan to subcontract)
• Fees and expenses (often good to give options, so client can trade off features and price and see you are flexible)
• References (name, title, company, contact details and what you have done for them)
• Optional: Our professional code of ethics
• Signature page

Lunch was a delightful spring meal of poached salmon with spinach pine nut pesto and a side of pasta primavera with a sweet and sour cucumber and pepper coleslaw. We helped ourselves to seconds and thirds and finished the meal with melt in the mouth pecan cookies, baked by one of the members of the group. Can’t wait for next time!

Fredia

Fredia Woolf
Principal
Woolf Consulting
www.woolfconsulting.com

Contact me at: fwoolf@woolfconsulting.com

Three Workshops with Alan Weiss, Ph.D., CMC, President, Summit Consulting

2006-04-26T12:36:00.000-04:00

Institute of Management Consultants
New England Consultants Conference 2006
Three Workshops with Alan Weiss, Ph.D., CMC, President, Summit Consulting

Watching Alan is enormously entertaining, inspirational, and grounding. He is very funny (usually in a self-deprecating way that slips into glibness only occasionally), and he uses stories to great advantage to anchor his sensible and pithy points. I’d recommend seeing him whenever you get the chance; and, by all means, be sure to ask him questions! He’s very generous with his attention.

Here are the notes I promised the ODLG based on winning the drawing at our March meeting, at which I won a ticket to the April 7 IMCNE Consultants Convention, allowing me to attend Alan’s keynote and workshops.

Barbara Bates
B.L.Bates@rcn.com

Building A Million Dollar Practice – Keynote
Alan Weiss, Ph.D., CMC, President, Summit Consulting

Business is about marketing, it’s pragmatic (what do they get of value from you).
“Get lots of irons in lots of fires.” Alan is not a fan of niche marketing: “The more you niche yourself and narrow your focus, the more you narrow your opportunities.”

It’s about self-esteem: you are approaching people because you have value people need. Use that value to motivate yourself and let it flow

- Talk about how your clients are better off from working with you.
- Be fearless
- Be provocative, push back
- Give off a vibe of success (dress at least as well as client or better.) Look like a seven figure consultant: wear the Armani and use the Mont Blanc.
- Establish a brand as soon as possible so folks search you out and fees are academic.

Set your sights at the top. Be aggressive. You’re better off failing at a magnificent effort than succeeding at a modest effort.
- Never do a needs analysis, get going (you’ll find it out as you go.)
- It’s not about perfection; it’s about success. When you are 80% ready, go! The last 20% is not worth it.

Psychologically, buyers buy on the basis of emotion, so make an emotional connection. Establish a relationship.
- Buyers have egos and if you under-change, they will undervalue you.
- Charge high fees to build a business (sweat equity in making a $10,000 sale is the same as $100,000 sale.)
- Promise significant value and deliver it.

How to handle objections: You have nothing to lose, so push back!
You already know every objection they might have, so use some linguistic judo:
- They say, “But you’re a solo practitioner!” So you respond, “Yes, that’s exactly why you need me!”
o You close your mouth, and wait while they gape at you for the two-second standard silence. They will then sputter, “What do you mean?” This reverses the energy of the conversation.
o You then respond, “Well, you’ll get my full attention.”
- They say, “We plan to do it in house.” You say, “Why do it so expensively!”(They are taking people off what they are doing, the product will be tainted by in-fighting, you wont get honest feedback, politics will slow you down…)
- They start talking jargon. You say, “If you keep talking like that, you’ll be out of business!”
- They tell you they’ve just grown 15% compounded annually and ask what makes you think you can add value. You say, “How do you know it shouldn’t have been 34%?”

Notes by Barbara Bates
B.L.Bates@rcn.com

Institute of Management Consultants
New England Consultants Conference 2006

Penetrating Large Corporate Enterprises - Workshop
Alan Weiss, Ph.D., CMC, President, Summit Consulting

More fun with Alan--- he’s really warmed up and focused in this second workshop!

Small businesses are extraordinarily irrational (especially family businesses!) It’s easier to do business with a large company.

Three kinds of large businesses:
- Resident and does business in US
- Resident and does business overseas
- Resident overseas and does business in the US

Do business with large companies that
- Are successful (that’s where the money is; don’t take clients in trouble since stupid management makes bad decisions)
- Have used consultants before
- Have a need for your value proposition / product.

You are never dealing with an entity, you are dealing with a person --- find the person, the buyer! A buyer is someone who can write a check for your services.
- Figure out who buys
- Cold calls don’t work (works 1 in 10,000 times), because people don’t buy from folks they don’t know.
- Learn what buyers read, and write & advertise there.
- Learn where buyers go (associations) and go there.
- The more you network, speak, and write, the more irons you have in the fire.
- Alan claims to be an introvert who doesn’t socialize and avoids “the luncheon thing” at conferences like this IMC NE Consultants Conference.
- Alan simply writes and speaks about controversial subjects (he will disagree with anything he can with which he can reasonably do so.)

Alan’s Platinum Method for Finding Prospects: word of mouth references (your Brand is your Name)
- Be sure to ask everyone you know for referrals at least three times per year.(Say, “Here’s my value proposition. Can you use it? Do you know someone who can use it?”)
- When working a contract, ask for referrals about 2/3 of the way through the project (NOT at the end when you’re out of sight, out of mind!)
- About 95% of Alan’s business comes from renewals and referrals; only 5% comes out of thin air. About half of the 95% was generated from Alan asking for the referral.

If clients wont or don’t give you referrals:
- My existing clients who give me referrals always have priority.
- You want me to give you referrals, reciprocate!
- If you want to use me again, know that I need money to stay in business…

If you’re just getting started:
- Write a book for a commercial imprint like John Wiley & Sons
- Do pro bono work to get referrals from important / influential people.
- Don’t get known for a thing; get known for a result.

Have one page on your web site with 15 references. Prospects wont call any of them! (If you list three, they’ll call each of them.)

When you call the referral:
- Don’t go in with a product pitch
- Never ask about problems
- Do say something like, “Paul told me that if you and I spend 20 minutes together it will be dynamite. When can we meet?”
- Do build a relationship (peer to peer) to build trust (this may take 3 or 4 20-minute meetings.)
- Do read the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, etc. to be able to deal with a wide variety of topics since it is “intellectual firepower” that impresses.
- If the person is a buyer, establish that you’re smart, well versed, successful, a high value guy/gal.
o Engage in conversation (light at first, “How about that Big Dig!”)
o Strong people hire strong people; weak people hire weak people.

The Gold Standard for Finding Prospects:
- A commercially published book (Harper Collins, McGraw-Hill, etc.)
- Don’t have to sell a lot.
- It gets you in the door.

The Silver Standard for Finding Prospects: a track record of work with recognized firms.

Overseas Work
- Today it’s relatively simple to promote work from the US using electronic media.
- There is a correlation of receptivity to distance (Hong Kong will host you if you say you’ll be in town from Boston, but New York wont even make time to meet with you!)

