Is Turnover good?
We know millennials expect to change jobs every few years.
We’ve witnessed a shift in employer expressed obligation from employment security to “enhanced employability.”
Is there a desirable level of turnover in today’s organizations? If so, why?
How does that relate to an employer’s motivation to be a “great place to work?”
What are we seeing out there?
Social Networking Sites for Organizational Development
The Organizational Development Network of Western NY had Keith Burtis present on social networking and using online communication tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The focus was on how as Organizational Development professionals, we can stay up-to-date on the use of those tools for both personal and professional reasons.
Are You Making the Most of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn?
Friday, September 25
9am to Noon (meet at 9, begin at 9:30)
New Era Cap, 160 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14202
Meeting Overview
Online communication tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have become a part of our everyday lives. As Organizational Development professionals, it’s vital that we stay up-to-date on the use of those tools for both personal and professional reasons.
To ensure that we are equipped with the knowledge to do just that, three different meetings are being planned to cover this robust topic:
- The first meeting will review these communication tools – what are they, who’s using them, and for what? The session will end with some quick tips on how to get started using those tools.
- The second meeting will focus on how to put these tools to use. For example, some organizations use the tools as part of their marketing and recruiting processes. And OD consultants can also make use of these tools to promote their services. (Target date: December 11, 2009)
- The third meeting will explore the next obvious set of questions – how might the use of these of these tools create challenges and how can an organization respond? (Target date: February 12, 2010)
The first meeting in this three-part series, on September 25, will be facilitated by Keith Burtis, Keith Burtis is a successful Social Media Consultant who delivers business value to his clients by building, fostering and growing online communities. He has done this successfully in multiple markets ranging from large tech companies like Best Buy to artist communities like Niagara and Erie County Arts Council.
Keith will help answer the following questions:
- What general purpose(s) were Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn created for?
- What are the demographic profiles of the users?
- What are some advantages and disadvantages of each tool?
- How do you start using the tools?
The second meeting in this series is being planned for December and the third in February. We welcome you to attend any/all of the meetings that match your interests and availability.
if you are interested in attending and wish to gather more information please contact mike@create-learning.com
Gen Z – what comes next?
I came across this amazing article about generation Z – the children of Gen Y kids. One thing that stood out to be is the unique naming and the increased individuality of Gen-Z, which is the opposite of the team mentality of Gen-Y.
As I read it I was amazed and kept thinking how will this apply to our organizations as many of us will teach, hire, train, work with and lead genZ.
Please read the article and I would be interested in hearing any of your thoughts and perspectives.
Here is small clip: to read the entire article click here
How does this affect the workplace? A wider range of people can do cognitively challenging jobs. And, if you think Gen Y is obnoxious about being better at processing information than the older people, think how Gen Y will feel when the next generation tells them their IQ is much higher. And they’re right. Gen Y will be getting on the Adderall bandwagon to stay competitive the way Baby Boomers today get on Facebook.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/07/27/what-work-will-be-like-for-generation-z/
Is TeamBuilding effective?
Managers and leaders are encouraged to create procedures and policies that encourage people to follow proven “trails” to create a measurable outcome, maybe a sale, or a product.
Mangers spend time working to make people be at their most effective.
How often do mangers, individuals, and teams push themselves out of their discipline?
How often are individuals and teams given the opportunity to safely practice pushing that comfort zone, to walk a different “trail”?
Once a manager, individual, and team pushes past a comfort zone and prescribed roles they then have the ability to view a procedure or policy through a different lens.
This change of lens empowers the team and manager to create policies and procedures that can raise the effectiveness of those on the team. The manager when pushed past a comfort zone may now see that the procedures and policies themselves are an evolving and dynamic process, full of synergistic solutions.
This change of lens has the ability to illustrate that there is an abundance of ideas and creative solutions to be seized upon, and all it takes is changing your perspective pushing past the prescribed roles and comforts of the daily routine.
Within a team building program participants are encouraged to do things that scare them, to push that comfort zone to create and connect new brain based synapses and discover new ways of approaching and solving problems.
To empower yourself and teams to see people and feel experiences in a way that at one point seemed impossible. An example of something that is scary to participants does NOT have to be dangling off a rope 60 feet in the air on a ropes course.
An example of a brain based push past set limits can be a leader truly quieting and listening to the team.
To some leaders this is the change in lens that is needed.
As leaders we tend to feel that our lens is clean and that others are the problem.
The outside is the problem, pushing and opening yourself up to listening to team members whether you are a leader or not is a frightening push into discomfort. A leader may hear from their team that it is not the outside that is the problem it is inside, the leader and the current environment that is the problem.
