Evolving Ideas

Should we tango with the monsters? (In conversation with Terry)

AI is here: Scary or exciting?

From Nature with love (in lieu of blog action day)

The Work-Life Balance Conundrum!

New York Times opens up its opinion columns for free access!

The Long Tail of Social Networking

Rolling stones in HR

Really cool search engine!

And you thought it wasn't possible

Amateurs Attack

McKinsey links Soft Initiatives to Profits

Less is more

A 14 year old inventor

Confessions I might Regret Tomorrow

Rockin Girl Blogger!

It feels good to be good

Looking inside the HR organization

Becoming a Conduit

Stepping out of the Pyramid

HR & Research: strange bed fellows

Photo Album: Long Beach 06

Photo Album: Trip to Vancouver & Victoria

Photo Album: Blog Images

Photo Album: Snow in Seattle

Photo Album: Camp Casey

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:22:59 GMT

Couldn't resist taking forward this conversation that Terry started with his compelling post titled Monsters and Change Agents.

Before I take a swing at this, here's what some of the OD rock stars have to say about this topic (Cummings & Worley, 2005, pg. 61):

"Gordon Lippitt suggested that the real question is the following: Assuming that some kind of change is going to occur anyway, doesn't the consultant have a responsibility to try and guide the change in the most constructive fashion possible?"

"Argyris takes an even stronger stand, maintaining that the responsibilities of professional OD practitioners to clients are comparable to those of lawyers or physicians, who, in principle, may not refuse to perform their services. He suggests that the very least the consultant can do is provide first aid to the organization, as long as the assistance does not compromise the consultant's values."

Argyris of course uses the provocative example of the KKK, and says that the consultant should at least determine if the client is interested in a self-assessment and willing to undergo all that it entails.

But I don't think all OD consultants wield the same kind of influence as Lippitt and Argyris, which might have made it easier for them to make this point as strongly as they did. For most of us, the choice often comes down to being clubbed with the devil, or worse, being reduced to bystanders as a change effort goes horribly wrong. Plus, very often, we underestimate the emotional strain it puts on us as OD professionals, when we work with people who don't buy into basic humanistic values.

No easy answers here. Would we want to work with such clients? At a certain level, of course! Isn't that why good girls always fall for the bad guys-- we are so sure our love and devotion will make 'em shiny and new. Does it work? I don't think so. People change when they want to change. When they are willing to do the work it takes to become a better person, manager or leader.

The important thing I guess, is to know what we are getting into, and be completely clear about our own intentions and the outcomes we should or can expect. And from a process point of view, spending a lot more time on the contracting phase of consulting would be a good idea too.

Another important question here would be to ask, who do we define as monsters in our profession? How can we tell if we 're just being finicky, or the person at the door really does spell trouble in capital letters?

Back to you Terry

Email Me | Technorati Tags: organization development - ethical dilemmas - value conflict - difficult clients

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:34:29 GMT

US scientist heralds 'artificial life' breakthrough:

"Controversial celebrity US scientist Craig Venter has announced he is on the verge of creating the first ever artificial life form which he hails as a potential remedy to illness and global warming.
Venter told Britain's The Guardian newspaper Saturday that he has built a synthetic chromosome using chemicals made in a laboratory, and is set to announce the discovery within weeks, possibly as early as Monday. [...]
The chromosome which Venter and his team has created is known as Mycoplasma laboratorium and, in the final step of the process, will be transplanted into a living cell where it should "take control," effectively becoming a new life form."

It hasn't been done yet, so who knows what'll come out of it (I'm still fighting the sci-fi images of weird creatures taking over earth). This could be one provocative debate. The one thing this does highlight for me is that, the more advances we make in technology, without backing them up with evolution in our behavior and maturity, the closer we come to endangering ourselves.

Thoughts?

Email Me | Technorati Tags: news - science - artificial life - technology - morality - ethics - balance

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 02:23:26 GMT

The strong winds create a visceral howl,
Swaying the branches of those strong boughs.
A thunder clap, and then the sound of rain,
Its clattering mixed with a fragrance quaint.

I watch through my window, our jackfruit tree.
It's leaves dance, as if struggling to go free.
I hear my mum rush around the house,
Securing windows- so nothing gets doused.

