Items tagged "New Trends":
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Interview with Herb Stevenson: Gestalt Approaches to Leadership, Change, and New Development in the FieldThis is the first interview I did with Herb. We were in a breakout room, just outside of the library of the big ol’ Tudor home that houses the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. Herb gives an introduction to Gestalt and it’s impact. Herb runs the Cleveland Consulting Group and is a lead faculty member at the Institute.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
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- 19
- date:
- Mar 3, 2012 (a Saturday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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Destruction Through Email
A lot of groups get themselves into hot water over email. It’s not just tech novices; it’s the tech savvy that can be the most at risk of missing when email has changed from being a supporting tool, to a derailing or destructive force.
For groups separated by distance it’s important to recognize the limitations of email.
I’m noticing that even those that are geographically close are operating as if they are spread far apart (ex: spending a day emailing back and forth with someone sitting next to you).
A new study by Kevin Rockmann and Gegory Northcraft, looked at the issue. They put groups in charge of a complex task. Some groups worked by email, while others worked by video conferencing and in person meetings. They discovered that those who met in person had the highest level of trust and effective cooperation. Those using email were the least able to collaborate and accomplish their job.
What does this mean to you? Think about the most important, critical work that you’re on right now. How are you connecting with others in your group? If you’re connected primarily over email, you might question if that’s the best format.
Email isn’t going to go away. For groups that are using email as a key communication tool, I suggest developing norms. What norms make the most sense will vary greatly depending on the work you’re trying to accomplish and those that are involved. To get you started, here are some examples adapted from The Distance Manager by Kimball Fisher and Mareen Duncan Fisher:
- Identify the subject in the subject line (that means no smiley faces)
- Don’t use email for philosophical debates
- Keep all distribution lists current
- Don’t use email for urgent messages (alternatives: pick up the phone and call, walk over and talk, connect over skype)
- Accept responsibility for personal delivery of urgent messages (meaning face-to-face or voice-to-voice)
- Code subject lines with “please respond,” “action required,” or “FYI”
- Use email as a supplement to, not a replacement for personal contact
- If you have to scroll down, it’s likely a call, not an email that’s needed
There are lots of clues that you’re over using email and under utilizing personal contact. Some include having trouble staying on the same page with others, not feeling very energized, or blood pressure rising when you’re reading/typing an email. One of the greatest telltale signs is that you’re fighting over email. If you’re interested in and want skillful dialogue, you won’t get that from email.
I’d like to do more writing on the topic of virtual work groups. I’m curious, what are you noticing? Do you see a similar pattern, or something entirely different? What are other issues to consider in long-distance management of groups?
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Jun 28, 2010 (a Monday)
- time:
- 10:00:00 (1 year ago)
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Mergers: Lessons From the Grassroots Institute for Fundriasing Training
Last week I posted a piece on mergers for community based organizations. Priscilla Hung, Executive Director of the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT), replied with a wonderful resource she wrote after GIFT went through their own merger. The article talks about the costs, difficult to measure staff hours, and impact to finances and fundraising.Priscilla dives into seven lessons learned through their experience and of two other organizations they interviewed:
1. It’s your work that’s important, not the organization
2. Be honest and up front about your reasons for merging
3. Merging won’t make a financially unstable organization more stable
4. Fundraising culture matters just as much as fundraising practice
5. Notify donors and funders in a timely way
6. Fundraise for your merger
7. The merger will take longer than you think
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Feb 8, 2010 (a Monday)
- time:
- 10:00:00 (2 years ago)
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Mergers for Community Based Orgs
There are very few merger resources that speak directly to the needs of small community-based organizations and nongovernmental groups. Through hands on work
with mission-driven clients Potomac Group has developed a merger model and checklist. Offered below is an article that will help readers understand and prepare for the mechanics of a merger.Some of the common myths or misconceptions talked about in the article include:
- Overestimating cost savings. So many groups already have administrative infrastructures that are below their needs. A merger actually increases costs.
- Merging two struggling or vulnerable organizations with an unexamined belief it will result in one stronger organization.
- Thinking the hard work is all done prior to the merger and “letting it ride” after the legal merger. There is a lot to be done pre-merger to be sure. The post-merger work, if not properly attended to, can drastically reduce the effectiveness of the organization and in some cases topple it.
- Using a merger to avoid answering the question, “should we close?”
Potomac Group is intending on releasing a series of articles over time that touch on the hidden or less covered aspects of mergers. These include: preparing change leaders, group dynamics, managing emotions, and the process of letting go. Rather than being at the margins, these issues are at the heart of a successful merger process. Until then, enjoy this article and please do comment with your own experience and thoughts on the issue…
First, groups considering a merger are often looking to reap savings from combining administrative overhead (office space, bookkeeping, training, copier service, tech support, contract / consulting support, etc.). Although this is a benefit that most groups seek, small community-based groups run a particular risk of putting themselves in harm’s way by overestimating potential savings. That’s because small groups engaged in service, advocacy and organizing efforts typically operate with limited budgets to address unlimited needs, and routinely under resource their infrastructure…Click here for Full Article
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Jan 29, 2010 (a Friday)
- time:
- 10:00:00 (2 years ago)
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Female Genital Mutilation: Community-based change approaches
A friend of mine, Radha Patel, sent me an email this week about a consulting project she’s doing with the UN and an online symposium where she posed a question about the connection between female genital mutilation (FGM) and culture.
