when is training 'old fashoneed"?

It is 1800 and I am on the 1640 train back from Leeds to London after meeting with a potential client. I overhear a telephone conversation where an individual described a training room as basic.
Yes it had the required tables and chairs, windows, space, a rail to clip flowcharts around the room - lots of wall space etc.. but you have to take your own projector and loud speakers.

So is this 'basic spec' old fashioned - or do we expect different things?
What is considered fit for purpose?
so we need to use PowerPoint every time? Certainly I use PowerPoint from time to tile buy for most training courses I ca take it or leave it.

So if this is 'old fashioned' what is current? what is high tech? What makes a room old fashioned?

Are PowerPoint and interactive whiteboards THE minimum or are these just tools.
what do you think?


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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Do you need to find a trainer?

Are you a manager or HR professional? Do you hire trainers?
With the marketplace changing rapidly it is getting harder and harder to find the right trainers for your business.

Purchasers cannot use day rates as the deciding factor, as generally speaking the lower the day rate the less professional the trainer (to run a sustainable business costs money) - if the rate looks too good to be true - it is too cheap - stay away!

With many trainers claiming to be able to deliver everything from Appraisals to Zoology, we all need to recognise that not all trainers are super hero's - all trainer have limits. Indeed of the material many propose to deliver they can often do:

• 20% of topics very well...
• 60% OK and ...
• 20% of topics - well... why bother?

The question is when you are looking to find a trainer what skill are you looking at...their top or bottom 20% of capability?

We as purchasers need to identify an independently assessed and verified standard on which to use as part of our selection process for finding and hiring a trainer. TrainerBase - the trade association for trainers has recently launched the CLP - or Certified Learning Practitioner standard. This looks to be a robust and at last one of the first 'fit for purpose' standards. Written by practitioners for purchasers it moves the focus for standards away from the government and academic sectors and firmly puts it in the private training sector space.

As a representative of RapidBI, I have just been through this process and can say with some feeling - this is the toughest assessment process I have ever undertaken - and I have done a few in my time! In this process as a participant there was no place to hide, no tricks to get you through and it is not an automatic pass process.... worse participants have to renew every 2 years.

As a participant I can highly recommend this as a learning experience - it has certainly helped the RapidBI team to focus and we are making changes to what we do and how we do it.

TrainerBase publishes some excellent bulletins on training for purchasers - links to two great ones are listed below:

TrainerBase Training Purchaser Bulletin:
Training Purchasers Bulletin 01
Training Purchasers Bulletin 02


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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Get seen on the web

With the web being increasingly important for purchasers to find training providers, use of the web is critical to many training providers.

Over the past 3 years I have been developing and using web search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to get my business seen on the net. Recently I was asked to present a session at the TrainerBase conference on this topic. As a result I have been asked to put together a jargon free workshop helping typical trainers improve their web profile.

With this in mind I have developed a process called get seen on the web - a one day programme with practical activities to raise you profile and tap into the work available.

For more information see www.getseenontheweb.co.uk

This one day programmes is suitable for Trainers, Consultants and other freelancers

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Fair request for free help??

This morning I received the following request:

Hi Mike,
I am working on designing an e-learning course ware for the managers, to help them understand the company's rating scale which we use for performance evaluation. we have five scales for performance and appraisal. the problem is most of the managers can't differentiate between the 1st scale and the second for example, Significantly exceeds targets and exceeds targets. these to scales are the one where most of the managers are not able to differentiate. so i am designing an e-learning module a continuum of our whole performance management system e-course. i am facing problem in producing case studies for the course which can define parameters or benchmarking the performance. i will be using according to roles and the organisation but needs a starting point or an example case study. if you can give me your expert opinion on this i will be grateful.

Thanks
Regards

My polite answer was...

Hi
Sometimes we are asked to develop solutions to help people understand - when actually the best solution is to change the system!

There are a number of ways of communicating this type of information, however by far the best is to get case studies from within the client organisation.

If you want help in writing this type of material my hourly rate for this type of advice is .....

Now this post raised a number of questions in my mind -

1. why was this person doing the work when they clearly do not understand the basics of learning
2. to be writing e-learning (or any other learning content) one needs a level of attention to detail, and judging by the number of spelling errors this was not this individuals strengths
3. do people really expect others on forums to solve their problems specifically for free?