Tips (answers to questions from the audience):
- Getting speaking gigs: look up trade associations and their membership.
o Speak at the Fisheries Convention --- it’s process not content!
o Write to the Executive Director: “I’m interested in speaking at your conference. Here are some outcomes for your members (list 3 or 4 bullets.) Here are my credentials (why I’m good.) I’ve enclosed my press kit. I’ll call you on Tuesday at 10 AM.”
o Then call and say, “I’m calling as promised.”
- Leverage your speaking engagements: Once you get a speaking engagement, call prospects in the area, and explain, “I’m in town for a speaking engagement and want to meet.”

- How to compensate folks for referrals etc.:
o If you give me a referral: 5% of my business fee
o If you introduce me: 10% of my business fee
o If you close the sale for me: 20% of my business fee.
o Acquisition is the hardest job and gets the biggest share of the proceeds (50%); Methods gets 30%, and delivery gets 20%.

- Key to getting commercially published:
o Have something to say
o Write a winning proposal (there is a formula for this, Alan says it’s on his web site.)
o Get an agent (ask someone who has a good agent for the agent’s name.)

Bottom line: “If you think you can do this or if you think you can’t --- you’re right!”

Notes by Barbara Bates
B.L.Bates@rcn.com

Institute of Management Consultants
New England Consultants Conference 2006

Proposals That Win Business - Workshop
Alan Weiss, Ph.D., CMC, President, Summit Consulting

Still more fun with Alan--- he’s really cruising in this third workshop!

Proposals are summations, not explorations.
- They are based on conceptual agreement regarding
o Objectives
o Measurables / metrics (can be anecdotal)
o Value (the impact on the organization, de facto ROI)
o Nowhere are “deliverables!”

- Always offer option --- a choice of yeses moves the buyer from “should I do this?” to “How should I do this?”
- Proposals are about 2 and a half pages; size doesn’t matter (no resumes etc.)
o Always use high quality stationery, embossed folders, tactile.
o Always Fed Ex the proposal.
o If they want email, do it and follow-up with the hard copy.

- There are 9 parts to a proposal”

1) Situation appraisal (about 2 paragraphs): describes why we are talking, “You are entering a new phase since you must now compete…”
2) Objectives (3 to 5) that we agreed for this project (worded as outcomes.)
3) Measures (3 to 5 bullets) will tell us we are making progress.
4) Value in achieving these objectives (bullets naming monetary or non-monetary return like stress-reduction.)
5) Methodology: at least 3 options for achieving the objectives; does specify some tangibles, but does not focus on “deliverables.”
6) Timing (couple of sentences) explaining that we can start 30 days after you accept, and outlining the duration for each option (e.g. option one takes 3 months…)
7) Joint Accountabilities:
a. I’m responsible for…
b. You are responsible for making key people and documents available, providing office space and secretarial support for me, etc.; and
c. We are jointly responsibility for… (E.g. “We will immediately inform each other of anything we find that can materially affect this project.” This means that if an employee of a client approaches Alan and says they need him to keep something in confidence, he says, “I need to let you know I have this agreement…”)

8) Terms & Conditions: this is the first time the client sees the fee, and it is in the context of value that is provided
a. Fees: List the fee for each option. Alan never quotes or gives ballpark fees without a proposal. He simply tells them he doesn’t know what it will cost and will have a proposal to them the next day. Alan never negotiates fees (If they ask, he says, “Is that what you do with your customers?” If they say, “Yes,” he responds, “That’s why you need me!”)
b. Terms: 50% on acceptance; 50% in 45 days (i.e. before the end of the project.) Never get paid on completion. If client says, “We have procedures,” respond, “So do I.” Alan will negotiate terms (e.g. 50% on acceptance, 25% in 30 days, 25% in 45 days… always before completion though.)
c. Tips:
i. Offer a 10% discount if paid in advance (corporations may have policies requiring them to take advantage of discounts; and once they have paid, they wont cancel the project.)
ii. Get paid in advance for speeches.
iii. Alan adds 50% for work in Europe, and 100% markup for Pacific Rim work.
iv. Expenses are charged as accrued every day each month and due on presentation. Alan bills clients for planes, trains, rental cars etc. as if they were the medium/coach fares, but then he travel first class (paying the difference himself.)
9) Acceptance: This line states that by signing this page, they indicate their acceptance of a particular option. It also states, “By providing me with a check, you indicate your acceptance of this project.” This is Alan’s way of avoiding having to have the “contract” go through the legal department.

Tips (answers to questions from the audience):
- If the client asks you to sign a contract, get a lawyer to review it.
- E&O and Liability Insurance are required.
- Never respond to a blind RFP (unless you already have a relationship.)
- Circumvent RFP process by being a sole source (a commercially published book); it’s the price of intellectual property.
- In competitive bids, governments accept the highest value, not the lowest cost bid.
- Combating scope creep: say, “Of course I’ll do it, but first I’ll create a new proposal for it.” Then stick to the requirement that they accept the new proposal before you start on the extra work.
- Alan’s fees show at least a 10 to 1 annualized return. 3 to 1 is fine too. Fees are not based on hours worked, but on value received by the client.
- While some weaknesses need to be addressed, we grow primarily by building strengths, not correcting weaknesses.

Bottom Line: “Be bold and brazen --- don’t be afraid to fail and
if you’re not afraid to fail, you’ll succeed!”

Notes by Barbara Bates
B.L.Bates@rcn.com

How should OD practitioners think of leadership?

2006-04-12T15:13:00.000-04:00

Our April 11 program meeting featured a presentation by Matt Carlen of 7th Wave Solutions on “Remodeling Leadership Performance”. We received numerous stimulating ideas on the role of leadership in organization development.

As usual, the program meeting time could not do justice to the wealth of the “knowledge in the room”. We thus invite Learning Group members and presenters to share their thoughts on leadership. Some specific questions that we might consider would include the following:

· What is the connection between leadership development and OD?

· How should organizations develop leaders?

· What does leadership actually mean?

· How is the capacity for leadership measured?

· How general is the capacity for leadership?

Jump Start Your Consulting - Second Report

2006-03-26T22:21:00.000-05:00

Bruce Katcher of the Discovery Group is leading a 6 session series entitled “Jump Start your Consulting Practice”. Having won the ODLG’s member draw, I have undertaken to share my learnings through this blog.

The second session dealt with the topic: How to establish credibility

Bruce focused on 7 ways:

1. Obtain referrals from satisfied clients.

This is the most obvious way to establish credibility with future clients, and there are many variations on this theme, ranging from polite to downright cheeky. Interesting observation that people who know you relatively well are less likely to refer you than people who know you less. Here is what some people do:
• Send clients a thank you and ask if they can think of any one who might need your services. Warm leads are better than cold calls; hot leads are when they call ahead of time.
• Build it into the prewrap up of the project, while you are still in the “hugging phase” with the client.
• Include request in your proposal, saying you build your business on referrals, and ask to be referred to at least two people.
• Educate your referral sources – they often don’t actually know what you do. Give specific examples of how you have helped clients rather than giving an elevator pitch in generic language or jargon.
• Be proactive . Send a periodic newsletter to update people. For e-newsletters, opt out is more effective than opt in.
• Offer payment, such as a 10% finder’s fee, but this could be interpreted as seedy.

