Bringing Systems Change – Part 1

https://anchor.fm/manoj083/embed/episodes/Bringing-Systems-Change–Part-1-e1plvau

Whether we want to bring change in the society or change in the organization, this notes based on Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T can throw new light in your thinking process.

BACKGROUND :

First we can see the current reality. You can call it the Symptoms. The symptoms are in the form of the results, the impacts, the behaviors and experiences.

All these symptoms are in the background of the 3 Divides.

The 3 Divides are :

1. Ecological Divide: Human Beings are disconnected from Nature

2. Social Divide: Human beings are disconnected from each other

3. Spiritual Divide: Human beings are disconnected from themselves.

3 Divides

Ecological divide is about how we are disconnected from nature and as an expression of this disconnect we are using around 1.79 times the regenerative capacity of planet Earth. Of course, if everyone starts living the way U.S. citizens are living, we would need 5 planets to match up to our consumption.

Social divide is about how we have disconnected from each other under many pretexts – caste, creed, religion, education, geography, money, gender, politics and many more. Financially the inequality has reached the level that 8 Billionaires on the planet have more wealth than almost 4 Billion people.

Spiritual divides is about human beings being disconnected with them selves – their highest future possibility and that is leading to people living hollow lives, being addicted to one thing or the other, running after some thing or the other. Stress, fear, anxiety, loneliness, broken relationships etc., take a toll and around 800 K people are committing suicide every year. A number which is larger than the number of people killed by others as well as by natural calamities combined.

(The above data can be seen at https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state-of-the-planet/overuse-of-resources-on-earth)

The core issue behind the 3 divides is human beings operating from ego centric (thinking within a boundary) Vs eco centric (thinking from the whole).

We need to see the current reality of any system – whether it is the financial system, education system, healthcare system, education or any other system – with the background of the 3 divides.

4 Rules of bringing System Change:

From the 4 rules, one can understand that to bring a system change – one needs to transform the consciousness. How do we go about transforming the consciousness?

1. List down all the stakeholders of the current system. Look for the invisible, unheard, voiceless, ignored, peripheral stakeholders also. Any group of people who affect the system or affected by the system.
   • E.g. 1 : In an education system, students, teachers, parents may be some of the visible stakeholders; but grandparents of the students, teachers’ families may not be on top of the mind. Also the administrative staff, the education departments, the various companies working in the education field etc., can also be relevant stakeholders.
   • E.g. 2: In an organization, shareholders, top management, middle management, front line, workers, their families, customers, vendors are important stakeholders. Depending on the industry – the family members of the customers and vendors may also be relevant. Ofcourse, there also various kinds of competition, regulatory authorities, banks and financial institutions, and the neighborhood, society, state and country could be other important stakeholders.
2. Interact with them and start to see the system and its workings as well as impact through their eyes with open mind and open heart. No judgements.
3. Organize many multi stakeholder dialogues such that all stakeholders can see the current reality from the eyes of all other stakeholders.
4. The realization that one is looking for is OMG! We have collectively created this current reality! We have collectively created this mess; the unworkable situations and results/impact that we don’t want. It is not blaming, but a realization.

With this transformed awareness, new openings for thinking and acting will open up.

It will require the capacity of the people concerned to practice deep listening and suspending one’s opinions, judgement, cynicism and fear.

Please experiment on the above lines and you can write to us for further support.

Best Wishes – Manoj Onkar. Management Innovations & Emerging Futurz. http://www.managementinnovations.co.in ; http://www.emergingfuturz.com manoj@managementinnovations.co.in ; manoj@emergingfuturz.com

Bringing System Change – Part 1

Whether we want to bring change in the society or change in the organization, this notes based on Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T can throw new light in your thinking process.

BACKGROUND :

First we can see the current reality. You can call it the Symptoms. The symptoms are in the form of the results, the impacts, the behaviors and experiences.

All these symptoms are in the background of the 3 Divides. The 3 Divides are : 1. Ecological Divide: Human Beings are disconnected from Nature 2. Social Divide: Human beings are disconnected from each other 3. Spiritual Divide: Human beings are disconnected from themselves.

3 Divides

Ecological divide is about how we are disconnected from nature and as an expression of this disconnect we are using around 1.79 times the regenerative capacity of planet Earth. Of course, if everyone starts living the way U.S. citizens are living, we would need 5 planets to match up to our consumption.

Social divide is about how we have disconnected from each other under many pretexts – caste, creed, religion, education, geography, money, gender, politics and many more. Financially the inequality has reached the level that 8 Billionaires on the planet have more wealth than almost 4 Billion people.

Spiritual divides is about human beings being disconnected with them selves – their highest future possibility and that is leading to people living hollow lives, being addicted to one thing or the other, running after some thing or the other. Stress, fear, anxiety, loneliness, broken relationships etc., take a toll and around 800 K people are committing suicide every year. A number which is larger than the number of people killed by others as well as by natural calamities combined.

(The above data can be seen at https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state-of-the-planet/overuse-of-resources-on-earth)

The core issue behind the 3 divides is human beings operating from ego centric (thinking within a boundary) Vs eco centric (thinking from the whole).

We need to see the current reality of any system – whether it is the financial system, education system, healthcare system, education or any other system – with the background of the 3 divides.

4 Rules of bringing System Change:

From the 4 rules, one can understand that to bring a system change – one needs to transform the consciousness. How do we go about transforming the consciousness?

1. List down all the stakeholders of the current system. Look for the invisible, unheard, voiceless, ignored, peripheral stakeholders also. Any group of people who affect the system or affected by the system.
   • E.g. 1 : In an education system, students, teachers, parents may be some of the visible stakeholders; but grandparents of the students, teachers’ families may not on the top of mind. Also the administrative staff, the education departments, the various companies working in the education field etc., can also be relevant stakeholders.
   • E.g. 2: In an organization, shareholders, top management, middle management, front line, workers, their families, customers, vendors are important stakeholders. Depending on the industry – the family members of the customers and vendors may also be relevant. Ofcourse, there also various kinds of competition, regulatory authorities, banks and financial institutions, and the neighborhood, society, state and country could be other important stakeholders.
2. Interact with them and start to see the system and its workings as well as impact through their eyes with open mind and open heart. No judgements.
3. Organize many multi stakeholder dialogues such that all stakeholders can see the current reality from the eyes of all other stakeholders.
4. The realization that one is looking for is OMG! We have collectively created this current reality! We have collectively created this mess; the unworkable situations and results/impact that we don’t want. It is not blaming, but a realization.

With this transformed awareness, new openings for thinking and acting will open up.

It will require the capacity of the people concerned to practice deep listening and suspending one’s opinions, judgement, cynicism and fear.

Please experiment on the above lines and you can write to us for further support.

Best Wishes – Manoj Onkar. Management Innovations & Emerging Futurz. http://www.managementinnovations.co.in ; http://www.emergingfuturz.com manoj@managementinnovations.co.in ; manoj@emergingfuturz.com

Creating New Realities through 3 Transformations – Part 3

3 Transformations for Creating New Realities

The third phase is *Transforming Action*

(Read Part 1 and Part 2 )

Most people are related to action through the eyes of discipline, will power, effort and struggle etc. The real opportunity is to relate to action as a medium of learning. Learning by doing. Taking actions that generate feedback from the relevant stakeholders. This phase is not an individual game but a collective game. A game of Co-initiation to Co-evolving with a core team, key stakeholders and then the concerned community at large.

With a team of people with similar intention, you can build a common intent (co-initiation). Then you can get on a collective learning journey in the co-sensing space by using the space of Observe, Observe, Observe (with your ears, eyes, mind and heart wide open).

Then you and the team step back and reflect and get connected to your inner knowing and get connected to the deeper source of inspiration. It is a further crystallization of the intention and how you could experiment on it in a microcosm to test your hypothesis.

After hundreds (or less) of prototypes testing your various ideas in all dimensions you start to co-create new products, services, frameworks or whatever else you are out to create.

The final space within the space of Transforming action is the space of Co-evolving and Institutionalizing the new reality.

Of course this is a long long journey shared in couple of words, but there are couple of important dimensions that one also needs to understand. Two main points are : 1. Most big changes or new realities involve some form of systems change. 2. Every change process requires inner development work (inner transformation).

The system change principles can be captured by the following picture.

Systems Consciousness for long term sustainable change

It requires an understanding that there are visible symptoms like the tip of the iceberg, there are structures and thought patterns and other source dimensions which constitute the invisible 90% of the iceberg. It will take another full blog to explain this systems change aspect in details and it will be available on this blog in the near future.

On personal level, individuals and leaders need to develop the competency of deep listening, sensing and sense-making. Learn the U process as captured in the image below:

U Process for all leaders and change makers

and also need to develop oneself internally as captured in the following images:

Blind Spot of Leadership: The success of the intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.

Capability of sensing the future with open mind, open heart and open will.

Further details will be captured in the follow up blogs.

Warm Regards, Manoj Onkar, lfef@emergingfuturz.com and manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Emerging Futurz (www.emergingfuturz.com) and Management Innovations (www.managementinnovations.co.in.

Creating New Realities through 3 Transformations – Part 2

3 Transformations for Creating New Realities

Read Part 1 – Transforming Perception

*** The next phase is *Transforming Self and Will*

Each of us has 2 selves. The smaller self which is consumed by the need for survival, success and ego trips. The higher self which is the reflection of God(if you believe in God) or universal consciousness. As a leader and as a human being, your real life and your real power are connected with your higher self. Everything else is force and struggle and of course suffering and avoiding suffering.

Small Self Vs Higher SELF

Survival Vs Fulfilling the Purpose of Life

When one gets connected to one’s higher self and higher purpose in life – then one can start living the life that one came to this planet for. The higher self is connected with all the higher selves on the planet and hence when one is connected to the higher self – then one moves from Ego to Eco i.e. one moves from thinking of the individual self to the collective self, from benefit of individuals or a small group to benefit and workability for everyone. Vasudeva Kutumbakam – The whole world is one family. Not just human beings but the whole world.

Once you get connected to your higher Self and purpose, you go through a process of Presencing and Crystallizing your Vision and intention. This is not an Vision you have, but more a Vision that wants you. It is a future that wants to emerge and is calling you to be in service of. You choose to be an instrument for the fulfillment of that vision and intention.

How do you get connected to the higher SELF and higher PURPOSE ?

Image representing Theory U. Theory U created by Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT, USA.

On that journey, at the bottom of the U, lies an inner gate that requires us to drop everything that isn’t essential. This process of letting-go (of our old ego and self) and letting-come (our highest future possibility: our Self) establishes a subtle connection to a deeper source of knowing. The essence of presencing is that these two selves—our current self and our best future Self—meet at the bottom of the U and begin to listen and resonate with each other.

PRESENCING: The capacity to connect to the deepest sources of self—to go to the inner place of stillness where knowing comes to surface.

This journey is the shortest and the longest.

Shortest because it is the journey from the small self to the Higher SELF. Can be accomplished in a moment.

It is also the longest journey, since many people spend their whole lives not completing this journey and never really getting in touch with their higher SELF and their purpose.

The advanced workshops like *Transforming Self* are there to support the journey at the second phase.

The third phase is *Transforming Action*

(Read Part 3)

Warm Regards, Manoj Onkar, lfef@emergingfuturz.com and manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Emerging Futurz (www.emergingfuturz.com) and Management Innovations (www.managementinnovations.co.in.

Creating New Realities through 3 Transformations – Part 1

3 Transformations for Creating New Realities

The first phase of any initiative of creating new realities – whether it is at organization level, community , family or at larger levels is *Transforming Perceptions*.

Transforming Perceptions has 3 aspects:

Transforming Perceptions

How does one transform perceptions? First we have to realize that no one, NO ONE is ever connected fully with reality. Whatever reality we are connected to, it is just a perception. A perception that gets treated as Reality – since that is the nature of the mind. Mind creates the thought or sometimes just gets the thought and then it relates to the thought as Reality.

We are all stuck with perceptions (lived as reality) about ourselves, about others, about the situations and challenges that we are dealing, about money, about life itself. The way out is to get out of our head and start dealing with life outside our world of perceptions.

That is why Open mind has 2 key dimensions: 1. Questioning the reality in your mind and 2. Holding multiple and seemingly opposites views together as possible realities.

Courses like the Leadership from the Emerging Future help you in developing muscle in transforming reality.

We learn to hear, see, feel and sense the reality from the eyes of other people.

Transforming Perceptions starts with having a breakthrough in our ability to listen deeply, listen with our mind and heart wide open. And to be able to connect with other human beings and their world views as equally valid world views.

If we as individuals and also as teams and groups can have a breakthrough in deep listening and sensing, then a new world of inter personal relationships, partnerships and co- creation would emerge, which is mostly not even dreamt of right now.

Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT, the creator of Theory U; distinguishes listening at 4 levels as mentioned below:

Levels of Listening as distinguished by Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT and Presencing Institute

Dr. Scharmer also did great research and discovered that our teams (including families) generally have 2 default fields of conversation i.e. Talking Nice or Talking Tough (Debate). When we can go beyond this 2 levels and create the conversational field of Dialogue (Reflective Listening) and Generative Flow (Collective creativity); then we create the foundation for new possibilities to emerge and be realized.

Thus, transforming perception includes transforming the individual and collective listening and sensing competencies and continual practice.

*** The next phase is *Transforming Self and Will*

(Read Part 2 and Part 3)

manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Emerging Futurz (www.emergingfuturz.com) and Management Innovations (www.managementinnovations.co.in.

Your opinion : Is it really yours?

We get stuck in our opinions. Once we get stuck in our opinions, we get disconnected from others because they have their own opinions. Mostly they are also stuck in their own opinions.

Personally or Professionally, individually or collectively – most of the disconnect happens because we all have opinions and inadvertently some of our opinions are different than other people’s opinions.

This is the source of small fights, relationship breakdowns, business breakdowns, sabotage and can also lead to big community and global issues also.

As we get defensive about our opinions, we start to protect it from others. Part of protecting our opinion includes discrediting or damaging other opinions. In some extreme cases it also leads to destroying people with those opinions.

More people get stuck with one set of opinions, more people get stuck to the opposing opinions. We get stuck in one truth (which is of course our view) and deny/blind ourselves to other perspectives.

We differentiate between people as people who have opinions similar to ours and people who have different opinions, thus creating the silos of Us Vs Them.

Us Vs Them is the source of most of the misery on the planet – whether the divide is because of opinions or anything else like politics, religion, status, gender, age, money, language, geography and what not. This is what Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT refers as ego thinking (thinking for the benefit of some and being blind/insensitive to others)

Is it really OUR opinion?

Or is it an opinion we picked up in the journey of life and then mistaken it as OUR Opinion.

How would it be if we all can move from it is MY Opinion to it is one possible opinion, one possible perspective?

When you can train people around you, family members, colleagues and other groups of people that you are involved with to relate to the opinions as opinions not my opinion or other’s opinion then a new space of possibilities can emerge.

There is also an advanced opportunity to build the discipline to fully understand opinions presented by everyone else without any pressure on self or others to give up their opinions and perspectives. This leads to expansion of paradigm for one and all.

Open mind is when your mind can hold multiple perspective about the same issue including seemingly opposite ones.

When everyone starts listening deeply to everybody’s perspectives, the barriers between our opinion and other’s opinion disappear and they show up as just opinions.

When boundaries around opinions disappear, boundaries around people start disappearing and we experience being profoundly connect to others – individually and collectively.

That is magic. That is peace. That is spirituality. That is progress. That is humanity.

So next time, when you are stuck to your opinion – ask yourself: Is this really MY opinion or is it an opinion that I am identifying with and getting stuck. Before we start some other war…

The future of the world depends on this shift : Is it really MY opinion?