I think it is a sad state of our profession that while the views of 'competent' people are sort after, that as a profession many of the people appointed to roles (or indeed commissioned for consultancy roles) are 'not yet competent' and inexperienced to the point off not being able to do the job yet.

Another day to save the world..

Mike

ps As I write this article I feel it would help readers if I were to post the actual request so that you can see the extent of the errors - so here it is:

Hi Mike,
i am working on desinging an e-learning coursware for the managers, to help them understand the company's rating scale which we use for performance evaluation. we have five scales for performance and appraisal. the problem is most of the managers cann't differentiate between the 1st scale and the second for example, Significantly exeeds targets and exeeds targets. these to scales are the one where most of the managers are not able to differentiate. so i am desinging a e-learning module a continuim of oru whole performance management system e-course. i am facing problem in producing case studies for the course which can define parameters or banchmaring the perfomrance. i will be using according to roles and the organisation but needs a starting point or an example case stufy. if you can give me your expert opinon on this i will be grateful. you can email me on my personal email address as well *****@hotmail.com


Thanks
Regards

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

How often to re-survey employees

Today I was asked an interesting question about staff surveys:

I have recently conducted a Global Employee Survey with my current organisation. There is a lot of discussion around when we should repeat this exercise, this ranges from 6 months to 24 months.

Do you have any advice?

My reply:
This all depends what you want to and are willing to do with the results of the employee survey.

I suspect that the organisation you are in now is very different from the one you knew 2 years ago (assuming you have been there that time). The currency of the results is limited to impacts of change by culture, goals, market place % of manager changes etc...

The question I would want to ask is; how would staff react to a repeat survey?

1. Great - a lot changed last time or ...
2. Not again - they did not listen last time so why this time?
   

How often do you do your employee surveys?

How do employees react?


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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Action Learning

So what is Action Learning?
Action learning is based upon the concept of learning by reflection (or reviewing) on an experience. It is underpinned by the cycle of experiential learning as shown below, where the stages of reviewing and concluding are worked through with the Set. In practice many of us tend to short circuit this cycle and often ship the reviewing phase as it is often difficult to do out of context.Action learning will help 'close the loop' and ensure our learning is as effective as possible (more about learning cycles in module one).

Action Learning Sets are primarily focused on the individual's learning.An Action Learning programme involves the following key elements:

• The Set: a group of 6 - 8 people who meet regularly.
• The Projects: each participant works on a project or task over the life of the set
• The Set Adviser: a facilitator who helps the group to work and learn together.

Although Action Learning is flexible, it is highly structured and focuses on the individual and their need NOT on the programme.

To find out more visit http://www.rapidbi.com/created/actionlearningregrevens.html

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Director of Oomph

Does your business have a director of oomph?
For a business to be successful not only must it have a marketable product, but it needs to be effectively led and managed. Many larger organisations lack 'oopmh' within.

In our experience many organisations would benefit from ensuring that all staff were not only fully engaged but that strategies are put in place to create a level of oomph to motivate and encourage productivity.

A director oomph may be recruited from anywhere in the organisation, their role is to inject a sense of fun and participation beyond that of the local manager.

Who is your formal or informal director of oomph?


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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Going nuts at HRD

When the stand is quiet what do exhibitors do?

HRD 2008

Have you visited?
Mike has been on the TrainerBase standalong with Peter, Heather, Charlotte and others from the TBteam.

The exhibition has its usual mix of training providers, venues, tests and assessments , e-learning providers and publishers.

Along with Trainerbase, other membership based organisations including CIPD and BILD were also in attendance.

Resources for business

The RapidBI Team have been busy writing new free content covering strategic and tactical business theories, tools, thechiques and methods appropriate for people involved in the development of organizations or themselves. below are some of the newer pages.