2. Ask for testimonials.

Transfer credibility of someone else to you.

3. Endorsements.

Ask a client to write a letter about you and send it to people they know. This can be a powerful endorsement, but you have to be sure to choose the right person and be careful how you frame your request.

4. Write a book.

The ultimate credibility builder, that gets you into so many places.

5. Publish articles

Since editors always looking to fill space, it is not usually difficult to get published this way. Target the right journals for your audience and pitch your story. Other ways of building credibility are to build relationships with journalists and get quoted, or to write letters to the editor. Check on how you are doing with Google alerts.

6. Conduct a survey.

Could be a one item or open ended survey. This is a good way of getting in front of your target market and becoming the expert at the same time – you own the data that they have provided you with! Only downside is that it is a lot of work, but the payback can be big.

7. Speak.

National Speakers Association helps you get speaking engagements. To get started, talk in front of professional groups. Ask the Program Chair what their members might be interested in within the broad subjects you cover and pitch your talk. Push yourself to do it if you are good at it. Another variation is to teach a college course as an adjunct – good for marketing, though not for earnings.

And this report would not be complete without mention of the chicken curry salad that I know as Coronation Chicken, a mix of English and Indian traditions, a recipe developed to celebrate the crowning of Queen Elizabeth, but that Bruce insists comes from his friend in New Jersey – whatever its provenance, it was delicious!

More next time.

Fredia Woolf
Principal
Woolf Consulting
fwoolf@woolfconsulting.com

www.woolfconsulting.com

What are the best OD Practices?

2006-03-12T21:08:00.000-05:00

Our March 9 meeting was about best practices in six areas of OD. This was the third time we have held this kind of program, and each time we have varied the practice areas to be considered. In this 2006 version we had subsections on coaching, culture change, diversity, leadership development, performance improvement, and team building. In previous meetings in July 2003 and March 2004, we also gave attention to best practices in change management, conflict resolution, and strategic planning.

Meetings in this format (often referred to as the “John LeBlanc” format, after the former Coordinating Committee member, now in Seattle, who invented it) have always been well attended and enthusiastically reviewed. It provides a valuable opportunity to update one’s thinking and to find out what is going on in various practice areas, and it could even lead to actual communities of practice within the Learning Group.

Rather than single out any practice area, we are thus inviting, as the Question of the Month, discussion on what are the best OD practices. So let’s have your thoughts on what practice areas are particularly important and what are the best tools, interventions or models in these areas.

Going Deeper Into Change

2006-02-23T15:12:00.000-05:00

On February 11, eleven Learning Group members held a special meeting on Presencing and Theory U, following up on learning from the meetings on those topics presented by Otto Scharmer in our meetings of September 2004 and December 2005, respectively. It was a very stimulating occasion, illustrating the energy and breadth of knowledge and experience that always occurs when Learning Group members get together.

Some of the questions and issues discussed were as follows:

What are the sources of resistance in individuals and organizations toward deeper inquiry and transformational change?

Having perusaded an organization to go deeper, how exactly do we get them there (or is better just to go without knowing how)?

How can we make ensure that “shift happens”?

Can make a typology or map of techniques for going deeper? In addition to Presencing, Dialogue, Focusing, intentioning, interventions based on poetry and other arts (our October 2005 program presented an example), getting people to tell the truth, were mentioned?

How can we maintain the “magic” and energy that deeper practices create?

If people don’t want to go deeper, can we persuade them – or should we just let them fail?

Can we create a “container that lasts”?

What is the role of critical thinking in developing deep change?

The consensus was strongly in favor of continuing the discussion. We thus invite members to participate here as one way to do that. We will also be announcing another meeting, possibly taking place next month.

Indeed, a new Learning Group special interest group could be in the making. We were, however, not able to come up with “just the right” name for what it is that we are exploring and agreed to work on that as a follow up activity.

Noting that other posts have been made about the role of humor in OD, here are some possible acronyms:

· Deeper Intervention Guides – DIG SIG

· Getting Organizations Deeper – GOD

· Shift Happens in Optimal Organizational Transformation - SHOOT

· Taking Organizational Analysis Deeper - TOAD

Jim Murphy

Jump Start Your Consulting - First Report

2006-02-22T07:27:00.000-05:00

The ODLG has instituted a monthly giveaway at program meetings to one lucky member who is wiling to share the benefits by writing up their learnings for the ODLG - a win for all concerned. I was fortunate to win a place on the course offered the The Society of Professional Consultants (SPC) called "Jump Start your Consulting Business" run by former SPC President, Bruce Katcher, President of Discovery Surveys, Inc. Instead of waiting till the end of the six session series, I'll keep you briefed session by session via this blog.

Session 1

Preparation
Ahead of time, Bruce gets us to prepare ourselves with a few skillfully selected questions. We are expected to brief the group on:

Our focus
Our strengths
Our weaknesses
Our challenges
An example of a client assignment
Our approach to marketing
What we would like to get out of our time together

Challenges
Seven people show up on a freezing cold Friday, each in a very different field of interest, each bringing different challenges, expertise and issues, but here are some common themes.

How to develop a pipeline and become more efficient at building one.
Knowing how much to charge (and consequently what the ideal number and type of projects should be).
Whether and how to work with partners
Discovering where is the need for one's services and who will pay
How to focus when one has disparate skills and offerings
How to expand one's network and awareness of one's products and services
How to create more rigor round business practices, good processes, a sales funnel.
How to create business development plan so you don't have to rely on referrals.

Content - the Learning Model
The agenda is set to cover a number of areas. After introductions and lunch, we are supposed to discuss "How to Establish your Credibility", "Applying these lessons to your Business" and "Next Steps". But all we do are introductions and lunch in three hours. The process interests me. The session was conceived with a hierarchical learning model in mind, with Bruce as the expert-teacher-leader and the participants as students. But as we go round the room, each telling his or her story (structured by Bruce's questions), we hijack the process and turn it into a more horizontal peer-learning model. No matter that we have a biotech person, a career counselor, a software person, an event manager, a call center expert, a journalist and a business strategist and coach - each person's story can be processed through our own filters and reveal new insights about our own situation, and each person's unique perspective and willingness to offer advice adds value to the others. At the end of the session, Bruce expressed regret that we had not covered as much ground as he had hoped, but I felt the experience to be very valuable.

