Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Feb 20, 2010
Feedback ...
Excellent, thought provoking, great for getting the true message of what a person is saying, forces us to listen more, looking forward to using it in my coaching. These were just some of the comments from participants at this week's workshop.
Penny Tompkins and James Lawley, authors of "Metaphors in Mind: Transformation through Symbolic Modelling" facilitaed a great development workshop for 31 participants in Sydney. Looking forward to the next one.
Recently reviewed ...
Surviving and Thriving in the HR World, by Jim Suthers.
The future of Performance Reviews?
See my latest article "What have we learnt about Performance Management?" for a comparison of GM and AIG's latest and fifferent approaches to the subject.
Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Feb 14, 2010
If you are interested in influencing others (and who isn't?) then the latest book on change is a "must read".
This is a great book about change. For those who have read many change books, the majority are developed around a model or framework where the emphasis is on changing the other party. Latting and Ramsey start from the precept that any change must first start with oneself and the need to look inwardly to better identify things that may affect one's influence of others.
See my review of "Reframing Change: How to Deal with Workplace Dynamics, Influence Others, and Bring People Together to Initiate Positive Change." Jean Kantambu Latting and V. Jean Ramsey, ABC-CLIO, Snata Barbara 2009.
Will they ever learn?
A.I.G. and General Motors have both just announced cxhanges to their management of people's performance. One appears to be a Performance Measurement System, whilst the other approaches a Performance Management System. See what you think at "Is your performance ranked "A", "B" or "C"?"
Clean Laguage Workshop
I'm looking forward to the Clean Language Workshop to be run in Sydney tomorrow. If you would like a copy of the handouts, please email me.
Posted by: admin in Untagged on
Jan 29, 2010
The Clean Language Workshop is fast approaching - 16th Feb in Sydney.
If you're new to Clean Language or would like to understand more, listen to my good mate Wayne Turmel's podcast at the Cranky Middle Manager site http://cmm.thepodcastnetwork.com/
Wayne interviews Penny Tompkins and James Lawley who will be running the Sydney workshop. They are also authors of "Metaphors in Mind" see their site http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/
Clean Language is a great way to improve communication between people and help one another understand what each other is really saying and meaning.
If you plan to be in Sydney on the 16th, book for the workshop by contacting me
Cheers
Bob
Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Nov 3, 2009
My apologies to anyone who has been trying to get onto the site over the last few days. There was a technical problem and the site has been down.
Aussie bound!
It's also a while since I've written a blog entry and I have to say that I've been a little slack. Perhaps there has been a good reason. After seven years in Switzerland I've finally relocated to Sydney full time, so the last few weeks have been taken up with relocation activities.
The Clean People are coming to Sydney
Penny Tomkins and James Lawley, authors of "Metaphors in Mind" are coming to Australia and will be running a workshop in mid February on clean language - more of that in future posts.
"What To Do When You Become The Boss" also Aussie bound
One of the biggest publishers in Australia had heard some good things about the book. The upshot is that Hatchetts will be publishing the second edition locally. I'm currently working on additional chapter "Talking around the water cooler" (common questions new managers might ask or be asked before they take over their new role).
Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Sep 15, 2009
I got cleaned!
Attended the Clean Coaching Conference in London over the weekend. Very good material and sessions, all based on the "clean" concept of questioning, used particularly in coaching.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of "clean" questioning, it is a way of helping another person find answers without giving advice. This may sound similar to the contemporary model of "coaching", so popular today, particularly in the business context. However, "clean" is substantially different. "Clean" is as clean as possible of the questioner's assumptions, opinions and metaphors. Furthermore, although listening is an integral component of the process of clean, it definitely does not use techniques such as paraphrasing, summarising etc, for these automatically provide the opinion of the questioner.
"Clean" was developed through the therapeutic approaches and methods of David J. Grove, creator of Clean Language. Grove found that using clean language is a simple method of having the client amplify the metaphors they often use when describing a traumatic experience. The key to Clean Language is to use the client's exact words without inference in a structured process that enables the client to self discover the cause of their problem.