I break my glance from the view outside,
And another memory begins to rise.

The foothills of Himalayas majestically stretch out,
Each glorious range, lovingly draped in clouds.
We're hiking along these spectacular slopes,
Spell bound by this vista, its scale, its scope.

As the image fades, another strain from yon-
My smile speaks of hearts lost and won…

My eyes bewitched by the boy on my side,
We're walking through sunlight, filtered through pines…
The gentle breeze adding a blush to my cheeks,
Carrying our laughter, so that it ain't caught by peeps.

The sweet memory from a decade ago-
Makes way for the next one in the flow...

My then sweetheart, now life partner smiles,
He's watching me run along his side,
I'm playing with the waves, as they fall and rise,
Looking at the imprints we leave behind…

Each memory made sweeter by bonds of love,
Sheltered by nature, nay, nurtured by her…
The mountains, the lakes, the beaches, the trees,
The rain, the wind, adding life to my dreams.

I come from the earth, to her I shall return,
She's made each moment worthwhile for me.
I hope she says the same, when its time for me to sleep.

PS: Some posts around the issue of conserving energy and saving our planet that I've written over the past year and a half:

What can you do?
Disobedience, Creativity and Light bulbs
Way to go Aussies!
This bulb's going off
Finally-Biodegradable Plastic!
The Good and the Bad

Email Me | Technorati Tags: blog action day - environment - nature - love - duty - joy - harmony

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 01:40:51 GMT

About a month back Gautam talked about work life balance on his blog and identified two groups of people. The first are those who are intrinsically motivated by their jobs, they love doing what they do, spend long hours on it and cannot differentiate between work and other parts of their life. The second group works because work provides them material comforts, for them work is a means to an end, and they seek to create a boundary between their job and the joys outside of it.

I think there is a third group. The group that loves doing what they do, and yet wants to have a life. And before I jump into the why's how's and what's of this discussion, let me caveat it by saying that I belong to this group. And no doubt, my being married has a lot to do with it. In the first couple of years of my career, I worked like a maniac. I did so, because I loved my job. The 14 hours a day were a pure adrenalin rush, and I was learning so much that it made me want to sing (yeah, I know, geek!). I still love what I do, and I'm still learning new stuff, and on some days it still makes me want to sing. But I don't want to work 14 hours a day. Maybe my friend and professor, Dr. Paul Yost is right. Maybe, a lot of what we are and how we behave depends upon the stage of life we're in.

However, this creates a huge conundrum for organizations, doesn't it? How does one create systems that cater to these diverse groups of people? Those who work because they have to, those who work because they just can't help it and those who work for the love of it, but want to be able to enjoy the blue sky too.

That's an important question, but I don't think most organizations are ready to ask that question yet. I think for most part, organizations are so wedded to the notion of long work hours indicating dedication and job commitment, that they just want all their employees to model that behavior. A case in point is Steven Smith's blog post titled Full Time for Half Time Work?

I could sit here and pull out one research after another, that shows that job flexibility and work-life balance friendly policies increase job satisfaction and performance. I could point you to Best Buy's clock-less work style and its compelling results. I could reason with you and demonstrate that healthier, relaxed employees makes good economic sense. But I'm not going to do any of that.

Instead I'm going to proposition that we all need to take our heads out of the account books for a bit and take a hard look at the world view we are creating and working by. You see, people don't exist to make organizations successful. Quite on the contrary, organizations exist to further society and the happiness of the people who live in it.

And once we've turned this mirror upside down, it seems insane that we have to convince organizations to focus on work life balance issues.

It took a long while for organizations to start thinking about their impact on the environment. And we're still a long way from where our sustainability efforts should be. I hope it doesn't take as long for us to start thinking about how our organizational actions impact the families that our connected to us, the children who are raised in those families, and societal health and harmony that hinges on us.

Update: Bill Harris, at the Making Sense with Facilitated Systems Blog, has written some great posts on work-life balance, looking at it both from the point of view of the employee and the organization. He also shares the implications this might have on ethical behavior within the organization. I really enjoyed reading his posts, learned something from them. Thanks for sharing these Bill!
Links to them:
In praise of lazy employees
Take back your time
Ethics

Email Me | Technorati Tags: work life balance - employee satisfaction - organizational citizenship - employee health - happiness at work

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:43:02 GMT

If you're as fond of reading Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd as I am- then you've gotta be jumping with joy.