Random Takeaways

Productizing is a good way of defining the steps in your process, naming them and then sending an announcement to everyone you know.
As a consultant, you should be careful about charging for your time. Charge for deliverables or for results instead.
Be conscious about the business model you choose. What will work for you?
Talk to people as you are establishing your consulting practice.
Focus on what you are passionate about or on an industry niche. Remember the sweet spot is: the overlap of what you do well, what you love doing, and what is needed in the marketplace.
For those who have hit analysis paralysis, or who have difficulty letting go of potential lines of business/product features/services, don't worry that you'll lose opportunities. To get across the chasm to your market, pick one pin and bowl (and forgive mixed metaphors).
Tricks for building credibility: write articles (there was a debate about whether reprints should be dated or not - yes for high credibility and timeliness; no for longevity as a marketing tool) and write a book (one of us had been fortunate enough to be invited by a publisher to write a book; the rest of us have to struggle on our own).
This report would not be complete without commenting on Bruce's delicious chicken salad with avocado, cranberries and balsamic vinaigrette, definitely a competitive differentiator in the management development marketplace.

Till next time....

Fredia Woolf
Principal, Woolf Consulting
www.woolfconsulting.com
fwoolf@woolfconsulting.com

Accentuating the Negative

2006-02-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

A post by Jim Webber has asked us to consider what OD would be like if we mastered the art of “Accentuating the Positive”. That is certainly a good question, though, at the risk of accentuating the negative, I think it is also a very tough one.

After all, what usually motivates organizations to call upon the services of an OD practitioner? Problems – trouble – negative circumstances. What makes organizations willing to change? According to many authorities, only the pain of their present situation, the so-called “burning platform”.

Consulting generally proceeds via problem identification, data collection, diagnosis, and recommendation. When we collect data in the organization, we almost hear people telling us the good things – for a few minutes or so – which is then followed by as much venting about what is wrong as we are willing to hear.

Given, then, that clients are invariably thinking about what is wrong and that people in the organization are on the same negative wavelength, if we want to, as the cliché has it, “meet them where they are” isn’t there a risk that a positive mindset on our part can actually create a disconnect? Which of course is not to say that Appreciative Inquiry is not a valid intervention, but perhaps we also need to consider why positive thinking seems to run against the average organizational culture.

Accentuating the Positive

2006-02-14T10:17:00.000-05:00

Accentuate the “Positives,” an Emerging OD Opportunity
Positive Psychology,
Positive Organizational Scholarship
and Appreciative Inquiry

Creativity and humor, topics of prior posts, are part of the emerging field of “Positive Psychology.” Positive psychology is the new science of strength, resilience and hope. The Handbook of Positive Psychology (Snyder, 2005) is an incredibly useful and accessible guide to the field. Topics dear to the OD heart include: well-being, flow, emotional intelligence, optimism, hope theory, self-efficacy, the passion to know, wisdom, compassion, love, empathy, relationship, gratitude, toughness, social support, multicultural context, and spirituality.

Positive psychology, in turn, provides the social science base for “positive organizational scholarship” (Cameron, 2003), a developing academic discipline that “focuses on the generative dynamics of human organizing.” (p.10). The titles of the three parts of the book, alone, are enough to rekindle the OD spirit:
Part 1: Virtuous Processes, Strengths, and Positive Organizing
Part 2: Upward Spirals and Positive Change
Part 3: Positive Meaning and Positive Connections

Today, OD practitioners use Appreciative Inquiry (AI) in their work. The AI process asks positive, rather than deficit based, questions, and typically includes the steps of discovery, dream, design and destiny. The roots of appreciative inquiry, as an applied practice, is positive organizational scholarship and, more fundamentally, positive psychology.

Our Challenge: What would OD become if we mastered the art and science of “Accentuating the Positive?”

References:
Snyder, C. R., and Lopez, Shane J., Editors (2005) Handbook of Positive Psychology, Oxford University Press

Cameron, Kim S. Dutton, Jane E., and Quinn, Robert E., Editors (2003) Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline, San Francisco, Berrett-Kohler Publishers. Inc.

Ludema, James D., Whitney. Diana, Mohr Bernard J., & Griffin, Thomas J. (2003), The Appreciative Inquiry Summit, San Francisco, Berrett-Kohler Publishers, Inc

Jim Webber

More Resources on Creativitity

2006-02-12T18:52:00.000-05:00

This is a response to the post on creativity by Jim Webber. Our September 2005 program was on Creatvity . Although the notes regrettably are not yet ready, you can find many resources on creativity and OD in the program handout and in the program bibliography.

Creativity is a very hot topic in the management literature these days. While I have actually used a ruler to measure, it would seem the Management sections in bookstore shelves have at least as many titles on that topic as on leadership or team building.

It is thus an area that we should revisit in the future. Membership suggestions on topics in creativity that could be explored would thus we welcome.

Jim Murphy

Humor and OD

2006-02-12T14:12:00.000-05:00

Humor and OD

An informal group interested in the role of humor in organization development seems to be emerging at Mass ODLG. Donna Hamarah-Mill urged practitioners to develop their sense of humor at the January meeting. At the February meeting several of us, including Donna Hanifa-Mill, Susan Lee, Elin Anna Bjarnadottir, Sarah Kingsbury, Steve Ober, Bob Maitland, and Jim Webber clustered around a reference page that classified types of humor. This classification scheme is being used by the Union of International Associations (www.UIA.org) in their work on creating a harmonious world.

Humor is a serious matter in organization development. Humor is an essential leadership virtue as embodied by Jim Murphy, our illustrious leader. Humor and playfulness are critical skills of the group facilitator. Humor enhances personal well-being and health and is used systematically and therapeutically in healthcare settings. Humor is a means of communication. Laughter reduces tension and provides perspective in the workplace. Humor plays a role in conflict management as illustrated by the formation of APHIA, the Association for the Promotion of Humor in International Affairs.

There are different kinds of humor – OD has a special interest in mutually enhancing humor as opposed to cynical, destructive and mocking humor. The International Society for Humor Studies organizes its research on humor around: genres & types, disciplinary approaches, writers & performers, cultural traditions and applications.

Come to the March 9th meeting and laugh it up with us,

References:
International Society for Humor Studies: http://www.hnu.edu/ishs/
Humor and Play-Fullness article: http://laetusinpraesens.org/musings/humour.php

Jim Webber

How can we combine OD skills and business knowledge?

2006-02-09T22:18:00.000-05:00

Our February 8 meeting was “OD Meets MBA: Learning and Leveraging the Language of Business” and was led by three-time Learning Group presenter Harvy Simkovits, a/k/a “Mr. Business Wisdom”. We learned Harvy’s model for relating the Top Game, Inside Game, and Outside Game of Business and applied it to a case study.

In a sense, this was a follow up to our November 2005 “Future of OD” meeting. On that occasion, one item on our brainstormed list of “things OD needs to do” was to develop business skills and knowledge. Harvy’s combined expertise in both areas gave us some good answers to that question.

Harvy closed by asking to use “both hands” - the OD hand and the business hand - in our work. But we should not forget the lesson of our October 2005 program: we also need to use our heart as well as our hands!

In addition to the general issue selected above as our Question of the Month, we came up with some other questions for further consideration, viz.:

How can we deal with downsizing and restructuring?

What do you when board or team meeting turn into a fight?

What should ask in your first, fifteen minute, meeting with a CEO?

How can we deal the impact of family members on the boards of family owned businesses?

How we can lead from “what clients want” to what we believe is “the real problem”?

What metrics can be used to measure OD success and how can we get agreement on those metrics?

