It is a best kept secret -employees creating personal artifacts, poems etc. during working hours using employer’s facilities and even material. What about it? Managements mostly turn a blind eye and behave as if such things don’t happen. But should one ignore them? These artifacts are called as homers. As this article discusses. Homers: Secrets on the Factory Floor : Business History : HBS Working Knowledge Homers are artifacts produced for personal use by factory employees on company time, with company material and/or tools. Other examples in knowledge or creative areas are poems, greeting card designs, game designs, cartoons. Talented employees seek to give outlet to the inherent tension arising out of working in an organized set up through such work. Often this takes the shape of corporate grapevine or jokes about company, management, or even customers. Most of this of course frowned upon by management. But when the the process of relieving tension culmninates in creation of something of value (even if it is for self benefit) it is time to take notice. It is a sign that the talented employee is not being given enough opportunities to create or there is something that stifles her. I feel it is important to let such private creations come out of closets and shelves. These closets surely hold some secrets of spotting and letting talents bloom. I may add that Exponient’s Creative Self Management program takes this process further. Wish to know how? Send me a mail. Hemant
Surprising amount of time is often spent on giving and taking feedback. Feedback, usually tends to be critical and is taken personally. It almost always leads to heartbuns and defensiveness. Quite unexpectedly, it is counter productive too. It is better to focus on future. It is better to build some kind of ongoing forecasting ability which allows building of future action - scenario combinations on an ongoing basis. I found that in organizations undergoing major tranformation, this is the best way. It is also possible to get a buy-in of your team members through this. I worked with one of my client CEO to develop a comprehensive strategic roadmap involving his team. This served as important feed forward communication. The exercise led to higher confidence levels in the team undergoing and undertaking the transformation. Hemant
I came across this story. I feel a new classic is in the making -how a strategic muddle is sought be treated by marketing cover-ups. Read on.. QUOTE McDonald’s: facing fat The 50-year-old firm temporarily diverged from its mascot Ronald McDonald in Japan for a fling with a glamorous twenty-something model. The move has now been followed by the fast-food chain opening kitchens across 30 countries to public viewings, in an effort to counter falling confidence in the quality of its fare. On top of the misjudged “I’m lovin’ it†slogan and makeovers that have delivered some of the chain’s outlets in the livery of French-style bistros (aka the Champs Elysées), the latest moves have the mark of a company that knows it has a problem, but does not know how to solve it. END QUOTE A classic -ain’t it? For more on branding & design visit PURPLE STREAM Brand & Design and for help with strategic muddles visit Exponient Consulting Hemant
Today I come to one of the most critical yet one of most mis-understood concepts in modern management -”learning organization”. What is it? Do overload of training programs, waves of abondoned initiatives, and brain-storming sessions make your’s a learning organization? What if all these still leave customers dissatisfied and employees bewildered and cynical? Learning must take place at individual level. Most companies do a good job of job specific terchnical training. But what is completely missed out and what can be very frustrating is a total lack of training in self-management. Somehow it is assumed that employees can manage themselves. This can be a huge mistake, given the work pressuress and changing profile of young employees. Lack of creative self management seriously hampers organization development efforts. Learning must also take place at organizational level. Here too there are problems. Successes and failures are best discussed in the context of business processes, so that the learning can be captured and assimilated in the form of revised business processes. Unfortuntely even ISO 9001:2000 certified companies fail to leverage their business processes in this way. Most important reason for this is processes are not measured properly hence they are very opaque. A comprehensive business process measurement framework is essential for organizational learning. What is your experience? Do you share these views> Is there anything specific that you are doing? Hemant