Thanks for reading.

Manoj Onkar – Emerging Futurz (www.emergingfuturz.com) and MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS (www.managementinnovations.co.in)

Leadership from the Emerging Futurz : https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort25

Leadership from the Emerging Future – A Special workshop for Entrepreneurs, Senior Management & Change Makers

https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort17

Learn and apply the principles of Transforming Perception – The first step for producing new kind of results for you and your team.

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For further information please contact: Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; WhatsApp: 91-9106456275

Money Paradigm in a disrupted economy like Covid 19

Some of the key points on which the Money Paradigm concept was built in a recent seminar series.

Manoj Onjar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS : manoj@managementinnovations.co.in. https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort-13

Leadership from the Emerging Future – Getting to the Source of Extraordinary Results: A Special workshop series for Entrepreneurs and Senior Management

https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort-13

For further information please contact: Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; WhatsApp: 91-9106456275

Recommended Reading : The Book for Entrepreneurs: Getting to Plan B by John Mullins & Randy Komisar

http://getting-to-plan-b.com/ –

http://getting-to-plan-b.com/

INNOVATIVE THINKING SYSTEM

It’s time to innovate.

Whether you want to innovate the business model, the products, the processes, the sales and marketing – this is the time to innovate.

Let’s look at the game of innovation.

First thing to understand is INNOVATION is not equal to CREATIVITY.

INNOVATION = CREATIVITY + IMPLEMENTATION

Innovative Thinking System – ITS – Overall Flow

There are 4 key phases of any good innovative thinking system.

1st Phase is Generating New Ideas

Most people think that Innovation means creating new ideas.

NO.

Creating new ideas is only the 1st step.

How do you create new ideas?

Some people have a mental block from their childhood that they are not CREATIVE.

It is not true.

We have not learn’t and practiced CREATIVITY and anything that we haven’t learn’t and practiced, we are not good at it.

So creativity is a matter of learning and practicing.

What one can use here are the various Divergent Thinking Methods. Divergent thinking helps individuals and teams to go beyond the mental blocks and create an abundance of ideas.

Some of the famous divergent thinking methods are:

Technique B – Breaking down Common Notions

Technique D – Dreaming or Future Visualizing

Technique F – Finding Flaws with current systems to trigger new ideas

Technique O – Overstating and Understating some facts by a huge factor – triggering some new thoughts and ideas

Technique R – Reversing the current way of doing things – again a thought experiment to trigger new ideas

Technique L – Linking two or more unconnected ideas to trigger a new thought process

Technique A – It is a game of adding new options/dimensions or facets to the existing products or services that make a difference.

The next step after generating lots of ideas is to scientifically shortlisting those ideas.

2nd Phase – Scientifically Shortlist ideas with Screening Techniques

Since one cannot experiment or prototype all ideas, we have to shortlist the ideas from the vast list that got created through the divergent thinking process.

This process is called the CONVERGENT THINKING PROCESS.

The famous Screening Techniques are:

1. Bird’s View and Bug’s View : Seeing Macro and then going micro. Looking at all the ideas and putting them in some categories and then selecting the best ideas in each category.
2. Decision Screening: Deciding the parameters of evaluating the ideas and then screening the ideas based on the parameters.
3. Priority Screening: After having some ideas shortlisted, further shortlisting can happen based on the impact priorities. One can also give weightages to the various impact and then evaluate the ideas against those impact parameters.

Next step in the journey is to polish and and develop the shortlisted ideas.

3rd Phase: Polishing and Developing the Shortlisted Ideas

Some of the powerful methods for polishing and developing your ideas into extraordinary proposals are:

Polishing Techniques

Polishing Techniques

The next step in the journey is Implementation. And one needs to create a proper implementation plan to ensure that the idea is converted to reality and the desired benefits are accrued.

The mapping techniques to be used for creating the implementation road maps,

Happy Innovating!

Best Wishes from Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Leadership is too important to leave it to ‘Leaders’. Isn’t it?

Organizations can no more afford to relate to some ‘leaders’ as leaders and bet the future of the whole organization and the eco-system on them. Also one is betting the PURPOSE and VISION of the Organization.

In this really VUCA World, companies need to address couple of key Questions?

1. What is the future of our industry?
2. What are the changes that are likely to happen or need to happen that no one is working upon?
3. What is the organizational culture and climate required for us to sense that future ?
4. How do we get ready for that future?
5. How do all employees figure in that equation?

3 Transformations for Leadership & Change Management

3 Transformation – 7 Capabilities of Leadership from the Emerging Future

As per Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer and the various related conversations, there are 3 key transformations that are critical for new kind of leadership to show up in organizations and in society.

1. Transforming Perception: Sensing
2. Transforming Self & Will: Presencing
3. Transforming Action: Realizing & Fulfilling

Transforming Perception:

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Transforming 3 worlds of Perception

The world of Perceptions have 3 key dimensions that one has to deal with initially and the ofcourse some more dimensions have to be addressed.

1. Transforming Perception about Others and Situation: If we continue to see others and the situation from the old paradigm, then not much new quality of thinking will show up.
2. Transforming Perception about Ourselves: Similarly one needs a new view of oneself to be able to break the current paradigm of relationship that one has with life and self.
3. Transforming Other’s Perception about Us: Since results are produced inside of relationships it is important that we transform how others perceive us that would lead to how they respond to us and collaborating with us.

Transforming the world of perception requires Suspending the voice of judgement and opinions about self, situation and others. And redirecting our cynicism with curiosity, compassion and courage.

Producing Results: Getting to the Source

Keeping in mind that producing results itself can be seen at multiple levels.

The visible level is the world of results.

The layer below is what most people understand – that results are causing by efforts. Either your efforts or other’s efforts. Sometimes efforts (action) including inaction.

The layer which most people don’t explore is what influences action.

Action is influenced by Perception. The thought world. The paradigm or model of thinking.

Very rarely do people explore what is influencing the human performance at the core.

The Internal State.

The internal state is 3 things: 1. INTENTION 2. ATTENTION 3. PRESENCE

Intention: Are you operating from an Ego Intention or an Eco Intention?

Attention: Do you have your attention on you Intention or all the distractions?

Presence: Presence = Present + Sensing. How present you are in the NOW? and How are you practicing deep listening, sensing and sense-making.

TRANSFORMING SELF & WILL:

Transforming Self includes Letting Go of the Past and Letting come the Future.

Giving up Fear and Operating with Courage.

TRANSFORMING ACTION:

Not waiting for perfect ideas, but being in the game of Learning by Doing.

Crystallizing Ideas by communicating, deep listening, sensing and sense-making.

Prototyping : Testing Hypothesis and continually iterating.

Institutionalizing: Scaling up, Involving more stakeholders, creating systems and evolving.

These are the starting principles on which we design and deliver the leadership and change management interventions for corporates and organizations.

Manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Characteristics of Real Leaders : Shifting from EGO to ECO

Leaders of the 21st Century:

They remove themselves from the center.

They create space for others.

They are good at listening.

They are good at holding the space.

They are good at attending to the whole.

They are good at helping people to connect to the edges of the system.

They are good at connecting with an emerging future potential and holding the space for that [conversation]

… Adapted form an article by Dr. Otto Scharmer, MIT

Warm Regards Manoj Onkar

Business Impact of LFEF

Some of the organizational benefits of having the teams participate in the ‘Leadership from the Emerging Future’ (LFEF) Intervention

Producing Results: Getting to the Source

• Deep Relationships with Customers involving in-depth understanding of the customers’ view of the following:
  • Their Important Objectives
  • What they expect from you
  • How would they measure your performance

•  Employee Engagement and Ownership:
  • Increased bonding between the team members across levels
  • Increased engagement and contribution from each person
  • Breakthrough in Team Productivity
  • Increased creativity and innovation
  • Increased effectiveness in Problem Solving

•  Culture of Innovation:
  • Practice of deep listening which leads to generating new insights and ideas
  • Better collaboration to nurture the varied ideas from various sources – not only from small group of people
  • Ability to test hypothesis rapidly and iterate the ideas

•  Increase efficiency in Project Implementation:
  • Open Communication
  • Collaboration
  • Problem Solving
  • Testing Hypothesis
  • Iterate Solutions

•  New Business Ideas:
  • Deep Understanding of Customer’s expectations
  • Better Collaboration within teams
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Scaling and Evolving

3 types of Transformation

For more information contact Manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

For Level 1 Workshop: check brochure : http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Transforming Business & Leadership

Leadership from the Emerging Future

3 Transformations as the foundation of this new kind of Leadership

• Transforming how you perceive others and how you perceive situations, challenges and opportunities that you are dealing with

• Transforming how you perceive Self

• Transforming how others perceive you

7 Leadership Capacities

Seven Theory U Leadership Capacities 
The journey through the U develops seven essential leadership capacities. 

5 Phases of Theory U

1. HOLDING THE SPACE OF LISTENING: The foundational capacity of the U is listening. Listening to others. Listening to oneself. And listening to what emerges from the collective. Effective listening requires the creation of open space in which others can contribute to the whole.

2. OBSERVING: The capacity to suspend the “voice of judgment” is key to moving from projection to focused and peripheral observation.

3. SENSING: Seeing the system from the edges. The preparation for the experience at the bottom of the U requires the tuning of three inner instruments: the open mind, the open heart, and the open will. This opening process is an active “sensing” together as a group. While an open heart allows us to see a situation from the current whole, the open will enables us to begin to sense from the whole that is wanting to emerge.

4. PRESENCING: The capacity to connect to the deepest sources of self—to go to the inner place of stillness where knowing comes to surface.

5. CRYSTALLIZING: When a small group of change makers commit to a shared purpose, the power of their intention creates an energy field that attracts people, opportunities, and resources that make things happen. This core group and its container functions as a vehicle for the whole to manifest.

6. PROTOTYPING: Moving down the left side of the U requires the group to open up and deal with the resistance of thought, emotion, and will; moving up the right side requires the integration of thinking, feeling, and will in the context of practical applications and learning by doing.

7. CO-EVOLVING: A prominent violinist once said that he couldn’t simply play his violin in Chartres cathedral; he had to “play” the entire space, what he called the “macro violin,” in order to do justice to both the space and the music. Likewise, organizations need to perform at this macro level: they need to convene the right sets of players in order to help them to co-sensing and co-create at the scale of the whole.

To know more about Leadership from the Emerging Future and to bring this new qualities of leadership in your organization reach out to MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS.

Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; 91-9106456275 http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Producing Results: Getting to the Source of Results

Anatomy of Producing Results

We are always looking at producing some results. Causing something. Avoiding something. Making something happen. Ensuring something doesn’t happen.

What causes Results? Actions.

Your Actions. Other People’s Actions. Also Inactions.

What influences Actions? Thought Patterns

As thought patterns change, one sees a change in actions and behaviours.

What influences Thought Patterns?

That is the million dollar question. That is the blindspot for most people.

The source of the thought patterns is the internal state that leaders and team members are operating from.

What is the internal state?

As Dr. Otto Scharmer mentions in Theory U – the internal state consists of 3 elements:

1. Intention : What is your Intention? Is it an EGO Intention or an ECO Intention
2. Attention: What is the quality of your attention? Is it on your Intention or are you distracted with the routine or the emergency.
3. Presence: What is the quality of your being present and sensing (deep listening, sensing and sense-making)

This is one of the elements that we train in-depth in the Leadership from the Emerging Future workshops and interventions.

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

For more information, you may reach out to manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

What is Leadership in the 21st Century: Transforming PPP (Perception, Paradigm and Performance)

While leadership is accountable for the Performance and the Results. Leadership doesn’t cause the results. Leaders are not necessarily causing the results themselves. They are creating the environment in which results happen.

The environment in which results happen includes the culture of the team and organization. It also includes the paradigm in which people operate.

To transform the paradigm in which people operate, firstly the leaders need to transform the perceptions and help the team to transform the perceptions.

Unless there are new perceptions, there is no new paradigm and no innovation. No real Leadership.

There are 3 key perceptions that the leaders and the team need to transform:

1. Perceptions about the stakeholders, their challenges, their ambitions and their world view
2. Perceptions about Self – as individuals and as team
3. Perceptions others have about you – again as individuals and as team/organization

Once the perceptions are transformed, then the game shows up differently. A new paradigm is created.

A new paradigm in which the stakeholders can give up their positions and get into the space of understanding multiple views, multiple concerns and include all of them in the learning journey.

Inside this new paradigm there is space for collaboration and co-creation.

This is the beginning of a new era of leadership – Leadership of the 21st Century.

Welcome to the Leadership from the Emerging Future. http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Regards Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Transforming the leadership and consciousness with which organizations, society and individuals operate.

For Leadership Team and Change Makers.

Get trained and certified in the world’s powerful technology and make a big difference for your organizations.

Master :

1. Leadership Transformation
2. Change Management
3. Organizational Culture
4. Management Development & Supervisor Development
5. Teamwork & Breakthrough Collaboration
6. Stakeholder Relationships
7. Sales and Customer Service

Technology that you use in large organizations and small organizations, for profit as well as in social organizations.

Also relevant if you are operating in the educational institution space.

Technology developed by professors from MIT, USA and used by companies like Google, Alibaba, McKinsey, PWC, Fujitsu, Glaxosmithkline and organizations like World Bank and many more.

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Contact manoj@managementinnovations.co.in for more information.

WhatsApp: 91 – 9106456275

Sustainable Food Lab – Sensing the future that wants to emerge

SUSTAINABLE FOOD LAB

WWW. SUSTAINABLEFOODLAB.ORG

The Sustainable Food Lab (SFL) comprises leaders from more than 100 organizations that represent a microcosm of the stakeholders in food delivery systems.

The purpose of this large-scale intervention is to make food systems more sustainable.

Current members include individuals from the following companies: Carrefour, General Mills, Nutreco, Organic Valley Cooperative, Rabobank, Sadia, Costco, US Foodservice, SYSCO, and Unilever; from governmental organizations in Brazil and the Netherlands, plus the European Commission, the International Finance Corporation, and the World Bank; from civil society organizations including the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers of Brazil, Oxfam, The Nature Conservancy, the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish workers, and the World Wildlife Fund.

The Lab’s prototyping projects are addressing supply chain innovations, demand pull for sustainability, purchasing standards, and policy changes.

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

We offer customized leadership development and change management workshops and consulting services to organizations. We also collaborate with educational institutions to help them include Theory U principles in their curriculum and offerings.

We also conduct open workshops on Leadership from the Emerging Future :

Theory U & the African Public Health Initiatives

THE AFRICAN PUBLIC HEALTH, LEADERSHIP AND SYSTEMS INNOVATION INITIATIVE:

This initiative will develop a replicable model for improving public health leadership and system performance using an approach called the Innovation Lab.

The Innovation Lab increases leaders’ effectiveness by cultivating their managerial skills and by addressing the attitudes, values, and relationships that drive behavior. It stimulates system change by enabling cross-sectoral leadership teams to take advantage of new opportunities and to clear bottlenecks.

The Innovation Lab in Namibia will convene healthcare leadership teams from government, business, and civil society.

Teams will be guided through an intensive leadership development and project-based learning experience over two years.

The pilot project of this approach seeks to benefit people who are underserved by current healthcare systems, particularly those living on less than $2/day.

The proposal has been cocreated by the Synergos Institute, the Presencing Institute, Generon Consulting, and McKinsey & Company in collaboration with partners in the global South and has been submitted to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for funding.

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

We offer customized trainings, workshops and consulting services in the field of leadership development, culture transformation, stakeholder relationship development, strategy implementation and L & OD initiatives.