Here's Daily Tech's appraisal on New York Time's move to open up its select columns. I just set up rss's for the columns. I like this new addition to my morning reading.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: free content - new york times - columns - rss

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:36:14 GMT

I love social networks. I love them because they have so much potential in terms of allowing people to organize themselves. Its amazing. Well at least to an organizational psychologist. Once you hand over control to a community, you can sit back and watch people take initiative, feel enabled and every once in a while create something wonderful.

Up until now though, social networks have been mainly limited to two categories.

The first are the generic, get your profile up on a known universe kind that you can use to stay connected with friends. Orkut, facebook, myspace etc belong to this group (I have to point out though, that facebook allows you to do a lot more than just exchange messages and pictures, that too in a privacy sensitive manner).
The second are the specialized networks created by organizations that can afford to pay for custom services, and are hence beyond the reach of niche groups, who simply want to get together, collaborate and feed off each others' ideas. Free services from the archaic web era, like msn and yahoo groups, fall woefully below standards in terms of facilitating conversations and energy.

Well now, people have options. In an article on TechCrunch titled 9 Ways to Build Your Own Social Network, Mark Hendrickson outlines several free services that allow you to organize around niche interests and passions.

I've been looking to create a private social network for a peer mentoring effort for a while. I tried Kickapps and Ning, but since Kickapps doesn't offer private networks, we finally went with Ning, and I have to say are soooo glad for it.

If Kathy Sierra was still blogging, I bet she could've used the Ning team as a case study in how to create passionate users! Ning has created a platform that scales beautifully, both in terms of number of users, and expertise of the administrator, allowing immense customization to the html+css (php is a bonus!) literate. They work on two week release cycles, which means that every two weeks the users can expect a gift of fresh features, in large part driven by the wish lists that the users themselves submit. I love it!

Considering the web is still in the process of maturing, I can think of a lot of websites/blogs that would be better served by a social networking platform. Plus starting an open social network can be a great way to market a new product or service. By the by, I was pleasantly surprised to find a RecruitingBlogs community at ning-- and even though it has feeds from Recruiting.com all over it, I dunno how related the two sites are.

Anyhow, if you're part of a small organization or simply a group of people looking for a collaboration boost, go ahead get a social network for yourself. A network on ning, combined with the share your files widget from www.box.net provide quite a powerful suite to get the brainstorming going!

Not to mention, that these are great tools for learning/development specialist to have in their kit. If your primary job is to facilitate interaction and flow of ideas, then as an OD person, it really helps to know this stuff.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: free social networks - collaboration - ning - kickapps - community - ideas - creating passionate users - self-organization - enabling people - facilitating learning

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:47:00 GMT

Metaphorically. Check out Prasad's post titled Career planning and the myth of Sisyphus. Prasad offers a great analogy for the current state of career development initiatives in a majority of organizations & triggers an animated comment thread.

Anish, one of the commenters, talks about the failure of career management to curb the double digit attrition figure in Indian IT firms. And while the maturity of the employee demographic definitely seems to be a common thread of concern, he also highlights the fact that a lot of attrition occurs due to factors beyond the company's control.

I remember similar results in a project with an ITeS firm. A lot of employees were treating the company as a parking place, while they figured out ways of moving onto brighter career prospects. The problem was that the learning curve (time taken for the employee to perform the task profitably) was way longer than the average time in which the new hires were quitting.

I feel this problem tends to afflict those jobs more which are not perceived as meaningful, or capable of providing a sense of identity to the worker. Richard Hackman talks about this in his book Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. He contrasts the emotions a worker in a toast factory might feel if she were attaching plugs in toasters day after day, versus putting together a complete toaster. Doing the latter, she might be able to tell her children how she puts together toasters so that families, and kids like them, can have a wonderful breakfast each day.

The thing is, some jobs have just that must scope, and someone's gotta do them. How do we retain people in those roles? On another note, is it fair to want to keep people in limited roles, wouldn't a model based on regular churn be more applicable?

