All For You

Schein states that it is essential that the outsider (the person inquiring about the culture) learn what is really going on.  He says that it requires real entry into and involvement with the organization beyond what questionnaires, surveys, or even individual interviews can provide.  Recently selected individuals were interviewed by a Human Resource Representative.  The interviews were organized for HR to get a better understanding of our culture.   

 This HR representative did not enter into our environment we were actually called away from our environment and taken offsite into another one to be questioned.  It’s funny how the text clearly states that the only way to really get a since of what is going on is to get involved and this is exactly the opposite of what my HR department did. 

 The text also states that the researcher must create a relationship with the organization that permits him or her to become a researcher/consultant to insure that reliable and valid data will be forthcoming.   The selected individuals were pulled away from their office and asked several questions that would hopefully shed light on the culture.  There have been several individuals that have made me aware of the “no tell” policy among the staff.  Employees before me have gone through several culture analysis and the outcomes always pin point certain individuals even though they are assured that the answers are kept secretly. 

 Needless to say I was one of the selected individuals to participate in the research.  I being the new kid on the block went over to give my honest opinions.   I honestly felt like I had something to gain by revealing what I really thought and felt.  Also I felt like if they were not naming names than how on earth could my boss know what I said in the interview.   

 To my disbelief all of my comments came back to bite me in the buttocks.  He was able to quote my comments verbatim.  This was a complete let down.  How could an organization of this magnitude break all “rules”?

In my organization, outsiders to my department have been made aware of the pain which forced my manager to start to describe why the pain exists. Because my manager’s explanation of what was causing the pain was inaccurate, his attempt to solve the problem was unsuccessful. The higher ups called in the consultants because the moral within my department seems to be getting lower.   

My manager cannot seem to be able to pin point the cause of the pain so he and others are hoping the cause of the pain can be identified by the consultants. 

The consultant role within my organization seems to be different from the consultant’s role in the Block text.  The consultant has not redefined the presenting problem, they have only tried to help us deal with the problems we seem to have as a group.  We still have no clear picture of what is causing the difficulty.  In every meeting the air in the meeting seems to grower thicker with each new meeting.

The group I am apart of within my corporation precedes my manager historically. Currently, my management is not succeeding in managing the external boundary management, survival, and growth. In the eyes of higher ups our group is not successful. On paper our group is achieving however there is no harmony within the group. Our leadership sees my immediate manager as a failure in leadership.

Because of these issues my entire department has been given a 360 survey to complete on my manager’s leadership style. This survey will assess my manager’s abilities in leadership.

For the most part there are two different groups within in my department. There is the production side of the house versus the instructors’ side of the house. Both groups are using different category systems. The entire group struggles to agree on what to do and the facts end up being twisted to benefit one group versus the other group. Both sides of the house feels like their side is more important and should be respected more that the other group.

Schien states that it is often the creators of groups who build the common category system, however in my organization the manager has left it up to the department to create common category systems. This is a problem because neither group can come to a consensus on common category systems. My department has been participating in several workshops to learn how to become a successful group. We are working on a common language and category system. In an attempt to develop a common language my department has come up with a set of group rules that must be read aloud before each meeting. This list of 18 ground rules was developed by the entire team during one of our first workshops. See list below:

1. Be here now – no computers, cell phones, etc.

2. Start on time

3. Stop on time

4. Have questioning attitude

5. Focus on session – no distractions

6. Respect each other- disagree, but be agreeable

7. Seek first to understand before being understood

8. Listen

9. One person speaking at a time

10. Seek equal participation, allow others to participate

11. Conflict – deal with directly; go to the source in a safe environment before group disclosure

12. Have objectives and meet them

13. Over 50% of staff, consisting of one individual per discipline needed for decision making

14. Determine how decisions will be made (majority, consensus or unanimity)

15. Provide an agenda in advance of meetings with built in breaks every hour

16. No retaliation

17. Tie back purpose of meeting to alignment with strategic plan

18. Recap and production of action items through meeting minutes

In class tonight, our discussion was around the ORJI cycle.

O-Observation

R-Reaction

J-Judgment

I-Intervene

Recently, I encounter a situation that involved the ORJI cycle with my counterpart at work.  In my opinion, my counterpart was of equal status even though; her title is “Senior Training Specialist. 

In a conversation with my counterpart, I was informed by her (Observation) that all of my vacations must go though her as she was not my supervisor.  Of course, this news came to a surprise for me, as this new position was never posted nor was it communicated to me from my management that she had been given such an opportunity.  At that point in time, I received the information and processed it as professional as I knew how and began to formulate how such a huge transition be possible in a well established organization.   

