Management Craft

Social Construction of Organizational Culture

I love this post from Thomas, of the Two Cultures blog called, Social Constructivism. I think the concept of social construction of knowledge and organization culture is vital for all managers. It's a meaty post, so check it out.

If our organization cultures are socially constructed, what does this mean for managers? For training professionals? For executives?

The notion offers a wonderful opportunity and poses two concerns. The opportunity - change the conversations, change the culture for the better. The concerns - 1) if you don't change the conversations, the culture will not change and 2) conversations NOT for the change will make progress doubly hard to achieve.

I believe this is at the core of what makes a manager great and what makes some managers utterly useless.

Fireside Chat with Kevin Eikenberry

Rome was not built in a day and neither is the craft of leadership! Chat with Kevin Eikenberry

During this 31 minute podcast, I chat with pal and fellow blogger Kevin Eikenberry, author of Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill at a Time. I was given an advanced version of the book to review and I provided an endorsement. Here's what I like about it - Kevin has approached leadership as a craft, developed over time and one skill at a time. This book offers both high level inspiration and specific techniques for building your craft of leadership. I recommend the book for both budding and seasoned leaders.

Special promotion: If you buy the book today, you will receive more than 50 tools and bonuses from Kevin’s colleagues that  can help you become a more remarkable leader. This promotion makes buying this book a great value - even if you don't find all the extras useful, odds are that a few of them will be just what you are looking for. To take advantage of the special promotion and get your free stuff, click here and check out the list of bonuses and instructions (link toward bottom of page).

You can download a sample chapter here.

You can listen to my podcast with the Kevin Eikenberry by clicking here:

You can also download an MP3 version of the podcast here: MP3 Download

And just a reminder.....

Here is the Podcast Feed for the entire Fireside Chat podcast series:

To see the complete list of podcasts in this series, select the Podcasts and Webcasts category on this blog or see the list on my main website here.

You can also find this series on iTunes (and several other podcast sites), just search under my last name for Fireside Chat.

The Accountability Trap

I love this post from pal Starbucker called, Leadership and the Accountability Trap. Here's an enticing snippet:

That is, how do you avoid what I call the "accountability trap", where teammates are so focused on what happens if they run afoul of their responsibilities that they go into a kind of paralysis, unwilling to take any risks to drive the company forward.

This is a great observation. I see a lot of teams that lack the magical element of discretionary engagement because the company has done such a fine job defining roles, jobs, tasks, projects, and metrics. People want to do well and so they stick to the plan. But the plan rarely results in anything amazing. Extraordinary results occur when people stray from the box or the Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation.

If you play Souza, people will march. If you over define, clarify and measure jobs, people will not explore and create. If you have quarterly meetings to go over areas of accountability, guess where the sole focus will lie? If you want extraordinary results, guess where people need to explore?

The gray.
The ambiguous.
The fuzzy.
The mucky.

Pearls, truffles, and diamonds are found in hard to reach and mucky areas.

And finally, I think most of us don't even know what we are talking about when we use the term, "accountable." What does that really mean? Ask five people and I bet you get five answers. Better yet, observe what it really looks like in action - that's a whole other definition!

My Management Podcast

Thanks, everyone. This is the current traffic for my Fireside Chat podcasts. It's not A-list traffic, but I am very happy with over 1000 downloads a day.

Fireside Chat with Ian Ybarra

What can you do to attract top talent? Chat with Ian Ybarra

During this 33 minute podcast, I chat with Ian Ybarra, coauthor of Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for Young Talent. We chat about winning strategies that both large and small companies can apply and employ to find and keep the best recruits. This is a great podcast for anyone involved in recruiting and orienting new employees or creating and supporting recruiting strategies - HR, management, training, and OD. Check out their website and blog here.

What's a common mistake companies make that leads to bad vibes and buzz from recruits? Listen to this podcast!

You can listen to my podcast with the Ian Ybarra by clicking here:

You can also download an MP3 version of the podcast here: MP3 Download

And just a reminder.....

Here is the Podcast Feed for the entire Fireside Chat podcast series:

To see the complete list of podcasts in this series, select the Podcasts and Webcasts category on this blog or see the list on my main website here.

You can also find this series on iTunes (and several other podcast sites), just search under my last name for Fireside Chat.

Middle Management Same Old Same Old?

I have been digging into some of my older books this week - mostly from the 70s and 80s. And you know what?

Not much has changed.

Sure, sure, HOW we communicate has changed. Have we changed WHAT we communicate? The realities of what it feels like to be a middle manager in today's large companies seems the same or worse. No better.

Sure, sure, technology has changed our processes. And yet our processes still seem dysfunctional.

Sure, sure, our willingness to be inclusive has increased. But I don't think that people feel any more appreciated, on the whole.

Many of these books talked about the coming revolution in business. They prognosticated that the world of work would look very different in 20 years.

Yes, some things have changed, but I think the overall conditions felt by many middle managers are not too different.

