Fred
Messages from you are always worth reading. In thinking about
enlisting "actively support" versus "simply go along" by learners in my
courses what I have found is getting the top students to post their reports,
projects and presentations to my WebCT course discussion forums first. Then
inform the other learners that they should match that standard. That is, I
find having the active support of even one superbly performing learner can
be viral, infecting others with the desire to garner the benefits too. I
hope in ways not similar to Edgar Schein's brainwashing model reported in
his "Coercive Persuasion" (1961). I hesitate to think what rereading that
tome about Korean War prisoners might be like today.
Pogo (1970) says:
http://www.isengrim.com/pogo1.gif
'nuff said,
Charlie
http://management-education.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Fred Nickols
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 4:10 PM
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Lessons to be Learned
I'll be 70 in a couple of years and more than half a century of that time
has been spent in the workplace. That gives me a lot to reflect on. Quite
a few of those years were spent as a trained, well-paid and (I like to
think) "professional" change agent. Much of my work as a change agent tied
to surfacing, identifying, clarifying and making changes in and to
organizations on management's behalf. (I've also opposed and resisted a
change or two - as change agent and as change target.)
As I look back on the constellations of events that mark my life, I can see
clearly some lessons to be learned.
Bear with me as I repeat and emphasize a portion of that statement: Lessons
"to be" learned. In other words, lessons that could have been learned but
weren't necessarily learned - at least not at the time. And so I've decided
to cull back through my experiences, looking for situations where there were
lessons to be learned and to convey them via short, anecdotal stories,
coupled with some hindsight commentary. My aim here is to do a little test
marketing, if you will, to share one of these situations and to invite
comments. The one that follows is titled "I'd Like to Have You On My Ship,
Chief!"
*************
I'd Like to Have You On My Ship, Chief!
I first began working as a change agent while serving in the United States
Navy. I was a Chief Petty Officer, a technician who had been trained as an
internal organization development (OD) consultant and working at one of the
Navy's five Human Resources Management Centers.
By all accounts, I was quite good at this thing we in the Navy called
"command development" instead of "organization development." My apparent
prowess led to me being assigned to work on some high-level issues. In the
course of one such effort, the Admiral for whom I was working at the time
had me sit in on a meeting in which two Commanders, fresh from command at
sea and new to our program, were being briefed on the program and introduced
to some of their new colleagues. Somewhere in the course of the session,
one of the new Commanders, clearly puzzled by what he saw as unnecessary
complications regarding the making of organizational changes, remarked that
he didn't see what all the fuss was about. He indicated that all he had to
do was put what he wanted in the ship's Plan of the Day and his chiefs would
see to it that what was supposed to happen happened. There ensued a brief
lull in the conversation, broken when the Admiral turned to me and said,
"Nick, is that how it works?"
As always, which is what I suspect the Admiral was counting on, I was direct
to a fault. I replied, "No, sir, not on any ship I've ever been on."
"How does it work, Nick?" asked the Admiral.
"Well, sir, I get up before reveille, head for the Chief's Mess, grab a cup
of coffee and a copy of the Plan of the Day. I sit down, sip my coffee, and
read over the Plan of the Day. If there's something in there like what the
Commander mentioned, I have to decide if I'm going to actively support it or
simply go along with the program - or make it look like I'm going along with
the program - or if I have to find some way of ducking the program or maybe
even torpedoing it."
There next ensued a lively conversation between me and the Commander who had
claimed to see no problems with making changes. At one point he leaned
forward and said with what I took as a menacing smile, "I'd like to have you
on my ship, Chief."
Grinning back, I replied, "I'd like that, too, Commander, but I'll bet you
I'd have more fun than you would."
At that point, the Admiral intervened and redirected the conversation.
Lessons to be Learned
A couple of obvious lessons to be learned from the preceding anecdote are
that (a) I could probably stand to be a lot more tactful (some would add
"respectful") and (b) things don't always work the way folks at the top
think, hope or believe they do.
Another lesson to be learned is the importance of the view from the bottom;
that is, what does a given change look like as it rolls downhill? It is
only from this latter perspective that the likelihood of adoption and
cooperation as well as opposition can be determined. It is one thing to
lead change, it is quite another to enlist others in support of it.
Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned is that successful change is
marked by partnerships and collaborative relationships that run from the top
to the bottom of the organization. Absent these, only the illusion of
change will occur.
***********
Comments welcome and I hope I haven't wasted your time or littered your
e-mail in-box.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
"Assistance at A Distance"
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us
"Constructive Criticism is an Oxymoron"