The following are some of my thoughts that I shared with her on how a local community can use a culturally-based or community-based change approach to stop the practice of FGM…
…There is a model that might support this called “positive deviance.” In essence, it’s a social change model that looks for people in a system that are “deviating” from the norm in some “positive” way. It’s been used in hospitals to reduce HIV infections, in schools to reduce drop out rates, and even in Egypt to form 12 “FGM free” communities.
What I like about the approach is that it looks for people at the margins of a system that are already expressing beneficial or desired behaviors or actions (so in this case, it would be finding men and women, old and young, within communities where FGM is the norm, but are not participating in FGM practices). Using a positive deviance approach, you would seek to build a learning community (in this case, presumably with both community leaders and other support groups like the UN).
It’s a strength-based approach (rather than a problem-based approach). For those who are familiar with Appreciative Inquiry or Popular Education work, it’s similar in some ways. This positive deviance change process says, “hey, there are individuals within this community who face the same issues (resources, culture, etc.) as others, but they are doing something different.” You look to see what they are doing differently and find ways to support that.
Sometimes change processes are focused on just those at the top (those who have positions of authority, access to resources, or formal leadership positions). It’s important to include them. It’s also important to include those who are marginalized. It’s those at the margins who are working with less and have come up with creative adjustments to get something done with less.
When to use a Positive Deviance approach:- When a problem requires behavioral changes or social change
- When it’s a seemingly intractable problem
- When there is a presence of a positive deviant(s)
- When there is leadership and positive deviant champions
The process discovers ideas that are already out there. It enables people to act today. It creates culturally appropriate solutions.
The challenges to this approach lie in scaling up. It’s labor and time intensive. It requires comfort with uncertainty, and for practitioners to be facilitators instead of experts.
Positive Deviance comes from the research of Marian Zeitlin and was experimented with and further developed by Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin at Tufts University.Tags
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Dec 9, 2009 (a Wednesday)
- time:
- 4:28:00 (2 years ago)
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Barbara Ehrenreich: The Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America | Health and Wellness | AlterNet
The author talks about how a plague of positive thinking is permeating our society, from medicine to business, and is even contributing to our financial crisis.
A friend sent this article to me over the holidays (click on link above or read the first few paragraphs below). I haven’t read Barbara’s latest book. Have others? Is this a trend that you’ve seen?
Barbara’s critique of “positive thinking” seems similar to those around Appreciative Inquiry (AI). The AI approach departs from deficit based change models and takes an approach that seeks to create change by mobilizing around the strengths of a community or an organization.
A number of trainers are delivering a brand of AI that encourages “positive” thinking and discourages or frowns upon “negative” thoughts. I believe this is a misapplication of AI and one that can lead to a number of bad outcomes, from blaming the victim to an organization being disconnected from its own reality.
At its core, AI asks individuals and organizations to focus on “generative” ideas. That is different than “positive” ideas. In generative thinking, the people in an organization are encouraged to look at what is going “right” and move toward it. In their book Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination, Jane Watkins and Bernard Mohr, state that “…the greatest value comes from embracing what works.” In application, that may mean “what works” is collecting data on and reviewing the negative feedback that an organization gets from its constituency, customers, employees, or citizens (in the case of government).
Another way to understand generative thinking as opposed to other approaches is that generative thinking looks at both the problem and solution as a whole, composed of desired outcomes and a roadmap on how to achieve them. All of us can get stuck in complaining, without making any forward movement. By framing our problems with the solutions that are already working, we create movement that builds on those things that are working right.
As Watkins and Mohr point out, “AI suggests that by focusing on that image of health and wholeness, the organization’s energy moves to make the image real.” The change effort is bound to fail If this is done without the acknowledgment or the inclusion of data on the challenges or unhealthy issues within the system. Simple positive thinking alone is not a solution.
Barbara Ehrenreich’s interview on her new book begins…
“When Barbara Ehrenreich went to be treated for breast cancer, she was exhorted to think positively; and when she expressed feelings of fear and anger, she was chided for being negative.
Ehrenreich, the author of 16 books, including Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, which examine the blue- and white-collar job markets, took on what she sees as an epidemic of positive thinking in her new book: Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.”Tags
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Nov 30, 2009 (a Monday)
- time:
- 1:58:00 (2 years ago)
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New Trend: “Infinity Factor” used to describe the energy system within interdependencies and Polarity Management
Listen to my interview with Dana Wilcox on the story of and genesis of “infinity factor.”I was sitting with Dana at the end of a week in Chicago where we had been participating in a learning community that has been meeting for over 15 years around issues of Realtime Strategic Change and Polarity Management. I asked her about the term infinity factor and where it started. The interview was in front of a large window looking out on a busy Chicago street and happened to be just a few feet way from where she had been the moment the phrase came into existence.
The term, “Infinity Factor” in part, highlights that there is a natural dynamic or energy system that is present in human systems. This energy system is represented by the infinity loop wrapped around interdependent pairs. This new language emphasizes the energy system is a naturally occurring phenomenon that is there to tap. The infinity factor can help to illuminate and help us more effectively use other models in OD like Appreciative Inquiry, Real Time Strategic Change, Gap Analysis, or even Bion and Basic Assumption groups. On the other hand, the “Polarity Map” is a useful way to help systems and groups tap the enegery system and manage the tension in dilemmas we face.
The management or tapping of the underlying energy system can be a purposeful and choiceful one - meaning that awareness of the polarities and infinity factor theory expand the choices available to us. If we are unaware of the energy system, it is still going on, we just have fewer choices that could otherwise ease our conflicts and support our individual or group development.Tags
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 20
- date:
- Nov 6, 2009 (a Friday)
- time:
- 3:00:00 (2 years ago)
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