Our open workshop on Leadership and Change Management is also available: http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Leadership & Change Management with Theory U @ ELIAS: Creating a global innovation eco-system

ELIAS: CREATING A GLOBAL INNOVATION ECO SYSTEM

www.ELIAS-GLOBAL.com

ELIAS (Emerging Leaders for Innovation Across Sectors) is a network of twenty global business, government, and civic organizations dedicated to finding productive solutions to the most confounding dilemmas of our time. Each member is a powerhouse in its realm—BASF, BP, Oxfam, Nissan, the Society for Organizational Learning, Unilever, the UN Global Compact, UNICEF, the World Bank Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund, among others.

Together ELIAS members are examining problems by combining systems thinking, deepened personal awareness, and listening skills with hands-on prototyping in order to develop and test new cross-sector approaches to some of today’s most difficult challenges.

The ELIAS pilot program convened a group of 25 high-potential leaders from these organizations and sent them on an intensive learning journey that included training in leadership capacity building and hands-on systems innovation.

After shadowing each other in their work environments (each fellow spent several days in the life of one or more peers in another business sector), the group travelled to China in the fall of 2006, where they engaged in discussions with Chinese thought leaders, consulted with sustainability engineers, journeyed to rural China to observe emerging challenges, and capped the trip with a week of contemplative retreat.

• One of the prototyping projects developed by the ELIAS pilot group is the Sunbelt team, which is exploring methods for bringing solar- and wind generated power to marginalized communities, especially in the global South. This decentralized, distributive, democratic model would significantly reduce CO2 emissions and foster economic growth and well-being in rural communities.

• Another team is testing alternative energy resources, such as the indigenous development of renewable and hybrid sources of power for the Chinese automotive industry.

• An Africa-based team is testing mobile community-based life education as a way to uproot the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

• An ELIAS fellow from the Indonesian Ministry of Trade applied the U process to government policies for sustainable sugar production in Indonesia. His idea was to involve all key stakeholders in the policymaking process.

The results were stunning: for the first time ever the Ministry’s policies did not result in violent protests or riots by farmers or other key stakeholders in the value chain.

Now, the same approach is being applied to other commodities and to standards for sustainable production. The Indonesia-based ELIAS team plans to launch a country version of the ELIAS cross-sector innovation platform in early 2008 that will focus on the severe flooding problems in Jakarta.

• A Brazil-based team is focused on integrating the whole demand-and supply chain for organic agricultural products. They are creating infrastructures, raising awareness, and building skills and support networks of small farmers using organic agricultural methods.

The goals include improving contractual fairness and creating a transparency that allows the entire value chain, from the farmers to the consumers, to see one another, connect, and co-evolve.

The ELIAS team from Brazil also intends to launch a country version of the ELIAS innovation platform in Brazil in 2008.

• In the Philippines, one ELIAS fellow of Unilever teamed up with former colleagues who now work in the NGO sector to form a venture (MicroVentures) that advises and finances women micro-entrepreneurs in the Philippines by leveraging the Unilever business and its network at the community level. What started as an idea by a few people two years ago has turned into a vibrant and rapidly evolving global network of changemakers and prototyping projects.

In addition to company-city- and country-specific projects and programs, ELIAS fellows have developed a global ecology of prototyping initiatives and an alumni network of high-potential leaders in some of the most innovative institutions in business, government, and the NGO sector.

Together, this global network hopes to use a web of activities develop the capacity to respond to some of the key challenges of our time in truly innovative ways (Field 4 responses).

Other outcomes of participation in the ELIAS program include:

1. Prototypes of cross-sector innovation that address that shared challenges of

• creating value for the triple bottom line—the environment, society, and the

• economy—with the ultimate goal of advancing global sustainability

• A steadily growing network of leaders from the public, private, and civic sectors

• that will enhance and accelerate the benefits to individual members

• Information and ideas for innovative solutions to individual members’

• challenges

• An enhanced capacity among leaders to deal with the complexity of    

globalization

• and sustainable development through practical innovations.

We, at MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS offer curated courses and consulting services on Theory U and Leadership from the Emerging Future from the commitment to alter the consciousness with which organizations, society and leadership operate.

One of our Leadership and Change Management workshops offered for senior leadership teams and entrepreneurs globally is *Leadership from the Emerging Future* a 3 month video conference based workshop series. We have had participation from 28 industries and 8 countries till now.

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Our Cohort 12 starts from 24th February 2020.

For more information contact manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; 91-9106456275

Why Leadership Education needs to change?

To bring different results on the planet, we need different leadership. Actually we need a different leadership paradigm.

Shifting from Past based to based on sensing and actualizing the higher future possibilities.

Shifting from EGO to ECO. From thinking of some people, some interest groups to thinking of one and all – holistic, all inclusive.

Shifting from the economy of ignorance, hate and fear to economy of curiosity, compassion and courage.

Shifting from leadership as an individual phenomenon to leadership as a collective capacity to sense and actualize the higher future possibility. The world of co-creation.

We would like to discuss further with various stakeholders in the area of leadership and management development in institutions and organizations world wide.

Thanks Manoj Onkar Email: manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Creating 21st Century University – Transforming Higher Education, Management & Leadership Development

• Why higher education needs to change?
• Education needs to prepare people aware of the current world challenges and be able to bring new perspectives to address the current world.
• Also education needs to help people develop themselves for sensing the future and actualizing the highest future possibility.

Current Reality

What are the key points for transforming education?

1. Build Vertical Literacy
2. Learning as kindling of the flame
3. Action Learning: Shift the outer place of Learning. Learning by doing.
4. Whole Person Learning: Shift the inner place of Learning.
5. Ecosystem Leadership: Building Capacity from me to we
6. Self Knowledge – Know Thyself
7. Systems Thinking – Make the system see itself
8. Social Arts and Aesthetics – Make the system sense itself
9. Science 2.0: Observe the Observer (Self)
10. Tech 2.0: Create awareness based social technologies
11. Democratize – Build infrastructure for deep learning @ Scale
12. Third and Fourth Teacher : Place and Social Fields

Leadership and Change Management with Theory U @ HP

HEWLETT PACKARD

As part of the work done by Dr. Otto Scharmer and team, among many global organizations, HP has applied Theory U in change efforts within its digital photography business portfolio, focusing on improving the customer experience and cross-category business strategies.

In 2005, HP launched an effort to improve the value of its digital photography products and services by designing compelling customer experiences across its broad portfolio.

Although originally designed to focus on customer experiences, interviews with executives revealed that delivering satisfying customer experiences would require substantial cross-category and cross-value chain strategy development and
alignment.

 A more holistic change effort was then developed and launched, consisting of four tracks:

(1) an Executive Leadership track to address executive learning and leadership, including management of portfolio objectives and leading interdependent cross-business programs;

(2) an Experience Design Operating Model to address governance, decision-making, collaboration, and lifecycle processes;

(3) an Experience Design track to develop the design capabilities and capacity required to meet business goals; and

(4) an Organizational Development track to grow the broader organizational culture in support of the previous three tracks.

In the Executive Leadership track, an initial workshop established a common ground perspective of the digital photography opportunities and challenges.

This workshop also established a learning agenda that served as the foundation for executive learning journeys.

Based on the initial positive results of the digital photography effort, HP is now pursuing a broader use of Theory U in change efforts in its Imaging and Printing Group.

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

******

We offer training and consulting interventions customized to organizational perspectives.

Our open workshops have been a great opportunity to get introduced to the power of Theory U and Leadership from the Emerging Future.

The video conference based workshops allow people to participate in this world class leadership and change management opportunity from anywhere in the world.

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

For more information contact Manoj Onkar – 9106456275; manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Leadership and Change Management with Theory U@ German Healthcare Network

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

Multi-stakeholder Innovation
TRANSFORMING A REGIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN GERMANY

In a rural area of approximately 300,000 inhabitants near Frankfurt, Germany, a network of physicians applied the U process in several ways, including in a patient-physician dialogue forum.

When negotiations between the physicians’ network and the insurance company stalled, the core group of physicians invited other physicians and their patients to a one-day meeting designed around the U process.

In preparation for the meeting, a group of students trained in dialogue interviews spoke with 130 patients and their physicians. Then they invited
all of the interviewees to a feedback session, which 100 of them attended.

During this event and afterward, the patients and physicians moved from politeness and debate to real dialogue and thinking together.

The initiatives formed or crystallized during this day had a profound impact on the region.

One group proposed a standard format for transferring information between hospitals and outside physicians and has since opened an office for the outside physicians at the largest hospital in the region. It is jointly run by the clinic and residential physicians and works to improve critical interface between the two.

The group also prototyped and then institutionalized a new program that provides better emergency care for patients, incorporates cross-institutional cooperation, and costs less.

As a result, factor 4 cost savings have been realized, and patient complaints in that region have decreased to almost zero.

*****

We offer curated courses on leadership and change management for corporates, government and not for profit organizations.

We also offer in person and video conference based live workshops.

Our next batch is scheduled to start in Feb. 2020 http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Leadership and Change Management with Theory U @ Royal Dutch Shell

ROYAL DUTCH  SHELL

Shell has applied some key elements of Theory U in change efforts at Shell EP Europe. In 2005 the organization was experiencing significant problems getting its new Plant Maintenance process to work.

One site, a gas plant in the Netherlands, with about 60 staff members, was selected to be the pilot site for diagnosing what was going on.

Interviews with Shell staff revealed that the problems in the organization,
while being attributed to new SAP software, were more likely symptoms of the way people were working together.
The rich material gained from the interviews allowed a team of internal consultants to develop a number of “what’s in it for me?” propositions as a way of tapping into people’s feelings. The propositions, in the form of cartoons, were used in two small focus groups of six or seven people to help Shell staff visualize a different future.

In the focus group dialogues, Shell employees were able to express some of their deeper feelings about working at the plant and about SAP. They expressed a desire for less conflict during the workday, and they welcomed ideas for a new approach to organizational effectiveness.

Instead of seeking any specific business targets, the team sought to create a better environment for learning, innovation, and change. The results of that approach proved to be powerful and sustainable.

Says Jurry Swart of Shell: “After a couple of months we saw the output KPI’s [key performance indicators] of the process improving.

Furthermore, we saw a cultural change in the whole organization, from being negative and skeptical to one of inquiry and keenness to move forward. A survey of the Shell participants revealed greater motivation and reduced frustration at the gas plant site.”

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12 – Our Curated Course for Leaders and Entrepreneurs

Leading in the Changing Economic Context

While management is about “Getting things done’, Leadership is about creating and cultivating the larger context – the fertile common ground and soil in which things can happen.

Initially, business leaders embraced a directive approach i.e. command and control. Leaders setting the agenda and objectives designed to mobilize and guide the whole company.

In the complex environment, that doesn’t work too well – How can you command and control when the most important goals, objectives, issues and opportunities are not known up front but tend to emerge over time?

As a response to the above challenge, leaders started to balance setting goals and direction while increasing people participation across the organization.

Now we are in the third phase.

Blank Canvas

This phase is concerned with creating the conditions that inspire people, teams and networks to operate from a ‘different place’. In this era, organizations can achieve peak performance by creating conditions that all them to unleash the power of their people – not leading them, not managing them, but by co-inspiring them.

For high performance organizations to evolve, leaders have to extend their focus of attention from processes to using the “blank canvas” dimensions of leadership.

They must help people access their sources of inspiration, intuition and imagination. Like an artist standing in front of the blank canvas, leaders must develop a capacity to shift their organization so that its members can sense and articulate emerging futures, both individually and collectively.

The Changing  Economic Context
	Goods	Services	Innovation
Focus of Value Creation	Make standardised products	Deliver customized services	Stage and co-create personalized experiences
Customer as	Target for Mass Marketing	Target for Mass Customization	Partner for Co-Creation
Economics	Economies of Scale	Economies of Scope	Economies of Presencing
Organizational Model	Functional,	Divisional,	Networked,
	Single Sphere: Mass Production	Two Spheres: Production, Customer Interface	Three Spheres: Production, Customer Interface, Innovation
Location of Entrepreneurial Impulse	Centre of one’s own organization (Product Focus)	Periphery of one’s own organization (Customer focus)	Surrounding sphere of one’s own organization (co-creation focus)
Relationship Logic with Customers	PUSH ( Product driven)	PULL ( Service driven)	PRESENCE (Co-creation driven)
Managerial Mindset	The world is as it is.                      Self = Onlooker	The world evolves as people interact. Self = Participant	The world arises as we choose to attend. Self = Source of Co-creation

Above table from the book Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer point that, today, most organizations are not one, but three. Three spheres are Production, Customer Interface and Innovation.

And each of their 3 spheres functions according to a different set of principles.

In Production, the primary principle is Economies of Scale.

In Customer Interface, the primary principle is Economies of Scope.

For Innovation, it is Economies of Presencing; that is, the capacity to sense and shape emerging future possibilities.

To see these patterns accurately, one must look beyond a single organization and begin to see larger economic contexts in which companies co-evolve.

As companies evolve into this next stage, they begin to see the increased need to develop their presence based relational skills.

In order to deal with with disruptive stakeholder situations, managers must be able to tap into their inner sources of creativity and operate from the ECO context – not just individually but as part of a larger organizational field.

They must learn to function within emerging complexity.

The above articles in an excerpt from the book Theory U.

We offer organizations workshops and consulting interventions to help them transform their leadership and build organizations ready to thrive in the VUCA world.

Our introductory workshop both online and in-person can kick start the journey for the organizational leadership team.

Check out: http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12 – information about our batch starting from Feb. 2020. Thanks Manoj:manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Special Workshop for Entrepreneurs and Leaders : Leadership & Change Management

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Ignorance -> Hate -> Fear

The mass hysteria of CAA, Brexit, Trump and a World of Absencing/De-sensing …

Absencing by Dr. Otto Scharmer

Also visible in Organizations, Communities and families.

Everyone speaking – no one really listening. Deep Listening.

Stuck in the absencing shown above and in inverted U below, instead of the bottom U of Presencing

Presencing (Creation) Vs Absencing (Destruction) by Dr. Otto Scharmer

Economies of Destruction: Social Pathology

We are stuck in downloading. Downloading is when instead of seeing what is happening out in the world, really, we are listening to our default world of opinions and judgements. Ofcourse, when we are listening to the our opinions and judgements, we will ongoingly reinforce our opinions and judgement.

That leads to Blinding. Getting stuck in One Truth and One View. And ofcourse, each one of us is 100% clear that our Truth and our View is the only valid Truth/ View.

The next phase is Denial of validity of everyone else which ultimately leads to labelling and De-Sensing. That is the phase of groupism. US vs THEM. And ofcourse the US is always right and the THEM is always wrong.

The continual Blinding, Denial and De-Sensing leads to Getting Stuck in One Will (My/Our Will) and begin to manipulate, abuse and destory every other possibility.

This is the cycle of IGNORANCE –-> HATE –> FEAR.

But there is a way out.

Social Presencing:

Human Beings have the ability, less used ability, but, there nevertheless of causing a new paradigm, a new reality.

It begins with LISTENING. Deep Listening.

Noticing our Voice of opinions and judgements, suspending them and listening for facts. Seeing the world – what is really happening instead of what we strongly believe is happening.

Instead of de-sensing, we stepping out of our world view for a moment, and seeing the world from other’s perspective. Redirecting our Cynicism and Opening our Heart to seeing the world from other’s eyes.

And most importantly, noticing our Voice of Fear and seeing how it gets us stuck in the past and fixed ways of being. Letting go of the past and allowing new futures to emerge.

This is the new kind of leadership required in the Chaos of the current times. In society and in organizations.

