Comments for All For You

Comment on Is that development? – Consult Skills by June Jones

June Jones — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:30:47 +0000

Demetria, to answer your question,” is that development?” My response would be yes! It is obvious that you have learned through our readings that in order for relationships in any setting to be successful you must be authentic. Being able to let your voice be heard and not remain silent on issues that concern you is a big step to being authentic and sucessful. Often times, we think that we should just go with the flow and remain silent, but this is why issues/processes remain the same and managers or office staff never grow or are given the opportunity to grow. Good for you for finally letting your voice be heard. In the future, maybe other will follow your lead.

Comment on Is that development? – Consult Skills by Ike

Ike — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:42:36 +0000

I had a proffessor who used to tell us to be brave and put yourself out there for all to hear. Sometimes it does backfire on us, but part of being an adult learner and educator is to exercise our opinions. We have to try new things in order to develop. So the answer to your question is yes.

Comment on How could an organization of this magnitude break all “rules”? – Org Learning by poohbouncer

poohbouncer — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:55:37 +0000

This sounds like exactly the same thing that happened to me at my last employer. It was funny though that in that situation all the employees said exactly the same thing so we all got bit in the butt and the boss basically got mad at the consultants because he couldn’t get mad at ALL of us. He blamed the consultants for “leading” us with questions. We were then stuck with do we tell him that the consultants didn’t do that or do we play dumb and save ourselves a lot of grief. We played dumb and took the easy way out. I commend you for saying the truth regardless of what has came of it!

Comment on How could an organization of this magnitude break all “rules”? – Org Learning by Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:23:17 +0000

Demetria -

Your comments made me think about Evaluation Methods – which I am in right now. Maybe the consultant is not spending time in the organization, conducting interviews in your environment because of the cost. Perhaps there are limited resources based on what your company negotiated with the consultants.

It also makes me think about Consulting Skills – and my experience in Capstone last Spring – there is so much to gain (although I didn’t think so at the time we started our Capstone project) by interacting with the organization members in their environment. We learned a lot just by observing meetings our client had.

So yeah – why is such a great organization making such mistakes? You aren’t in charge! Now you know what not to do with your business.

-Andrea

Comment on Consult Skills – Where is the pain? by Ike

Ike — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:30:29 +0000

Dr. Carter reminds us every week that a lot of people call themselves consultants, but not all of them know process consultating. The beautiful thing about Block is his constant reminder that both client and consultant should own the problem. We have also discussed that we should hear the whole story before we start problem solving.

Comment on Consult Skills – Where is the pain? by June Jones

June Jones — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:56:39 +0000

Wow Demetria, this post really hits home with my job! We are in a similar situation, however, the only difference is that your higher-ups have actually recognized that there is a problem and this is causing low morale with the staff. And with that are willing to bring in a consultant to assist with identifying what the problem really is. As we move towards the end of both the Block and Schein texts, I’m hopeful that we will have gained the tools and knowledge necessary to assist our employees when problems such as these arise as an internal consultant. Please keep me posted on the findings of the consultant!

Comment on Organizational Learning – Group Reformation, 4th Post by poohbouncer

poohbouncer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:09:58 +0000

Do you think it is your manager’s leadership style that is the problem. Did the 360 eval give any insight? Do you think the manager needs to change his perspective about how you guys operate in order to be more effective. These are all things I have asked myself in my own department and I don’t have the answers either. I like all the ground rules. Were these something the entire group came up with in a consensus? That seems the best way to set up rules like this, to put them forth in a group and agree on them. This may seem silly, but when I was pregnant I was in a Centering Pregnancy group who all met once a month in lieu of a individual midwife appt. I loved it because we got to share fears and concerns and actually got more of our questions answered. At the first meeting we came up with ground rules like yours for the group and agreed upon them. The rules became real for us because we created them and it brought us together as a group from the beginning.

Comment on Organizational Learning – Group Reformation, 4th Post by moharta

moharta — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:08:40 +0000

Demetria,

Is your large group (production and instruction combined) relatively new? Would you consider your large group to be in the group formation phase according to Schein? From what you described I would think so as the group is looking towards the leader to define what the group should do, and there is a focus on power and influence. Schein states that “members may share the common assumption of being dependent on the leader (staff member), yet react very differently” (pg. 71).

The 18 ground rules your group developed – are they intended to be espoused values and beliefs? Or are they the assumptions that will form the basis of the culture of the group?

-Andrea

Reference: Schein E.H. (2004). Organizational culture and leadership (3rd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Comment on Consultant Skills – ORJI Cycle by June Jones

June Jones — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:48:27 +0000

Demetria,

Based on yur sitution at work it is clear that the individuals involved have not even heard of the ORJI process. Learning how the intrapyschic processes: O (observe) R (react) J (judgment) I (intervene) works has is extremely important, especially in large organizations such as yours. It appears that your learning the ORJI process through the exercise that we performed in class helped you to take the right actions to solve your situation. Your example is a good one in showing how jumping to conclusions with limited information in a given situation led to misperceptions and/or poor judgments for all involved. The exercise emphasized the need for us to take the time to obtain correct information in a given situation, and based on that information observe carefully before letting our emotions take over, or reacting inappropriately and making inaccurate judgments, thereby leading to useless interventions. We must keep in mind that we can’t be too quick to jump to a conclusion based on limited information. Now that we have more knowledge of the ORJI process we can better understand the need to be patient and obtain all the information necessary prior to coming to come to a final conclusion. Glad this process was exposed to you in a timely manner, thereby allowing you to react appropriately and professionlly,

Comment on Consultant Skills – ORJI Cycle by Ike

Ike — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:17:34 +0000

Very good insight into the ORJI cycle. I ask the same question, who screwed it up? Most of the time it is me. I thought Monday was a very good session on communicating and certainly helped me understand how quickly people can prejudge or overreact without knowing all the details. See you Monday.