Key Pages:

Holistic Diagnostic Tools - Find out what using a holistic approach can offer you and your organization Scanning the Business Environment - Why do this - is it just a waste of time or the critical factor? Management Models - 100+ Management Models - a page full of graphical management models, covering organizational growth, leadership, coaching, change management etc. Porters five forces - Michael Porter's five forces is a model used to explore the environment in which a product or company operates. The PESTLE Analysis - The PESTLE analysis - a powerful tool for exploring the external environment of an organzation Force Field Analysis - The Force Field analysis is a valuable tool in any decisionmaking process SWOT analysis - The SWOT analysis - a powerful tool for exploring the strengths of an organzation Personal Development Plans - Need to develop a Personal Development Plan - all you need is here PRIMO-F_- Business_Growth_Model - The PRIMO-F business growth model, a holistic approach Continuing Professional Development or CPD - CPD has been around for some years, now the need for personal responsibility is ever increasing. Write SMART objectives - Description on how to write SMART and SMARTER objectives for individual and business performance Learning Logs - We have had requests for material to complement our PDP and CPD pages... here it is Critical Success Factors - What are Critical Success Factors and how to use them Corporate Social Responsibility CSR - How does Corporate Social Responsibility impact smaller businesses Learning Styles - Want to be a more effective learner? hers is a summary of the main learning style theories and applicationWrite a Mission Statement - How to write a mission statement for your business. more coming soon...Psychometric_Personality_Testing - What psychometric testing is and how to use it Career Anchors - A powerful tool to help individuals understand their career strengths Business Values -how to use values to create an effective organizationChange Management - Understanding the impact of psychology on change

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Strategic development: Are we missing the point?

We often talk about strategic programmes and actions, but are we taking the appropriate first steps?

This article looks at the steps we take and explores if we can be more strategic and add more value.

Introduction

Often we know where we want to get to, or at least have a good idea, but often as the old saying goes: "If I was going there, I would not start from here."

That is a very logical reply, even if it is not advice that is of much immediate practical value to the questioner. If you don't know where you are going, you are not likely to get there.

It is sound advice to know where you are and where you want to end up before starting the journey. Is this why many of the tourist maps have a 'you are here' marker?

Where are we now? Where do we want to be?

This is a simple yet basic step in any intervention, at any level within our respective organisations. Yet what is the extent to which we really do it? Where is the 'you are here' marker in our organisations? Sure, some of us have tools like customer satisfaction and staff engagement data (as well as the basic business financial measures), but holistic, strategic data?

In the 2007 survey, Develop the Developers (by Morrison & Ritchie), responders to the survey provided the following answers in response to development activities:

• Use of diagnostic approaches:
  Always (8%); usually (33%); sometimes (46%); rarely (10%); never (4%).


• Use of evaluation approaches:
  Always (37%); usually (43%); sometimes (15%); rarely (2%); never (2%).

This highlights why much of what we do in organisational development (OD) and human resource development (HRD) fails, on a regular basis, to make the desired (and recognised) strategic impact.

"How can we ever hope to evaluate any intervention effectively if we do not know where we started from?"

We have read many threads on community forums such as HRZone.co.uk and TrainingZone.co.uk about the difficulties of evaluating activity. How to calculate a return on investment (ROI) or show value for money is a commonly recurring theme.

How can we ever hope to evaluate any intervention effectively if we do not know where we started from? We will only know this by having the same measures at the beginning of an intervention as we want to use for measuring success after the event.

In business we do it – we look at the financial position (profit, turnover etc), we set a plan to achieve it and then we measure after an agreed period of time. In medicine, before a person starts treatment we have some measures – pulse, respiration, blood pressure and so on - we measure before and after (often on going) treatment. Why, in HR and HRD, do we not do the same? Often we do for things like retention, sickness and attendance – but not for the more strategic elements.

What is a diagnostic process?

It is often simpler than it sounds. It is a tool that identifies 'where you are now', the dot or arrow on the map if you like. Tools like SWOT and PESTLE are OK to start with, but often these tools are not used as effectively (or broadly) as they were originally intended.

Diagnostic tools that only look at the area of the business you are interested in, for example culture surveys, have their place, but how do you know that culture is the issue – where is the diagnosis to show that a specific tool like a culture survey is the right one? There may be a need with a higher priority.

"A regular, yet effective organisational diagnostic process not only evaluates previous actions but the same data can be used to identify future needs"

It's like going to your doctor - they will not send you for a special test or scan, until they have undertaken a more general diagnosis. In HR and OD we need to do the same. We need to use holistic diagnostic tools to help us orientate to real needs – often we react to the symptoms. It is easy to treat the cut to the hand from a fall, but if we miss the reason for the person falling – for instance, a minor stroke - sure the hand will get better, but in the mean time the stroke can do more damage.