An effective and long term team building plan is to create an open environment for team members to speak their piece have their voices be heard and respected, while at the same time having commitment to the success of the team. This can be accomplished and it takes work, a push of the comfort zone of daily routine.
The brain and mental push past limits of comfort for leaders and managers alike is a more challenging zone to break.
Several of us push physical limits, how many managers and leaders push their intellectual limits and team limits?
What an effective team building facilitator is capable of doing is facilitating an environment to challenge these intellectual limits. When the facilitator leaves, your team is smarter and has new lens with an enhanced perspective on what the team is capable of accomplishing!
Is your team ready to break comfort limits and achieve greater results?
Thanks to Marti Kaplan
Brain Based Institute for Secondary Faculty
Recommended by Dr. Bill Cala and others in the secondary school renewal areas,
Rochester’s 1st MITA Brain Institute is set for August 17-21.
Rochester's 1st MITA Brain Institute
Practical applications of neuro discoveries, will support your own fine endeavors for secondary learning and assessment rejuvenation.
Secondary faculty who attend Rochester’s 1st MITA Brain Institute in August, will be among leaders who inspire change in your community.
Program Objectives include:
- Learning and Assessment Materials to jumpstart teen brainpower
- Smart skills to raise motivation & achievement across differences
- Teen Service opportunities within every lesson plan
- Entry points to link teens and entrepreneurs at work
- Leadership tactics for ongoing curriculum renewal
- Ongoing Support Plan generated for like-minded colleagues
- Knowledge celebration event to engage wider community
This brain based curriculum and assessment – popular in several other countries, creates ongoing renewal through faculty-created content with the brain in mind.
Several experts have affirmed the timing for secondary school ongoing renewal initiatives is right for this area at this time.
We envision participating faculty as genuine change agents in your schools we plan to support them for one year as they implement secondary curriculum and assessment tasks across diverse cultures, with the brain in mind.
No new texts are needed, and classroom ready brain based materials come with the institute.
Registration information – for faculty members who will benefit your secondary school, and we look forward to opportunity to work with you further and to learn more about your own renewal initiatives.
Please do not hesitate to contact MITA if we can answer any further questions.
Based on many valued learning theories, and new neuro discoveries, the entire institute will extend theoretic underpinnings into practical learning and assessment tasks ready for classroom use. While in the post are the basics for the MITA Brain Institute registration – I wanted to share below, a few practical takeaways that are central to this entire week:
Institute materials included in tuition for institute
No new course texts needed to use brain based tasks and assessments
Monthly support for ongoing faculty implementation
Brain based lessons ready for fall secondary classes
Intelligence-fair assessment tasks
Collaborated solutions to learning barriers with expert peers
Emphasis on hidden and unused faculty and student brainpower
Support for approaches custom created for your unique setting
We are excited to launch this rigorous roundtable institute on one hand, and yet looking forward to facilitating a comfortable fireside chat on the other. With the brain in mind – faculty will use brain based tools to create higher motivation and achievement opportunities for their fall classes.
It will be an honor to meet and support your secondary faculty’s rejuvenation plans at Rochester’s 1st Brain Institute!
While seats are limited, we look forward to your faculty representation as we launch in a few weeks.
Best wishes,
Ellen Weber
Ellen Weber (PhD)
Director – MITA International Brain Based Center
PO Box 347, Pittsford, NY 14534
MITA Brain Leaders and learners blog
MITA Brain Based Center Web Site
Conflict Resolution. More Notes
Below is the self-study tutorial on conflict resolution that might be appropriate to post and that those attending last Friday’s meeting might find interesting. We didn’t get to the example that used, but I had included it in case there was time. Also attached is the working paper that describes the willingness, readiness, opportunity framework.
Finally here are the Netter Principles for Organizational Inclusion, which we mentioned during the session and I promised to send out.
Looking over my slides, I think the essential parts of the presentation are:
Diversity is about people; specifically the differences and similarities and diversity of thought or multiple perspectives
Inclusion is about organization; specifically the way an organization configures interaction, opportunity, communication and decision-making in order to operationalize the potential of it’s diversity. Inclusive organizations are characterized by 1) fairness, 2) recognition and 3) influence.
Diversity is a resource to organizations because of talent and perspective, i.e. diversity of thought.
The challenge of diversity is two-fold. On the one hand, greater diversity increases the likelyhood for misunderstanding and conflict; on the other, greater diversity increased the potential for creativity, innovation and solution-finding. The challenge is to “make diversity work” in order to “make diversity matter.”