How we prevent “consultant dependency,” i.e., get organizations to be able to on their what we do for them?

How can make sure that OD interventions last and organizations don’t “relapse” to their old behavior?

We invite members to post their comments on these issues and to suggest additional related questions.

How can we create more od careers and work (cont.)

2006-01-30T11:48:00.000-05:00

Mass Bay ODLG

The Hot Topics Group at January 19 meeting, headed by Bruce Hoppe and C. Hill, developed some ideas for those interested in Creativity (Idea finding) and Innovation (Idea application). As a follow-up and help OD practitioners become adept at creativity and innovation, I am recommending some websites:

Creax at http://www.creax.net/ under free tools select "Creativity & Innovation Portal." What you will find is about 700 websites dealing with creativity and innovation. The list itself is a wonderful portrait of the field.

The TRIZ Journal at http://www.triz-journal.com is my second recommendation. TRIZ is a theory of systematic innovation that arose in Russia and now is glowing red hot across the globe. OD philosophy, values and skills are needed for successful implementation. The TRIZ Journal is free and all back issues are available.

jim webber

How can we create more OD careers and work?

2006-01-20T20:57:00.000-05:00

Our January 19 meeting was on a perennial topic: “Careers and Work” in OD. This time we used our “six small groups” format and shared ideas on various themes. In addition, we considered various Learning Group resources in this area and brainstormed on some more that we could develop.

A slight revision of the program title serves as an excellent Question of the Month. What can we do, as individuals and as an organization, to create more opportunities for OD practice? We invite your ideas and suggestions!

In addition, each of six discussion groups reported back one idea (“one” was defined rather generously by some groups!) for further consideration. These provide more excellent discussion questions, viz.:

From the section on “What Should I Do to Improve My Grounding and Skills in OD?” came the following questions:

How can we promote continuous learning and informal learning?

How can improve measurement and evaluation of OD interventions?

From the section on “How Can I Find an Entry Level Job in OD” came the following question:

How can we create a “taxonomy of OD” skills and provide learning based on way members have acquired these skills?

From the section on “Should I Be an OD Consultant” came the following questions:

How we can provide learning opportunities whereby members could see OD consulting in action?

How can we learn about options for customized programs in areas such 360 evaluation?

From the section on “How Can I Improve My OD Consulting Practice?” came the following question:

How we can develop a business model that does justice to our passions?

From the section on “What Are the Hot New Practice Areas in OD?” came the following questions:

How can meet the need for effective models and method for leadership development?

How can we address the persistent failure of mergers and acquisitions due to lack of consideration of the organizational culture?

How we maintain humor in OD practice?

From the section on “Are OD and HR Allies and Enemies?” came the following question:

How can OD facilitate honest conversations to create systematic changes for the solutions that HR provides?

We will be providing documentation and taking some action steps to work on these issues. Your thoughts can contribute significantly to those efforts!

How can we promote organizational integration?

2005-12-21T14:37:00.000-05:00

On December 13, we had a special presentation by Barry Oshry of Power & Systems. This was a sequel to his August 8 Learning Group program on the Organizational Workshop, made for the purposes of taping an additional segment. As with the prior program, this was an exceptionally stimulating experience, with the odd but somehow entertaining feature that we had to pretend that we had experienced the preceding part “yesterday”.

The session was a lesson in partnership. In particular, we did an exercise in which we worked as triads on devising a presentation that we wanted to give. As Barry explained, these “small groups,” even though randomly created, were highly productive because we were connecting in a positive and equal way.

Indeed, the exercise is model of how people in organizations can “integrate” instead of staying in the role of tops, bottoms, or middles. Integration occurs when like-minded individuals get together to share information, support each other, and consider new possibilities. The concept reminded me somewhat of Peer Coaching, the subject of our May 2004 program.

One could say that the Learning Group is an example of integration. Certainly the feeling of energy that this program’s exercise aroused also occurs at our program meetings.

Because this was not an “official” Learning Group meeting, we did select specific questions for follow up discussion. But members, whether or not they attending this session, no doubt can suggest some issues that the Organizational Workshop gives rise to.

One question that occurred to me was similar to one that I also thought of at the December 8 Otto Scharmer “Theory U” program: If the organizational culture does not already support open and honest communication, how can integration occur?

Another issue would be whether integration has to take place among tops, bottoms or middles or whether integrative groups of different levels can occur? Years ago, former member Joe Dabek and I started at Boston City Hall dialogue group whose members ranged from clerical grade to deputy commissioner. I would not hold this particular group up as a model of great success, but “vertical slice” approach is an interesting one.

The blog itself suggestion the question of whether integration can take place via virtual means. Perhaps, too, members would like to share some stories about attempts at integration.

How can we get organizations to go deeper?

2005-12-11T18:40:00.000-05:00

On December 8, the Learning Group had its second presentation by Otto Scharmer, senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founder of the Society for Organizational Learning. In his September 2004 program on Presence, which he co-authored with Peter Senge, Joe Jaworksi, and Betty Sue Flowers, Dr. Scharmer explained presencing, a thought process used by individuals and organizations to reach a deeper level of meaning.

In this program, he previewed his forthcoming book Theory U: Leading from the Emerging Future. He reported on his recent 150 interviews with eminent thinkers and practitioners in strategy, knowledge, innovation, and leadership around the world and demonstrated tools for applying presencing in our work.

The U Process is a methodology for addressing highly complex challenges and represents a “social technology” for transformation of person, organizations and society. It begins with “co-sensing,” in which deeper discovery leads to a shared map of reality. It continues with “co-presencing,” which takes the individual or group to a deeper understanding of the system they are in and one’s relationship to it. Finally, there is “co-realizing,” the enactment of a new reality.

Both the topic and the program were rich and stimulating. With a vast number of ideas and question arising, it is fortunate that we have this new resource for ongoing discussion.

We’ve selected one Question of the Month that always comes up when we consider method that make greater demands and that was particularly cited at After Thoughts: How can we get organizations to go deeper? Where does the resistance shown by such responses are “there isn’t enough time” come from? How can we as OD practitioners encourage moving from superficial and short-term solutions to more profound and transformative results?

Of course there were many other thoughts provoked by this meeting and we urge both those who attended and those who could not to share their questions and ideas on presencing, Theory U, and their application.

Tolerating mistakes

2005-12-07T20:33:00.000-05:00

Here is another answer to Abby’s question about organizations that allow for mistakes. I have been reading Charles O’Reilly and Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Hidden Value and they have an almost amazing example. The book is an impressive account of eight companies that believe that, rather than emphasizing acquisition and retention of “the best and the brightest,” the best course for employers is to work with “ordinary people” and inspire loyalty and performance.

One case study is of Men’s Wearhouse, which, the authors note, stands out as being highly successful in an industry that has seen many long-standing firms go out of business. It is also listed by Fortune as on of the “100 Best Companies To Work For” in this country.