From Grove's initial work in therapy, the concept has now been applied to coaching, communication and as I found at the conference, even market research (with stunning results). In terms of practical and useable (by the layperson) psychological concepts, I believe "clean" is one of the greatest breakthroughs of the last 50 years!
See my reviews of two books on the subject "Metaphors in Mind" and "Clean Language - Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds" for more information.
Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Aug 17, 2009
Reading a great book on leadership at the moment, "Creating Magic" by Lee Cokerill, former VP Operations at Walt Disney World, Florida. It's early in the book yet, Cockerill has already tackled the thorny topic of the difference between leadership and management. Some quotes . . .
"No one ever explained to me the difference between managing and leading. I wish someone had; it would have spared me a lot of anguish."
"Despite the amazing variety of human beings out there, all everyone wants is to feel special, to be treated with respect, and to be seen as an individual."
" . . . managerial skills are absolutely essential for getting results, but they are not enough to drive excellence. Excellence requires common sense leadership."
One of the other reasons I like this book is that it is written by a manager (and leader), not by a management guru.
Bob
PS. The links are to articles of mine that relate to these topics.
Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Aug 11, 2009
It had to happen - people have been fired by email and text, now someone just got fired on Facebook. The article describes the case of an employee who had their boss listed as a friend on Facebook, then complained about their job.
Unfortunately, the article talks about the plusses and minusses of having your boss as a Facebook friend. It does not discuss the psychological impact of being fired this way. See my article "Is there a better way to give bad news?" for more on this.
Regards,
Bob
Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Aug 10, 2009
Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Aug 7, 2009
It seems as if time is finally catching up with GE. For many decades, GE was held up as the doyen of effective business management and leadership. Some of us who were a bit more skeptical had other ideas - evidence of this was their performance management with its "forced ranking" system. Under the GE system (which has been adopted by some other companies), former Chief Executive Jack Welch required managers to divide talent into three groups -- a top 20%, a middle 70%, and a bottom 10% - many of whom were shown the door!
Critics suggest that such systems unfairly reward groups made up of stars and hinder collaboration and risk-taking - a growing concern for companies that are trying to innovate their way to growth.
Two organisations who had adopted a similar system - Enron and their accountants, Arthur Anderson - are now no longer with us.
The latest news on GE, is that their accounting practices have been called into question. Apparently, local finance people were "cooking the books" to ensure their targets were met. This week, GE agreed to pay US$50 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission which said the company had fiddled the books to make the figures look good.
HR practices, particularly those that attempt to "systemize" management are doomed to failure and are likely to encourage behaviour such as was found at Enron and Arthur Anderson and now appears to be happening at GE. (You can see a good precis of the criticism of such systems in an article "The Struggle To Measure Performance - Rigid rankings hinder the teamwork and risk-taking necessary for innovation. But what combination of methods works best?"
Ultimately, there is no substitute for good management and leadership!
Service - another attempt at "Bribing people to perform"
The US airline industry, is the latest to try bribery as a way of getting their people to provide good customer service. Delta and American Airlines have both recently introduced schemes aimed at improving customer service. Both schemes are doomed for failure - see why at "Service with a smile!".
As I said before, with all people management practices, there is no substitute for good management and leadership.
Posted by: bselden in Untagged on
Jul 2, 2009
Why is it that when things are not going so well, managers often pick on the negatives?
I read an article this morning "On the job evaluations can end or give fresh start to careers". Although the article did give an example of how a poor performance evaluation can lead to an improved career, the main thrust was advice on how ro handle a poor evaluation.
Wouldn't it be of more use to employees and managers to talk about how to manage performance better?
The main reason evaluations are seen as negative, is that often managers do not give feedback regularly. The best managers, let their people know immediately when they have done something well or not so well. In this way, the performance evaluation becomes redundant.
I was fortunate to work for such a manager, who not only gave immediate feedback, but also did performance reviews quarterly. In the few days prior to the review, he would write down his comments, pass these to me and suggest we base our discussion around his comments and my responses. This, combined with the immediate feedback, meant there were no surprises at the official annual review - both my manager and I knew what the evaluation would contain.
No surprise to hear the he was the best manager I ever worked for and that his team was not only highly motivated, but also the most talented group of people with whom I have worked.