This is the kind of leaderships that we all, not some, all of us, are called upon to provide.

Open Mind (Curiosity) —> Open Heart (Compassion) —> Open Will ( Courage)

The future of humanity depends on it.

Manoj Onkar

manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Management Salt: 3 Cs of Creating an Innovation Culture

3 Critical Components of an Innovation Culture are:

Curiosity

Compassion

and

Courage.

Curiosity:

Curiosity is the primary driver for learning, exploring, asking, observing, seeking and experimenting.

Curiosity allows us to suspend our opinions and judgements, and stuckness to the past and opens the possibility of finding out new facts, new paradigms, new data points and through all of them new worlds or parts of the world we didn’t know exist.

Compassion:

Compassion allows the space of empathy, deep connection with people, seeing the world from other’s eyes.

Innovation is difference making, when it is done enriched by the viewing the situation, challenges and opportunities from the view of the users, customers and stakeholders.

Courage:

Courage facilitates a new relationship with fear and failure, which is critical for the space of innovation. Courage to try out the new,take some risk, experiment, fail, learn and try again many times over.

Curiosity, Compassion and Courage in the teams will allow learning, collaboration and co-creation as the stepping stones for innovation and innovation culture.

Manoj Onkar

manoj@managementinnovation.co.in

Management Salt: Change Management Basics

“If you want to learn about an organization, try to change it.” ~ Kurt Lewin

Any system or part of the system that you want to change – you can explore the system at 4 levels.

Level 1: Visible Level: Symptoms, Results, Effects

This is the level which is easily visible and many a times our change efforts get focussed on the visible parameters only.

They are important as part of the dashboard, but that is not the source issue and hence all the efforts here are likely to give limited impact or short term impact and the issue showing up again in some other format.

Definitely an opportunity to cause a breakthrough by addressing the underlying issues gets missed out.

Level 2: Partially Visible Level: Behaviours

Behaviours of the various players in the system are directly or indirectly causing the results which one is trying to change.

Understanding the behaviours and bringing the required change in the behaviours would help in producing much better impact.

People can be trained to act differently and that will lead to change in the results.

Level 3: InVisible Level: Thinking Patterns of Individuals and Organizations

Going deeper in the iceberg model, one discovers that the behaviours that one is trying to change are rooted in the thinking patterns and models of the people concerned.

Unearthing the thinking patterns and models, deep rooted assumptions, taken for granted realities, allows one to question the current paradigms and explore other ways to look at the issues.

Thus getting unstuck with the habitual and systemic thinking patterns, allows for new dimensions to open up, leading to a natural shift in the behaviours resulting in the proportional shift in the results and outcomes.

Level 4: InVisible Level: Internal State of the Leaders and People Concerned

At the deepest level, one discovers the fundamental blindspot.

The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor... Bill O’Brien

Beyond the behaviours and the thinking process, is the internal state of the people that is at the source of the outcomes. This internal state is function of the Quality of Intention and Quality of Attention.

Intention is not the most powerful force, it is the only force.” (W. Brian Arthur)

Is the intention an Ego intention or an Eco intention? Is it for the benefit of one or small group of people OR is it for the greater good.

When you have an ECO Intention, universe supports you.

When you put your Attention on this Eco Intention, then your thoughts, actions and behaviours start aligning to the intention. You start getting like minded people into the game. And the change management process starts moving with a life and power of its own spirit.

What are the systems or part of the systems that you are trying to change?

Is your focus on the Results and Outcomes level, or are you digging deeper at the behavioural dimension? You can also go towards the source by looking at the thinking patterns and models of people concerned. And you may hit the jackpot by connecting to the bigger intention and supporting everyone to have their attention on their bigger intention.

The above writeup is based on our understanding and experience while bringing the principles of Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer to the various challenges that we see with our client organizations.

For more information and guidance, you may reach out to manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Management Salt: What is the problem with Visioning Process and how do you deal with it?

There are 2 key elements in a Visioning Process.

The first point is Whose Vision is it?

Is it a Vision or a flaky statement of desire? If it is a Vision, is it an EGO Vision or an ECO Vision? i.e. is it about some small group of people or is it about all the stakeholders including the marginal ones. Is it connected to people’s logic OR is it also connecting to their heart? How many people in the organization are inspired and given by the Vision? How many people have co-created that Vision and have a sense of authorship and ownership of that Vision?

The second point is Is that Vision in alignment with the Future that wants to emerge?

Mostly Vision’s are about What a group of people want to will into existence. If it is not in sync with the Future that wants to emerge, the universe is not going to support the fulfillment of such a Vision.

Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

How do you address the 2 challenges in the Visioning Process?

1. When the leadership team listens deeply to all the stakeholders and sees the world from their eyes, then they can develop the ability to sense what is needed and wanted.
2. When the organization as a collective is listening deeply to all the stakeholders, then they can develop the capability to sense the future that wants to emerge
3. When the culture of the organization is of authentic collaboration and co-creation within and outside the organization then one can sense the future that wants to emerge and also the appropriate pathway for the same.

Blindspots and Barriers to being aware of and transform are:

1. Listening: Everyone thinks that we are great listeners, but most people don’t experience that they have been listened to and their world is gotten by others.
2. Open Mind: Most of us have an open mind, open enough to fit things that we understand and agree upon.
3. Open Heart: Most of us have an open heart, for people who think like us OR think in the way we want them to think.
4. Open Will: Yes, we are open for new possibilities, new ideas, new actions till the time we are comfortable with them.

Hope you got the joke…

What can we do?

1. It might be helpful if we can train ourselves to be authentically curious, curious enough to be able to suspend our opinions and judgements.
2. May be develop some compassion, for people who don’t see the world the way we do.
3. May be, also, let go of the past, stop holding the past, such that there is space for some new futures to emerge.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to contact: Manoj Onkar manoj@managementinnovations.co.in for any clarification on the above OR any Organizational Development and Leadership Transformation Challenge.

Management Salt: Giving and Receiving Feedback

Transforming the Culture through each supervisor and manager.

GIVING AND RECEIVING FEEDBACK

Some Points:

1. CONTEXT: Giving and Receiving feedback is one of the most important aspects of individual and organizational development.
2. INTENTION: Giving and Receiving feedback should accomplish the following:
   1. Help the Individual improve their knowledge, skill, attitude and grow as a professional
   1. Improve the performance in expected as well as better than expected manner
   1. Strengthen the relationship between the Individual, the feedback giver and the company
   1. Help the feedback giver discover new paradigms and grow as a professional
   1. Help the company grow by improved performance, improved products and services and improved teamwork, innovation and culture

• Types of Feedback: Transactional Feedback Vs Transformational Feedback

• Key Principles:
  •  Iceberg Model: What you say is 10% Everything else is 90%
  • Receiving and Giving Feedback is not about what you say? It is not about How you Say? It is much more than that? What could it be about?
  • Transformational Feedback is a difference making conversation that contributes to the giver, receiver and the organization.
  • Transformational Feedback needs a state change in the consciousness with which the individuals and the organizations operate.

• What are the various factors affecting this conversation?
  • From Feedback Giver Perspective
  • From Feedback Receiver Perspective
  • From Situation Perspective

• Laws for Giving and Receiving Feedback
  • No one should give feedback or receive feedback without deep appreciation for the other person and the work area that is being discussed.
  • It is not a feedback session if it is not leaving everyone empowered and enabled

• Principles for Giving and Receiving Feedback
  • Giving Feedback and Receiving Feedback is a transformational conversation and hence is a ‘Leadership’ role.
  •  Blindspot of Leadership: Success of the Intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor. i.e. The success of the feedback conversation is dependent on your interior condition.
  • Interior Condition is constituted of 1. Intention 2. Attention and 3. Presence
  • You can choose to operate from Being the leader/Intervenor every time you give or receive the feedback.

• Interior Condition:
  • INTENTION:
    • There are 2 kinds of intentions. EGO Intentions and ECO Intentions.
    • Ego intentions are given by concern for self or small group of people. E.g: Proving Oneself, Defending Oneself, Protecting something etc.,
    • Eco intentions are holistic in nature and include the benefit of all stakeholders

• ATTENTION:

One can either have the attention on their ECO Intention or be distracted by all the concerns, worries and considerations. The Quality of Attention on the Intention is the differentiating factor between good intentions and good impact.

• PRESENCE:

The level of mindfulness that we operate with is the level at which we are really present – present to people, to the situation, to ourselves and are able to sense the said, the unsaid and the emerging possibility.

• How does one develop oneself to be effective in giving and receiving feedback? To be covered in another writeup.

For more information on trainings and interventions that transform the consciousness of the organization and its people, contact: Manoj Onkar: manoj@managementinnovations.co.in 91-9106456275

Inspired by Theory U – by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Let go the past; Let come the future

MANAGEMENT SALT : How much management is good?

How much management is good?

The guiding principle is: The amount of management required in an organization is inversely proportional to the quality of its people and the quality of alignment among its people.

If your people are a highly competent team of self- generating leaders sourced by the common INTENTION (Purpose), the level of management required is minimum e.g. Salt in cooking.

If you compromise on the competency or alignment of your team, then you have to compensate by excessive management and that leads to a host of impact that an evolved leader or organization doesn’t want to see.

The more management you have – the less leadership you have in your organization. Leaders need minimum management.

How do you create an organization of self- generating competent leaders aligned to the INTENTION of the organization is the key question for the CEO and the top leadership team.

If you do the job of getting the right people – competent people, who have also mastered deep listening and sensing and invest in generating a common PURPOSE – raison d’etre for your organization and the team – you don’t need to do excessive management.

What do you think?

For more information on how you can create an organizational culture of more leadership and initiative from people and reduce the need for too much supervision and management, contact: Manoj Onkar – 91-9106456275; manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

This write up is inspired by Theory U by MIT Porf. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Sales Leadership: Co-Creation

“The success of the intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor” – Bill O’Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance

The success of a customer relationship depends on the interior condition of the seller.

The interior condition meaning the quality of intention and the quality of attention and Presence.

Is it an EGO Intention? e.g. Getting a Sale, Meeting my target, Convincing the Customer, Buying peace with my boss etc.,

OR

Is it an ECO Intention? Creating something useful for the customer and their people, or the customer and their customers etc.,

What is the quality of Attention?

How much is the attention on the intention and how much is on the distractions.

What is Presence?

Presence is a word made up of 2 words: Present and Sense

It requires deep listening not only to what the customer is saying, but being grounded in the world of customer and learning how to co-create with the customer a future that didn’t exist before.

For more information on Sales Leadership, Contact: Manoj Onkar, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in 91-9106456275.

This write up is based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer.

Why Teamwork doesn’t work and how to make it work

Everyone talks about teamwork. But does it really work?

What do you do when you have wrong people on the team? Or People who really don’t know how to work on the team?

What does it take to really make Teamwork Work?

Consider the real issue is *What are you constituted as?*

You can either BE an INDIVIDUAL or BE a TEAM – not both. In the moment, you are being an individual- you are not being a team and in the moment you are being the team – the individual doesn’t exist.

What does it mean to be constituted as a TEAM?

Moment by moment giving up the ego of being an INDIVIDUAL. The boundary of our thinking has to move from that of an Individual to the Team.

EVOLVED TEAM:

An evolved team, is not about the team but about the PURPOSE – raison d’etre of the team.

TIPS:

1. Know that you have an EGO as an Individual.
2. Know that you are by default married to your EGO as an Individual.
3. Your commitment to BEING the TEAM has to win everytime over your default attachment to BEING the INDIVIDUAL
4. Having the right team helps – but at the level of EGO there is no right team. EGO will have an issue with anyone and everyone – sometime or the other.
5. Training your self and your team in the tools of A. DEEP LISTENING and B. FIELDS OF CONVERSATION – covered in earlier write ups will help.

Unless the team is trained in listening at Level 3 and Level 4 reliably – it is not going to discover it’s real power as a team.

Every team meeting that is done at the field 3 and field 4 i.e. Dialogue: Reflective Inquiry and Presencing: Generative flow will go beyond the traditional understanding of the team and the kind of work that the team is able to fulfill.

For more information on transforming team work, collaboration and co-creation in your organization, you may contact: Manoj Onkar 91-9106456275. 91-8767636060 manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

The Future of Leadership

Dear Entrepreneurs, Leaders and Change Makers,

Pleased to share the 11th batch of Leadership from the Emerging Future http://bit.ly/LFEF-Cohort11
The future of the organizations and the society depends on transforming the consciousness with which people, organizations and society operate.
This unique workshop series is designed for developing new kind of leaders. Leaders who are deeply connected to people, sourcefully connected to their Real Self and are co-creating the fulfillment of their Vision.
3 month video conference based workshop series with high interactive sessions and coaching allow a breakthrough in one’s world view as a leader.
Starting from 25th Nov.10 Sessions. Monday evenings: 7.30 pm – 10.00 pm India time.http://bit.ly/LFEF-Cohort11

Contact: Manoj Onkar, MANAGMENT INNOVATIONSGlobal Transformation Champions Group 91-9106456275, 8767636060 manoj@managementinnovations.co.in
P.S.: You may share this information with others who may be interested.

Education 4.0: From Student-Centric to Activating Deeper Sources of Learning

In education and learning we have seen a very similar shift, the journey from:

OS 1.0: Input – Centric operations, revolving around traditional teaching and teachers, to

OS 2.0: Output – Centric, revolving around standardized curricula and teaching for testing, to

OS 3.0: Learner – Centric, which puts the experience of the student at the center of reshaping learning environments, to

OS 4.0: Connecting learners with the sources of creativity and the deepest essence of our humanity, while teaching them to co-sense emerging future possibilities and bring them to fruition.

The most innovative schools are experimenting with Education 4.0

This write up is based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

The Matrix of Economic Transformation: 7 Acupuncture Points that address the challenges of our current Economic Thought

These are 7 acupuncture points for Economic Transformation:

The three classical production factors:

1. Nature
2. Labour
3. Capital

The modern production functions:

4. Technology                                                                                                            5. Management

The user side of the equation:

6. Consumption                                                                                                        7. Governance

In all the seven areas there are problem symptoms that call for reframing the deeper core issue. And for each one there are practical leverage points for transforming the curent ego-centric system into one that is eco-centric.

NATURE: From Resource to Eco-System

The central challenge of our existing economic system is that it is based on the objective of infinite growth in a world of finite resources. Instead of treating nature’s gifts as commodities that we buy,use and throw away, we must treat the natural world as a circular ecology that we need to cultivate and co-evolve with.

Leverage points for shifting the system in this directions include:

• • A circular economy with cradle – to – cradle design principles.
  • Eco-system restoration with circular agriculture that cultivates the soil.

Labour: From Doing a Job to doing Your Own Thing

By 2050, it is estimated that roughly 40% of the current jobs will be replaced by automation.

Instead of thinking of labour as a ‘job’ that we perform to earn money, we must reinvent work and treat it as a creative act that allows us to realize our highest potential.

Leverage points for shifting the future of work to a more interpersonal and cultural- creative realm include:

• • Universal basic income for all
  • Free access to Education 4.0 that activates one’s highest future potential

Money: From Extractive to Intentional

We are all aware of the unprecedented accumulation of money on a global level.

The challenge here is to redirect the flow of financial capital into the real economy and renew the societal commons.

Today we have too much money in one place – speculative, extractive money – and too little money in another – intentional money that contributes to the regeneration of our ecological, social and cultural commons.

Leverage points for redesigning the flow of money include:

• • Circular currencies, for replacing extractive money
  • Tax System Reforms, for taxing resources instead of labour

Technology: From Creativity-Reducing to Creativity-Enhancing

How can technology empower people to be makers and creators of their worlds and systems rather than being manipulated by tech companies like Facebook and Google?