For call center jobs in India, I feel, it might be worth the effort to invest money in teaching language skills to people for whom this job offers entry into a whole different social strata. For people from underdeveloped and infrastructurally lacking social segments, the job might offer a sense of pride and accomplishment which compensates for the repetitiveness of the role.

Thoughts?

Email Me | Technorati Tags: career development - training - learning and development - Indian IT Companies - ITeS sector - attrition - ideas for call centers - meaningful work - socially oriented training efforts

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:41:03 GMT

Check out the tafiti search engine- and make sure you see the tree view of the results. Impressive.

Notes for the developers:

- the tree view would be a lot more useful if I could rotate it myself

- If the branches actually bunched up search results based on some parameters, e.g., pages linked to one another, talking about the same topic, date of publication etc.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: beta - search engine - silverlight - tafiti - cool interface

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:32:40 GMT

The Happiness Manager at Walking Down The Path of Organization 2.0 has written a really well articulated post titled Happiness @ Work is Possible. I really like her premise, and I believe she's gotten it just right:

Happiness @ work happens when there is enough meaningful work for everyone to do.

The post goes on to identify conditions which must be fulfilled for workplaces to be happier and more productive. I would only like to add that for all of these things to take root there must be an understanding that the organization is commonly owned by all it's members, and not just by the people at the helm. Terry's post on what's a real company captures it well, he quotes Kenny Moore:

At its core, company is about meaning, purpose and mutual support. Many of today’s businesses had their origins around like-minded individuals coming together to support and nurture each other in starting a labor of love.

Now that's a company I'd work at, wouldn't you?

Email Me | Technorati Tags: happiness@work - organization 2.0 - real meaning of company - sharing bread together - openness - meaningful work

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:04:03 GMT

I like these two posts from the Death to the Internal Marketing blog, (here and here; also really neat banner Kevin!) offering counter points to the view that blogs are providing a platform to amateurs to not only desecrate English language but also compromise professional expertise.

Here are snippets I particularly enjoyed reading:

So what if blogging, teens texting and the evolution of the language squash all those things Miss Snodgrass drummed into our heads in English class. We’ll always have the language as it existed at any given time (we can re-read Shakespeare and Orwell whenever we want). Those who bemoan the loss of the language stand like King Canute while the tide passes them by. It amuses me that those protesting the loudest are those who consider themselves “writers” — the elite.
Of course, there is a lot of crap out there. But there is also a lot of stunning discourse, wonderful creativity and ideas being shared by those who would never have had a way to be seen and heard.

Another gem:

We no longer need to rely on a “limited number” of opinions — if we ever have. But we can make the space to accommodate a new set of outsourced thinkers. Just as I can filter out the noise of the supermarket, the hundreds of pasta sauces and soups and 24 kinds of mustard, I can also filter the bloggers and pretty quickly assess who I decide to value and who I can safely filter out.
So, definitively, the more the merrier. I trust my critical faculties. Bring on another million bloggers.

Very well said!

Email Me | Technorati Tags: andrew keen - cult of amateurs - amateurs - death to internal marketing - bloggers - elitism - wisdom of the crowds

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:52:20 GMT

I think you need an account to view this, but here are highlights of the research:

McKinsey research shows that initiatives to address "soft" management issues- such as talent, culture, and values- may have a direct financial payoff
There seems to be an especially strong link between the bottom line and efforts to invest in skills, improve reporting relationships, increase the flow of ideas, and measure performance and risk.

I wonder how many more studies it will take before we stop spending money on (repetitively) establishing that "soft" is actually the real hard stuff. But one more research in my arsenal, so I'm not complaining.

