Sometimes I think consultants in the people development world are not all that different from religious fanatics. You see, when meeting a people development consultant, or anyone in the organisational development/human resources world, you'll find that they have aligned themselves to a particular profiling tool and will very quickly ask you as to your own alegiance. Not dissimilar to the way in which religious folk align themselves to a faith orientation.

Is it the Myers-Briggs? Disc Profiles? Belbin Team Roles? Enneagram? The list goes on ...

But now I wonder? In this age of religious plurality, there are some fairly solid arguments along the lines of the "don't all religions lead to God?" discourse. Hmmm.

I wonder if all profiling tools invariably lead to ... well, Personality?

Yep, I can sense it - you die-hard  read more »

I had the pleasure of spending a few minutes last night being interviewed by long-time mate Mike Stopforth for his social media and marketing podcast, Amplitude .

You can find it and listen to it here .

A few weeks back I was part of a team that facilitated a session for the national HR team of one of South Africa's private banks. It was a session that focussed on how the HR team could support and enable an audacious goal set by the company's leaders. Fairly early on in the session someone piped up and said, "We need to become business partners to the business to help the company achieve this goal!" All-and-sundry nodded in reverent appreciation for a true and noble statement. It was of course a truism that is beginning to apply more and more to HR teams globally.

We moved on in the discussion.

A little later on in the day the team leader was discussing the core competencies the HR team will require in becoming the team that will help the company achieve the aforesaid audacious goal. She listed "basic financial literacy" as one of these competencies.

The words were barely out of her mouth before I realised that I had nearly fallen off my chair. Basic financial literacy? This was a bank. Is it not a requirement that anyone coming in have some basic understanding of the core business of the company?

I was not the only one who nearly found them self on the floor. The team looked at their leader with disgust, jaws dropped and eyebrows were raised. The leader held her ground saying, "I want you guys to be able to read basic financial statements." Again, utter silence from the team.

"Why the hell would you want us to do that? We're HR, not accountants!" someone said.  read more »

We have all been in situations that have elicited our "true colours". They are events that move us into a space where we are hardly able to rationalise our response. My most recent event of this nature was on Thursday evening at a Break-Away session with a client.

Picture it ...

Five star Guest Lodge in the serene Magaliesburg. A slightly-inebriated group of well-to-do clients who have just finished a meal starter that would have made the Queen's chef jealous. Then ...

A beggar-tramp shows up at the door. Clothing in tatters, booze in hand and a cough that had a 10-foot radius. He wants to come in. He can see the great food we're eating, but mostly stares at our wine glasses with a deep far-away look of longing. Before we know it, he barges in through the door as someone exits to try and get rid of him. With arthritic haste he swaggers over to a table and grabs someone's wine glass, chugging it back quicker than I believed. By now the Client Boss is up in arms and tries to get him out. The venue staff climb in as well - rather unsuccessfully. He sneaks in through another door. They usher him out again. He sneaks in again.  read more »

Shawn has posted a nice little anecdote of his relating to why narrative techniques should be used in organisations:

One of our first narrative projects was to help a government department assess their occupational health and safety practices to see whether their policy and procedures were being following and to determine their training needs. We formed two teams to collect our data, one used structured interview techniques and the other collected stories. At the end of the first day of data collection both teams got together to compare notes. “Well, looks like they pretty much have things together,” said the interview team. “They seem to follow the procedures and policies quite well.” The narrative team members looked at each other in amazement. “So you didn’t hear about the guys showering in their own urine because their recycling system is faulty or how in one workshop everyone wears protective shoes because a guy chopped the top of his foot off a while back but no one wears protective eye wear?”

Just goes to show how some of the typical assessment techniques allow employees to "script" the process.

One of the aspects of conversations that I love is how there are often threads of a specific conversation that will live with you cognitively for some time afterwards. I guess this happens a whole lot more than we may realise. Then, there will be seemingly disparate threads that connect up quite serendipitously.

An example:

Thread 1: A few weeks ago I was sitting with Pre Rangusamy . As the HR head of one of South Africa's biggest organisations ...  read more »

With it a being a little while since I've posted a thought on organisational development, I find myself stirred by Keith's lament on leaders not knowing what they really want when it comes to leadership development.

What he speaks of is symptomatic of a progressive, systematic collapse of models within organisations. Models are systems of belief, frameworks of understanding, schemas of organisation and we rely on them heavily as we make sense of what is happening in our world, life and organisation. What we find so attractive about a model is its tempting claim of durability - that despite the traversing landscape of change, a model remains relevant and useful. The model that Keith addresses so well, is how leaders wish to engage in the development of themselves and their skills sets within the context of their organisation through content related development.

The much relied on model of leadership development is rooted in content. You know it well I'm sure.  read more »

A few days ago I posted, in the midst of the FNB Crime Letter Saga, how I had perceived an increase in crime within my own social network. I know see some voices emerging who, despite the proliferation of crime, are being bold enough to maintain a position of hope around South Africa and the prospects for our nation. Examples that stand out are Christof Appel (and his experience informed perception), Nic Haralambous (and his awesome project SARocks), and Dave Duarte (and his lesson in Social Media Marketing).

These voices remind me of some lessons from group processes:  read more »

This is an anecdote that comes from a company I was doing some Talent Retention work with recently. When analysing some of the elements of the business that aided talent retention, a policy around a R&R Day (Rest & Recover Day) was listed, but fairly low down on the list of effective attractors.

The company, being project-based, wanted to allow staff to take some time off in lieu of weekends worked on projects. So, the powers-that-be instituted the R&R Day on the Monday following the weekend stint as a reward for extra effort put in. The original R&R Day was fraught with difficulty though as it was laden with strict criteria for when a R&R Day could be allowed. After much deliberation, consultation and frustration with heavy-laden criteria, the company decided on to apply only one criteria to the granting of an R&R Day ... it was to become the sole discretion of the Executive of the business unit.  read more »

There is a consistent thread to the stories I hear employees tell when speaking of their organisation, job and relationships at work: that of the separation between themselves and the people classified as management. These stories typically refer to management as the different, distinct unfathomable other. This thread is then also mirrored when "management" tell stories of the people they have responsibility over.

It seems that we cannot get past the hierarchical metaphors used when describing these two groups of people - and they are two groups in most organisations. We refer to those "up the totem pole", "in the lofty offices", "in the inner circle", "up the organogram" and "the folk upstairs" as well as those "on the ground" and "at grass-roots level". Such imagery is the remnants of an industrial age concept where managers were literally "above" the employees in walkways set up so that they could observe and cast a power-gaze to ensure the "hands" were productive (not slacking off).  read more »