Both Facebook and Google started as idealistic student enterprises with the idea of making the world a better place. And in many ways they did. But as they grew, they also abandoned their original stance against advertising in order to satisfy their investors’ desires to maximize their gain.

Other serious complaints against tech companies are also pouring in.

Leverage points for new co-creative  social technologies include:

• • Tools that allow individuals and communities to visualize the social-ecological footprint of their consumption choices at the point of purchase.
  • Technology enabled tools that let individuals and communities see themselves through the mirror of the whole.

 Management and Leadership:

We collectively create results that nobody wants (i.e. destruction of nature, society and our humanity).

The challenge here is to counteract massive leadership failure across institutions and sectors.

Instead of pandering to super-egos, we need to strengthen leaders’ capacity to co-sense and co-shape the future on the level of the whole eco-system.

Leverage points for moving in this direction include:

• • Infrastructures for co-sensing seeing the system from the edges(walking in the shoes of the most marginalized members) and from the whole. e.g. Dialogue and SPT
  • Large Scale Capacity Building Mechanisms that support ego-to-eco shifts. e.g. U Lab

CONSUMPTION:

The challenge here is to develop well being for all. Today more output, more consumption, and more GDP does not translate into more well being and happiness.

Rather than promoting consumerism and metrics like gross domestic product, we must implement sharing-economy practices and measurements of well-being such as gross national happiness (GNH) or the genuine progress indicator (GPI). Leverage points in this domain include:

• • Well-being-economy practices and new economic indicators
  • Participatory budgeting

GOVERNANCE:

The challenge here is to close the disconnect between decision making in complex systems and the lived experiences of people affected by those decisions.

Reinventing governance means complementing the three classic coordination mechanisms that we are familiar with (the visible hand of hierarchy, the invisible hand of the markets, and the multi-centric coordination among organized interest groups) with a fourth mechanism: acting form shared awareness of the whole.

Leverage points in this domain include:

• • Infrastructures that make it possible for the system to sense and see itself in order to catalyze awareness-based collective action (ABC)
  • Commons-based ownership rights that protect the rights of future generations ( in addition to private and public property rights)

Each leverage point addresses what Polanyi articulated as the commodity fiction of nature, labour and money but from a different angle.

To summarize:

By looking at the economy through the Theory U lens, we can identify ways to upgrade the operating system along all seven acupuncture points.

This write up is based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Nature is not a Commodity, nor are People.

In his 1944 book ‘The Great Transformation’, political economist Karl Polanyi describes Capitalism as a commodity fiction.

Capitalism, or the market society, is constructed on the foundation of a fiction – namely that nature, labour and money are commodities;they are produced for the marketplace, for consumption.

But Nature is not a commodity. It is not produced by us for market consumption.

Neither are human being(who provide labour). Not even money.

But in the market system, all these three are treated as commodities.

The result is a phenomenal growth, but also massive externalities in the form of environmental destruction, poverty and cyclical monetary breakdowns.

 

24 Principles of Large Scale Leadership and Change Management Interventions

The method of U(Theory U by MIT Prof.Dr. Otto Scharmer) is summarized in 24 Principles.

1. Listen to What Life Calls You to Do: The essence of the U Process is to strengthen our ability to be present and consciously co-create.
2. Listen and Dialogue with Interesting Players on the Edges: The second domain of listening takes you out of your familiar world and to the edges and corners of the system.
3. Clarify Intention and Core Questions: Do not rush the first step of clarifying the intention and core questions that guide the inquiry. The quality of the creative design process is a function of the quality of the problem statement that defines your starting point.
4. Convene a Diverse Core Group around a Shared Intention: Convene a constellation of players that need one another to take action and to move forward. This is not about getting people to ‘buy-in’ but looking for people with shared intention. The quality of impact of your initiative depends on the quality of the shared intention by the Core Team.
5. Build the Container (Holding Space for the future to Emerge): The quality of that shared intention largely depends on the quality of the container, the holding space that shapes and cultivates the web of relationships. The most important leverage point for building a high-impact container is right at the beginning, when you set the tone, when you evoke and activate the field. Container building includes outer and inner conditions, the most important of which is collective listening to the different voices and to the whole.
6. Build a Highly Committed Core Team: To create focus and commitment, clarify: What: What you want to create; Why: Why is matters; How – the process that will get you there; Who – The roles and responsibilities of all key players involved; When and Where – the road map ahead
7. Taking Learning Journeys to the Places of Most Potential: Learning journeys connect people to the contexts and ideas that are relevant to creating the possible future. The deep-dive journey moves one’s operating perspective from inside a familiar world – the institutional bubble – to an unfamiliar world outside that is surprising, fresh, disturbing, exciting and new.
8. Observe, Observe, Observe: Suspend Your Voice of Judgment and Connect with Your Sense of Wonder
9. Practice Deep Listening and Dialogue: Connect with Your Mind and Heart Wide Open
10. Collective Sense Making: Use Social Presencing Theater and Embodied Knowing
11. Circles: Charging the Container
12. Letting Go: The Presence of the Circle Being
13. Intentional Silence: Pick a Practice that helps you
14. Follow Your Journey: Do what You Love, Love What You Do
15. Letting Come: Presencing the Future Wanting to Emerge
16. The Power of Intention: Crystallize Your Vision and Intent
17. Form Core Groups: Five People Can Change the World
18. Create a Platform or Place: Innovation happens in places. In nature, before the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, it needs the shelter of the cocoon.
19. Build a 0.8 Prototype
20. Iterate, Iterate, Iterate: Always Be in Dialogue with the Universe
21. Seek it with your Hands: Integrate Head, Heart and Hand
22. Create Enabling Infrastructures That Allow the System to Sense and See Itself
23. Create Massive Capacity-Building Mechanisms
24. Labs and Platforms for Cultivating the Social Soil: The objective is to create a platform that helps this emerging global movement to become aware of itself.

Innovating from the Future – Part 4: Co-Creating: Crystallizing and Prototyping the New (Spirit of Design Thinking and Mindfulness)

The aim of co-creating is to build landing strips for the future through prototypes that allow us to explore the future by doing. The prototypes evolve based on the feedback they generate.

The ‘observe,observe,observe’ of the co-sensing phase becomes ‘iterate,iterate,iterate’.

This method is inspired by design thinking and blended with presencing principles to make it relevant to profound shifts in social fields.

Outcomes of Co-creating:

1. A set of refined prototypes – living microcosms of the future-that have generated meaningful feedback regarding the guiding questions and objectives of the lab.
2. A set of connections with stakeholders and partners that are relevant for taking the prototype to pilot and scale.
3. Enhanced leadership and innovation capacities for dealing with disruptive innovation.
4. A team spirit that could help change the leadership culture in the company
5. Creative confidence among the team members to take on big and complex projects.

PRINCIPLES:

1. The Power of Intention: Crystallize your Vision and Intent
2. Form Core Groups: Five People can change the World
3. Create a Platform or Place for Innovation
4. Build a 0.8 Prototype (Work in Progress Models)
5. Iterate, Iterate, Iterate: Always be in Dialogue with the Universe
6. Seek it with your Hands: Integrate the intelligence of the Head, Heart and Hand

7 Rs of Prototyping

1. Is it Relevant? Does it matter to the stakeholders involved? Is it truly relevant individually, institutionally and socially?
2. Is it Revolutionary? Is it new? Is it transformative to the system?
3. Is it Rapid? Can you do it quickly? Can yo develop experiments right away with enough time to get feedback and adapt(and thus avoid analysis paralysis)?
4. Is it Rough? Can you do it on a small scale? Can you do it at the lowest possible resolution that allows for meaningful experimentation? Can you do it locally. to let the local context teach you how to get it right?
5. Is it Right? Can you see the whole in the microcosm that you are focused on? Does this idea allow you to put the spot light on the most critical variable?
6. Is it relationally effective? Does it leverage the strengths, competencies and resources of the existing networks and communities?
7. Is it replicable? Can you scale it? Any innovation in business or society hinges on it replicability and whether it can grow to scale.

Next write up: Co-Shaping: Grow Innovation Eco-Systems

This write up is based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Innovating from the Future – Part 3: Presencing

Presencing: Connecting to the highest future potential

After deeply immersing yourself in the contexts of most potential, the next movement focuses on connecting to your deeper source of knowing – the sources of creativity and Self.

Presencing, the blending of sensing and presence, means to operate from the sources of one’s highest future possibility in the now.

In many ways, presencing resembles co-sensing. Both involve shifting the inner place of operating from the head to the heart. The Key difference is that sensing shifts the place of perception to the current whole, while Presencing shifts the place of perception to the emerging future whole.

Presencing uses your higher self as a vehicle for embodying the future wants to emerge.

The fundamental 2 questions that one needs to answer (allow the answer to emerge) are:

1. Who is my SELF?
2. What is my WORK?

Outcomes of Presencing:

Whatever form the presencing movement takes, it should result in the following outcomes:

1. A set of prototyping initiatives
2. Core Teams for each prototype initiative
3. A 3D map of each prototype initiative: current reality, future state, leverage points
4. A list of key stakeholders for each prototype
5. An inspired energy in the team
6. A place and support infrastructure for the path forward
7. A list of potential additional team members that need to be onboarded (part-time)
8. Milestones for reviewing the progress and learning for each prototype
9. An emerging leadership narrative: the story of us, the story of self, and the story of now

Principles of Presencing:

1. Circles: Charging the Container (the holding space)
2. Letting Go: The Presence of the Circle Being
3. Intentional Silence: Pick a practice that helps you connect with your Source.
4. Follow your Journey: Do what you love, love what you do
5. Letting Come: Presencing the Future Wanting to Emerge

Next write up: Co-Creation: Crystallizing and Prototyping the New

This write up is based on the Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Innovating from the Future – Part 2: Co-Sensing

Having initiated a common intention with a core group, the next step is to form a team to take a deep-dive innovation journey through the stages of co-sensing, presencing, prototyping and institutionalizing.

The Core group which often includes the executive sponsors and the team(execution team) tend to overlap. In small systems, the overlap could be 100 %. In larger systems, the over lap will be less.

The essence of co-sensing is getting out of one’s own bubble.

Our virtual bubbles(social media echo chambers), our institutional bubbles (organizational echo chambers), and our own affinity bubbles(the kind of people we like to hang out with) keep us in the world of downloading: same old, same old.

At its core, co-sensing is about immersing yourself in new contexts that matter to your situation and that are unfamiliar to you.

Outcomes of Co-Sensing:

Whatever you do in the co-sensing phase, make sure that you generate the following:

1. A revised set of driving forces that reshape the system at issue.
2. A revised set of core questions
3. A set of insights into opportunities related to each of them
4. A set of personal connections to those opportunities
5. A core team that is ‘Switched ON’ to sensing profound opportunities
6. A mapping of the systemic barriers that keep the system on its current track
7. An improved capacity for building generative stakeholder relationships

PRINCIPLES:

1. Building a Highly Committed Core Team
2. Take Learning Journeys to the Places of Most Potential
3. Observe, Observe, Observe: Suspend your voice of Judgment and Connect with Your Sense of Wonder.
4. Practice Deep Listening and Dialogue: Connect with Your Mind and Heart Wide Open
5. Collective Sense Making

Next Topic: Presencing

This write up is based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Innovating from the Future that wants to emerge – Part 1: Co-Initiating

Co-Initiating: Uncovering Shared Intention:

The starting point of the process is to build a container (a holding space) for a core group that is going through the process together.

This first stage lays the foundation for the later process and its impact. This first step of co-initiating focuses on uncovering common intention.

Listening is the Key.

• Listening to your own intention or to what life calls you to do (listening to oneself)
• Listening to your core partners in the field (listening to others)
• Listening to what you are called to do now (listening to what emerges)

Outcomes of Co-Initiating:

Whatever you do during the movement of co-initiation, make sure that by the end of that stage you have established the following:

1. A Shared intention of what you want to create
2. Critical questions you need to explore
3. A core group that guides the initiative
4. A core team to dive into the U process
5. Deep Listening and Conversation Practices
6. An effective support structure
7. Resources: People, Place, Budget
8. An initial set of driving forces to explore
9. An initial list of possible learning journeys.
10. An initial roadmap for the way forward.

Principles:

1. Listen to What Life Calls you to do.
2. Listen and Dialogue with Interesting Players on the Edges
3. Clarify Intention and Core Quesions
4. Convene a diverse core group around a shared intention
5. Build the Container (holding space)

Next writeup will be on Co-Sensing.

This write up is based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer.

Strategy Formulation Tools: MICHAEL PORTER Model for Industry Analysis

PORTERS MODEL FOR INDUSTRY ANALYSIS:

Perhaps the best known tool for formulating strategy is the model developed by Michael E. Porter, an internationally acclaimed strategic management expert.

Essentially, Porter’s model outlines the primary forces that determine competitiveness within an industry and illustrates how those forces are related.

The model suggests that in order to develop effective organizational strategies, managers must understand and react to those forces within an industry that determine an organization’s level of competitiveness within that industry.

According to these model, competitiveness within an industry is determined by the following factors:

1. New Entrants or New Companies within the Industry
2. Substitute Products or Services – for goods or services that the companies within the industry produce/provide.
3. Supplier’s Ability to control issues like costs of material/ inputs that industry companies use to manufacture their products or provide their services.
4. Competition level among the firms in the industry.

According to the model, buyers, product substitutes, supplier and potential new companies within an Industry all contribute to the level or rivalry among industry firms.

Strategy Formulation: BCG Growth-Share Matrix Model

BCG Growth-Share Matrix:

The Boston Consulting Group, a leading consulting firm, developed and popularized a portfoilo analysis tools that helps managers develop organizational strategy based on market share of businesses and the growth of markets in which businesses exist.

The 1st step in using this model is identifying the organization’s strategic business units (SBUs). A Strategic business Unit is a significant organization segment that is analysed to develop organizational strategy aimed at generating future business or revenue.

Exactly what constitutes as SBU varies from company to company. In bigger organizations, and SBU could be a company division, a single product or a complete Product Line.

In smaller organizations, it might be the entire company.

Eventhough they vary drastically in form each SBU has the following characteristics:

1. It is a single business or collection of related businesses.
2. It has its own competitors.
3. It has a manager who is accountable for its operation.
4. It is an area that can be independently planned for within the organization.

After identifying the SBUs, the next step is to categorize each SBU within one of the 4 Matrix Quadrants:

1. STARS – Star SBUs have a high share of a high growth market and typically need large amounts of cash to support their rapid and significant growth. Stars also generate large amounts of cash for the organization and are usually segments in which management can make additional investments and earn attractive returns.
2. CASH COWS: SBUs that are Cash Cows have a large share of a market that is growing only slightly. Naturally, these SBUs provide the organization with large amounts of Cash, but since their market is not growing significantly, the cash is generally used to meet the financial demands of the organization in other areas, such as the expansion of a STAR SBU.
3. QUESTION MARKS: These category of SBUs have a small share of a high growth market. These are “question marks” because it is uncertain whether management should invest more cash in them to gain a larger share of the market or deemphasize or eliminate them. Management will choose the 1st option when it believes it can turn the question mark into a star, and the 2nd option when it thinks that future investments would be fruitless.
4. DOGS : SBUs that are dogs have a relatively small share of a low-growth market. They may barely support themselves; in some cases, they actually drain off cash resources generated by other SBUs. These are the SBUs which are likely to be shortlisted for deemphasize or elimination.

PITFALLS of the BCG Growth Matrix Model:

The matrix does not consider factors like:

• Various types of Risk associated with product development
• Threats that inflation and other economic conditions can create in the future.
• Social,Political and Ecological Pressures.

