Organizations

How do you reach the problem person?

May 17, 2013 By Dr David Fraser 1 Comment

Three people in a meeting It’s so often the way, isn’t it? Somebody you’re in touch with really sees the change you can help them make in their business.

The trouble is…

The person who most needs to change is someone else in the organisation, quite probably somebody very senior, perhaps the boss. They’re the business’s greatest strength but also it’s greatest weakness, simply because they have so much influence and everything they do is greatly amplified for good or for bad.

(OK, that’s assuming we’re already being the change we want to see and so on.

How do you help your contact successfully suggest a meeting with you to begin the process of change? How do you help them see what they need to see? How do you get started?

One way is to begin by seeking the problem person’s knowledge and input.

What works for you?

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Organizations Tagged With: change, Dr David Fraser, greatest strength, greatest weakness

Does a close relationship help or hinder profit on a contract?

March 17, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Group in discussion at a computer It’s likely you’ll have an immediate response to that question. But is it actually so simple? And is your response the same as everyone else’s?

From the opposite perspective, we could equally ask, “Does a close relationship help or hinder cost-effective procurement?”

Again, there maybe isn’t a unanimous, clear-cut answer.

It is noticeable that when contracts get in difficulty, the parties tend to act as if being tough will maximise their outcome (or minimise their loss) and so they retreat from connection with the other party. They fear that building or rebuilding relationship with the other side will hurt their financial position, because they’ll then be obliged to concede.

But is that really the case?

It could be that working on the relationship is the very thing that enables them to achieve a more favourable outcome, especially if they are the ones taking the initiative, or even for both sides to succeed in their goals, perhaps by broadening the parameters of the conversation.

What do you think?

If things get difficult on a contract, are you better to go transactional and tough or to build bridges, or something else?

Filed Under: Organizations, Project management, Relationship Skills Tagged With: contracts, Dr David Fraser, favourable outcome, procurement

Incoherence and bullying

November 12, 2012 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Signposts pointing in all different directions Strategic coherence: Some organizations have it, others not so much. In those that do, it’s easier to get things done across functions, across the ubiquitous silos, because everyone’s already pointing in something like the same direction.

Where there’s incoherence—different parts being pointed in different directions—it’s much harder to lead across functions when the job requires it. Managers run out of the skills and authority they need to get what they need done, done, and resort to bullying behavior.

Some organizations leave their senior people to “sort it out amongst themselves.” In a competitive culture, that rarely happens and so things get incoherent down the line.

Does that lead to bullying?

What do you think?

Watch the incoherence is the takeaway, I reckon.

Filed Under: Leadership, Organizations, Relationship Skills Tagged With: bullying, incoherence, organizations, strategy

If your organization was an orchestra, how would it sound?

November 9, 2012 By Dr David Fraser 6 Comments

Conductor and orchestra Is everyone playing the same piece? Are they even in the same hall? Assuming, yes, then how unified is the performance?

Ok, the comparison is not entirely valid, because an organization needs to evolve, so some players need to be trying out new things, and new additions to the team need to be practising and tuning up in another room.

But still, as its conductor, are you satisfied with what you hear?

If you yourself were an orchestra, how would you sound?

Filed Under: Collaboration, Leadership, Organizations, Wisdom Tagged With: orchestra, organizations, unified performance

If you want to understand organizations (and the world)…

November 2, 2012 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Earth from space Somebody said—I can’t remember who—if you want to understand organizations, try changing them. That’s a good insight, in my opinion. Certainly it’s my experience that making changes to organizations reveals all the mechanisms by which they really work.

We can go a little further with this…

If you want to understand how some wider entity works—let’s say the world—try changing it too. That’ll reveal to you how things really happen round here, or not, as the case may be.

That’s what I’ve found. And you?

Filed Under: Change, Current Affairs, Organizations Tagged With: changing organizations, changing the world, Dr David Fraser, how things happen, understanding

Don’t like change or don’t like feeling unsafe?

October 12, 2012 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Group of people listening We hear it so often: “People don’t like change.”

That isn’t quite right: After all, most of us would like a doubling of our income, or the gift of a free holiday with everything taken care of. We like that kind of change.

Really, it’s that we don’t like feeling unsafe.

When tackling something new or leading change, remembering that people don’t like feeling unsafe puts a slightly different light on it. It suggests different actions.

Saying “people don’t like change” is too broad-brush.

People might be OK with change, or even welcome it. It depends how you handle it; how you deal with the fear.

Filed Under: Change, Communication, Organizations, Wisdom Tagged With: change, don't like change, don't like feeling unsafe

Is slow adaptation the price we pay for democracy?