This sounds like a glass-is-half-empty post, but it is not. Perhaps the need for a powerful link between strategy and execution is fundamental to business - particularly large and complex organizations. Perhaps this element will not change and should not change.

In the 80s and 90s, middle managers had targets on their backs, heads, and private parts. Delayering was the management system du jour and the last thing you wanted to be was a middle manager.

Being a middle manager is tough and it ought to be - it's a challenging job that is not for everyone. Middle managers are in the thick of things and are at the center of conflicts and problems - the corporate mucky muck. It's the nature of the job. Ain't it great?

I think my publisher is almost out of them, but if you are a middle manager and you have not yet checked out my first book, High Impact Middle Management, you might find it interesting. I will eventually revise it when this print run is out, but the fundamentals will remain the same.

Middle Management is not a four letter word - it is much more than this.

I wonder how things might have been different if, in the 70s and 80s, we acknowledged the critical role middle managers played instead of vilifying them to satisfy short term Wall Street logic.

Sure, sure, there may be waste and inefficiency in your middle management function. But why are you surprised - it's where everything gets dumped.

Organizational Culture

I am writing a chapter on organization culture and I thought I would share two interesting quotes from Edgar Schein's book, Organization Culture and Leadership. Schein is a pioneer in the field of Organization Development.

“I will argue that the term ‘culture’ should be reserved for the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic ‘taken for granted’ fashion an organization’s view of itself and its environment.”

AND

“Organizational cultures are created by leaders, and one of the most decisive functions of leadership may well be the creation, the management, and – if and when that may become necessary – the destruction of culture.”

Hey managers, how are you shaping your organization's culture?

Fireside Chat with Managing Virtual Teams

Do you work with people outside the office? Chat with Kit Brown, Brenda Huettner and Char James-Tanny

During this 26 minute podcast, I chat with the coauthors of Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most From Wikis, Blogs, and other Collaborative Tools, Kit Brown, Brenda Huettner, and Char James-Tanny. We chat about the key differences between in-person and virtual teams and how their process for writing this book practiced many of the methods they suggest. Do you telecommute or are you a manager or member of a virtual team or project group? If so, you will want to get this book. Also, check out their wiki here.

Note: I tried a new recording service for this podcast and the sound is a bit tinny. The good news is that my voice is the worst.

What do most managers overlook when managing virtual teams? Listen to this podcast!

You can listen to my podcast with the Managing Virtual Teams authors by clicking here:

You can also download an MP3 version of the podcast here: MP3 Download

And just a reminder.....

Here is the Podcast Feed for the entire Fireside Chat podcast series:

To see the complete list of podcasts in this series, select the Podcasts and Webcasts category on this blog or see the list on my main website here.

You can also find this series on iTunes (and several other podcast sites), just search under my last name for Fireside Chat.

Sexy Electric Car - How the Tesla Can Inspire Green Progress

I have written about the Tesla Roadster before, but here is a great post from the Business Evolutionist to remind us to save our pennies.

Yes, it's a splurge - but it is a splurge that is good for the planet, so you get triple Karma points.

I want one!

This is a smart concept - making doing good desirable. If we had more of this occurring in our product development teams, we would make greater progress.

How could this change bicycles?
How could this change public transportation?
How could this change telecommuting?
How could this change appliances?
How could this change how we transport food and where we buy it?

Zen Cats and the Hum of the Machine

Have you noticed that outdoor cats sit in zenlike poses the hour before sunset? They look like they are contemplating their world and soaking in the rhythms of the day. We have been walking the dogs at this time of day recently and we often pass six or ten zen cats within one block. They sit, crouch and lie still and never flinch when our four big dogs walk by.

Seems like such a peaceful way to usher in the night.

Do you ever do this at work?

The hum of the organization is amazing. People click and clack as they process the day. The air compressor whirs. The copier feeds, email pings and shredder rotations are a staccato melody. The people moving in and out of meeting rooms generate drama and wind. Coffee brewing beckons the weary eyes and minds. Drawers open and close and are a symbol for progress. Chairs creak. People adjust paper stacks. White board markers glide and squeak. Sighs and yawns wave through the office.

The morning crescendos toward the lunchtime intermission. Then a lull. Then the sounds of hope and relief.

I love the sounds of business. At four in the afternoon I would sit still like a zen cat, taking in the symphonic machine. Making meaning. Time was a fuzzy thing and I was lonely in it. Separate, observing from the outside.

It was a privilege to conduct every now and then, and all managers do. Some lead with broad swaths while others cue each tiny detail to life.

I once had an Apache guide tell me that Pow-Wows were important because the earth needs to hear it's people's songs. Organizations have songs too. If you have worked in more than one company, you know there are striking differences in how workplaces sound - the cadences, the diversity and level of noises, the overall melody and tune of the sounds.

Take in the hum of the organizational machine where you work. What is it telling you? What does it mean?