A LEARNING ORGANIZATION

A LEARNING ORGANIZATION is an organization that does well in creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and in modifying behaviour to reflect the new knowledge.

Learning organizations emphasize systematic problem solving,experimenting with new ideas, learning form experience and past history, learning from the experience of others, and transferring knowledge rapidly throughout the organization.

According to Peter Senge, the 5 features of a learning organization are:

1.  SYSTEMS THINKING: Every organization member understands her own job and how the job fits together to provide final products to the customer.                                                        
2. SHARED VISION: All organization members have a common view of the purpose of the organization and a sincere commitment to accomplish the purpose.                                                       
3. CHALLENGING OF MENTAL MODELS: Organization members routinely challenge the way business is done and the thought processes people use to solve the organizational Problems.                 
4. TEAM LEARNING: Organization members work together, develop solutions to new problems together, and apply the solutions together. Working as teams rather than individuals will help organizations gather collective force to achieve organizational goals.                                                                                         
5. PERSONAL MASTERY: All organization members are committed to gaining a deep and rich understanding of their work. 

Consumer Decision Making & Relationship Marketing

The Consumer’s decision to purchase or not to purchase a product or service is an important moment for most marketers. It can signify whether a marketing strategy has been successful or not. Therefore, marketing people are interested in the consumer’s decision making process.

For a consumer to make a decision, more than one alternative must be available, including the alternative called making a decision to not buy or not buy now.

The various models of 

1. Consumers View
2. Passive View
3. Cognitive View
4. Emotional View

depict consumers and their decision making processes in distinctly different ways.

An overview consumer decision making model ties together the psychologist, social,and cultural concepts into easily understood network. This decision model has 3 sets of variables: input variables, process variables and output variables.

Input variables that affect the decision – making process include commercial marketing efforts, as well as non commercial influences from the customer’s sociocultural environment. The decision process variables are influenced by the consumer’s psychological field, including the evoked set or the brands in a particular product category considered in making a purchase choice.

The psychological field influences the consumer’s recognition of a need, pre purchase search for information and evaluation of alternatives.

The output phase of the model includes the actual purchase (either trial or repeat purchase) and post purchase evaluation. Both pre purchase and post purchase evaluation feeds back in the form of experience into the consumer’s psychological field and serves to influence future decision making process.

GIFTING:

The process of gift exchange is an important part of consumer behaviour. 

Various gift giving and gift receiving relationships are captured by the following 5 specific categories in the gifting classification scheme:

1. Intergroup gifting: A group gives a gift to another group.
2. Intercategory gifting: An individual gives a gift to a group or a group gives a gift to an individual.
3. Intragroup gifting: A group gives a gift to itself or its members.
4. InterPersonal gifting: An individual gives a gift to another individual
5. Intrapersonal gifting: A Self Gift.

Consumer behaviour is not must making a purchase, it also includes the full range of experiences associated with using products or services. It includes the sense of pleasure and satisfaction derived from possessing or collecting “things”. The outputs of consumption are the changes in feelings,moods, attitudes, reinforcement of lifestyles, an enhanced sense of self; satisfaction of a consumer related need; belonging to groups; and expressing and entertaining oneself.

Among other things, consuming includes the simple utility of using a Superior product, the stress reduction of a vacation, the sense of having a “sacred” possession, and the pleasures of a hobby or a collection. Some possessions serve to assist consumers in their effort to create a personal meaning and to maintain a sense of the past.

Relationship Marketing impacts consumer’s decisions and their consumption satisfaction. Firms establish loyalty programs to foster usage loyalty and a commitment to continued usage of their products and services.

Relationship marketing is all about buildign trust between the firm and its customers and keeping promises made to the customers. Therefore the focus is always on developing long term bonds with customers by making them fee special and by providing them with personalized services.

How is your relationship marketing doing?

MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS

managementinnovations2020@gmail.com; manojonkar@gmail.com, 919375970812

Consumer Behaviour, Consumer Influence and the Process of Diffusion

What is Opinion Leadership?

Opinion Leadership is the process by which the opinion leader informally influences the actions or attitudes of others, who may be opinion seekers or merely opinion recipients. Opinion receivers perceive the opinion leader as a highly credible, objective source of product information who can help reduce their search and analysis time and percieved risk.

Opinion leaders are motivated to give information or advice to others, in part doing so enhances their own status and self image and because such advice tends to reduce any post purchase dissonance that they may have.Other motives include product involvement, message involvement or any other involvement.

Market researchers identify opinion leaders by such methods as self designation, key informants, the sociometric method and the objective method.

Studies of opinion leadership indicate that this phenomenon tends to be product category specific, generally one of their interest. An opinion leader of one product range can be an opinion receiver for another product category.

Generally, opinion leaders are gregarious, self confident, innovative people who like to talk. Additionally, they may feel differentiated from others and choose to act differently (or public individuation).

They acquire information about their areas of interest through avid readership of special interest magazines and ezines and by means of new product trials.

Their interests may often overlap into adjacent areas and thus their opinion leadership may also extend into those areas.

Who is a market maven ?

The market maven is an intense case of a opinion leader kind of person. These consumers possess a wide range of information about many different types of products, retail outlets, and other dimensions of markets.

They both initiative discussions with other consumers and respond to requests for market information over a wide range of products and services. 

Market mavens are also distinguished from other opinion leaders because their influence stems not so much from product experience but from a more general knowledge or market expertise that leads them to an early awareness of a wide array of new products and services.

The opinion leadership process usually take place among friends, neighbours and work associates who have frequent physical proximity and thus have ample opportunity to hold informal product related conversations. These conversations usually occur naturally in the context of the product-category usage.

The two – step flow of communication theory highlights the role of interpersonal influence in the transmission of information from the mass media to the populations at large. This theory provides the foundation for a revised multi step flow of communication model, which takes into account the fact that information and influence often are 2 way processes and that the opinion leaders both influence and are influenced by opinion receivers.

It is important for the marketers to segment their audiences into opinion leaders and opinion receivers for their respective product categories. When marketers can direct their promotional efforts to the more influential segments of these markets, these opinion leaders will transmit the information to those who seek product advice.

Marketers try to simulate and stimulate opinion leadership. They have also found that they can create opinion leaders for their products by taking socially involved or influential people and deliberately increasing their enthusiasm for a product category.

The diffusion process and the adoption process are 2 closely related concepts concerned with the acceptance of new products by customers.

The diffusion process is a macro process that focuses on the spread of an innovation from its source to the consuming public.

The adoption process is a micro process that examines the stages through which an individual consumer passes when making a decision to accept or reject a new product.

The definition of the term innovation can be

1. Firm oriented(new to the firm),

2. Product oriented(a continuous innovation, a dynamically continuous innovation, or  A discontinuous innovation),

3. Market oriented(how long the product has been on the market or an arbitrary percentage of the potential target market that has purchased it), or

4. Consumer oriented (new to the customer).

Market-oriented definitions of innovation are most useful to consumer researchers in the study of the diffusion and adoption of new products.

Five Product Characteristics influence the consumers acceptance of a new product:

 

1. Relative Advantage
2. Compatibility
3. Complexity
4. Trialability
5. Observability

 

Diffusion researchers are concerned with 2 aspects of communication – the channels through which word about a new product or service is spread to the public and the types of messages that influence the adoption or rejection of new products or services.

Diffusion is always examined in the context of a specific social system, such as a target market, a community, a region or even a nation.

Time is an integral consideration in the diffusion process. Researchers are concerned with the amount of purchase time required for an individual customer to adopt or reject a new product/service, with the rate of adoptions and with the identification of sequential adopters.

The 5 adopter categories are innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.

Marketing Strategists try to control the rate of adoption through their new product pricing policies. Companies who wish to penetrate the market to achieve market leaderships try to acquire wide adoption as quickly as possible by using low prices. Those who wish to recoup their developmental costs quickly use a skimming pricing policy but lengthen the adoption process.

The traditional adoption process model describes 5 stages through which an individual consumer passes to arrive at the decision to adopt or reject a new product:

1. Awareness, 
2. Interest,
3. Evaluation
4. Trial
5. Adoption

To make it more realistic, an enhanced model is recommended as one that considers the possibility of a pre existing need or problem, the likelihood that some form of evaluation might occur through the entire process, and that even after adoption there will be post adoption or purchase evaluation that might either strengthen the commitment or alternatively lead to discontinuation of the product/service.

Companies marketing new products are vitally concerned with identifying the consumer innovator so that they may direct their promotional campaigns to the people who are most like to try new products, adopts them and influences others.

Consumer Research has identified a number of consumer related characteristics, including product interest, opinion leadership, personality factors, purchase and consumption traits, media habits, social characteristics, and demographic variables that distinguish consumer innovators from later adopters. These serve as useful variables in the segmentation of markets for new product introductions.

Who are the innovators and early adopters for your products and services? How have you planned your diffusion strategy for the current products and the new products?

MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS

managementinnovations2020@gmail.com; manojonkar@gmail.com; 919375970812

PRANTIJ KELVANI MANDAL – VISION, MISSION & VALUES

VISION MISSION WORKSHOP – facilitated by Shri Manoj Onkar,Management Innovations.

CORE VALUES :

1. SECULAR

2. HUMANE

3. OPENNESS

4. ACCOUNTABILITY

5. BEING SYSTEM ORIENTED

6. INNOVATIVE

PURPOSE

GROOMING CHILDREN

TO BE CITIZENS ROOTED IN ONE’S OWN CULTURE

• LIVING BY VALUES
• EMPOWERED TO FACE CHALLENGES OF LIFE

VISION

Our Institutes – Centers  Of Excellence.

Transforming Education into an Art that Educate the Whole Child.

Children Scaling heights in all Works of Life.

Developed & Empowered  ‘PRANTIJ’

Facilitated by MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS

managementinnovations2020@gmail.com

CHANGE & RELATED STRESS MANAGEMENT

CHANGE & STRESS

 

 

Whenever managers implement changes, they should be concerned about the stress they may be creating.

 

If the stress is significant enough, it may well cancel out the improvement that was anticipated from the change.

 

In fact, stress could result in the organization being less effective than it was before the change was attempted.

 

STRESS:

 

The bodily strain that an individual experiences as a result of coping wit some environmental factor is stress.

 

Hans Selye, an expert on this subject, said that Stress constitutes the factors affecting wear and tear on the body.

 

In organizations, this wear and tear is caused primarily by the body’s unconscious mobilization of energy when an individual is confronted with organizational or work demands.

 

Why Study Stress?

• Stress can have damaging psychological and physiological effects on employees’ health and on their contributions to organizational effectiveness. It can cause hear disease and it can prevent employees from concentrating or making decisions.

                                                                                                                                 

• Stress is a major cause of employee absenteeism and turnover. Certainly such factors severely limit the potential success of an organization.

 

• A stressed employee can affect the safety of other workers or even the public.

 

• Stress represents a very significant cost to organizations.

 

 

MANAGING STRESS IN ORGANIZATIONS:

 

Since stress is felt by all employees in the organizations, managers must do the following:

 

1. Understand how stress influences worker performance
2. Identify where unhealthy stress exists in organizations
3. Help Employees handle stress

 

Understand how Stress Influences Worker Performance:

To deal with stress among employees, managers must understand the relationship between the amount of stress felt by a worker and the impact on the worker’s performance.

 

Extremely high and extremely low levels of stress tend to have negative effects on production. While increasing stress tends to bolster performance up to some point, when the level of stress increases beyond that point, performance levels begin to deteriorate.

 

Certain amount of stress among employees is generally considered to be advantageous for the organization because it tends to increase productivity, however when the employees experience too much or too little stress, it is generally disadvantageous for the organization because it tends to decrease productivity.

 

 

SYMPTOMS OF UNHEALTHY STRESS IN ORGANIZATION:

 

Symptoms are as follows:

 

1.      Constant Fatigue

2.      Low Energy

3.      Moodiness

4.      Increased Aggression

5.      Excessive use of Alcohol

6.      Temper outbursts

7.      Compulsive Eating

8.      High Levels of Anxiety

9.      Chronic Worrying

 

A manager who observes one or more of these symptoms in employees should investigate to determine if those exhibiting the symptoms are indeed under too much stress. If so, the manager should try to help those employees handle their stress and/or should attempt to reduce stressors in the organization.

 

Helping Employees Handle Stress:

 

• Create an organization climate that is supportive of individuals.
• Make jobs interesting
• Decision and operate career counselling programs

Factors for Change Management

FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHANGING AN ORGANIZATION

 

The following factors should be considered whenever change is being contemplated:

 

1. The Change Agent
2. Determining What should be Changed
3. The kind of Change to Make
4. Individuals affected by the Change
5. Evaluation of the Change

 

THE CHANGE AGENT:

 

The change agent might be a self designated manager within the organization or an outside consultant hired because of a special expertise in a particular area.

 

This individual might be responsible for making very broad changes, like altering the culture of the whole organization; or more narrow ones, like designing and implementing a new safety program or a new quality program.

 

Special skills are necessary for success as a change agent. Among them are the ability to determine how a change should be made, the skill to solve change related problems, and facility in using behavioural science tools to influence people appropriately during the change process.

 

Perhaps the most overlooked skill of successful change agents, however, is the ability to determine how much change employees can withstand.

 

Managers should choose agents who have the most expertise in all these areas. A potentially beneficial change might not result in any advantages for the organization if a person without expertise in these areas is designated as a change agent.

 

 

DETERMINING WHAT SHOULD BE CHANGED:

 

Organizational effectiveness depends on 3 classes of factors:

1. People
2. Structure
3. Technology

 

People Factors are attitudes, leadership skills, communication skills, and all other characteristics of the human resources within the organization; Structural Factors are organizational controls, such as policies and procedures; and Technological Factors are any type of equipment or processes that assist organization members in the performance of their jobs.

 

For an organization to maximize its effectiveness, appropriate people must be matched with appropriate technology and appropriate structure.

 

 

THE KIND OF CHANGE TO MAKE:

Most changes can be categorized into one of the 3 kinds:

 

1. Technological
2. Structural
3. People

 

These 3 kinds of change correspond to the 3 main determinants of the organizational effectiveness – each change is named for the determinant it emphasizes.

 

STRUCTURAL CHANGE:

 

Structural change emphasizes increasing organizational effectiveness by changing controls that influence organization members during the performance of their jobs.

 

Structural change is aimed at increasing the organizational effectiveness through modifications to the existing organizational structure like:

 

1. Clarifying and Defining Jobs
2. Modifying Organizational Structure to fit the communication needs of the organization
3. Decentralizing the organization to reduce the cost of coordination, increase the controllability of subunits, increase motivation, and gain greater flexibility.

 

Although structural change must take account of people and technology to be successful, its primary focus is obviously on changing organization structure.

 

Managers choose to make structural changes within an organization if information they have gathered indicates that the present structure is the main cause of organizational ineffectiveness.

 

The precise structural changes they choose to make will vary from situation to situation, of course. After changes to organizational structure have been made, management should conduct periodic reviews to make sure the changes are accomplishing their intended purposes.

 

                        Matrix Organization:

 

Matrix Organizations is a traditional organization that is modified primarily for the purpose of completing some kind of special project.

 

Essentially, a matrix organization is one in which individuals from various functional departments are assigned to a project manager responsible for accomplishing some specific task.

 

The project itself may be either long term or short term, and the employees needed to complete it are borrowed from various organizational segments.

 

 

PEOPLE CHANGE:

 

Although successfully changing people factors necessarily involves some consideration of structure and technology, the primary emphasis is on people.

 

Organization Development (OD): People Change emphasizes increasing organizational effectiveness by changing certain aspects of organization members.

