Archive for the 'Change Mgt' Category

Meta-surveys

Keith September 19th, 2008

A bit of breathing space on my current project…

Just reading about yet another organisational survey-like tool - you know, “rate your organisation’s ability at (xyz) on a scale of 1 to 10″.  It reminded me of one I was asked to respond to some time ago.  Working for a multi-siloed behemoth of an organisation, my response to each question was “it depends”.  There was no way to answer this sort of thing on an organisation-wide basis, because the answer would be different in different silos - or even different areas within each silo.

… which in turn made me think about other surveys that never seem to offer choices that make sense, and the general low opinion of surveys that many people have (particularly the odd one or two on actKM). :-)

So, I thought, why not make a survey a two-part approach. 

First, you send out an outline of the information you wish to collect and the set of questions that you think will be useful to collect the information (maybe to a sub-group of the full survey population).  Ask your correspondents to fill in the sort of answers that they would like to choose from, and to also suggest better questions to collect the information.

Then, use what you have collected to construct the actual survey.

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Monkeys - a reflection on how we do things

Keith August 7th, 2008

Start with a cage containing five monkeys.

Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it.  Also, set up a system of cold water sprinklers over the whole cage.

Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs to climb towards the banana.  As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. The monkey will leave the banana alone and try to get away from the water.  Turn off the spray.

After a while, another monkey will make an attempt with the same result. Pretty soon the monkeys will get sick of getting wet, and will stop any of the monkeys from attempting to climb the stairs, even though no water sprays them.

Keep this up for several days.

Now, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.

The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. Even the previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

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Testosterone

Keith June 26th, 2008

As a counterpoint to the earlier post on my opinion of how to do Change Management, this is an unedited extract of an article about Telstra that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 30 May last year. 

Mr Winn earlier updated business leaders on Telstra’s five-year transformation program…  As well, Mr Winn, who began his career as a linesman in the US, delivered a testosterone-charged description of the new management style at the telco.

“We’re not running a democracy. We don’t manage by consensus,” he said.  We’re criticised for it. The fact of the matter is we run an absolute dictatorship,” he said.

A cultural shift was needed at the former government-owned enterprise, along with changes in business processes, he said.  “If you can’t get the people to go there and you try once and you try twice … then you just shoot them and get them out of the way.”

I offer this without further comment.  Please compare this with the earlier post and tell me which view you think offers the best business result…

Problem solving

Keith June 26th, 2008

“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problem just with potatoes.”
 - Douglas Adams

The idea monopoly?

Keith June 24th, 2008

When leaders learn to creatively engage their subordinates in everyday decision making, they can make change happen.

I have written here before about Change Management.  I am still of the opinion that this is an entirely misunderstood function in most of today’s organisations.  It was thus rather refreshing to read in the current issue of IABC’s Communications World magazine that someone has actually done some research that supports my view!

The quote above is from John Smythe, the author of the article Engaging Employees to Drive Performance.  (This is available to IABC members online at the magazine site above.)

The usual concept of change is that it is “done” by executives (usually aided and abetted by consultants).  We have more recently introduced the discipline of Change Management as a way of helping people to adapt to the agreed change.  Today, we focus more on Employee Engagement as a way of more actively getting staff involved in understanding the change, rather than just being told about it after the fact.

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Small is the New Big

Keith September 12th, 2007

Just got a newsletter from Helen Paige of The Paige Group.  (We met at KM Australia recently.)  She included some great ideas from Seth Godin’s book. 

Godin advises us to “Relax.  Don’t work so hard.  Take a little time off.  Chill out!”  So how do we get everything done?  Godin says, “there’s no correlation between success and hours worked”.  He suggests:

  • Maybe the new economy does not favour the speed-to-market; first-mover-advantage, winner-takes-all mind set.
  • Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate this work ethic.
  • Maybe the current marathon work culture is nothing but an excuse to avoid making the hard decisions.
  • Maybe work expands to fill the time allotted for it.
  • Maybe understanding the key issues and making decisions about how to act on them can be the secret to success.

… which leads to these questions:

  • How would you rate your corporate work ethic?
  • How is your time-management?
  • How well do you understand the key issues your best clients are facing?

Our Intranet, the Wiki

Keith August 21st, 2007

Just picked up this interesting Case Study of a Wiki changing an Enterprise.  This was posted on actKM by Andrew Mitchell, from James Robertson.

The Formula for Happiness

Keith March 28th, 2007

Just saw this on the Dilbert Blog.  Great idea – particularly in its simplicity.

A reader has acted on one of suggestions in this post – there is now also a Happiness Formula Wiki.  Go and add your thoughts!

Another reader noted that “current research shows that happiness causes success more than success causes happiness”.  Scott Adams responded, “given that happy people are typically optimistic, energetic and fun to work with, I can see how happiness would lead to success.” 

I think that there is also a correlation between happiness and luck.  (I could be wrong…)

Someone did some research a while ago into luck.  He interviewed a wide range of people who consider themselves to be lucky, and then analysed all the responses.  He found four basic principles that “lucky” people live by:

  • They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities.
  • They make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition.
  • They create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations.
  • They adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

So what’s your formula for happiness?

Quote for today

Keith February 24th, 2007

To truly show respect to people means to listen to and
value their opinions, engage them in making decisions and
trust them to take risks.  People will only share their
knowledge when they feel that they are trusted and
respected.

How to make your people more creative

Keith February 9th, 2007

Mark Schenk at Anecdote posted an article a while ago on the impact of management style on individual creativity and innovation.  He included a quote from an article by Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School on the importance of team leader behaviour.

Teresa found that individual creativity is a critical element of productivity, efficiency and work quality in today’s complex work in organisations. This article gives five key leader behaviours that have a positive influence on people’s feelings – and thus on individual creativity.  My paraphrase is as follows:

  • Support people emotionally.
  • Monitor people’s work in a particularly positive way - give positive feedback on their work, or give them information that they need to do their work better.
  • Recognise people for good performance, particularly in public settings.
  • Consult with people on the team - ask for their views, respect their opinions, and act on their needs and their wishes to the extent that it’s possible.
  • Collaborate - actually spend time working with team members on specific tasks.

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