Curiosity and inquiry are part of the way of Being in the organization – more than espoused values but the way people actually related to each other and the world.
What works is communicated widely and particularly to those who can use those insights in forwarding their accountabilities.
People listen from what can I discover? What is there for me to learn here?
Failure is an occasion to discover and learn. Watson Sr. of IBM is reported to had said, "If you want to double your success rate, double your failure rate", so failure is not an opportunity for recrimination, blame, make wrong, What it is though is an opportunity to discover what worked – even in failure there are many elements that worked – so that it can be replicated as part of a robust process. With hindsight, to discover what did not work so it can be removed from subsequent actions, and to discover, again with hindsight, what was missing, so that can be put in place.
Knowledge is to share which means we are looking to give away what we know, and we are encouraging colleagues to give us what they know that they suspect we don't know
Ignorance management is nurtured as a learning support structure. Everyone has their own set of problems to solve and everyone has a clear appreciation of the areas where they don't know, the conscious areas of incompetence. And, they are on the look out for the areas where they don't know they don't know the unconscious areas of incompetence. Having problems to solve and not knowing is not considered an inadequacy, it is not something to hide, instead it is evidence of being on the edge of insights and discoveries.
Part of everyone's accountabilities are projects and outcomes that cannot be accomplished with current levels of knowledge and experience and each person will have a learning and development plan and will have access to mentors, coaches and buddies as part of the support structure to produce breakthrough outcomes and new learnings.
Everyone is opening to coach and to being coached.
There are lots of experiments going on virtually everyone has got an experiment of some sort going on to improve performance of just to make things work better and more elegantly.
Experts and expertise are valued and respected and they are clear expertise is a fleeting phenomenon so they are constantly working to maintain their status.
Acknowledgement, appreciation, celebration, fun, passion and self expression are words people use to describe the culture.
What works is communicated widely and particularly to those who can use those insights in forwarding their accountabilities.
People listen from what can I discover? What is there for me to learn here?
Failure is an occasion to discover and learn. Watson Sr. of IBM is reported to had said, "If you want to double your success rate, double your failure rate", so failure is not an opportunity for recrimination, blame, make wrong, What it is though is an opportunity to discover what worked – even in failure there are many elements that worked – so that it can be replicated as part of a robust process. With hindsight, to discover what did not work so it can be removed from subsequent actions, and to discover, again with hindsight, what was missing, so that can be put in place.
Knowledge is to share which means we are looking to give away what we know, and we are encouraging colleagues to give us what they know that they suspect we don't know
Ignorance management is nurtured as a learning support structure. Everyone has their own set of problems to solve and everyone has a clear appreciation of the areas where they don't know, the conscious areas of incompetence. And, they are on the look out for the areas where they don't know they don't know the unconscious areas of incompetence. Having problems to solve and not knowing is not considered an inadequacy, it is not something to hide, instead it is evidence of being on the edge of insights and discoveries.
Part of everyone's accountabilities are projects and outcomes that cannot be accomplished with current levels of knowledge and experience and each person will have a learning and development plan and will have access to mentors, coaches and buddies as part of the support structure to produce breakthrough outcomes and new learnings.
Everyone is opening to coach and to being coached.
There are lots of experiments going on virtually everyone has got an experiment of some sort going on to improve performance of just to make things work better and more elegantly.
Experts and expertise are valued and respected and they are clear expertise is a fleeting phenomenon so they are constantly working to maintain their status.
Acknowledgement, appreciation, celebration, fun, passion and self expression are words people use to describe the culture.
2 comments:
I read your blog on subscription over the Kindle about once a month and catch up. This particular post touches a subject I actually have written in a note on my whiteboard in my office to remind myself to think about throughout the day.
One of the books on me "bed stand" of sorts is "Handbook of Work Based Learning" by Ian Cunningham, and one of the early statements in the book is, "Leadership, if it's about nothing else, ought to be about tackling cultural issues." The follow up question to that I've tacked on to see on my white board is "Are you tackling the culture of learning in your organization?"
One of the things I'm currently looking at in my organization is whether the mid-level managers are truly bought in to the strategic level plan for coaching and mentorship as evidenced by actions which result in a noticeable improvement in organizational performance.
Thanks again for your postings.
Thanks for your comment Tom. From my perspective culture shapes actions more than most people realize. That said, once people begin to notice elements of their culture that support the behaviors and outcomes they want they can consciously reinforce that behavior day by day, action by action. Equally, when they see elements that suppres actions and desired results they can intervene and stop those behaviors - best by displacing them with actions consistent with the culture they want.
For example, everyone has seen a colleague being humiliated in a meeting for a missed milestone, or a mistake. When we give that behavior a pass we are reinforcing that behavior as an acceptable part of the culture. When we intervene - yes that takes courage - and support a colleague who acted in good faith and did their best, and support them to learn from the experience we are changing the culture one interaction at a time.
So are people brought into the process or can we show them ways to bring themselves into the process of creating strategy, changing the culture and so on? My perspective, you may not be surprised to know, is the latter.
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