Making evaluation easier

The more robust the diagnostic process, the easier the evaluation. Some would argue than an evaluation is just a repeat of the diagnostic but with different analysis on the results. The diagnostic is looking for an action plan; an evaluation is looking for change since the last measure. So a regular, yet effective organisational diagnostic process not only evaluates previous actions but the same data can be used (in association with a business plan) to identify future needs. Here is a simple strategic cycle:

• Holistic diagnosis


• Analysis


• Plan


• Action


• Diagnosis

Insanity in our world?

As the saying goes, the first sign of madness is doing the same thing as before and expecting different results. It can be a bit like watching a replay of a race and expecting someone else to win. Obvious when we think about it, but why do we do this with our business activity?

Looking back at the results from the Develop the Developer survey, I wonder why many interventions are evaluated, but with little or no formal diagnostic processes undertaken at all; then we wonder why evaluation is so difficult.

Do we, as professionals, not learn? Do we keep doing the same things (evaluation but no initial diagnosis) and wonder why we do not add as much value as we expect? Are we 'mad'? Maybe we are just reluctant learners?

Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI Ltd, a consultancy specialising in helping individuals and organisations improve their business performance through people and organisation effectiveness.

This version first published: - HR Zone, 1st April 2008
Categories: HR Strategy



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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Quick and Painless interventions and solutions

Quick and Painless?

In our fast and busy lives we are often looking for that ‘quick fix’ the ‘painless solution’ – but are they? Does it work?

All too often on professional forums and networking groups I hear people asking for quick and painless solutions. Do they really exist in the worlds of business, Human Resources (HR) and Organizational Development (OD)?

Just because a solution is quick does not mean it will work in the medium or long term, nor does it necessarily mean it will support the culture and direction of the business.

Short term pain = long term gain?
What is pain in a professional context? Hassle? difficulty, effort? All of the above? Are many of us now so much under pressure that we ignore the real problem and are happy to stick on a sticking plaster to all problems we face? Do we care about the medium term consequences? – will we still be in the role in 12-24 months to care?

With the current economic climate I believe so – more and more of us will have to face the facts that the interventions we started just did not work – works in many situations they exasperated the problems. Time for us to start slowing down and doing an effective job.

Proof in the pudding

In the 2007 survey Develop the developers – the results highlighted that many in HR and OD are involved in evaluating activity and intervention, and that this trend was increasing, however less than 50% were actively involved in structured diagnosis before launching an intervention – and while there appeared to be intent to do more this will still mean that in 5 years time less people will be using diagnostic techniques than currently evaluate. And we and our clients often wonder why interventions do not add the value expected…

As the old saying goes – if you always do what you have always done – you will always get what you have always got. Or as I prefer – the real sign of madness – doing the same things time and time again and expecting different results!

For us as professionals to help our clients we must start to employ a robust diagnostic process on all our activity before committing to an intervention.



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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Strategy and Tools in Business

Strategy and tools in business

Over the years a lot of good and bad stuff has been said about SWOT. Sure it is not the most robust of tools but when used in the way it was originally developed – it is a powerful tool.
Some people have argued that it is time to move on from SWOT to other things – in this piece we explore SOAR an appreciative Inquiry tool.

An interesting article on this topic was published in Ai Practitioner magazine ( http://preview.tinyurl.com/2bvobg ) (it is available here http://preview.tinyurl.com/26wk4v )for those that are not subscribers).

Having read the article, the SOAR approach to my mind makes the same mistake that many using the SWOT analysis do - and that is they miss the context. When the (highly researched) SOFT was changed to SWOT the new authors missed the point which is why the tool is often miss-understood. It was never designed to stand on its own, nor was it ever to be part of the direct action phase - it was a diagnosis and data capture tool.

The authors of this article to my mind make 2 fundamental mistakes:
1) they assume that all applications of SWOT are in the way they describe
2) they appear to ignore weaknesses and threads - apparently believing that their solution will soar (pardon the pun) over any difficulties.
Would the shareholders of Enron be in the position they are now in (extinct) if they had faced up to their threats and weaknesses, rather than focus on what they thought were their strengths?