Men’s Wearhouse believes in giving employees who make mistakes another chance, and they apply that policy so far as to include employees caught stealing money. The authors explain that, however overly forgiving one might consider that, the company is aware that retail workers generally have history of being poorly paid and poorly treated and thus are more susceptible to make such “mistakes”.

Written personnel policies invariably identify theft as ground for immediate termination. Can anyone top this as an example of tolerating employee mistakes?

What OD needs to do

2005-12-04T21:41:00.000-05:00

In addition to the four discussion questions mentioned in the previous post on our November 3 meeting on “The Future of OD,” we also brainstormed on “the top three things OD needs to focus on in the near term that will firmly establish OD as a critical partner in helping businesses respond to the challenges they face”.

The resulted combined list of twelve “prescriptions” for OD was as follows:

1. Improve the credibility of OD practitioners
2. Practice what we preach
3. Become strategic partners by bringing a vision and different perspectives
4. Develop partnerships with HR
5. Get a seat at the table with senior management
6. Create a brand
7. Define OD’s impact on business
8. Frame OD practitioners as transferors of knowledge and as implementation facilitators
9. Inspire OD practitioners to move from reflection on the field to making actual changes
10. Strengthen our business skills
11. Anticipate trends and build competencies and skills around them
12. Structure the OD function so that it can work with internal clients and not be interfered with

We thus also invite discussion on how we can create and accomplish action steps for these goals. What do we need to as individual practitioners? Does OD itself need to change in order to achieve these goals? And how the Learning Group promote these goals?

What is the future of OD?

2005-11-04T18:34:00.000-05:00

Our November 3 meeting featured a presentation by Jeana Wirtenberg and Tom Rich on the recent study by the Global Committee on the Future of OD on their survey of 16,000 business and 5000 nonprofit leaders on how they see their OD needs and how they intend to meet them. Among the many interesting facts learned were that business leaders generally see themselves as needing help on OD issues and intend to invest more in this area but that most do not conceive of OD practitioners as the option of choice for providing such help.

Following the presentation of the report, we held small group sessions to discuss four questions on the future of OD and to brainstorm on what OD practitioners need to do be ready for the challenges ahead. We will be offering the fruits of those sessions later, but in the meantime we invite Learning Group members and presenters, whether they attended or not, to continue our dialogue on the following:

1. What competencies, knowledge and skills do OD practitioners need to possess to contribute to the challenges and opportunities business leaders are facing?

2. How can OD change and improve its branding, marketing and positioning particularly among executives and line managers?

3. What do you see as the Future of OD? Does/should OD have a unique identity that OD practitioners “own,” or is our focus more on transferring OD competencies and knowledge to business leaders and/or project managers so that they can be more self-sufficient? What other alternatives should we consider?

4. From a structural perspective, do you think OD belongs in HR as a separate function, in the line organization reporting directly to a CEO or Operating VP, or somewhere else (e.g., embedded into part of the HR Business Partner’s role)? And why?

We would note that many of our upcoming program meetings will provide further learning on and discussion of these issues. In January, we will examine “Careers and Work in OD,” with small group sessions on, “What Should I Do to Improve My Grounding and Skills in OD?”, “What Are the Hot New Practice Areas?”, “Are HR and OD Allies or Enemies?,” and other topics. In February, we will learn how to master the language of business in “OD Meets MBA”. We will be reviewing “Best Practices in Six Areas of OD” in March and Leadership models in April. In August, we will be exploring a model for OD’s role in “Supporting Strategy,” and in November we practice “Authentic and Effective Communication”. In the meantime, on December 8 we will hear Otto Scharmer on the relationship between OD and world change.

Book recommendation: "The Hand"

2005-10-14T18:19:00.000-04:00

Using legos for storytelling was an enlightening experience for me last week. It also reminded me of a fascinating book by Frank Wilson: The Hand: How its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture.From Amazon.com:

The hand is, among other things, a complex symbol, representing both the creative and the prosaic. This blending of the spiritual and the mundane is what makes the hand unique, as it in turn makes us unique among animals. Neurologist Frank R. Wilson has taken on a heroic task: to explain the hand on both of these levels and to show us how we use these marvelous instruments to find and create meaning in our lives.
Anthropology, neuroscience, music, and puppetry all figure prominently in The Hand, which effortlessly guides the reader through its million-year biography. Brains and thumbs growing and changing to accommodate each other, discovering tools and language together, kicked us out of the monkey house for good. While there is still controversy over whether we are the brainiest animals on the planet, it is abundantly clear that we are the handiest.
This manipulative ability is our greatest strength and our most terrible flaw. Without hands we would have no Louvre but also no nerve gas. But, Wilson says, our situation is more complex. Our access to far greater means to achieve our ends gives us a greater hunger for meaning. We long to use our hands to satisfy our needs--whether spiritual or down-to-earth. This creation of meaning from nothing may be our greatest achievement. In the end, The Hand is brightly optimistic, showing that our reach truly does exceed our grasp. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

How can we use our hands and hearts as well as our brain in our work?

2005-10-09T18:18:00.000-04:00

Our October 5 meeting on “Leaderful Practice,” led by Donna Denio and Robert Rasmussen, dealt with the connections between several topics: gender, diversity, teams, decision-making, and hand/brain connections. By playing with LEGO toys – oops, by studious investigation of devices made by LEGO Serious Play, we learned how thought takes place but also in the hand and in the heart and the role of both emotions and rational thought in solving problems.

Our exercises showed that the hand can describe a situation that we may not be able to put into words. We also considered how these lessons can be utilized to make organizations more “leaderful,” i.e., to develop a work culture in which leadership is mutual and shared in which all elements of the organization support individual development and teamwork.

This was a very stimulating session, going somewhat the usual boundaries of OD practice and management science to illustrate the relevance of research in a variety of disciplines. In addition to the Question of the Month, other issues identified for further consideration were as follows:

· How can we help people open up to new possibilities?
· How could these ideas be applied to mediation and conflict resolution?
· How can we create collaboration among differing viewpoints?
· How can we overcome hierarchical barriers to utilizing new ways of thinking?

In terms of further learning sources, Robert also cited Mihaily Csikszentmihaly’s seminal work, Flow, and Daniel Pink’s new book A Whole New Mind . Can others suggest some additional references? And perhaps some examples of how brain/hand, heart/mind, emotions/rationality connections have been utilized in OD work?

Mistakes and Creativity

2005-10-04T20:17:00.000-04:00

I’ve taken a comment made by Abby Yanow and promoted it to a post, since it raises a new and important issue.

In response to our follow questions to the August meeting on “Creativity,” Abby wrote:

If we want organizations to encourage creativity, we should ask: How are mistakes dealt with in the organization? Is it OK to make a mistake? Are you yelled at and reprimanded? Are people encouraged to try new approaches to solving problems? Is that rewarded?

As OD practitioners, we want to promote learning organizations and invite organizations to devote the time space to addressing those kinds of questions, and others: What did we try to do? What happened? What worked well, what mistakes were made? What was the result? How can we do it better next time?

I think articles have been written about organizations that allow for mistakes. Anyone have such references?

