Management Craft

Is Change Management Just Plain Management?

Terrence over at Here We Are. Now What? offers this post called, Change: Management or Leadership. He makes the argument that the function of Change Management perhaps should really be Change Leadership.

I would like to take his question one step farther and ask, is change management a function at all or is it really just management?

To me, helping groups and individuals transition to new business conditions and challenges is a big piece of a manager's job. If you can't manage change, you ought not be a manager.

Change management became a separate OD function because we loaded our managers down with inane tasks, reports, and checklists. The work got further separated by the OD world, I think, who have convinced senior leaders they need change management professionals.

All companies need change management professionals and I call these people managers. Change management is not rocket science, but it takes time and care, and most of your managers are overloaded with other stuff. I think it would be most helpful if the OD world helped organizations fix the manager's role so they can do the work that will make the greatest difference.

But that's just me. Or is it? What do you think?

Fireside Chat with Mike DeWitt

What do a mastodon hunter and a manager have in common? Chat with Mike DeWitt

During this 31 minute podcast, I chat with fellow blogger and business consultant Mike DeWitt. We have a lively conversation about management acumen and the best ways to learn how to lead. You can find Mike's blog, called Spooky Action here. Listen to this podcast to find out the three things managers and leaders most need to master to succeed.

You can listen to my podcast with the Mike DeWitt 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.

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.

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?

Coaching is about Chemistry

Coaching... I do a lot of it, but I don't promote these services. Why? Because I think that coaching happens best on it's own. It's a very important relationship and chemistry is vital. Most of my coaching clients already know me from my consulting, speaking, or writing.

That said, I get a fair number of emails asking about my coaching services. I realized that I had no information on my main website about how I approach coaching. I have put up a couple paragraphs about my coaching here in case you are curious.

If you are a fellow coach, please don't send me a nasty email. I know I am breaking the secret coaching code by advocating ad hoc and a la carte coaching. Tough cookies! I think that the three month minimum programs are dumb. We don't need retainers and guaranteed minimums to help people transform and generate breakthroughs. I coach by the hour - and I know that many of you coaches out there disagree with this business model. That's my model.

The rest of the business world is becoming more flexible and customizable - so too should coaching and consulting. My goal is to  1) be incredibly easy to do business with, 2) do great and interesting work, and 3) earn a desirable fee.

Great chemistry looks and feels like this:

• The conversation is real, it's relaxed, natural and it flows
• Both parties look forward to the next conversation
• Although roles are clear and different - the communication feels intimate and equal (no parent/child, or boss/worker dynamics)
• When things are not going well, it's OK to be open about that

Chemistry is also important at work. Have you noticed how you treat people differently based on natural chemistry? Hey, it's human. You can help chemistry along by getting to know people at a deeper level. People who read my blog, for example, often know me pretty well.

I once knew this guy who was upset because he did not get invited to the president's wine parties. He would be the first to admit that he and the prez did not have good chemistry. So why should he be invited and why would he want to go? This was not one of those pseudo work parties, these were mixed group parties with friends from all aspects of the president's life.

Some relationships have chemistry, some don't. As a manager, you have to create strong relationships with all kinds of people. That said, for those relationships where you have full discretion (like when selecting coaches and friends), hang around the people you like!

BarCamps?

Here is a blog post contributed by a friend of mine, Lisa Downs. She has her own company called DevelopmentWise. She's a smart, smart, professional - and fun, too.. Thanks, Lisa, for this great post about BarCamps!

At a recent gathering of learning and development colleagues, I was introduced to the idea of BarCamps (also called FooCamps) as a method of exploring and learning about a variety of topics in a collaborative, open environment. Not being a technophile, this concept was completely new to me, and I’m curious if others are familiar with these events and have tried one in their organizations or otherwise as an approach to learning, tackling management or internal organizational issues, or sharing knowledge.