Plus the second point actually includes a great list for managers and enablers (HR/OD people) to focus on:

Invest in skills: hire people with the right competencies, train people for skills strategically critical for the organization and the industry, and position people so as to get the most leverage out of their skill-set.
Improve reporting relationships: these three words represent 2/3rds of the corporate world's woes. Most negative work behaviors, absenteeism, slacking, and turnover can be linked to poor relationships between employees and their managers. And a lot of the time what's causing the friction isn't the people in the relationships at all. Its the structure they are part of. The implications of the vertical reporting structure or the "I am your boss" syndrome, the lack of support provided to the manager, and performance monitoring systems that take control away from the employee. Good news: structure is easier to change than personalities!
Increase flow of ideas: when people hear this today-- their minds jump to forums, wikis and blogs. Which is a great direction to head into, but the fundamentals of creating a learning organization haven't changed: reward risk taking, reinforce open communication, and create dialogue around the big picture, aka, business strategy.
Measure performance: traditional performance measurement systems don't work. The much touted forced ranking systems don't work, not in the long term anyway. There is no simple solution here: good performance measurement takes lots of work. It takes constant monitoring, improvement and dialogue.

Sorry for the management ideas overload. I actually just intended to share the McKinsey report- but the points they touched on are so fundamental to organizations, that the thoughts just came tumbling out!

Email Me | Technorati Tags: mckinsey - organizational performance - profit - soft management issues - culture - value - return on intangibles - talent - bottom line - research - people processes

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:10:22 GMT

I love this post by Penelope Trunk, 5 steps to taming materialism, from an accidental expert. And here's a hat tip to Gautam for pointing me to her blog. Her writing is so very engaging!

Generally I'd put a snippet here, but the post flows so well, you just have to read it yourself. Head over, I highly recommend it.

Aloha!

Email Me | Technorati Tags: materialism - tom peter's cool friend - Penelope trunk - wanting less - less is more - great writing

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:20:11 GMT

The kid's got initiative and vision! This is what leadership is about. In fact, this is what education should be about. I have an eight year old nephew and I wish his imagination was being sparked in ways like this.

I think it takes intimacy with one's environment, the freedom to explore, and a deep desire to make something happen-- for inventors like this to be born. And our schooling system lacks almost all of these elements. We've mistaken rules to mean discipline; information to mean knowledge; indulgence to mean care; and perceive curiosity as an irritant. Curiosity is what makes children ask questions, break rules, disrupt systems. In short, makes life tougher for us. But enough of my tirade on education-

Check out William Kamkwamba's blog (Hat tip AjiNIMC) & make sure you leave a comment.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: innovation - education - inventor - wind mill - green energy

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:03:04 GMT

Sometimes I find HR/Management (the whole deal) reeeally boring. What, no collective gasp?! Yeah, five of you are like, so...HR is boring...whad'u guys do all day anyway?

Let's not go there. Because whatever the image of HR might be, there are some incredible HR/OD people out there doing amazing work behind the scenes to make all our lives imminently more livable.

That not withstanding, there are days when I get bored of thinking about how you can grow leaders, reduce job dissatisfaction and turnover, and create policies facilitating better job performance...I think it might be the snail's pace at which the impact of your work becomes evident, or the fact that I've taken to painting houses really well :)

It's not an ideal world. And HR/OD the way they function today can get to be an incessant fight against mediocrity. All noble and everything. But there are days when its just so damn boring! Who wants to spend everyday of their lives trying to work around office-jerks, reduce the impact of management-centric thinking, and widen the crevices in the ceilings so that the people who do actually work can get some more oxygen in there! Oh well, I do.

But it doesn't stop me from fantasizing about a job description where I get full and un-hindered mandate to focus on facilitating learning and innovation. Like Terry said, create organizations awash with social networks, abuzz with conversations about what can be, and geared towards growing all their employees.

God bless day dreams.

Update: Gautam on the OD profile of his choice

Email Me | Technorati Tags: HR - Organization Development - the perfect job - day dreams - confessions

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:13:05 GMT

This is enough to draw even me out of my non-blogging stupor! Nimmy has conferred the Rockin girl blogger award on me because she finds my writing genuine and refreshing. Wooohoo :)

I agree with Nimmy when she says that sometimes these small tokens we pass along on the blogosphere play an important part in letting us know that our voice does touch others in some way or the other. It relates well to Lisa's musings on the essential nature of blogs; and the inability of statistics and link-counts to both motivate, and reflect the drive of a blogger.

