change

Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 5 to 1

Top blog posts from 2011, from number 5 to number 1, a follow-up from Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 10 to 6 5. The cost of culture, a 50% turnover of the Fortune 500 — This blog came about to reiterate that change is constant and the things that may have gotten a company [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, culture, Fortune 500, impact analysis, mergers and acquisitions, scope, scope management, social media, strategy

Fistful of beans 05/11/2011

4 of things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Think About Diversity of Thought — Diversity Executive Magazine Organizations have cultural norms that employees are expected to work within. Ideas presented by employees need become judged on value, not judged on the different perspectives they represent. Thought diversity introduces not only different viewpoints, but also differences [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, change, change management, collaboration, diversity, Diversity Executive, health care, innovation, invention, magazine, Wall Street Journal

Communication, change, and your mission – if you choose to accept it

Change is fun for some: the energy of the unknown, the passion instilled in people looking forward to a new adventure. Some embrace the unknown as an opportunity to both learn, grow, and stretch their current perspectives. Change is pain for some: the feigned excitement for heading into unknown, the new roles and responsibilities to [...]

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Tagged as: actions, change, change management, communication, goals, objectives, strategy, vision

An organization intervention is not an organization inquisition

Proposals for organization intervention, from business process reengineering to Lean initiatives, typically focus on problems to be solved. Many of these organization interventions for change, however, soon look like organization inquisition. As once a problem is identified, the problem is the focus to diagnos soon both the organization and the people involved pointed out as [...]

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Tagged as: AI, Appreciative Inquiry, change, change management, intervention, organization development, strategy

The communication obstacle course

A successful message retains the oomph of intent. For this to happen communication must travel an obstacle course to reach each person. Some of the bulwarks against communication’s smooth path to understanding include: values, bias, mood, culture, agenda, and emotion. These force communication through filters that affect both the intent and the impact of the [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, communication, culture, emotional

Organization change, the frame retains the name

The success, or failure, of organization change may have more to do with the frame of change you and your leadership view your organization culture through than any other challenge to change. Adopting and sustaining organization change rarely succeeds if you can not frame communication to emotionally and rationally resonate throughout the organization. For change [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, communication, culture, leading change, organization change

Crowdsourcing your organization strategy, what’s to appreciate?

Crowdsourcing relies on people to participate in a meaningful process as potential partners. In crowdsourcing people who were formally known as the customer now become the collaborator. The power of collective collaboration can not only drive product innovation, but has been leveraged for decades to build organization strategy. Where most organization strategy process finds more [...]

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Tagged as: AI, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, Appreciative Inquiry, Bernard Mohr, change, change management, crowdsourcing, David Cooperrider, Diana Whitney, inquiry, Jane Magruder Watkins, Jeff Howe, Robyn Stratton-Berkessel, strategy

Fistful of beans 01/05/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Waiting, Wondering, Worrying — CFO Magazine What if 10% unemployment is the new normal? A view from your friendly C-suite, corner office about employment, human capital, and competition. Also some views on if layoffs and downsizing really benefit shareholders or benefit Wall Street analysts. What [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, change, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer, CIO, consulting, employment, fistful of beans, Hulu, information technology, magazine

In review: Quality communication in social media

December 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Quality communication in social media (guest blog) — Helping doctoral students design quantitative research studies as well as analyzing and interpreting data dissertations occurred to me that some aspects of a doctoral dissertation could be applied to social media communications to make information [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, change, change management, communication, development, EI, Emotional Intelligence, EQ, IQ, learning

The pain with change

Bill Hybels, on stirring change, says, “Leaders move people from here to there… The first play is not to make ‘there’ sound wonderful. The first play is to make ‘here’ sound awful.” Though this is a quote on leadership, the key to so many change mantras is that change only comes about when the level [...]

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Tagged as: AI, Appreciative Inquiry, Bernard Mohr, Bill Hybels, change, change management, community, Jane Magruder Watkins, leadership, organization development, strategic planning, strategy

Fistful of beans 12/22/2010

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Is the belief that mergers drive revenue growth a delusion? — McKinsey Quarterly To evaluate a merger’s success evaluate the impact on revenue. Revenue determines the outcome of a merger, not costs; whatever the merger’s objectives, revenue is what hits the bottom line harder. [...]

