Newsletter
June 2006
Spotlight: The Celtic Tiger Roars at Work
Senior managers in Ireland have a lower quality of life than terminally ill
patients, according to a recent study. Prosperity-fuelled change is radically
transforming work and organizational life, explains Dublin-based IRC faculty
member Lucinda Bray – and not always for the better...more
This Issue:
- A Fond Farewell: Hear Carol Beatty's goodbye message -
and send your best wishes...more
- Alumni in Action: Deborah Douma shares her most valuable
discoveries from IRC programs...more
- New Downloads: Check out three new research papers and
a lecture from IRC's Knowledge Centre...more
- The Logic of Diversity: An upcoming MIR conference explores
an issue of growing significance...more
- Spotlight: Ireland's economy is going like wildfire,
but managers are paying a steep price
...more
Upcoming Programs:
Sept. 17-21, Kingston - Building
Smart Teams
Sept. 24-28, Kingston - OD
Foundations
Oct. 15-20, Kingston - Industrial
Relations
Oct. 22-27, Kingston - Negotiation
Skills
Nov. 07-09 , Kingston - Organizational
Design
Nov. 14-16, Kingston - Partnership
Development
A Fond Farewell: Hear Carol's "Au Revoir"
and Share Your Memories
Carol Beatty will step down as Director of the Queen's Industrial Relations
Centre at the end of her second five-year term this June 30. To listen to her
personal farewell message and to send your contributions to a scrapbook being
compiled to mark the occasion, click
here.
Alumni in Action
Deborah Douma is HR Director, Logistics – Gap Inc., based in Brampton.
We asked what she learned from IRC programs that's been most valuable back in
her workplace.
"I have enjoyed several programs at Queen's and am working towards a certificate
in OD. I especially liked the Change Management course and the tools provided
(i.e., the Diagnostic Checklist and the visual of the 'muck in the middle').
The course has been invaluable to my understanding of change dynamics and assisted
me on the job - especially as my organization was going through large-scale
change, and continues to on a local level.
"OD Foundations provided a solid base to build on and complemented the
Change Management module very well. Several of the tools are very user-friendly
and applicable to many situations. The learning analogies applied in the course
really made the concepts come alive. The Blueprint for Organizational Effectiveness
- rooms of a house - and the chef analogy really resonated with me.”
Free Downloads
Four papers recently added to the Queen's IRC Knowledge Centre:
Disability-based
Discrimination - a discussion paper on managers' prejudices against workers
with psychological disabilities
Attendance
Management in Municipalities - a case study on attendance management programs
in Belleville, Peterborough and "Townsville"
Using
Future Search to Drive Change - a case study of two applications of Future
Search in very different change scenarios
The
State of the Union Movement in Canada - Buzz Hargrove's Spring 2006 Don
Wood Lecture on the union movement's need for innovation
Diversity is the Spice of Organizational Life
Our colleagues in Queen's Master of Industrial Relations program are putting
together a thought-provoking conference on workplace diversity. Titled WorkScapes
2006, the one-and-a-half-day conference is designed to explore how diversity
can be used by organizations to gain a competitive edge. The big questions on
the agenda: What are the diversity issues that IR and HR practitioners need
to know? What are best practices in managing diverse workforces? How do you
integrate government policy and legislative requirements?
The keynote speaker will be Yasmin Meralli, Vice President of Diversity and
Workplace Equity, BMO Financial Group. Guest speakers include Michel Smith,
Executive Director of APEX Canada; Hassan Yussuff, Secretary Treasurer of the
Canadian Labour Congress; and Kamal Dib, Manager of Strategic Research for the
Department of Canadian Heritage.
Date: Friday, June 16 and Saturday, June 17
Location: Queen's School of Policy Studies, 138 Union Street, Kingston
Fee: $200 for the full conference; $50 for the banquet and keynote presentation
For more information: Workscapes2006@hotmail.com
Spotlight: The Celtic Tiger Roars at Work
Queen's IRC faculty member Lucinda Bray is a management development consultant
based in Dublin, Ireland. In the following piece, she discusses the chaos in
work and organizational life being wrought by dramatic, prosperity-related change
in her adopted country.
Ireland has been dubbed Europe’s ‘miracle economy’ with good
reason. In the past 10 years, the GNP has nearly doubled, with annual growth
rates reaching seven percent and higher. Unemployment has dropped from 15 percent
to four percent. In the dark days of the early 1980s, the inflation rate was
running at 20 percent, and interest rates were astronomical. Today, inflation
is below three percent and interest rates remain at an all-time low. And from
being a country of emigrants, Ireland has seen its population increase by 12
percent since 1995.
Overnight, Ireland has been transformed from a stagnant, agricultural economy
to a booming high-tech powerhouse. The only comparable examples of such rapid
change are the ‘Tiger’ economies of Asia. There is no Western equivalent
of the tumultuous changes that have taken place here, and thus no culturally
similar example to follow, no road map, no guidelines, no historical references.
As a result, we were taken by surprise when we started to feel the Tiger’s
effects - particularly on our work lives.
In fact, Ireland’s Celtic Tiger is a perfect illustration of the “limits
to growth” systems archetype, so elegantly explained by Peter Senge in
The Fifth Discipline. According to this maxim, any change process set up to
create growth also creates inadvertent secondary effects which eventually slow
down the success. That is precisely what has happened here.
The growth cycle started with the upswing in the IT sector, creating thousands
of new jobs Irish emigrants returned to fill, thus further fuelling the consumer
economy, all of which coincided with a period of record low interest rates.
But limiting effects became obvious very quickly. After decades of neglect,
the Irish infrastructure was still in the 1940s. Roads, rail connections, public
transportation, and telecommunication systems were all far behind the rest of
Europe. There was very little new housing, and nothing in the way of apartments
or condominiums. Education and health were in slightly better shape, but there
was no organized system of daycare, since few women worked outside the home.
The result has been chaotic and frequently frustrating for those of us who
live and work here. The sudden demand for housing has pushed real estate prices
up at the rate of 15 percent per year (Dublin is now one of Europe’s most
expensive cities). In order to find affordable housing, people must move farther
and farther out of Dublin and commute to their jobs. Suddenly the roads and
railways are jammed, and country towns such as Navan and Arklow are becoming
sprawling bedroom communities.
To read the full Spotlight article, go to: http://www.industrialrelationscentre.com/globalization/articles/the-celtic-tiger-roars-at-work.htm
~~~
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Fax us: 613 533 6812
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