When I started this blog, I wanted to write things that genuinely came from my heart. But you know how seductive statistics, links and blog-conversations can be. And not at all in a bad way. But dangerously compulsive nonetheless. And in this whole process one fine day I realized that I was writing because I thought I should not because I wanted to. Eak! That's not the kinda writer I was aspiring to be. I want to write when I'm absolutely bursting with a thought and must, must share it with you. No one can be interesting 7 days a week. So I'd rather write when I am being interesting. Else god forbid you discover how inane I really am :)

At least I know what kind of blogger I am now. And as usual Dick has a great word for it: binge blogger. And hopefully all of you can stick by me through my various binges.

Back to the award. The Rockin Girl Blogger award, originated here and the rules are that you have to give credit to the initiator- Roberta Ferguson (great idea sis!). And you need to pass the award on to girl/women bloggers who, well, rockk!

So here goes in no particular order:

Shannon Seery Gude is by far the coolest gal blogger I know. With all the right attitude and a great pulse on the progression and movements of the social media- Shannon you rock :)

Jan Yuill - who has found an indelible place in my heart for the words 'Blogging is such a wonderful way of speaking to the world without shouting'. And she speaks so well!

Pamela Slim - who is as rockin as it gets! She might not know it, but when I get tired and dreary about the corporate world, and the impossibility of a work environment free of skepticism, back stabbing and despair- I think of her and find hope. Plus I bet she knows some really great women bloggers to pass the award along to!

Ankita Srivastava - a dear friend who has recently started blogging. I don't think I know a more sensitive soul, with such an immense drive to actualize her dreams and ideals. I'm excited to see where she takes her blogging endeavor :)

Anuradha Ganapathy - coz I like her! Or I'm pretty sure I will if we ever meet. Her writing is honest, clear and straight to the point; and a much valued addition to the talent-sphere. Thanks for sharing your insights!

Before I log off for now, have to mention Jessica's blog (hat tip to Nimmy)- you've got to check out the fascinating way in which she uses Venn diagrams.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: blogging - rockin girl award - binge blogger

Tue, 29 May 2007 19:47:29 GMT

Oh my god, its been long since I posted! Its been a crazy hectic month. My husband and I bought a condo, and have spent all of our free time painting walls :)

I have also been working on a training module focusing on 'learning from experience'. Most of the recent training and development work shows that 70-80 percent of development takes place through real life experiences, whether on-the-job or personal. And a lot of ground has been covered vis-a-vis utilizing this knowledge for the development of managers and leaders. Which is great-- but it bothered the heck out of me that this wasn't being used to further the development of employees in general and professionals and individual contributors in particular! The module is looking good, and I'm hoping to run the pilot session soon.

That's a bit of what's been keeping me busy.

But I popped back right now, to share this really cool research study with you:

The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.

You can read more about this neuroscience research being done by Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman, at the National Institute of Health here.

I think the study creates an interesting cross-section between faith, goodness and skepticism. I find it interesting because I am just sick of the prevailing idea that 'nice, good, altruistic' is perceived as lack of strength and ability to make it in the real world. So here's some ammo for educators, parents and even organizational consultants.

PS: Will probably get back to at least bi-weekly blog posts in another week.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: altruism - scientific proof - spirituality - goodness - research

Fri, 04 May 2007 07:00:20 GMT

One of the most effective change interventions is being the change you want to bring about.

I just finished reading Bob Sutton's post titled Our Little Innovation Seminar (hat tip to Gautam) where he talks about innovation principles being applied to HR practices:

We had a visit from John Foster at IDEO, who is their (very non-traditional) head of human resources. He described a series of changes that he was leading – it was amazing because he was being completely open with people at IDEO about changes in the career and compensation system he was considering, told everyone what he was thinking, and invited them to join in the design: Not your usual secretive HR system. John is applying IDEO’s most dearly held principles to the organization itself: You involve users heavily from start to finish, you brainstorm ideas, develop a proctology, roll it out in an imperfect form, and keep changing it – with user involvement throughout – so it gets better and better. Jeff Pfeffer and I argued in Hard Facts that the best managers treat their organizations –not just their products or services – as an unfinished prototype, and John’s approach is exemplar.

Then I heard Gautam's interview with the Cranky Middle Manager where he takes his own example to outline how most HR departments don't have a place for individual contributors or strategic thinkers.