The article clearly states in its summary
"This article has attempted to address the strategy-to-execution gap. In doing so, we have discussed SOAR, a strengths-based framework that builds on the best points of SWOT (strengths and opportunities) in order to move beyond the “as-is” state of the organization’s environment to the “to-be”."

Yes this as a framework can be used as the authors state to take SWOT data and apply it - but SOAR in itself is not a diagnostic or orientation tool. Anyone using this as a diagnostic tool is going to make the same errors as 1000's of people have done with inappropriate use of SWOT.
This thread has been started to help CIPD students (and others) complete their studies - and for that they must use SWOT and PESTLE - if they chose to use other tools they will need references - I cannot see any on the article .

Appreciative Enquiry has its place.
Appreciative Inquiry is a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization. In so doing, it enhances a system's capacity for collaboration and change. Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a 4-stage process focusing on:

• DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
• DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
• DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
• DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.
  
  

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn't. It is the opposite of problem solving. AI focuses on how to create more of what's already working.
This method is more positive in nature than many others, however it is as a strategy naive in that it assumes success breeds success - many organizations are in fact where they are now because they did solve problems and did not just focus on what works.

Would a company that currently makes plastic carrier bags be advised to use SOAR - or look at the external factors which may bring about the end of the need for their product?

Equally any diagnostic process needs to look holistically at the people and the processes - not just one or the other.

Is SWOT redundant?.....

No but it is sure made more reliable with additions of other models in the transition to application.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Strategic Organizational Development

OD professionals are the CEOs allies in creating a top performance culture for the organization.

Organizational Development professionals are specialists in Change Management and Culture Development. However many find themselves in positions that make it difficult to get a straight line of communication to the CEO. Mainly because of the Organizational structure and the fact that OD-Organization Development is located under HR. Ideally the OD Head would have a position on the same level as the HR Head according to Dr. William Rothwell from Pennstate University who is an authority in HR. However reality is that most OD professionals still work under the more traditional structure.

Some years ago I held an OD role that reported directly into the CEO - HR did not!! - so to some extent this is down to the CEO and their experience of what an OD professional can and cannot deliver in relation to their needs and vision for the organization.

OD as a discipline is getting is only recently starting to grow an a standalone profession. More so with the pangs of growth that many of the new organizations are now facing. Talent acquisition, retention, organizational culture and people development are now starting to hinge more on the OD professional more than the HR. Recognizing this aspect, many organizations are allocating independent structures for the OD function. However, in cases where the OD has to work under HR, whether he/she can connect to the CEO solely depends on what he/she is capable of taking to the table. If a OD professional can sparkle with out-of-the-box ideas which can directly contribute to the growth of organization, the CEO cannot turn a blind eye.


Back in the 60's and 70's OD focused on people, behaviours and their actions and interactions with each other, in those days the majority of organizations did not know how to look after or engage with their people -

Things have now changed, much is different

CEO’s are having their valuable time ever squeezed and as such will only be able to have people reporting directly in that can add directly and measurably to their primary objectives. They have to focus on the big picture or strategic matters.

Unfortunately it is not very often that OD practitioner can demonstrate primary change. If we want to be engaged at this level we need to re-evaluate what we do and what is classed as OD activity. For example, traditionally when undertaking diagnostic processes we seem to focus on people and behaviours, or on the culture, now we need to be more integrated and holistic. This means starting to look at factors which traditionally have not been the domain of OD practitioner. If we are to truly facilitate change then our diagnostic process need to map the PRIMO-F model – that is to cover:

• People,
• Resources,
• Innovation,
• Marketing,
• Operations and
• Finance elements,

For it is how these factors interact that provide the organization with either an advantage or disadvantage in the market place. When undertaking a SWOT analysis for your organization do you cover all of these elements appropriately? Sure we may not be in a position to solve any issues raised here but as OD facilitators our role is to identify any blocks in the organization, then help to facilitate a solution.

So if we really want to get noticed we need to really get strategic and start looking at interactions with people and systems in all elements of our respective organizations.