June 29, 2012 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

High Street scene In the West in particular, we believe in democracy, almost without thinking, but is it being abused?

You see…

When we elect a leader, we need them to lead, even if, in fact, we don’t like the consequences for us very much. That’s their job – to lead. That’s what we put them there for, not to spend their time working on getting re-elected.

But are we complicit? When the time comes to re-elect, do we reward the strong leader, or the politician who tells us it’s all going to be OK (when we suspect it isn’t)?

Modern political leaders often don’t seem to truly lead. They conceal uncomfortable truths. They are obsessed with opinion polls. They duck the tough decisions that we might say it’s their duty to take. They push the problems down the road, as the challenges all the while get more serious. Witness the Eurozone, Rio, public debt, and more.

And so problems don’t get handled.

Is the price we pay for democracy slow adaptation to change and weak response to crises?

How could it be different?

And is it a bit like this in organizations?

Do you take the tough decisions you need to take?

Filed Under: Leadership, Organizations, Wisdom, World Affairs Tagged With: adaptation, democracy, Dr David Fraser, electorate, Eurozone, handling problems, political leaders, public debt, re-election, response to crisis, Rio, strong leadership, tough decisions, uncomfortable truth

The trouble with “going off-site”

April 16, 2012 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Hotel meeting room When it comes to a strategy or learning day, we’re used to the practice of “going off-site” to a venue away from the usual workplace. Our intention is to get away from the distractions of the office so that quality, uninterrupted time is spent on the subjects at hand—all very sensible, and the quality of the day we have usually seems to justify the decision.

Except…

There is an issue to be aware of, and that is all learning is state-dependent.

What does that mean?

It means that we only really assimilate learning when we are in the “state” to which it applies, or if you will, in the situation to which it relates. That’s why feedback needs to be delivered within a few minutes of an occurrence if it is to have any effect.

So the trouble with off-site learning is that it arrives when we are in a specially controlled, in fact artificial state away from the normal workplace. And so we and everyone else have trouble applying the learning when we go back. The off-site approach isn’t as effective as we think.

For a successful outcome, we need to promote learning in the live environment or specifically pull through anything that happens off-site.

That’s my experience.

What about you? How do you transfer learning from an off-site day?

Filed Under: Leadership, Learning, Organizational Learning, Organizations Tagged With: all learning is state-dependent, Dr David Fraser, feedback, going off-site, learning day, learning in the live environment, learning in the workplace, strategy day, the trouble with going off-site

Can they see where the leverage is?

February 13, 2012 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Three people talking He’s looking in the wrong place…

The young man before us insists a particular role will help his career. He’s frustrated that employers don’t see it that way. He goes over his qualifications and experience again.

The thing is…

What’s holding him back is something quite different. It’s how he comes across.

That’s how it is with leverage in any situation. The participants don’t see it, because if they did see it, they would have acted on it already.

When you can see what levers to pull, you’ll need some patience and commitment, because you’re highlighting something others can’t see yet.

And the leverage very often IS in the relationships between the people. It’s the place to make something different happen—and surprisingly easy with the right approach.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Organizations, Uncategorized, Wisdom

Relief from information overload

November 2, 2011 By Dr David Fraser 1 Comment

The email Inbox just gets bigger. The paper in-tray still stacks up dauntingly too. And that’s not to mention all the other channels: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Skype text chat, SMS messages on mobile/cell phones, and StumbleUpon to mention only some. Oh I nearly forgot Google+. And then there’s Facebook’s LinkedIn “me too”, otherwise known as Branchout. Ever feel you’re caught in the middle of a communication arms race?

So what’s to do?

The net effect of all this communication could be the well-known phrase “information overload,” but does that description really help us? After all, the information exists whether we chose to look at it or not. How much attention do we pay to a piece of low value information that happens to be on our computer screen versus a piece of high value information that isn’t in front of us at all?

Perhaps we need to take charge of our attention and decide where to direct our interest.

Of course…

We can learn various practical techniques for processing information quickly, and they’re very valuable too. Will we ever outrun the flood though?

There’s another way…

Information flow is a manifestation of a relationship of some kind. Take that relationship to a deeper, more trusting, more profound level and we won’t need to handle so much data. The details become unimportant and fall into place much more easily – or can be set aside altogether. Head in the opposite direction away from trust, and you’ll need every information-handling trick you can find.

How to take a relationship deeper to a more profound level?

Find out what truly matters to the other person or organization and cherish that sincerely.

Too simple? Maybe not.

Filed Under: Leadership, Organizations, Personal Mastery, Relationship Skills Tagged With: blog, communication, communication skills, email, Facebook, Google+, information, information overload, LinkedIn, organizations, relationships, Skype, StumbleUpon, Twitter