And this got me thinking about the fundamental principle of both change management and consulting and how HR departments are organized and run. The most powerful thing a change agent can do is embody the vision of the change they want to affect. By this logic HR departments who want to contribute to organizational strategy, facilitate lateral learning relationships, and encourage open-process oriented ways of doing things, should turn their departments into mini-organizations which represent all of this.

For most part, this isn't even close to what we see in HR departments today, even those in the 'cool' progressive companies. Most HR departments have segmented roles (HR assistant/ admin support) which have little or no growth prospects linked to them. There are sharp divides between people doing employee relations (daily grievances, exit interviews etc.) and those involved in training, development and (if they are really hip) people research. The little time these two arms do spend talking to each other, is spent wrangling about who will take responsibility for the attrition or the low ROI on initiatives!

And check this out: according to a 2005 report on Leadership Development in Asia Pacific (by The Conference Board), the biggest barrier to developing leaders in the region was the (lack of) capability of HR professionals in certain locations (If you're curious, the biggest driver of leadership development was growth prospects for business and consequent attention from top).

Now that isn't a pretty picture and I hope to god that there are exceptions. The fact of the matter is, till HR departments become the coolest places in the company to work in, they aren't going to be seen as strategic business partners.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: re-organizing HR departments - how HR works - being the change you want to see - change agents

Wed, 02 May 2007 16:06:23 GMT

In a networked world, being 'in' has a lot to do with your capacity as a conduit. Which in simple words is how many people you connect-- through ideas, visions, ideologies and emotions. Of course there are other pay offs to being a great conduit-- every once in a while you are able to connect two people who go on to collaborate and create fresh value; or sometimes its just connecting the right idea with the right person.

I ~~like~~ love the potential of that. And this is how I try and be better at it:

First off you gotta be aware of where people's passions lie. And that requires listening. You need to have conversations with people you know, about what they want, where they are headed, what they dream of and what frustrates them. You should do this anyway. It's fundamental to effective communication.
Become a cross road for diverse thoughts, ideas, cutting edge developments and old wisdom that needs to be unburied. I find this easier to do now, when I'm studying, than when I was working full time. It was tougher then to get my head out of 'what's due tomorrow'. It wasn't like I wasn't constantly learning then-- but I was missing the metaphors to crystallize that learning. Reading (blogs, articles, books, research), reflecting and conversing help crystallize ideas.
When you come across two people who are passionate about the same thing, or better still, their goals compliment one another, introduce them. If you come across material, thoughts and ideas that could add value to someone you know-- pass it along.
And if you know someone who can introduce you to people who share your interests, don't be afraid to ask for an introduction.

Gautam and Terry talk about the connectors (sounds straight out of sci-fi!) and how they are going to be critical in the evolving world. And you could chose to be one because it has good ROI. In fact, you could be poised to be one and are just not aware of it. I just like it coz its rewarding & fun!

Become a Connector from a fascinating blog called Networlding (now that's a snazzy name!)

Connectors from a VC's Perspective

Connective Learning & Development

Email Me | Technorati Tags: connectors - networks - ideas - relationships - how to become a connector

Tue, 01 May 2007 00:08:01 GMT

The Egyptians built the pyramids 4500 years ago, but we're still living in them. Revisit most strategic work conversations you've had, and you'll find them sprinkled with a generous dose of hierarchical thinking. Personified by the language artifacts of: tops and bottoms, the drones and the 'high-flyers', its basically an assembly line, control...

Its common assumptions:

- Fundamentally, all organization structures, boil down to the pyramid. In flatter organizations, its shorter, and in larger organizations, the pyramid is taller. So basically, there is no alternative.

- Competence, vision and enthusiasm-- or the what 'it' takes-- are in short supply. These qualities are inherent in people, and they cannot be developed. Moreover, where you are in the organizational ladder is a reflection of how much of 'it' you have got. Which brings us to the next assumption...

- The hierarchical organizational machinery is a brutal sifting force. It naturally culls out the weak from the strong, the competent from the incompetent, and those who have 'it' from those who don't.

According to this view, women don't have the quintessential 'it', whatever that is. How can they-- when there are only 6% of them in the top rungs of the organizational ladder? They obviously don't have what it takes to get to the top.