After returning to my desk, I started quickly on my research (Reaction) to see if, in fact, this was all true.  I first made a telephone call to my Human Resource Representative to see if there were any recent promotions within my department.  The outcome of that telephone call validated that there were no recent promotions.  My HR representative went onto encourage me to approach my manager to get clarification on the conversation I had with my counterpart.  (Judgment)

The next day I went into my manager’s office (Intervene) with my list of questions in hand along with a nice little notepad to take notes of the conversation.  My manager first appeared to be a little concern because of my disappointed face expression.  I felt let down by the manager I most admired.  How could he possibly let this chain of events happen in this way?  I have read enough books to know that good management skills were lacking from these chain of events.  I knew that any changes in my reporting structure should have been communicated by him and not from my counterpart.  My manager began to apologize for the confusion around my observation of the news my counterpart shared with me.  He assured me that she was in no way my new supervisor and that her role was to only “coordinator” vacation time.  She was not given the authority to approve or disapprove of anyone’s time away from work.  The question here is…who screwed up the ORJI cycle first?

To develop is to internally reorganize you.  Learning is different from development.  Learning is learning new techniques in your existing framework and development is to move from one framework to another.     Framework is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality. To stay within your framework of thinking while trying new techniques is learning.  To move from your framework of thinking into a new framework of thought is development.  This way of looking at these two different concepts are very different for me.  I have never looked at learning as new techniques.  If you keep trying different techniques with no results at some point in time you have to move on to development.  You can not stay in your existing framework with no results, you may have to drastically change your way of thought through development to see results.

In order to develop it must be done over time.  If you look at most management development programs they are done in a day or throughout any given week.  This is clearly not enough time to develop managers within their existing framework.  Most times they are canned programs and do not allow for custom building.  Every framework is different therefore it would make sense for the framework to match up with the techniques being learned.  Surely managers can learn new techniques in a couple of days however; it is not enough time to test out the new techniques to see if they work.  This is true with regards to internally reorganizing your self. 

To develop your self requires time to reflect.  The act of blogging for class allows us to develop ourselves through reflecting.  Mirroring was added as an additional requirement of blogging.  Reflection is most effective when other individuals can provide their perspective.  We all provide that perspective through mirroring each other’s blog post.  In my opinion, it is so refreshing to be practicing what the book preaches.     There are so many times in the working world when your hands are tied with regards to practicing what the book preaches and/or your personal philosophy.

Up until now I took for granted that the client was the person receiving the service. It was my opinion that knowing who the client “really” was, was a matter of common sense. I sure was wrong in my assumptions according to Chapter Four in the Schein book. There are so many variables in accessing who the client is that must be considered.

I have been in many situations where I was requested to help individuals with their training needs and never really took the time to figure out the client’s needs. I have also gone out and took it upon myself to figure the issues out without even considering the concerns, suggestions, or ideas of the individuals that were affected by the intervention.

On many occasions I have interviewed the primary and unwitting clients by “accident”. I refer it as an accident because I really didn’t ensure that this was done for every intervention. In the past, if I was charged with providing a service with no background information than I would seek input from my primary and unwitting clients. However, contrary to that scenario if background information was provided up front than there have been times where my clients were not involved in the planning of my intervention. The readings this week has given me a broader view of “who the client really is”.

     It occurs at the interfaces between people, organization units, organization, and environment.  These subsystems must be able to confront others who have constructed different meanings.  Diverse differences brings about organizational learning, however we must be open to receiving those differences.  From this interaction, the organization members must form an interpretation of the information. Each person involved is influenced by the meanings others hold and in turn influences the meanings of others.  This process is called collective interpretation. 

     The outcome of collective interpretation does not have to have total agreement in order for individuals to act in concert.  There must be fully understanding of the reasoning behind the proposed action.  Also there needs to be an opportunity to influence that reasoning.  There is a huge loss of learning when the reasoning people contribute is not used.    We all have a responsibility to work actively towards the learning of others.  If I want to know more than I will have see to it that you know more.  Organizational learning is as good as the organization’s ability to use their employee’s entire mental capability to create the kind of processes that will improve its own learning capacity.

     All three case studies were interesting, however I must admit the case most interested me was Chaparral Steel. This case seems to reside closer to home as one of their locations was located in Petersburg, Virginia. I also have a past relationship with the Petersburg’s Human Resource Manager as she was hired as a new Human Resource Manager for my previous employer. 

