Newsletter
February 2006
Spotlight: Before Strategy Comes the Magic of Diagnosis
At its core, facilitating organizational change is about energizing the right people to design and execute smart strategies. Learn how diagnosis provides the elusive spark that makes it happen. ...more
This Issue:
- Business Strategy bonus: Save $300 on this popular program ...more
- The Power of Partners: Performance depends on organizational relationships, new study stresses ...more
- Alumni in Action: Garry Bennett shares his recent adventures in OD ...more
- Buzz on Campus: CAW leader Buzz Hargrove to deliver this spring's Don Wood Lecture ...more
- Free Download: Carol Beatty on what CEOs expect to find in an HR star ...more
- Spotlight: The magic of diagnosis for igniting energy and strategy ...more
Business Strategy bonus: Sign up now to save $300 in program fees
Registration is picking up for the re-vamped Business Strategy program. This compact three days of learning will not only help you hone critical thinking skills but give you what you need to orchestrate the important conversations that underpin successful strategies. Register and pay by March 1 to save $300. Assure your spot in this popular program, which runs May 1 to 3 in Kingston.
Learn more about Business Strategy
Time to Develop Your Partnering Protocols: Peak Performance Linked to Organizational Relationships
A recent study featuring data from 100 CEOs and senior executives of Fortune 1000 companies explores the emergence of “relationship-centred” organizations and emphasizes the importance of identifying strategic links and building effective relationships.
Published in California Management Review, the study, entitled “Shrinking Core, Expanding Periphery: The Relational Architecture of High-Performing Organizations,” examines how leading organizations are becoming increasingly reliant on leveraging their “relational capital.” This is because they are refocusing on their core business and cutting activities at the centre, while simultaneously expanding their universe of critical relationships.
According to the researchers, these new “relationship-centred” organizations go “beyond the transactional mindset as they develop trust-based, mutually beneficial, and enduring relationships with key constituencies both inside and outside of their organization.”
The research focuses on four critical sets of stakeholders: customers, suppliers, alliance partners, and intra-organizational business units. Successful firms were found to work out from the centre to develop deep, collaborative relationships with each of these groups, progressing in steps from transactions through collaboration to the ideal - integration and partnering. As well, top performers showed a greater willingness to engage key stakeholders and placed greater focus on the lasting power of the relationships.
Ultimately, the study concluded, "relational capital" is generated when suppliers become strategic partners; internal units evolve into aligned collaborators; alliance partners maintain mutually supportive business relationships; and customers involve themselves in developing and receiving solutions.
For the full article, see: Ranjay Gulati and David Kletter, 2005. “Shrinking Core, Expanding Periphery: The Relational Architecture of High-Performing Organizations.” California Management Review, Spring 2005, Vol. 47, No. 3.
Learn more about Partnership Development
Alumni in Action
Garry Bennett, Human Resources Manager at ENMAX in Calgary, recently completed IRC's OD Foundations program. Once back at the office, it wasn't long before he had the chance to test what he had learned, and on a tough audience - senior management:
"The meeting request caught me by surprise. An invitation to join a VP and his directors to discuss staff development. Perfect! A rarified moment for this HR manager.
"I anticipated that our discussion would include a review of performance gaps and then the creation of a development plan. To my surprise, what I heard was a variety of opinions on the needs of individuals and little consensus on a go-forward plan. My initial response to hearing the mixed messages was to attempt a person-by-person gap analysis to drive through on the meeting objective. At the last moment, the thought occurred to me to ask a few more questions of my business client. What were their goals for the year? Were the newest leaders and other recent hires on the same page for the business strategy? Was there a business strategy?
"The answer was 'no' for each question even though many ideas existed among the leadership on what should happen. It became clear to me that before they could determine employee development, they needed to discuss, agree upon, and align to a business strategy. I then suggested we take a different approach and moved them along the path of preparing for strategic planning.
"In hindsight, I could see I used IRC's Blueprint for Diagnosing Organizational Effectiveness, and was pleased to have that model in mind when working with this leadership team."
Buzz on Campus: Hargrove to Deliver Don Wood Lecture
Queen's IRC and the Masters of Industrial Relations (MIR) program are pleased to announce that
Basil “Buzz” Hargrove, national president of the National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers' Union of Canada (CAW-Canada), has been chosen for the Spring 2006 Don Wood Visiting Lectureship in Industrial Relations. Mr. Hargrove will be on campus March 15 and 16 for encounters with faculty and MIR students, and will deliver a public lecture on the afternoon of Thursday, March 16. The title of his public lecture is The Current State and Future Prospects of Labour Relations.
Download proceedings from previous Don Wood Lectureships
Free Download: CEOs Reveal What Makes an HR Star
Download an article in
which Carol Beatty talks to senior leaders about what they expect to find in top HR professionals ...more
Spotlight: The Magic of Diagnosis
At its core, facilitating organizational change is about energizing the right people to design and execute smart strategies. As sociologist Philip Selznik says: "Strategies take on value only as committed people infuse them with energy." Read on for part one of an article that details how diagnosis lights that flame.
By Brenda Barker Scott, Queen’s Industrial Relations Centre
A few years ago, under the direction of a new plant manager, the HR manager of a huge Canadian company approached us to complete a whole systems operational assessment and develop a set of recommendations for improvement. We advised an alternative approach, suggesting that I would facilitate the work of a steering team who would guide this critical work and create the action plan. While the HR manager was intrigued with the approach, she declined, saying she had no time, that the new plant manager wanted the recommendations yesterday. Sound familiar?
We gave her the names of several consulting firms and the assessment was duly completed. Two years later she called us back and informed us that thousands of dollars later and with the consulting report in their hands, none of the recommendations had been implemented. I asked why, and her answer confirmed a deep truth about enabling change; in essence she said that because the senior managers and critical others were not involved with the diagnosis, they did not support or agree with the recommendations. They had a strategy with no resources committed to making it happen.
We think experts are a very valuable source of information and encourage change teams to hear from different experts to educate, inform, and stretch their thinking. But what’s important is that they integrate information with their own. No outside expert can possibly know what is right for an organization.
Why do we as change leaders always want to jump past diagnosis and move right into strategy? Could it be that, as leaders, we are squeamishly uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity? We need to rush to action, any action, because action means leadership? Or is that we simply do not appreciate that change is about learning, and if the right people are not involved in a discovery process that enables them to learn together, they will not be ready to facilitate collective actions?
Rushing into action has two main downsides. One is the high likelihood of an exercise in futility, just like the example described above. If we get our diagnosis wrong, by default our plan will solve the wrong issue. Let’s say for example, that the problem your team is confronting is that your organization’s strategy is not being operationalized. You might jump to the conclusion that your leaders are the problem; they aren’t competent enough to do what it takes. But when you make assumptions like this, you are likely to find yourself having déjà vu: no matter how often you coach or replace the offenders, the problem will recur again and again if you’re addressing the wrong cause.
To read the full Spotlight article, go to: http://www.industrialrelationscentre.com/change-management/articles/the-magic-of-diagnosis.htm
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