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Tagged as: advertising, Bloomberg Businessweek, Boston Globe, CFO, change, Chief Learning Officer, Competing Values Framework, EI, Emotional Intelligence, Fast Company, fistful of beans, intelligence, IQ, M&A, management, marketing 2.0, McKinsey, McKinsey Quarterly, media, mergers and acquisitions, strategy

In review: Mergers and acquisitions systems thinking strategies, part 1

October 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Mergers and acquisitions systems thinking strategies, part 1 — Leadership, management, and talent create and sustain organization success. The total environment of an organization is a major determinant of corporate choice and corporate success. A key to change is circular reasoning — Supporting the [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, communication, cost of culture, leaders, risk, strategy, trust

Our big letdown with leaders

A good piece in Sunday’s Boston Globe Ideas section reveals we human beings disappoint easily. And if we are easy to disappoint we are acutely set up for big letdowns from leaders all around us. However, the big letdown and disappointment we beings feel really may have more to do with us then the leaders themselves. Here [...]

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Tagged as: Art Markman, Boston Globe, change, Drake Bennett, Eleanor Roosevelt, innovation, Jeremy Burrus, Justin Kruger, Laura Kressel, leaders, leadership, transformation

The key to change is circular reasoning

Innovation is based on circular reasoning and the key to innovation is change, but change relies on community, but what does community rely on? Let’s try to break into this circle [stay with me, further down the list reveals why I started on 2.]: 2. Can’t have community without transparency 3. Can’t have transparency without [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, community, innovation, Likert scale, motivation, Peter Block, risk

Mergers and acquisitions systems thinking strategies, part 1

I transitioned into a human capital focus gradually over my career. My collected experiences just overwhelmingly led me to realize without commitment, understanding, and ownership you have little hope of individual, team, or organization success. What on earth brought about a mergers and acquisitions systems thinking approach? Well where we are usually has a lot [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, human capital assessment, human capital strategy, Kenneth Boulding, Leonard Lewin, M&A, mergers and acquisitions, Robert Ornstein, Roger Evered, strategy, systems theory, Thomas G. Cummings

When a small business should fear growth

A small company is a dynamic, creative place where it is necessary for people to take risks to build a new organization. Leaders of small companies are visionaries and there are strong demands for innovation to do more with less and to bite off grand goals. The people that work in small companies work around an assumed [...]

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Tagged as: change, Competing Values Framework, cost of culture, human capital assessment, human capital development, human capital strategy, organization, organization sabotage, risk, skills

Evaluating risk: financial models versus competency models, part 1

We make models to get an idea, on a small-scale, of what might happen on a large-scale. Models help identify risk and attempt to predict outcomes. Many use models to then run scenarios or alternatives to identify what could or should be. Models then become a map for many management discussions as models provide options [...]

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Tagged as: change, competency, economics, finance, financial, financial models, human capital assessment, model, models, risk

In review: Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect

July 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect — As a manager, running a team takes more than lining people up and pointing to the finish line. People are all not only motivated by salary. A leader or a manager may feel sabotaged when their [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, content, economy, innovation, investment, James Fallows, leadership, management, motivation, organization, project, talent, tax, The Atlantic, venture capital

Organizations don’t change, people change

Organizations are, quite simply, made up of social interactions: groups of people. Organizations will not change if people do not change. There is no such thing as organization change, they don’t change, people change. All change: transformation, business process reengineering, technology implementation, mergers & acquisitions, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, strategic planning or, if you [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, Charles Darwin, leading change, organization development, project management, strategy

Change management bottom up or top down

Classic change theory: leadership drives change; leadership must be committed for change to work. Seems to make sense, but in reality leadership is irrelevant. The organization’s ability to change is dictated by the operational units and employees, not leadership. The reality: culture eats strategy for lunch. Your workers dictate change and strategy. Leadership doesn’t drive [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, cost of culture, John Kotter, leadership, management, strategy

The cost of culture, a 50% turnover of the Fortune 500

What is the cost of culture? Why is it even worth identifying corporate culture? Let’s start with what is culture. Culture is the values, norms, assumptions, expectations, and definitions that characterize organizations or affectionately known as: how things are done around here Culture is often a holdover from the founder(s) actions; sometimes developed consciously by [...]

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Tagged as: Built to Last, business process reengineering, change, cost of culture, Fortune 500, Jim Collins, Peter Senge, process, transformation, turnover

Dan Sorger, Founder, Dutch Bicycle Company

“I can honestly say that without Mr. Elwin’s input we would not be in business today. “Our importing business was suffering and we were losing money, we asked Mr. Elwin to analyze our business to help us determine what we need to do and how best to implement the changes. “He acquired a deep understanding [...]