According to this view, developmental opportunities should be reserved for a select few-- the 'oh, so special high-performers, or in India, the management trainees'. Never mind, that derailment/learning research has found that labeling people as high performers might well be the first step in setting them up for eventual failure. And even you and I can intuitively attest to the fact that leadership elicits more leadership, and performance breeds more performance. So contrary to this view, when it comes to development and learning efforts, the more the merrier is definitely true!

The irony: no one in the pyramid is either happy or in control. The tops perpetually feel out of control, with an incessant fear that they won't be able to steer the humongous organizational machinery in the direction they are expected to. The middles feel clueless and caught; they are expected to know things they don't have access to; and are responsible for things beyond their prerogative. The bottoms almost always feel victimized; they know more, but can affect less; and feel they could attain a lot more if someone just consulted them.

So basically, pretty much everyone in the pyramid feels out of control. Whoa! This wasn't a surprise, was it? Because everyone is out of control. The world has gotten too complicated for any one person or group to have all the right answers, to make all the right choices. And yet, we want to cling to hierarchies and vertical orders. Even when they obviously lack the one thing it takes to get things done in today's environment: horizontal systemic thinking.

The problem is, between this pyramid and the networks of tomorrow, lies a very scary land.

But if you think about it, and no one says it better than Tom Peters, If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.

Negotiating this chasm takes a lot of things. It takes courage. It takes inspiration and access to the right technology. But most of all, it takes imagination.

Our biggest problem is not that change is not possible or that flat systems aren't productive. Our challenge is that most of us simply can't imagine a hierarchy-less world. I love the notion-- and even for me, it seems like a stretch.

But then a world in which a large scale corporation, a mid-sized out fit and a solopreneur are all vying for the same services, products and customers-- also seems like a stretch. But its not.

And if you want to be part of this new exciting and yes, scary world-- you've gotta step out of the pyramid.

Insightful post by P A Martin Börjesson at the futuramb blog called Where are the horizontal thinkers going? To the quality departments!!

Eccentrics and the Slush Pile by Michael Wade on Execupundit.com: on talent being left on the fringes in organizations.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: pyramids - hierarchies - horizontal thinking - imagination - connections - networks - assumptions - artifacts of the command and control world

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:02:14 GMT

Prasad is writing a series of posts which take a pointed look at the relationship between HR and Organizational Research. It's aptly titled 'Truths stretched too far':

In this post (which is the first one in this series) let us look at the very popular research finding "People leave managers and not organizations". I think that there a lot of truth in this finding. The immediate supervisor is a key influencing factor in employee engagement and retention. The problem happens when other factors that influence employee engagement and retention are ignored and the entire responsibility(or even blame) is put on the managers. Often there are other significant factors involved (e.g. the basic nature of the job, 'Rewards' strategy, work environment, lack of career advancement opportunities etc.) over which first level managers don't have much influence. So when the attrition level goes high, the tendency is to respond with 'training the managers on engaging and energizing teams'.

Every once in a while, you read a post and all you can think of is-- I completely agree! You hit the nail on the head! And Prasad manages to make me do this fairly regularly. Head over and read the post. Because every one of us in the people profession, needs to develop the ability to take advantage of research data, and retain the sensibility to question its validity and how it maps onto the unique problems we are dealing with.

I talked about this a little while back and I think we need a lot more discussions around this topic. Looking forward to the series.

Email Me | Technorati Tags: HR - people practices backed by research - balance between business and academia

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:30:01 GMT

Long Beach 06

Shades of Blue

The Glimmer on the Sea

That's the place to be.

Lets Play!

We built a Castle

Picture Perfect

Sunset on Seal Beach

An evening flight

sepia sand

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Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:21:27 GMT

Trip to Vancouver & Victoria

Porteau Cove

Porteau Cove- catch the sea green tinge in the water

Porteau Cove- a perfect place to sit back and soak in the sun.

Porteau Cove

The sea to sky highway

The Vancouver aquarium- that's a nice hello

A posing parrot?

This one wants to hide

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Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:13:05 GMT

Blog Images

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Sun, 14 Jan 2007 03:02:17 GMT

Snow in Seattle

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earth for dinner

Electric car pic

unhappy marriage

children playing with car tyres

children hanging upside down for fun

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:56:03 GMT

Camp Casey

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