     My pervious employer was relatively small in size and was rapidly growing in numbers of employees. It was her task to give the organization a new Human Resource face. The organization was a German based company with very little focus on organizational learning. Now knowing the history of Chaparral Steel it is probably safe to assume she was hired because she was coming from a successful organization with a culture focused on learning. 

     My organization at that time was very similar in structure as all operators had rotating shifts, employees were salaried with no time clocks, and the organization’s hierarchy was flat. The only person standing in between the CEO and myself as a Training Specialists was my immediate manager. This may sound to most as giving employees an environment for owning problems and the autonomy to solve it. However, contrary to belief this was not the case for my position. I owned many problems as a Training Specialist however; the autonomy to solve it was not easily given. Due to budget constraints there was little an individual at my level was able to do own their own with limited resources.

     It was my task as a one man show to train all existing and new employees on the companywide enterprise operating system. Each employee was given a certain amount of time to develop a working knowledge of the system’s intricacies. This working knowledge was left up to my ability to reach each learner’s learning style. Without any formal education on how to best handle each learner’s learning style this task became increasingly harder. My frustration grew into resentment of the position in which led me to seek other employment that enabled me to grow both professional and academic. It was my hope to find an employer with an established training department from which I could learn from as well as them to learn from my past experience of running a one man department.

     Because of my past experience I can appreciate larger well established organizations versus smaller organizations with lots of autonomy. In some situations autonomy with limited resources can bring about frustration and resentment.

This session opened up the meaning of Consulting for me.  It never occurred to me that there could be different roles for consultants to work under.  I have worked with many consultants from my previous work experience and never really thought about their roles.  There are three distinct roles for consultants.

The first role is the Expert Consultant.  The Expert Consultant comes in to an organization with an expert set of skills, knowledge, and abilities around a certain focused area.  I have experience with expert consultants and most times I have passed judgment on their level of understanding.  There were occasions when the expert didn’t seem to really be an expert in the field.  In my opinion, the “experts” didn’t know much more than I.  It was hard to accept that they were hired to provide their expertise when in actuality I had to lend a hand to them with the matter.

The next role is of the Pair of Hands Consultant.  This consultant is hired to physically provide a service.  My previous employer decided to hire an extra set of hands to perform role assignments in our enterprise application system.  There were over 800 employees in need of role assignments.  Because of the time crunch to get this task done an extra pair of hands were needed.  This person also served as an expert in the field as well as an extra pair of hands.  In reality this person could have been classified as both an Expert and Pair of Hands Consultant.  This dual role was not discussed in class on Monday night.  It will be interesting to explore if there is a term for this kind of consultant.

  The last role is of a Process Consultant.  This role will be the focused of our class for the semester.  Consultants in this field works to help the organization learn how to solve a problem on there own.  They are not hired to do the task. The goal of the Process Consultant is to teach the client how to fix the problem themselves.  This type of consultant is very enticing to me.  The work is at a very high level and the job is accomplished through a teaching relationship.  The compensation for this consultant is also attractive because it is at a higher rate than the other two types of consultants.  It is going to be interesting to learn more about the intricacies of the Process Consultant throughout the semester.  This could possbily lead to a new career exploration.

No one ever told me a group experience could be positive.  I must say my experience with The Yellowbirds was the most fun in any class that I have taken so far.  My group members were all about making the best grade possible and completing tasks on time. 

In my past experience, the groups I was involved in could not even decide on what the task was we were asked to complete.  Most times they were chaotic at best.  The team I was apart of this semester has changed my mine forever.  My team The Yellowbirds was an effective team because we produced high-quality results.  With many groups they may fail because of difficulties and cultural or philosophical differences. This was not the case for The Yellowbirds.

My team members helped each other resolve problems, and we all felt responsible for the output of the team as a whole. As a whole we had a good mix of task-oriented and people-oriented characteristics.  Some of our task oriented characteristics included that we were jointly committed to producing high-quality results, equally innovative and creative, and flexible and willing to change with any circumstance.  Our people-oriented characteristics included good communication, mutual trust, and a high need for achievement and growth. 

In the end, our team could be judged by our output, goals, energy, structure and atmosphere. In a nutshell, my team was so effective because we were able to: work interdependently, be flexible, commit to achieving common goals, work well together and enjoy it while also producing high quality results. Another aspect of our effectiveness was that we could easily recognize our roadblocks to our own effectiveness and we were then able to develop and implement actions to remove the roadblocks with open and honest communication. It was truly an honor to be apart of a team with all of the right stuff to be effective.  I am actually looking forward to my next group experience so that I can implement some of the skills learned from being a part of the best group in the century….. GO TEAM YELLOWBIRDS!!!