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Tagged as: analyze, change, consulting, cost of culture, Dan Sorger, Dutch Bicycle Company, Dutch Bike, goals, help, mission, mission statement, observation, road map, small business, start-up, startup, transition

3 reasons for failure: change, participation, and risk

An organization builds a culture of success when it can take a strategy, identify and prioritize the most important projects within the strategy, and consistently deliver projects on time, on budget, and within identified quality standards. Charting success is not easy. 80% of all projects fail for three main reasons. 1. 80% of projects fail [...]

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Tagged as: change, executive, leadership, participation, portfolio management, project, quality, risk, strategy

Change management, project management, and the intervention

Change Management is the Illness Overwhelmingly, organizations rely on process analysis to identify opportunity for savings. Process analysis is most commonly identified as change management. Change Management: Analyze and diagnose business and operations processes with a focus on the greatest areas of improvement in cost, schedule, and quality. Very few enjoy having themselves and their [...]

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Tagged as: change, management, od, organization development, project, project management, Project Management Institute

Change: this time let’s try something new

In today’s Boston Sunday Globe, Ideas Section, under the Uncommon Knowledge, Surprising insights from the Social Sciences, by Kevin Lewis, I read the following: A Time to Try Something New* Whenever you’ve experienced major changes in life, have you sought comfort in familiar things? If you’re like most people, your answer is yes. However, new [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, Ideas, knowledge, od, organization development, project management

Organization strategy and development – party like it’s 1969

How do organizations survive? The only way an organization survives is to grow. Like people, an organization grows and develops by developing new skills, knowledge, and abilities. An organization’s strategy is nothing without an organization’s development. Most professionals have an image of what marketing, sales, accounting, or human resource professionals do, but fewer are naturally [...]

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Tagged as: adapt, change, cost of culture, Edgar Schein, motivation, od, organization development, Richard Beckhard, strategy, Warren Bennis

George Washington slept here

Statues are built for leaders, or leaders are built for statues, one way or the other statues are built for pioneers, those who sought a new way; who risked conformity for their vision of what could be; who sacrifice an easy path to retirement for an audacious goal. The statues you see in your town [...]

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Tagged as: Budapest, change, dictator, George Washington, goals, Hungary, inspiration, leaders, leadership

Ren Pope, Information Architect, Industrial Medium

“I have worked with Toby Elwin on a continual basis for over five years. During this time, I have seen Toby produce and provide world-class, time-critical products that supported programs vital to the highest echelons of national security. Toby was able to analyze a complex organization in chaos, develop the course of change and then [...]

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Tagged as: analyze, change, communicate, consulting, innovation, national security, presentation, program, Ren Pope, small business

In review: Leaders and fishing

May 2009 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Leaders and fishing — Leaders craft the vision and convey how to embark on a course from what is to what could be. Leaders must rely on their managers to manage, but leaders need to roll their sleeves up and steward the message [...]

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Tagged as: buy in, change, change management, cost of culture, diversity, goals, leadership, leading, managing, resources, risk, stakeholders, vision

Leading and managing

Managers manage. Leaders lead. Are these roles so different? A manager is charged to manage their resources against a budget. Does this allow a manager to maximizing their talent, to cultivate creativity in their team, or to take risks? The manager needs to deliver to their budget and align their resources to successfully enable their [...]

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Tagged as: change, communication, leader, leadership, manager, motivation, skills, vision

Quick Bio

Toby Elwin has lived around the world and worked globally with, and for, some of the most highly-respected leaders and organizations in their fields.

This site, and thoughts, are rooted in the role leadership and talent have on an organization's motivation to influence, achieve, and sustain.

Toby's work combines systems theory, organization development, marketing, and portfolio and project management from more than 15 years in post-merger integration.
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Biggest Influences – So Far

See Influence page for more detail:

The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth by John Roberts

The Workforce Scorecard by Mark A. Huselid, Brian E. Becker, and Richard W. Beatty

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein

The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig

The Truth About Thriving in Change by William S. Kane

The Motivation to Work by Frederick Herzberg, Bernard Mausner, and Barbara Bloch Snyderman

The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott

Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

The HR Value Proposition by Dave Ulrich

The Strategy Paradox by Michael Raynor
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