The management merry-go-round: An employee perspective on restructuring
I was talking once to a railway worker who described his life in one of the UK’s railway franchises: Every so often a new franchise owner would bring in a new set of excited managers to play with the railway set, but the railway set itself never fundamentally changed. This guy had been doing the same job for forty years since the days of British Rail, and the rotation of management every few years was just a part of life. A second example:... [Read More...]
Is social media a faustian bargain?
I use my iphone, facebook, email and text all day most days, so I can’t say Im a luddite. I sometimes wonder how could I live without it. When one is so embedded in something it is often no longer possible to objectiviely critique it anymore. In conversations about the merits of social media, I am curious about what it might rob us of, and try to articulate my unease with it. this often meets with cries of “unbeliever”! I can’t... [Read More...]
Early Visual Dialogue
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Office alert
Situation grim after outbreak of hostilities STOP Heated exchanges STOP Must restore communication lines before combat zone spreads! STOP - Paul Tweet This Post Read More →
Uninspiring Frank
What needs to happen in our public and private sectors so that our senior managers can be the great leaders they aspire to be? - Caitlin Walker http://www.trainingattention.co.uk/ Tweet This Post Read More →
A senior leader’s response to public sector reform
I heard this at a recent conference on the public services, and it really resonated with a lot of people in the audience when I drew it up on a wall. Does this resonate with your experience? what is it like for you? Tweet This Post Read More →
The volume-value heuristic, or Why do change programmes produce so many pieces of paper?
“Volume=value” is hard-coded into our DNA, because at an animal level volume=survival. Somewhere deep inside us all is a squirrel for whom a bigger nut hoard is a few days’ less hunger. You can feel this instinct every time you “Buy one get one free” when you don’t need one let alone two. I think this might go some way to explaining why change progammes generate so much paper. I was working on a project recently... [Read More...]
The hidden Dimensions of Change
This picture was inspired by a talk I attended a few months ago by Robert Marshak, an American OD researcher specialising in covert processes in organisations. [click on the image to see a bigger version] Due to the difficulties of discussing unspoken stuff it often stays under the table. This can severely impact the bottom line, as well as a team’s ability of operate effectively. Have you had any recent experience of an ‘unspoken’ that got... [Read More...]
How do you engage employees with a vision? Like this.
We take our own medicine as we engage with our future as a growing business. Those of you who provide professional services will know just how challenging – but also how necessary – it can be to take a dose of your own medicine sometimes. Despite the economic downturn the Delta7 team has grown rapidly over the last three years as our reputation has spread and we’ve been able to help more and more global businesses to engage their people with... [Read More...]
You are engaged!
Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that we’re listening to what our people have to say when in fact, we’re still in ‘broadcast’ mode. People know when they’re being listened to and when they aren’t. One strong sign is when something they contributed makes a difference. Of course, you can’t action everything everyone says – but don’t ask people to engage if you’re not prepared to listen and change what you plan to do... [Read More...]
Us and Them
A problem with ‘Us and Them’ thinking is that it creates conflict between groups of people. We are always right; they are always wrong. And if something needs to change, it’s invariably them who need to change, not us. When everyone thinks that way, you’re trapped in a web of stuckness. And yet ‘us and them’ is also at the very core our economy. After all, isn’t business all about how our business performs against the competition? ... [Read More...]
Leadership, change and the “Comfort Zone”
These four images explore different examples of the ‘comfort zone’ – a place that often keeps us from leading change. The first shows our tendency to put on armour and let our egos slug it out when we feel threatened, and how this gets in the way of service. The second shows the way we can collude to de-risk the language of change. The third shows how hard it can be to see things differently when our thinking keeps us “getting... [Read More...]
Working with contradictions
I noticed this paradox watching TV news recently, it is such a big issue I often feel powerless at the impossibility of resolving it. How do you feel about it? It feels difficult sometimes to work out what is the right thing to do. Holding the tension between conflicting interests and courses of action, having the courage to take a risk and do what feels right in the service of others are leadership skills I admire. If we don’t take risks... [Read More...]
Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord’s four box model
Unless you’re a military historian, you probably haven’t heard of General Kurt Von Hammerstein-Equord. He rose to become commander-in-chief of the German army between the wars, and is remembered for being a staunch opponent of the Nazi regime. That is, unless you’ve read widely in organisational behaviour, in which case you probably only know him for the following, slightly un-PC remark: I divide my officers into four classes;... [Read More...]
The defensive cycle
This picture represents a collection of comments that we heard in one organisation that was pushing through budget cuts. Employees felt their jobs were under threat, so were unwilling to speak up about the pressure they were coming under. Unable to prioritise or say no, they become less productive, inviting further pressure, and so the cycle continued. When everyone’s feeling under threat our natural defensive inclination is to hide our... [Read More...]
Marvin Weisbord – Quality and Equality lecture
These two pictures were inspired by an excellent Quality and Equality lecture I attended a few weeks ago. Marvin Weisbord, an elder statesman in the Organisational Development field, gave a fascinating talk about its history over more than a century. Building on the contributions of Taylor, Bion and Lewin, he took us through the stages of self-managed teams, systems thinking, group dynamics and lean working, up to his current focus on participative... [Read More...]
Voicing – what’s not spoken about in your organisation?
This picture was originally one of a series we have produced to visualise the key themes from Bill Isaacs’ Dialogue model, one of several dialogue models we’ve played with over the years. This picture speaks to the theme of “Voicing”. Here’s Isaacs’ description: To speak to your voice is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of genuine dialogue. Speaking your voice has to do with revealing what is true... [Read More...]
Honest conversation in organisations: a Delta7 visual dialogue
How does honest conversation sit with business? The Delta 7 team sat down to discuss… A regular feature of life in the Delta 7 office is the monthly Visual Dialogue where we get together to discuss something that interests us. We do this because it’s fun – but also because it’s an opportunity to experience and practice the process we create for our clients. Our pictures are tools to engage people in organisations in conversations... [Read More...]
Speak your mind
We’ve heard plenty of tales of how hard people find it to say what they’re honestly thinking in organisations. In Delta7, we fondly call this picture ‘The Blofeld Chair’ – a reference to the archetypal lever-operated chair used by arch-villains in Bond films to dispose of henchmen who have incurred their displeasure. We’ve heard stories of people who practically roast anyone who dares to disagree but more often... [Read More...]
PR Week Engaging Internal Comms 2010
New ‘Story of Engagement’ picture unveiled at the PR Week Internal Comms conference Last week saw us taking a new Big Picture to the PR Week Engaging Internal Communications conference at the Grange City Hotel in Tower Hill. The new picture is a cityscape depicting what happens when organisations don’t pay attention to the 4 key drivers of employee engagement. According to the MacLeod report on engagement, these are: • Strategic... [Read More...]