The focus of this kind of change is on such factors as employee’s attitudes and leadership skills.

The process of people change can be referred to as organization development (OD). Although OD focuses mainly on changing certain aspects of people, these changes are based on an overview of structure, technology, and all other organizational ingredients.

 

GRID OD:

 

One traditional used OD techniques for changing people in organizations is called Grid Organizational Development, or Grid OD.

 

The managerial grid, a basic model describing various managerial styles, is used as the foundation for grid OD. The managerial grid is based on the premise that various managerial styles can be described by means of two primary attitudes of the manager: concern for people and concern for production.

 

 

 

INDIVIDUAL AFFECTED BY THE CHANGE:

 

To increase the chances of employee support, one should be aware of the following factors:

 

1. The usual employee resistance to change
2. How this resistance can be reduced

 

Resistance to Change:

 

Resistance to change within an organization is as common as the need for change.

After managers decide to make some organizational change, they typically meet with employee resistance aimed at preventing that change from occurring.

 

Behind this resistance by organization members lies the fear of some personal loss, such as a reduction in personal prestige, a disturbance of established social and working relationships, and personal failure because of inability to carry out new job responsibilities.

 

Reducing Resistance to Change:

 

1.      Avoid Surprises

2.      Promote Real Understanding

3.      Set the Stage for Change

4.      Make tentative Change

 

 

EVALUATION OF THE CHANGE:

 

One must evaluate the change one makes. The purpose of this evaluation is not only to gain insight into how the change itself might be modified to further increase its organizational effectiveness, but to determine whether the steps taken to make the change should be modified to increase organizational effectiveness, next time around.

 

Evaluation of change often involves watching for symptoms that indicate that further change is necessary. But the decision to change must not be made only based on the symptoms. Additional Change is justified if it will accomplish any of the following goals:

 

1.      Further improve the means for satisfying someone’s economic wants

2.      Increase Profitability

3.      Promote human work for human beings

4.      Contribute to individual satisfaction and social well being.

CHANGE MANGEMENT BASICS

FUNDAMENTALS OF CHANGING AN ORGANIZATION

 

Changing an Organization is the process of modifying an existing organization to increase the overall organizational effectiveness.

 

These modifications can involve any organizational aspect, but typically it affects the lines of authority, the levels of responsibility held by various organization members, and the established lines of organizational communication.

 

IMPORTANCE OF CHANGE:

 

Most managers agree that if the organization is to thrive, it must change continually in response to significant developments in the environment, such as changing customer needs, technical breakthroughs, and new regulations.

 

Managers who can determine appropriate changes and then implement such changes successfully enable their organizations to be more flexible and innovative. Because change is such a fundamental part of the organizational existence, such managers are very valuable to organizations of all kinds.

 

Many managers consider change to be so critical to organizational success that they encourage employees to continually search for areas in which beneficial changes can be made.

 

CHANGE Vs. STABILITY:

 

Along with Change, some amount of stability is a prerequisite for long term organizational success.

 

The organization without enough stability to complement change is a definite challenge. When stability is low, the probability of organization survival and growth declines.

 

Change after Change without regard for the essential role of stability typically results in confusion and employee stress.

 

Performance Appraisals

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

 

Performance Appraisal is the process of reviewing individual’s past productive activity to evaluate the contribution they have made towards attaining the organization’s objectives.

 

Performance Appraisal is a continuous review that focuses on both established human resources within the organization and new comers.

 

Its main purpose is to furnish feedback to organization members about how they can become more productive and useful to the organization in its ambitions and growth plans.

 

Advantages of Appraisal Systems:

 

1. They provide systematic judgements to support salary increases, promotions, transfers, and sometimes even demotions & terminations.      

                                                                            

1. They are a means of telling subordinates how they are doing and of suggesting needed changes in behaviour, attitudes, skills or job knowledge; they let subordinates know where they stand with the boss.

 

 

1. They furnish a useful basis for the coaching and counselling of individuals by their seniors.

 

 Several Methods used for Performance Appraisals are:

 

• Rating Scale
• Employee Comparisons
• Free form Essay
• Critical form Essay

 

Guidelines for Handling Performance Appraisals:

 

• Performance Appraisals should stress both Performance in the Position the individual holds and the success with which the individual is attaining organizational objectives.

 

• Although conceptually separate, performance and objectives should be inseparable topics of discussion during performance appraisals.

 

 

• Appraisals should emphasize how well the individual is doing the job, not the evaluator’s impression of the individual’s work habits. The goal is an objective analysis of performance rather than a subjective evaluation of habits.

 

• Appraisals should be acceptable to both the appraiser and the appraisee, on the benefits for the individual as well as the organization.
• Performance appraisals should provide a base for improving individual’s productivity within the organization by making them better equipped to produce.

 

 

Pitfalls in Performance Appraisals:

 

1. Performance appraisals focus employees on short term rewards rather than on issues that are important to the long run success of the organization.
2. Individuals involved in the performance appraisal view them as reward- punishment situation.
3. The emphasis is wrongly placed on completing paper work, rather than really critiquing individual performance.
4. Individuals view the process as unfair or biased.
5. Subordinates react negatively when evaluators offer unfavourable comments.

Training – Need Analysis, Design, Deliver and Evaluat

TRAINING

 

After recruitment and selection, the next step in providing appropriate human resources to the organization is Training.

 

Training is the process of developing qualities in human resources that will enable them to be more productive and thus to contribute more to organizational goal attainment.

 

The purpose of training is to increase the productivity of employees by influencing their behaviour.

 

The training of individuals in an organization is essentially a 4 step process:

 

1. Determining the Training Needs
2. Designing the Training Program
3. Administering the Training Program
4. Evaluating the Training Program

 

DETERMINING THE TRAINING NEEDS:

 

The 1^st step of the training process is determining the organization’s training needs.

 

Training Needs are the information or skill areas of an individual or group that require further development to increase the productivity of that individual or group.

Only if the training focuses on these needs, it can be productive for the organization.

 

Training is a continuous activity. Even employees who have been with the organization for some time and who have undergone initial orientation and skills training need continued training to improve their skills.

 

            Determining the Needed Skills:

 

There are several methods of determining which skills to focus on with established human resources. One method calls for evaluating the production process within the organization. Factors like excessive rejections, missed deadlines, high labour costs are clues to deficiencies in the production related expertise. Similar activities for various departments can be carried out.

 

Another method for determining training needs includes getting direct feedback from employees on what they believe are the training needs of the organization. Organization members are often able to verbalize clearly and accurately exactly what types of training they require to do a better job.

 

A third way of determining training needs involves looking into the future. Future company plans and industry trends also provide inputs on likely training requirements.

 

 

DESIGNING OF THE TRAINING PROGRAM:

Designing a training program entails assembling various types of facts and activities designed to meet the identified training needs.

 

ADMINISTERING THE TRAINING PROGRAM:

 

Various techniques exist for both transmitting necessary information and developing needed skills in training programs like:

 

1. Lectures – for knowledge transfer
2. Programmed Learning – for knowledge transfer
3. On the Job Training  – for skill development
   1. Coaching
   2. Position rotation
   3. Special Project Teams

 

 

EVALUATING THE TRAINING PROGRAMS:

 

Training programs have various costs including materials, trainer time and production loss while employees are being trained rather than doing their jobs – a ROI  is essential.

 

Management should evaluate the training program to determine if it meets with the needs for which it is developed.

E.g.: Has the sales increased, Has the customer complaints reduced, Has production gone up etc.

HR : Selection, Testing and Assessment Centers

SELECTION

 

The 2^nd major step in providing human resource for the organization is SELECTION.

Selection is choosing an individual to hire from all those who have been recruited (short listed).

 

Selection is obviously dependent on the 1^st step which is recruitment.

Selection is a series of stages through which job applications must pass in order to be hired. Each stage reduces the total group of prospective employees until, finally, the required no. of individuals are hired.

 

Stages of the Selection Process:

 

1. Preliminary Screening from Records, Data Sheets etc.,
2. Preliminary Interview
3. Intelligence Tests
4. Aptitude Tests
5. Personality Tests
6. Performance References
7. Diagnostic Interview
8. Physical Examination
9. Personal Judgement

 

Two tools often used in the selection process are Testing and Assessment Centres.

 

TESTING:

 

Testing is examining human resources for qualities relevant to performing available jobs. 4 categories of testing include:

 

1. Aptitude Tests
2. Achievement Tests
3. Vocational Interest Tests
4. Personality Tests

 

Testing Guidelines:

 

• Care must be taken to ensure that the test being used in both valid and reliable.
• A test is valid if it measures what it is designed to measure and reliable if it measures similarly at all times.
• Test Results should not be used as the sole determinant of a hiring decision.
• People change over time, and someone who doesn’t score well on a particular test might still develop into a productive employee. Such factors as potential and desire to obtain a position should be assessed subjectively and used along with test scores in the final selection decision.
• Test should be non discriminatory.

 

ASSESSMENT CENTERS:

 

Assessment Centres are used both for the purpose of selection and also for continued training and development over time.

 

An assessment centre is a program (not a place) in which participants engage in a no. of individual and group exercises constructed to stimulate important activities at the organizational levels to which they aspire.

 

These exercises can include activities like Participating in groups, giving presentations, team work in problem solving. The participants are observed by mangers and/or trained observers who will evaluate both the ability and the potential.

 

Generally, participants are assessed according to the following criteria:

 

1. Leadership
2. Organizing and Planning Ability
3. Decision Making
4. Oral and Written Communication Skills
5. Initiative
6. Energy
7. Analytical Ability
8. Resistance to Stress
9. Use of Delegation
10. Behaviour Flexibility
11. Human Relations Competence
12. Originality
13. Controlling
14. Self Direction
15. Overall Potential

HR: Recruitment Basics

Appropriate Human Resource refers to individuals within the organization who make a valuable contribution to management system goal attainment. This contribution results from their productivity in the positions they hold.

 

Inappropriate Human Resource refers to organization members who do not make valuable contribution to the attainment of management system objectives.

For one reason or the other, they are ineffective in their jobs.

 

Productivity in all organizations is determined by how human resources interact and combine to use all other management system resources. Such factors as background, age, job related experience, and the level of formal education all play a role in determining how appropriate the individual is for the organization.

 

STEPS IN PROVIDING HUMAN RESOURCES:

 

To provide appropriate human resources to fill both managerial and non managerial openings, managers follow 4 sequential steps:

 

1. Recruitment
2. Selection
3. Training
4. Performance Appraisal

 

RECRUITMENT:

 

Recruitment is the initial attraction and screening of the supply of prospective human resources available to fill a position.

 

Its purpose is to narrow a large field of prospective employees to a relatively small group of individuals from which someone eventually will be hired.

 

To be effective, recruiters must know the following:

 

1. The Job they are trying to fill
2. Where Potential human resources can be located
3. How the law influences recruiting efforts.

 

KNOWING THE JOB:

 

Recruitment activities must begin with a thorough understanding of the position to be filled so the broad range of potential employees can be narrowed intelligently.

 

The technique commonly used to gain the understanding of the job is Job Analysis.

Job Analysis is aimed at determining a Job Description ( the activities a job entails) and a Job Specification (the characteristics of the individual who should be hired for the job).

 

KNOWING SOURCES OF HUMAN RESOURCES:

 

Besides a thorough knowledge of the position the organization is trying to fill, recruiters must be able to pinpoint sources of human resources.

 

Since the supply of individuals from which to recruit is continually changing, there will be times when finding appropriate human resources will be tougher than some other times.

 

Human resource specialists in organizations continually monitor the labour market so they will know where to recruit suitable people and what kind of strategies and tactics to use to attract job applicants in a competitive marketplace.

 

Sources inside the Organization:

 

The pool of employees within the organization is one source of human resources. Some individuals who already work for the organization may be well qualified for an open position.

Some lateral movements do happen, but most of the times, internal movements are promotions.

 

Advantages of Promotion:

 

–          Building Employee Moral

–          Encouraging employee to work order

–          Inspiring Employees to stay longer

 

Human Resource Inventory:

 

Human Resource Inventory consists of information about the characteristics of organization members. This focuses on the past performance and future potential and the objective is to keep management up to date about the possibilities for filling a position from within.

 

This inventory should indicate which individuals in the organization would be appropriate for filling a position if it becomes available.

 

Walter S. Wikstrom proposed that organizations keep 3 types of records that can be combined to maintain a useful human resources inventory.

 

Management Inventory Card

It includes both an organizational history of the employee and cues on how she might be used in the future. It can include details like :

1.  
   1.  
      • Age,
      • Year of Employment,
      • Present Position,
      • Duration of current Posting,
      • Performance Ratings,
      • Strengths and Weaknesses,
      • Positions to which the employee can be moved,
      • By when would she be able to take the new role,
      • What new training and development required for the same.

Position Replacement Form

 

This record focuses on position centred information rather than people centred information. The position information form is helpful in determining what would happen to a present position, if the current incumbent is moved to some other post or leaves the organization.

 

Management Manpower Replacement Chart

 

This Chart presents a composite view of the individual’s management considers significant for human resource planning.

 

The current incumbent’s performance rating and promotion potential  can be easily compared with those of the other employees when a company is trying to determine which individual would most appropriately fill a particular position

 

All these 3 forms together help the management answer the questions:

 

1. What is the organizational history of an individual and what potential does the person possess?
2. If a position becomes vacant, who might be eligible to fill it?
3. What are the merits of one individual being considered for a position compared to those of another individual under consideration?

 

SUCCESSION PLANNING:

 

Succession planning is the process of outlining who will follow whom in various organizational positions.

 

 

Sources outside the Organization

 

      Various Sources include:

1. Competitors
2. Employment Agencies
3. Readers of Certain Publications
4. Educational Institutions

 

Competitors:

            There are several advantages to luring human resources away from competitors including:

·         The individual knows the business

·         The competitor will have paid for the individual’s training up to the time of hire.

·         The competing organization will probably be weakened somewhat by the loss of the individual.

Once hired, the individual will be a valuable source of information about how to best compete with the other organization.

Centralization and Decentralization

The terms Centralization and Decentralization describe the general degree to which delegation exists in the company.

Decentralizing an Organization:

 

The appropriate degree of decentralization for an organization depends on the unique situation of that organization.

 

Relevant Questions will be:

 

1. What is the present size of the organization?
2. Where are the Organization’s customers located?
3. How homogeneous is the organization’s product line?
4. Where are the Organizational Suppliers?
5. Is there a need for quick decisions in the Organization?
6. Is creativity a desirable feature of the Organization?

 

SIZE:

 

The larger the organization, the more the chance that decentralization will be advantageous. Delegation is an effective means for helping managers manage their increasing workload in big organizations.

 

But in some cases, the Organization may be too large and decentralized.

 

If the proportionate manpower costs are very high, then that organization may actually benefited by centralization of some of the aspects of the organization.

 

 

CUSTOMER LOCATIONS:

 

The more physically separated the organization’s customers are, the more viable a significant amount of decentralization is. This is less valid in the ecommerce business but most other cases, it makes complete sense.

 

 

HOMOGENEOUS PRODUCT LINE:

 

Generally, as the product line becomes more heterogeneous, or diversified, the appropriateness of decentralization increases.

 

 

SUPPLIER LOCATION:

 

Decentralization of some functions becomes a requirement, in case of high geographic diversity in the suppliers.

 

 

 

 

QUICK DECISION MAKING:

 

If speedy decision making is essential, then decentralization of the relevant functions can be critical.

 

 

CREATIVITY:

 

Decentralization generally fosters creativity.

