organization development

New clichés for organization development

Jargon, clichés, rhetoric  – talking while saying nothing.   Companies develop their own language or accepted terms.  Professions develop their own lingo.  People use stock phrases or go-to frameworks.  All of these are an attempt to communicate, to create a common understanding, to fit in, to prove what you know, and to make sense of [...]

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Why 70% is a key metric for learning and development

The 70-20-10 rule represents, by percentage, how people actually learn and develop:  70% from job experiences, 20% from feedback and collaboration, and only 10% from courses and from reading. If 70% of learning happens on-the-job, what the employee can take back and use after the actual learning remains the most critical reinforcing loop for both the [...]

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Root cause and critical path, that’s organization development

What is organization development? Yes organization development is training and leadership development and coaching and performance management and change management and communications and organization design and competency models and strategic planning and really so much, it is almost more confusing than helpful to really say what organization development is. This challenge spills over when I am [...]

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Your company social media strategy reflects organization culture, part 1

If you want an idea of your organization’s culture there is no simpler place for this insight than your organization’s social media strategy.  Companies who view social media only as a marketing vehicle miss far more than an opportunity to engage.  It is as likely these companies have lost their employee’s motivation in similar fashion [...]

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The final frontier of competitive advantage

Competitive advantage:  the final frontier. Today only 2 areas remain for competitive advantage: talent management and project management Put another way, an organization has 2 ways to beat their competition: their ability to motivate people and their ability to reliably deliver projects. Talent as a hard asset Hiring the right talent and keeping that talent [...]

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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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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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The key to innovation may be better employee hygiene

Today’s drive for continual innovation, as it is taught, as it is written about, as it is sought, and as it is crowd sourced has a lot to do with early pioneers in management theory.  For example why is hygiene important to innovation?  Innovation needs motivation and motivation needs hygiene to succeed. The humanistic  management school emphasizes, [...]

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The intervention as organizational rehab

When organizations promote star talent, I’ve never once heard about their star’s organization development technical skills as key to their promotion. When I read a press release for a C-level hiring, promotion, or bonus being paid out, I’ve never once seen organization development highlighted as a key to their success. When building job roles, descriptions, [...]

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Business as a foreign language for HR professionals

Today in Human Resource Executive Online I eagerly read a post titled Is Business a Foreign Language for HR? Anyone who has seen or read my blogs knows, I’m pretty insistent that HR (organization development, organization behavior, training, diversity, compensation) does not deserve a place at the table until HR understands the essentials of business:  finance [...]

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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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Organization development is business growth

Organization development has yet to earn a role in all organizations.  Only the most progressive companies even have an organization development role, staff, department, or group.  The challenge to organization development success is that it is hard to find a linear trajectory for success.  Organization development may have clear goals, but the reality, there is rarely [...]

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This social media fad will ruin organization development

What does the social media fad have to do with business?  How is this social media fad related to organizational development (organization development)?  Are you asking yourself if you really need to bother learning about social media? I’ve heard it all too often and continue to cringe hearing about the lack of effort OD and [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 2

The key for organizations to grow and to thrive relies on how to manage projects.  And how you and your organization manage projects for organization success is an industry competitive advantage.  But why do so many projects fail? Is it lack of preparation? Is it lack of communication? Is it lack of commitment? No, those [...]

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Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect

An intervention. Interventions are principal learning processes in the “action” stage of organization development (OD)*. An intervention is what people outside organization development [the majority of professionals are distinctly NOT part of, or aware of, organization development] might call a project, change, or transformation.   The reason a professional might call for an organization intervention, or project, [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; impact analysis template

On my previous post, Scope or:  how to manage projects for organization success that included the eBook Scope – Kills Bad Breath and Kills Projects [link below] I introduced the importance of scope before a project launches.  The numbers on project failure are sobering:  90% of all projects fail and this post follows up both the blog [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 1

Organizations rely on projects to remain competitive.  Projects are the way organizations deliver and realize their executive strategies.  The ability to deliver a project is the ability to compete.  Scope kills projects and projects that are not delivered kill organizations.  Scope is one of the most important ways to manage project success.  And when projects [...]

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More workers voluntarily quit their jobs

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal presented More Workers Are Considering Quitting Their Jobs This is the boomerang effect of companies cutting payroll costs to the bone, redistributing work to the smaller remaining staff, and leaving an environment where workers feel “lucky to even have a job”.  This leaves little left for motivation and the result of [...]

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All hail the solution to the micromanager

How to handle the micromanager? Raise your hand if you love working for a micromanager? Are you a micromanager?  You can raise your hand if you are, no one else knows, actually everyone already knows. Micromanagers grind work to a halt. If there is no confidence in work getting done, the fish rots from the [...]

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Sales, finance, and human resources, only room for 2 at the table

There are really on 3 swim lanes, or functions, in business. Every business function is subordinated to either; sales, finance, or human resources. How can HR possibly have any impact when business is all about sales, brining in the money and finance making the best use of the money?

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John Siemiatkoski, Development Manager at ALS Association, Massachusetts Chapter

“The Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike) has promoted a bicycle-friendly environment and encourages bicycling for fun, fitness and transportation since 1979.  Since I became President of MassBike, I have sought ways to develop the organization’s structure, capacity and effectiveness, so that we can truly achieve our mission. “Toby was recommended to me to help MassBike build [...]

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Change management stormtroopers and system theory

When did systems theory get hijacked by process engineers and change management stormtroopers? When did we allow our organizations to be built and led by analytical, causal, deductive, drones and an over-adherence of frameworks to analyze past events? Frameworks and theories that rely on past events ignore all opportunity for organizations to interact in an [...]

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12 tips to bridge the generation gap

The inter-generational divide, a catch phrase that simply shouts separation. The truth is that Baby Boomers actually have quite a bit in common with Gen X’ers or Echo Boomers, particularly because they gave birth to them and Gen Y probably knew them as siblings. The Veterans or Traditionalists may be the one group that is [...]

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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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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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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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The bully in the corner office

I challenge myself to write blogs that might start a conversation either leading to change or to sustain what is working. I want to present an idea to provide a spark for action or follow-through. Anyone can come up with an idea, that’s easy, the hard part is to take an idea into implementation. My [...]

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Buy in

In organization change I always avoid the term buy in. You may hear the term in some variation of the following: now we need to get [insert stakeholder here] to buy in. I have never been comfortable asking anyone to “buy in” to a strategic plan, a new product launch, or an organization change. ‘Buy [...]

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John Glennon, Director of Management Information Systems, WR Grace

“I had the pleasure of working with Toby for several years at Amicon/Millipore. Toby provided outstanding customer service to all his Marketing/Communcation constituants – both internally and externally. “I was always impressed with his customer facing skills – he was especially calm in circumstances that required a sense of urgency but not panic. “I kept [...]

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