Apparently, the idea stems from an event hosted by O’Reilly Media and is best described as an “unconference” where someone arranges a gathering place and provides refreshments, equipment, a WiFi connection, flip charts, etc. and lets the participants set the agenda for the event when they arrive. The agenda of topics for learning or discussion is fluid and everyone is expected to participate by presenting information, conducting demonstrations, and facilitating lively conversation. There’s some great information available at http://barcamp.org if interested. Wikis, blogs, and other tools may also be used to help participants prepare for the BarCamp and share ideas afterward.

It seems that many professionals in learning and development, performance improvement, and talent management arenas continue to be curious about how to incorporate collaborative media, technology, and innovative ideas into their work and provide more blended and varied experiences to their learners, but may be hesitant to jump right in. A BarCamp strikes me as an intriguing as a way to get started, if feasible. The possibility of using BarCamps as a way to enable those from different generations to interact and learn from each other is exciting, not only for the promise of collaboration and creativity, but also as a way to engage future leaders.

As someone who recently launched a business to provide learning, performance, and talent management solutions to organizations, I know it is critical to keep pace with emerging technologies and innovative solutions to challenges. If you have experience with BarCamps, or any other “out of the box” solutions you’ve tried for learning, resolving issues, or collaboration, I’d enjoy hearing from you. Like many in the learning industry, my background is more centered in training facilitation, coaching, and leadership/learning program development, so every bit of information helps to incorporate fresh ideas into client work and encourage colleagues to use.

Fireside Chat with Sara Orem, PhD

Affirm a problem employee? Chat with Sara Orem PhD

During this 27 minute podcast, I chat with author, educator, and professional coach Sara Orem, PhD about her latest book, Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change. Let Sara tell you the two things you can do during your next conversation to create positive change. Sara has twenty years of management experience and fifteen years management consulting in and to major financial services companies in the U. S., Britain and Australia. This is a great podcast for coaches, trainers, managers, and learners - that covers everyone!

What is appreciative inquiry and how can you use it in one-on-one coaching conversations? Listen to this podcast!

You can listen to my podcast with Sara Orem 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.

Using Positive Questions

While in Dallas at ASTD last week, I picked up a booked that I have had on my buy list for a few years. It is called Encyclopedia of Positive Questions - Volume One by experts in Appreciative Inquiry, Cooperrider, Whitney, Trosten-Bloom and Kaplin.

At the beginning of the book they offer these 11 ways to use positive questions.

• Get staff meetings off to a good start
• Coach for high performance
• Transform "problem talk" into "possibility talk"
• Create dialogue to foster shared meaning
• Demonstrate positive intent and trust with customers
• Create a learning organization
• Build high performance teams
• Conduct project reviews that make a difference
• Build self-esteem
• Plan a course of action for the future
• Create your own interview guide

Positive questions can do all that? Asking great questions can make a big difference to how your teams feel and perform. Here are just a few of the questions from the book. I think every manager ought to have a copy of this book.

Tell me about a time when compelling communication allowed you and another person to really connect and to work together exceptionally well. What was the situation? What was it about you, the other person, and the communication that made this possible?

Dream into the future...your organization and your community have a wonderful mutual partnership. What does this look like? What three things might have been done in order to create this partnership?

Tell me about a time when you were part of an exceptional cooperation with a customer or customer group. How did this happen? What made it so special? What did you learn from the experience?

When you reflect on your time with this organization, what is the greatest contribution it has made to you and your life?

Where in the organization is participatory decision-making at its best? What contributes to it? How does it work?

Tell me about a time that was particularly fun at work. What was the high point of this time? What made it fun?

When people are in leadership positions, what two or three things can they do that will help you be the best you can be?

If positive energy were the flame of the organization, how would you spark it? How would you fuel it to keep it burning bright?

What trends and changes are you seeing in the world that excite you and give you a sense of the confidence in the possibilities for the organization's future?

Cool questions and just a sampling. I like questions like these, they help expand the mind and prevent us from going to that cold, dark, cynical small place we all have in our brains (some more than others!).