Engaging diversity of thought as a resource requires willingness to share diverse perspectives, organizational readiness for learning from diverse perspectives and opportunity to engage. Those who are diverse control willingness; the organization creates readiness and opportunity. Moving toward an organizational culture that is able to diffuse and/or resolve diversity conflict is an essential step in supporting readiness and creating willingness.
Diversity conflict is difficult because it often it is not possible to separate the people from the problem. Diversity conflict may be driven as much by issues of respect and relationship as much as by substance. It often involves group as well as individual identity and is rooted in history and memory. It may turn on unintended and unrecognized interpersonal and intergroup dynamics. Finally it often involved power imbalance and elements of injustice.
In addition, in organizations with diversity conflict, there is a need
1) to find a solution that works for everyone;
2) avoid driving anyone out; and
3) discovering new understandings of identity that leave everyone feeling good about themselves or seeing something they can be proud of.
For these reasons, diffusing and/or resolving diversity conflict requires taking the time to learn from diversity perspectives. It is often not productive to rush to solution because the parties may be interacting from very different assumptions and objective incidents may have very different subjective meanings. Storytelling is an important first step.
Enlightened Leadership: Organizational Development June 2009 Meeting
ODN of WNY
June Meeting Announcement
Enlightened Leadership:
How women are transforming the practice and art of leadership
if you wish to attend please contact – Mike@create-learning.com
Thursday, June 4, 2009
9 am to Noon
(Meet at 9, begin at 9:30)
Location: New Era Cap, 160 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14202
What is Enlightened Leadership?
Women have the capacity to forever change the traditional practice and art of leadership. What is this capacity? What is the common thread between women leaders in business, education, politics and culture that has the potential to move us toward enlightened leadership? What is the balance between men and women that releases the potential of enlightened leadership? What is the performance impact of enlightened leadership that makes it such an appealing agenda?
Discussion
Global uncertainty has affected our sense of security about the future. This is a time for introspection and shedding of outdated and exclusionary modes of hierarchy, privilege, and power. But there is risk that the dialogue will shift from how women leaders can compete with their male counterparts to whether they want to stay in the game. What can we, as practitioners, do to further the agenda of enlightened leadership? What can we do to encourage women to remain and thrive in the game?
Janet Thirlby is a consultant who specializes in personal and strategic business transformation, board retreats, seminars and training. Her role in the transformational work of business and personal growth is as facilitator, coach, teacher and friend. Jan can be reached at jan@thirlbyconsulting.com
Conflict Facilitation Meeting Notes from May 2009
OD Network of WNY
Meeting Notes
Participating: Charlene Brumley, Sandy Budmark, Barbara Bunker, Mike Cardus, Sarah Gilson, Kate Kane, Marti Kaplan, Rita Markle, Jeannie Miller, Brian Pettit, Linda Snyder, Pete Wendel, Jody Wiechec, Susan Woods
Susan presented her current thinking about Diversity Conflict from an Organizational Systems Perspective. We all appreciated a good look into the evolution of her thinking on this topic, and Susan appreciated our reactions and feedback. She shared the essential parts of the presentation:
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- Diversity is a resource to organizations because of talent and perspective, i.e. diversity of thought.
- The challenge of diversity is two-fold. On the one hand, greater diversity increases the likelihood for misunderstanding and conflict; on the other, greater diversity increased the potential for creativity, innovation and solution-finding. The challenge is to “make diversity work” in order to “make diversity matter.”
- Engaging diversity of thought as a resource requires willingness to share diverse perspectives, organizational readiness for learning from diverse perspectives and opportunity to engage. Those who are diverse control willingness; the organization creates readiness and opportunity. Moving toward an organizational culture that is able to diffuse and/or resolve diversity conflict is an essential step in supporting readiness and creating willingness.
- Diversity conflict is difficult because it often it is not possible to separate the people from the problem. Diversity conflict may be driven as much by issues of respect and relationship as much as by substance. It often involves group as well as individual identity and is rooted in history and memory. It may turn on unintended and unrecognized interpersonal and intergroup dynamics. Finally it often involved power imbalance and elements of injustice.
- In addition, in organizations with diversity conflict, there is a need to
- find a solution that works for everyone
- avoid driving anyone out, and
- discover new understandings of identity that leave everyone feeling good about themselves or seeing something they can be proud of.
- For these reasons, diffusing and/or resolving diversity conflict requires taking the time to learn from diversity perspectives. It is often not productive to rush to solution because the parties may be interacting from very different assumptions and objective incidents may have very different subjective meanings. Storytelling is an important first step.
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