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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Diagnosing Organizational Culture

Today I read a thread on Diagnosing Organizational Culture, where someone was asking for recommendations on tools to use to undertake this task.

If you are only looking for isolated culture tools then the following should be considered (in no particular order):

• Diagnosing Organizational culture - Harrison


• Denison Organizational Culture Survey - Denison


• Corporate Culture Questionnaire - SHL


• The Creatrix - Byrd (http://www.creatrix.com/ ) looks at the culture for innovation and effective leadership


• Organizational Dynamics - Kotter (book with diagnostic)


• Diagnosing & Changing Organizational Culture - Cameron, Quinn (book with diagnostic)
  


• and many many more....
  

Many instruments will claim to be 'normed' - be careful of this - we know the difficulties in 'norming' personality psychometrics - well imaging that complication multiplied ten fold per person employed... each person acts and interacts with another in a different way - I would love to see the data to be verified for this - the psychometric publishers would love to have such technology!

Context based Cultural Review

There are many approaches to looking at culture and for each firm their will be an appropriate tool based upon:

• Current culture (ironically)


• Goals of undertaking the survey


• Desired outputs

I have been part of a team looking at what makes an effective firm for over 10 years now and have used many, many instruments from around the world looking at organizational culture. To my mind they all have one fundamental flaw - they assume there is a right way to run a business.

While there may well be a preferred approach of empowerments, engagement etc, I have worked with many firms that use an autocratic style very effectively, and when changed often people feel less secure and over time those firms fail to perform to the level they once did.

Change the culture at your peril

Having worked with over 700 firms in the last 10+ years I have discovered that the best culture to have is the culture that best suits the owner/ CEO and their natural style, then it is about getting consistency across the organization.

To change the culture without the TOTAL commitment from the CEO (and the CEO having appropriate one-to-one support to change their own style first) is pure folly. Change of culture must be led from the top if it is to be sustained and add value to the organization.

It's more than just culture change

In addition, looking at culture on its own is meaningless - the systems, structure and processes need to be congruent with the culture, and just looking at culture in isolation is folly for short term feel good but little long term added value.

Any diagnostic process as part of an organizational development intervention needs to be as holistic as practical to avoid duplication of effort at a slightly later stage (clients get diagnostic'ed out)

Going truly Holistic

Many OD practitioners talk about holistic reviews - but are they truly holistic? Do they look at the way Finance, Marketing and Operations are run in the organization? are these put in the context of the culture and the stated/ desired goals of stakeholders?

The BIR (Business Improvement Review) not only looks at culture, style and values but puts it in the context of operations and the goals of the organization. It does not assume there is a 'right' or a 'wrong' to run a firm, nor does it assume a single management model. The BIR provides the coach or consultant to start a meaningful discussion based upon a common understanding. This creates ownership in the key decision makers and as a result has a high proportion of participants take meaningful action post diagnostic. They own the results and the reason for change.

If you would like more information on the BIR please visit www.rapidbi.com/bir or email me for further details.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Free Material - open source training content

On an ASTD thread (http://tinyurl.com/2kl2sa) today I caught up with a discussion on free course material.

The debate was an interesting one and where one individual raised the comparison with the software market - where great programs like Open-office etc are available free.

So having reflected I wondered if this could work for the training and consultancy fields.

Open source - would it work for training materials?

Taking the similarity with open source software - lets look at how this works...

Generally a number of like minded people start and build the basics - they then make this available to the wider world.
Then as people take and add to it they also make their additions (not usually deleting anything previously added) available to the world - often they bundle it with their product - generating an income stream.
So if the same were to happen in T&D...

• Person A would create an outline
• Person b would add some content and then publish
• Person c would add more content.. etc.
  

It seems that many in our field are happy to take and add - but few prepared to put back into the public domain again for further development.

So if we want to do this we need to be more open - are we willing to do that? Where would the publishing space be?

Would users honestly include a page of contributors at the back of their handouts - in the same way this is often embedded in software? Recognition of contribution seems to be important in the software model - so why not for a training model.

Training - a commodity market place
As we become a more commodity based market this is not a bad idea - but it needs to start somewhere... ultimately though this will impact on professional products.