To which I noted the following:

As to not punishing mistakes, I would cite Tom Peter's mantra "Celebrate Failure". Especially in his seminal work Thriving On Chaos, Peters gives many examples of organizations that have innovative and succesful cultures because mistakes are not punished but even encouraged.
Another good reference would be Richard Farson and Robert Keyes article "The Failure Tolerant Leader" in the August 2002 Harvard Business Review. This links creativity/innovation to permitting mistakes.

On reflection, I would supplement those sources with the following:

Tom Peters The Circle of Innovation is one the most creative books ever on that topic.

For a good short piece on “Increasing Your Return on Failure (ROF)” (a creative new acronym), see http://www.infosentry.com/After_Action_Reviews.pdf.

Abby’s point is very well taken. One of the surest was to promote innovation is to treat mistakes as learning opportunities, not as occasions for blame. Perhaps some readers can post some examples of organizations that succeeded by encouraging mistakes or that failed by punishing mistakes.

How are creativity and innovation different?

2005-09-29T10:16:00.000-04:00

I think we're all a little guilty of buying into the interchangeability of "creativity" and "innovation." It's difficult in the mad cycle speed of business to slow things down long enough to differentiate them for our clients as OD professionals. Even if we can't accomplish that slow mo for them, we can try to keep creativity & innovation straight in our own minds for the sake of the structure and spirit of our recommendations. I subscribe to Ned Hermann's philosophy on this one point: "...creativity is a PROCESS that produces an original outcome or product, while innovation is THE CHANGE, MODIFICATION OR IMPROVEMENT of an existing product." Even if we can't agree that creativity leads to innovation, we can agree that innovation is an event and creativity is a process. Hope Ned's perspective helps.

Creative Organizations vs Creative Individuals

2005-09-28T17:58:00.000-04:00

I love Mal's post below, but would like to respectfully disagree. Mal's question is a great one--"What can organizations do to encourage the individuals within them to be more creative?" However, I think we still get a lot of insight from thinking specifically about the original question: "How can we make organizations more creative."

What I am driving at is essentially a deeper look at Mal's point #1: "Encourage Diversity." No matter how diverse a group, its organizational structure will influence the creativity that emerges from it. That's why I want to keep the phrase "creative organization" in our vocabulary.

Taking a culinary tack, suppose our organization consists of vegetables and broth. At one extreme, we can structure this as one bowl of broth and another bowl of vegetables. That's OK but not as good as vegetable soup, which integrates the two together. But if we try too hard and integrate too much, things deteriorate into bland homogeneity and we get pureed vegetable soup. Gross, but perhaps necessary if you lose your dentures.

Organizational creativity follows the same recipe. See here for more.

How can we make organizations more creative?

2005-09-20T19:58:00.000-04:00

The real question is "What can organizations do to encourage the individuals within them to be more creative?" Here are a few modest suggestions:

1. Encourage diversity. Bringing in someone that the organization can actually learn from is challenging, but usually worth it.
2. Give people more responsibility than they are comfortable accepting, and then support them as they grow (by making non-fatal mistakes).
3. Develop a sense of humor, including laughing at oneself. But discourage humor that is sarcastic and critical. Consider whether everyone "in" on the joke thinks it's really funny or, conversely just feels funny.
4. Provide opportunity for anonymous input. The fear that "no good deed goes unpunished" is alive and well until people see that new ideas are really wanted.
5. Be honest about the idea, but respectful of the idea generator. If the idea sucks, say so. Honest feedback is rare, but needed. But the culture needs to celebrate the willingness to bring forth a bad idea . . . which may find life later anyway. Remember, the adhesive that eventually found its way onto Post-It notes was really not very good glue.

Enough for now. Let's see some of YOUR ideas.

Promoting Creativity and Organization

2005-09-16T14:03:00.000-04:00

Our September 14 program meeting, presented by member Andy Porter and Kimberly Lewis, his partner at Creative Consulting Associates, was on Creativity. Our ending question was "How can we make organizations more creative.

Some other questions which were put forth in our follow-up segment were as follows:

What is the relationship between organizational culture and organization creativity?
How can we find "leverage points" of creativity in organizations?
What is the role of diversity in promoting organizational creativity?
Is creativity different from innovation?

Let's have some creative posts!

Door A or Door B

2005-08-19T19:53:00.000-04:00

Each program meeting we are selecting a Question of the Month for on line discussion. This blog will be the Learning Group’s primary medium for such follow up, though the newsletter and the web site will also be utilized.

The current Question is “How can we choose Door B?” In his highly stimulating August 11 Learning Group presentation, “The Organizational Workshop,” Barry Oshry explained Door A and Door B. Every day, we choose which door to go through, both in our personal lives and in the organization that we work for.

I am wondering, by the way, if Barry once saw the same Stan Freberg television show that I did. It began with Freberg standing in front of two doors, one marked “Same Old Stuff” and the other “New and Creative”. As a TV writer, Freberg instinctively began going through the first door, but a voice induced him to instead choose the second. Freberg had somehow got Chun King, for whom he was doing advertisements, to sponsor this one-hour program travestying television, which was shown once on a Sunday afternoon and the voice represented the sponsor freeing him to do what he wanted.

In organizational life, as Barry explained, Door A leads to Predictable Responses. If go that away, the same old things will happen. We may avoid getting ourselves into trouble, but we will be stuck in the same old rut.

Door B takes us to Unpredictable Possibilities. On this course, the way is harder and we have to give up a lot of our routines, but we will find ourselves addressing the core issues of organizational life and reaping the reward of meaningful change.

One could say the job of the OD practitioner is to get organizations to choose Door B. We may often in fact go through Door A because that is what the client wants or because it seems the only paying route, but we know in our hearts that Door B is best.

So motivating Door B behavior is not just the Question of the Month but also a fundamental issue in OD practice. I rather doubt that there is one answer to the question, but finding answers could be considered to be a key goal for the Learning Group, whose mission involves increasing the field for OD practice.

There seem to be two types of answers given when this constant question comes up. One approach is to explain to clients the pain and the costs of Door A. As I often put it, “Work does not have to be like Dilbert!” Another way is to demonstrate the value of Door B. Those who maintain that OD practice has to demonstrate ROI favor such persusion.

No doubt the right “voice” depends upon the situation and the client. Hence one way to continue this discussion would be for us to consider some actual case studies in which we have in fact tried to lead people to the right path. Who can contribute an example of successful or unsuccessful attempts at motivating the choice for Door B?

A couple comments from Barry Oshry

2005-08-19T12:30:00.000-04:00

Barry Oshry just posted a couple comments to the previous post. I'm posting them here for the benefit of those who don't pay attention to the comments. (This raises a question of how we want conversations to play out in this forum--primarily through comments or through posts. Another good topic for people to post about.)