If you were building the project from the ground up and resources were not a barrier, what would you do?

What's the wildest idea that just might work?

More Evidence for Positive Inquiry

I am in Dallas right now, attending the International ASTD conference. Yesterday I heard an OD legend and someone whose work I greatly admire, David Cooperrider. He is most well know for the creation and proliferation of Appreciative Inquiry.

In yesterday's talk, he shared some of the research that shows the tangible impacts of positive responses, emotions, and inquiry. A summary of the research can be found here.

I am rushing off to another session, but I wanted to share a couple comments Cooperrider made that resonated with me:

"The questions we ask determine what we find." Yes, this is the self-fulfilling prophecy, which most of us know about, but think about this in the context of positive inquiry versus questions about problems or what is wrong about the situation.

"Positive emotions allow us to access more of our intelligence." Makes sense, but something to post above your desk so that when you are in a grumpy mood and need to think you can do whatever you need to snap out of it. This is also why I hate facilitating meetings where people have been forced to attend - they never bring their A Game.

Food for thought....

String Theory and the Health Care System

This is one of those things that just makes me scratch my head...

Recently, my husband and I made the switch from a traditional PPO health plan to a high deductible plan with a Healthcare Savings Account. We like this because we pay over $300 less per month and can put this $300 into a tax free HSA that we can use anytime (this year, next, in 10 years) to pay for health care costs. With the higher PPO premiums, once you pay the money, it is gone and can never be used later.

Having a higher deductible account means that we pay for all the routine stuff up-front. As a result, we are much more in tune with what things cost. Take this recent example:

We get a regular monthly prescription.

• Under the PPO plan, we paid a $15 co-pay and Rite-Aid billed our insurance company for XX dollars.
• The first month we were paying the whole cost, we stayed with Rite-Aid. The same prescription cost $60. This was using no insurance card.
• This month we went to Costco. Again we are paying the whole cost. The cost for the SAME medicine was $13.75. Less than the co-pay we had under the PPO plan and a fraction of the total cost charged at Rite-Aid.

When stuff like this happens, you just have to scratch your head, right? The health care system is messed up and I know we all know it. If Costco can buy this medicine and make a profit off it by charging $13.75, then what's going on? Logic would say that Rite-Aid buys more pharmacy goods than Costco and should be able to get a better (or at least similar) rate. Logic says that a PPO company should be able to negotiate a better rate.

We are obviously not dealing with logic here.

Mucky muck, mucky muck, mucky muck. This system is all mucked up and I am afraid that the people in a position to fix this (politicians, government) are systemically challenged too. How do we have a prayer to fix this?

For our own situation, I feel a bit more in charge about my routine healthcare now, but if either one of us were to require major treatment (knock on wood) the same crazy system would pick up again.

As an OD person, I feel pained by this. As an American, I feel pained by this. And I feel a bit helpless, too. I bet there are people out there on fixed budgets paying $60 or more for this medication every month! That's terrible!

As you read in my post about my trip to Thailand, I hurt my back two hours after I landed in Bangkok. This was not just a little backache, I was in major pain and I had limited movement. AND I had a full schedule of speeches and workshops for the next three days. Anyway, long story short.

• I talked to a doctor at 2am.
• The doctor arranged for a nurse to come to my hotel room at 8am to give me a shot and three prescriptions. And she gave me a shot and enough of the three medications to last 10 days.
• The cost? $30 US. The quality of the care - excellent.

I have told people that I felt bad because if the same thing happened in the US, the service would not have been as convenient and we would have charged them MUCH more. Several hundred dollars, probably.

I have heard the debates about US versus non-US costs and the whole drug company research dollars thing. But remember, we got the pills in Seattle, WA at Costco for $13.75. This is not just a US versus non-US thing. This is a systemic thing. A system the size of the universe, all tangled up in many types of mucky muck.

I am thinking we need to have a team of OD professionals and quantum physicists crank away at this. What might this look like if we used this perspective on the problem?