For example - on a thread on another forum recently there was a discussion about mind-map/ concept mapping software. Several people said 'why buy when you can get free versions?'.. the reality is that someone somewhere has to put time in - they cannot do it as a charity.

The fact that the paid for products were better seemed to be missed by a population that has learnt that just because material is free why pay.. Its like having a website - why pay for hosting when you can have a free site - all be it with adverts for stuff you do not own - and reasons for people to leave your site! Buy hey it is free.

Copyright

One of the barriers we have is use of 'proprietary' models. For an open source approach we would need to re-engineer much of what we use. Could we persuade some of the 'old school' like Peter Honey, Pedler, Kolb, etc to ally use of their models if appropriate copyright was attributed?

May be access to existing theories may well be one of the limitations of such a system, unless this issue can be overcome, in a way which engages original thinkers and current authors.

The 'open source' market is a good idea but we all need to realise the implications. Will this be started in the UK, US, AU or some other part of the world first?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Change Curve Debunked?

Today I read an interesting post by Rob Robson on the change curve at his blog (http://preview.tinyurl.com/2rywg5) .

This sparked some thoughts which I share below.

Change Curve debunked... really?

Rob asks is the Kubler Ross change curve an over simplification - yes of course... all models are over simplifications of reality - isn't that what they were created for, to take a complex theory and enable the PRINCIPLES to be more easily understood?

He raises some interesting points that many authors do ignore that fact that many people welcome change. This is so very true, in OD and HRM we seem to assume the worst in people - when this is just not true. Sure people will reach different under change, and that is to be expected - our role is to ease that process - not offer therapy for change interaction!

We all need to remember that these are just models and not reality.

As a framework and common language they do have a value - indeed as he says

"By all means, keep the five-stage model in our armoury, but let’s not get carried away with it. Let’s not present it as an unequivocal truth. And let’s not let it get in the way of attempting to truly understand how people really experience change."

As is said in the change management article there are 3 rules to leadership (or change):

• Rule# 1 - people are different
• Rule# 2 - people are different
• Rule# 3 - people are different
  

And we need to treat each individual in the way that is appropriate for them.
Rob's headline is to Debunk the Change Curve ... which one there are many? Rob focus's is on the Kubler Ross curve - which as he points out was actually developed for use in a clinical environment, and users need to be aware of that.

Many practitioners will use a simplified model for use in a general business environment business environment.

What we do need to be careful of is people search the web (or a library), finding a model and using it without understanding what it is, where it come from or indeed its limitations.

All models have a place - the question we all need to ask is - is it here and now?

Mike

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com
© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Develop the Developer - who is the typical developer?

Develop the Developer was a survey run in the summer of 2007.

Slowly we are unpacking the results. The summary is nearly complete but in the mean time as we discover key elements they will be posted here.

The typical developer in 2007 is:

• Female, aged 36-56 (mostly 36-46), employed in a developer role, a member of the CIPD. They have been in a development role for five or more years and to date completed at least 30 days of CPD - many over 100.

For more information and background on Develop the developer visit the project site - www.developthedeveloper.com

Mike Morrison - January 2008

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com © This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

How to Write a SWOT analysis

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT is a planning tool used to understand the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business. It involves specifying the objective of the business or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are supportive or unfavourable to achieving that objective.

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

There are several ways of graphically representing the SWOT analysis matrix or grid. Several versions are shown on this article - use the one which is best suited to your application. (More templates can be seen on our website SWOT analysis templates )

While at first glance the SWOT looks like a simple model and easy to apply, I can say from experience, that to do a SWOT analysis that is both effective and meaningful, requires time and a significant resource. This cannot be done effectively by just one person. It requires a team effort. The SWOT methodology has the advantage of being used as a 'quick and dirty' tool or a comprehensive management too, and that one can lead to the other. This flexibility is one of the factors that has contributed to its success.

The term "SWOT analysis" is in itself an interesting term. To my understanding, the SWOT is not an analysis. It is a summary of a set of previous analyses – even if those were not more than 15 minutes of mini-brainstorming with yourself in front of your computer. The analysis or more correctly interpretation comes after the SWOT summary has been produced.

The SWOT Model

Positive	Internal		Negative or potential to be negative
	Strengths	Weaknesses
	Opportunities	Threats
	External

	Strengths	Weaknesses