Barry says:

I'm dealing with the question: "How we empower others in our organization...make them aware of the costs" etc. You need to understand the framework I operate from: education. I never begin with an organization's actual condition, the specific issues it is facing, and so forth. I want to take them away from that specific world to first explore "organization" as it exists EVERYWHERE. For that reason, I always want to start with an exercise like the one we experienced (only at least a day long) or, if a workshop isn't possible, then a presentation on some facet of general (universal) organization life such as "Life in the Middle" or "Why are there no Top Teams?" The point being that there is power in people seeing that the issues they are experiencing are not specific to their organization and are not tied to the personalities of the players. This creates a very different emotional, intellectual, and strategic base for looking at, understanding, and working with their specifics.

With regard to the system pain: systemically-focused workshops and presentations deal with the costs of system blindness - personally, in term os relationships, as well as costs to the system.

And Barry also says:

I'm dealing with the question: "Is victimization something that is culturally learned?" To understand victimization, we need to go back a step. To feel like a victim, we need to believe that there is some powerful person or group who could solve our problems if they chose to. All you have to do is go back to childhood to see how early and powerfully this belief in a "powerful other" is embedded. All we needed to do was whine, and they took care of us. And we also learned that if they didn't come after the first whine, all we had to do was whine louder and more frequently. So it is understandable that our first reflexive reaction to pain is to blame that non-responsive "powerful other." The problem is: Some of us, or all of us some of the time, never get past that first response even though that "powerful other" is no longer around.

Barry Oshry of Power + Systems

2005-08-12T08:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday evening Barry Oshry of Power + Systems treated us to quite a show. Funny thing is that we were the ones performing, in our roles as tops, middles, bottoms, and customers. I would say our performance was unrehearsed, but actually one of Barry's main points was that our real-life organizational behavior is all too rehearsed. We act out the same stories again and again. "I'm responsible here, so I better suck it up"; or "I'm oppressed by my bosses, so screw them"; etc.

Most people I know (including me) got very wrapped up in their roles for the evening. Then after our last 10-minute "workday" was done, we collected ourselves and posed some questions for further thought:

How do we empower others in our organizations to take responsibility? What benefits can we sell, and how can we minimize fear, even while our colleagues are being battered?
Is there a "tipping point" where an organization collectively lets go of victim story and chooses responsibility?
Does this kind of exercise work in cultures with different attitudes about independent thought? How much of our victim reaction is learned culturally?
How can we create good organizational simulations? Especially simulations like this one where participants really own their reactions?
When we do this exercise for a real-life organization, who is the client: just tops? Or tops, middles, bottoms?

Now's your chance to share your thoughts on these questions. Just ask to be added to the list of blog contributors and then you can write your own posts for all to see.

ODLG Blog Guidelines

2005-08-11T13:37:00.000-04:00

Last night Mal Watlington and I conferred with the ODLG Coordinating Committee and agreed to the guidelines for the ODLG blog. In short, our guidelines are the following:

Any member of ODLG may post to the blog. Just ask to be added to the list of contributors, if you're not already on the list.
Before you post to the blog for the first time, take some time to get familiar with the flavor of what's been posted already. Then add your OD-related inspirations to the conversation.

Below are our official preliminary guidlines (subject to change by the ODLG coordinating committee).

For years Learning Group members have suggested that we find a means for ongoing discussion. We are thus pleased to announce another methodology for that purpose and to invite participation by all members.

At our June 19 meeting on “Planning for Change,” our business section had a special presentation on blogs by Bruce Hoppe (whose blog is “Connectedness”) and Mal Watlington (whose blog is “Online Conversation and Beyond”). Bruce and Mal volunteered to create an MBODLG blog, and the Coordinating Committee was pleased to approve that ideas, as you now see before you.

What is blog? A blog (or “weblog”) is simply a web page that is in the formal of a journal. Blogs have a theme, sometimes called a “meme”. Blogs are somewhat like a list server, but have the advantage of a nicer interface.

What is this blog for? This blog is for ongoing discussion of organizational development topics. Each month we will select a particular discussion question from that month’s program meeting. We recognize that discussion may be “flowing” and don’t anticipate “censorship,” but we do reserve the right to edit the blog with this goal in mind and with respect to the guidelines cited below.

Who may contribute? All Learning Group members may contribute. (Note that, as explained below, nonmembers may use certain other forms of MBODLG communication methods.) To be a contributor, simply write to blog@learninggroup.org. No technical skills needed – though literacy is assumed!

What are out guidelines? Ever discussion needs some ground rules. The following are thus indicated:

Be respectful. No attacks (so-called “flaming” – but see the next rule). Try to be sure that you understand what you writing to, especially when responding to a post, and that your information is accurate.
Avoid jargon. Just as everyone who is interested in OD is welcome at our program meeting, so too this discussion forum is not just for the digerati! Try to avoid technical langue that may impede others’ understanding or participation.
Stay on topic. Be relevant. See below for other resources for sharing your thoughts that may be unrelated to our discussion.
No commercials. See below for other resources for this purpose. Likewise, thoughts on MBODLG issues should be directed to the Coordinating Committee, and discussion will be recorded on its web page.
Use private replies. Before posting responses, make sure that what you say is for everyone and not just meant for the original poster. If the latter is the case, send that person an individual e-mail.
Edit your post. We all make mistakes; that’s why spell check and grammar check were invented. E-mail is very susceptible to errors, and we maintain the right to make needed corrections.
Be brief. Conciseness and brevity are conducive to good blogs. If you have a long statement, consider posting it to our Member Essays page.

We would note that the Learning Group provides many other resources for communication and that many of these may be more suitable for what you have to say. These options include the following:

If you “just want to talk,” we have our e-group (so-called “Message Board”). Note that this resource also allows for file sharing, on-line chat, and other features.
If you wish to communicate with individual members, use our Member Directory. Please note that under our privacy policy we will not give out information except as authorized by members in this source.
If you have a question or announcement, you can use the Newsletter, members having up to two paragraphs each month in the Member Announcements and Requests section. If your message is time dependent such that the monthly newsletter deadline would be too late, you can use the e-group.
Subject to time restrictions, those attending our program meetings can make announcements on matters of interest. In addition, they can use the Wall of Networking to send such information to those attending and (for members) to post it on our web page.
We encourage members to contribute reviews of books, articles, organizations, persons, places, or things to our newsletter and both members and nonmembers to submit Internet resources to that source. For longer writing, we have our Member Essays web page.
Our Jobs Group maintains an e-group for members that is used to share information. Employment notices and related information are posted here.

If there is some communication resource that we not providing, let us know (cc@learninggroup.org), and we will try to provide it. And now we have the blog, too. Let the discussion begin!

For those who want to learn more, here a few resources on blogs:

Why people blog: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/classes/ics234cw04/nardi.pdf
Short history of blogging: http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
Sociography of blogs: http://home16.inet.tele.dk/jesper_t/weblogs.pdf

This is the title of the first post

2005-08-03T21:08:00.000-04:00

This is the first sentence of the first post. The second sentence of the first post only at the very end refers to itself as "this."

The third sentence of the first post contains actual content, suggesting that ODLG members check out the latest issue of Fast Company, which features the cover story "Why We Hate HR." Next a fragment introducing a picture:

Finally, an invitation to contact Jim Murphy if you would like to join the list of contributors to this blog.