Obstacles in the Delegation Process

Obstacles that can make delegation within an organization difficult or even impossible can be classified into 3 general categories:

 

1. Obstacles related to the Supervisor
2. Obstacles related to Subordinates
3. Obstacles related to Organizations

 

Obstacles related to the Supervisor:

 

A supervisor who resists delegating his authority to subordinates because he cannot bear to part with any authority.

 

Two other supervisor related obstacles are the fear that the subordinates will not do a job well and the suspicion that surrendering some authority may be seen as a sign of weakness.

 

If supervisors are insecure in their jobs or believe certain activities are extremely important to their personal success, they may find it hard to put the performance of these activities into the hands of the others.

 

Obstacles related to Subordinates:

 

Subordinates may be reluctant to accept delegated authority because they are afraid of failing, lack self confidence, or feel the supervisor doesn’t have the confidence in them.

These obstacles will be especially apparent in subordinates who have never before used delegated authority.

 

Other subordinate related obstacles are the fear that the supervisor will be unavailable for guidance when needed and the reluctance to exercise authority that may complicate comfortable working relationships.

 

Obstacles related to the Delegation Process:

 

In organizations, where few job activities and little authority have been delegated in the past, an attempt to initiate the delegation process may make employees reluctant and apprehensive, for the supervisor would be introducing a significant change in procedure and change is often strongly resisted.

 

 

 

ELIMINATING OBSTACLES IN THE DELEGATION PROCESS:

 

 

Advantages of Delegation are:

 

1. Enhanced Employee Confidence
2. Improved Subordinate Involvement and Interest
3. More free time for the supervisor to accomplish tasks
4. Assistance from subordinates in completing tasks the manager simply wouldn’t have time for otherwise.

 

What can managers do to eliminate obstacles to the delegation process?

 

Firstly uncover the obstacles to delegation.

 

Then taking actions to eliminate these obstacles with the understanding that they may be deeply ingrained and therefore required much time and effort to overcome.

 

Among the most effective management actions that can be taken to eliminates obstacles to delegation are building subordinate confidence in the use of delegated authority on established working relationships, and helping delegates cope  with problems whenever necessary.

 

MANAGERIAL CHARCTERISITICS REQUIRED:

 

• Willingness to consider the ideas of others seriously
• The insight to allow subordinates the free rein necessary to carry out their responsibilities,
• Trust on abilities of subordinates
• The wisdom to allow people to learn from their mistakes without suffering unreasonable price for making them.

 

ACCOUNTABILITY & DELEGATION

Accountability refers to the management philosophy whereby individuals are held liable, or accountable, for how well they use their authority and live up to their responsibility of performing predetermined activities.

The concept of accountability implies that if an individual does not perform predetermined activities, some type of penalty, or punishment is justifiable.

The punishment theme of accountability has been summed by one company executive ” Individuals who do not perform well simply will not be around too long.

The accountability concept also implies that some kind of reward will follow if predetermined activities are performed well.

 

DELEGATION:

Delegation is the actual process of assigning job activities and corresponding authority to specific individuals within the organization.

Important Dimensions of Delegation include:

1. Steps in the Delegating Process
2. Obstacles to the delegation Process
3. Elimination of obstacles to the delegation process.
4. Centralization and Decentralization

STEPS IN THE DELEGATION PROCESS:

According to Neman and Warren, the delegation process consists of 3 steps:

1. Assign Specific duties to the individual. Manager must be sure that the subordinate assigned to specific duties has a clear understanding of what these duties entail. Whenever possible, the activities should be stated in operational terms so the subordinate knows exactly what action must be taken to perform the assigned duties.                                             
2.  The delegation process involves granting appropriate authority to the subordinate -i.e. the subordinate must be given the right and power within the organization to accomplish the duties assigned.                                
3. The subordinate must be aware of the responsibility to complete the duties assigned and must accept the responsibility.

GUIDELINES FOR MAKING DELEGATION EFFECTIVE:

1. Give employees task to pursue tasks in their own way.                                       
2. Establish Mutually agreed upon results and performance standards for delegated tasks.                                                                                                                 
3. Encourage employees to take an active role in defining, implementing and communicating progress on tasks.                                                                       
4. Entrust employee with completion of whole projects or tasks whenever possible.                                                                                                                   
5. Explain the relevance  of delegated tasks to larger projects or to department or organizational goals.                                                                         
6. Give employees the authority necessary to accomplish tasks.                        
7. Allow employees access to all information, people and departments necessary to perform delegated tasks.                                                                           
8. Provide training and guidance necessary for employees to complete delegated tasks satisfactorily.                                                                                     
9. When possible, delegate tasks on the basis of employee interests.

TYPES OF AUTHORITY : LINE & STAFF ROLES

Authority is the right to perform or command. It allows its holder to act in certain designated ways and to directly influence the actions of others through orders.

It also allows its holder to allocate the organization’s resources to achieve organizational objectives.

AUTHORITY ON THE JOB :

Barnard  defines authority as the character of communication by which an order is accepted by an individual as governing the actions that individual takes within the system.

Barnard maintains that authority will be accepted only under the following conditions:

1. The individual can understand the order being communicated.
2. The individual believes the order is consistent with the purpose of the organization.
3. The individual sees the order as compatible with his or her personal interests.
4. The individual is mentally and physically able to comply with the order.

The fewer of these 4 conditions that are present, the lower the probability that authority will be accepted and obedience be exacted.

Barnad offers some guidance on what managers can do to raise the odds that their commands will be accepted and obeyed. He maintains that more and more of a manager’s commands will be accepted over the long term if:

1. The manager uses formal channels of communication and these are familiar to all organization members.                                                                            
2. Each organization member has an assigned formal communication channel through which orders are received.                                                              
3. The line of communication between manager and subordinate is as direct as possible.                                                                                                                 
4. The complete chain of command is used to issue orders.                                     
5. The manager possesses adequate communication skills.                                     
6. The manager uses formal communication lines only for organizational business.                                                                                                                                
7. A command is authenticated as coming from a manager.

TYPES OF AUTHORITY:

3 main types of authority can exist within an organization:

1. Line Authority
2. Staff Authority
3. Functional Authority

Each type exists only to enable individuals to carry out the different types of responsibilities with which they have been charged.

LINE AUTHORITY:

The most fundamental authority within an organization, reflects existing superior-subordinate relationships. It consists of the right to make decisions and to give order concerning the production,sales or finance related behaviour of subordinates.

In general, line authority pertains to matters directly involving management system production, sales, finance etc., and as a result with the attainment of objectives.

People directly responsible for these areas within the organization are delegated line authority to assist them in performing their obligatory activities.

 

STAFF AUTHORITY:

Staff authority consists of the right to advise or assist those who possess line authority as well as other staff personnel.

Staff authority enables those responsible for improving the effectiveness of line personnel to perform their required tasks.

 

Line and Staff personnel must work together closely to maintain the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization. To ensure that line and staff personnel do work together productively, management must make sure both groups understand the organizational mission, have specific objectives, and realize that they are partners in helping the organization reach its objectives.

Size is perhaps the most significant factor in determining whether or not an organization will have staff personnel. The larger the organization, the greater the need and  ability to employ staff personnel.

As an organization expands, it usually needs employees with expertise in diversified areas. Although small organizations may also require this kind of diverse expertise, they often find it more practical to hire part time consultants to provide it is as needed rather than to hire full time staff personnel, who may not always be kept busy.

 

LINE – STAFF RELATIONSHIPS :

e.g. A plant manager has line authority over each immediate subordinate, human resource manager, the production manager and the sales manager.

However, the human resource manager has staff authority in relation to the plant manger, meaning the human resource manager has staff authority in relation to the plant manager, meaning the human resource manager possesses the right to advise the plant manager on human resource matters.

Still final decisions concerning human resource matters are in the hands of the plant manager, the person holding the line authority.

ROLE OF STAFF PERSONNEL:

Harold Stieglitz has pinpointed 3 roles that staff personnel typically perform to assist line personnel:

1.  The Advisory or Counseling Role :   In this role, staff personnel use their professional expertise to solve organizational problems. The staff personnel are, in effect, internal consultants whose relationship with line personnel is similar to that of a professional and a client.                  
2. The Service Role : Staff personnel in this role provide services that can more efficiently and effectively be provided by a single centralized staff group than by many individuals scattered throughout the organization. This role can probably best be understood if staff personnel are viewed as suppliers and line personnel as customers.                
3. The Control Role : Staff personnel help establish a mechanism for evaluating  the effectiveness of organizational plans.

The role of staff in any organization  should be specifically designed to best meet the needs of that organization.

CONFLICT IN LINE – STAFF RELATIONSHIP:

From the view point of line personnel, conflict is created  because staff personnel tend to 

• Assume Line Authority
• Do not give Sound Advice
• Steal Credit for Success
• Fail to Keep  line personnel  informed of their activities
• Do not see the whole picture.

From the view point of Staff Personnel, conflict is created because line personnel do not make proper use of staff personnel, resist new ideas and refuse to give staff personnel enough authority to do their jobs.

Staff Personnel can often avert line-staff conflicts if they strive to emphasize the objectives of the organization as a whole, encourage and educate line personnel in the appropriate use of staff personnel, obtain any necessary skills they do not already possess, and deal intelligently with the resistance to change rather than view it as an immovable barrier.

Line personnel can do their part to minimize line staff conflict by sing staff personnel wherever possible, making proper use of the staff abilities, and keeping staff personnel appropriately informed.

 

*****

FUNCTIONAL AUTHORITY:

Functional authority consists of the right to give orders within a segment of the organization in which this right is normally non existent.

This authority is usually assigned to individuals to complement the line or staff authority they already possess.

Functional Authority generally covers only specific task areas and is operational only for designated amounts of time. It is given to individuals who, in order to meet responsibilities in their own areas, must be able to exercise some control over organization members in other areas.

 

 

 

 

MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITY GUIDE

7 Responsibility Relationships among Managers, as used in the Management Responsibility Guide:

1. General Responsibility: The individual who guides and directs the execution of the function through the person accepting operating responsibility.                                                                                                                            
2. Operating Responsibility: The individual who is directly responsible for the execution of the Function.                                                           
3. Specific Responsibility: The individual who is responsible for executing a specific or limited portion of the function.                                          
4. Must be Consulted: The individual whose area is affected by a decision who must be called on to render advice or relate information before any decision is made or approval is granted. This individual does not, however, make the decision or grant approval.                                  
5. May Be Consulted: The individual who may be called on to related information, render advice, or make recommendations before the action is taken.                                                                                                                       
6. Must be Notified: The individual who must be notified of any action that has been taken.                                                                                                               
7. Must Approve: The individual,other than persons holding general and operating responsibility who must approve or disapprove the decision.

RESPONSIBLE MANAGERS:

Managers can be described as responsible if they perform the activities they are obligated to perform. 

Since managers have more impact on an organization than non managers, responsible managers are a pre requisite for managemetn system success.

 

The degree of responsibility that a manager possesses can be determined by appraising the manager on the following 4 dimensions:

1. Attitude toward and conduct with subordinates.
2. Behaviour with Upper Management
3. Behaviour with Other Groups
4. Personal Attitudes and Values

4 Key Dimensions of Responsible Management Behaviour 

Attitude toward and conduct with subordinates.

• Responsible Managers take complete charge of their work groups.
• They Pass Praise and credit along to subordinates.
• They stay close to problems and activities.
• They take actions to maintain productivity and are willing to terminate poor performers if necessary.

Behaviour with Upper Management:

• Responsible Managers accept criticism for mistakes and buffer their groups from excessive criticism.                                                                                  
• Responsible managers ensure that their groups meet management expectations and objectives.

Behaviour with Other Groups :

• Responsible Managers make sure that any gaps between their areas and those of other managers are securely filled.

Personal Attitudes & Values:

• Responsible managers identify with the group.
• Put organizational goals ahead of personal desires or activities.
• Perform tasks for which there is no immediate reward but that help subordinates, the company or both.
• Conserve corporate resources as if the resources were their own.

RESPONSIBILITY

Responsibility is the obligation to perform assigned activities. It is the self assumed commitment to handle a job to the best of one’s ability.

The source of responsibility lies within the individual.

A person who accepts a job agrees to carry out a series of duties or activities or to see that someone else carries them out.

The act of accepting the job means that the person is obligated to a superior (relationship management) to see that job activities are successfully completed.

THE JOB DESCRIPTION:

An individual’s job activities within an organization are usually summarized in a formal statement called a job description – a list of specific activities that must be performed by whoever holds the position.

Unclear job descriptions Can confuse employees and may cause them to lose interest in their jobs. On the other hand, a clear job description can help employees to become successful by focusing their efforts on  the issues that are important for their position.

When properly designed, job descriptions communicate job content to employees, establish performance levels that employees must maintain, and act as a guide that employees should follow to help the organization reach its objectives.

Job activities are delegated by management to enhance the accomplishment of  management system objectives.

Management analyzes its objectives and assigns specific duties that will lead to reaching those objectives. A sound organizing strategy delineates specific job activities for every individual in the organization.

The following 3 areas are related to responsibility:

1. Dividing Job Activities
2. Clarifying Job activities of managers
3. Being Responsible

DIVIDING JOB ACTIVITIES:

One person cannot be responsible for performing all of the activities that take place within an organization. Since so many people work in a given management system, organizing necessarily involves dividing job activities among a no. of individuals.

Some method of distributing these job activities is essential.

THE FUNCTIONAL SIMILARITY METHOD:

The functional similarity method is the most basic method of dividing job activities.

Management should take 4 basic interrelated steps to divide job activities in the following sequence:

1. Examine management system objectives.
2. Designate Appropriate activities that must be performed to reach those objectives.
3. Design specific jobs by grouping similar activities.
4. Make specific individuals responsible for performing those jobs.

 

FUNCTIONAL SIMILARITY & RESPONSIBILITY:

3 additional guides can be used to supplement the functional similarity method.

1. Overlapping Responsibility should be avoided when making job activity divisions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Overlapping responsibility refer to a situation in which more than one individual is responsible for the same activity.                                                                                                                                                                                           Generally speaking, only one person should be responsible for completing one activity.                                                                                    When 2 or more employees are unclear about who should do a job because of overlapping responsibility, it usually leads to conflict and poor working relationships. Often the Job does not get done because each employee assumes the other will do it.                                                                       
2. RESPONSIBILITY GAP:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                A responsibility gap exists when certain tasks are not included in the responsibility area of an individual organization member. This results in a situation in which nobody within the organization is obligated to perform certain necessary activities.                                                                                                                                       
3. Management should avoid creating job activities for accomplishing tasks that do not enhance goal  attainment. Organization members should be obligated to perform only those activities that lead to goal attainment.

Chain of Command

Departmentalization, Division of Labour, Span of Control and the 4th aspect of organizing effort is SCALAR RELATIONSHIPS – The Chain of Command.

Every organization is built on the premise that the individual at the top possesses the most authority and that other individual’s authority is scaled downward according to their relative position on the organization chart.

The lower a person’s position on the organization chart, then, the less authority that person possesses.

The Scale Relationship or Chain of Command is related to the unity of command.

UNITY OF COMMAND is the management principle that recommends that an individual  have only 1 boss.

If too many bosses give orders, the result will probably be confusion, contradiction and frustration –  a sure recipe for ineffectiveness and inefficiency in an organization.

Although the unity of command principle is 75 years old, it is still considered as a valid and critical one.

******

Fayol recommends that a gangplank be created for a peer level communication within and across departments with structures to keep the organization updated on the information shared. 

SPAN OF MANAGEMENT

After Departmentalization and Division of Labour, the third main consideration of any organizing effort is Span of Management – the no. of individuals a manger supervises.

The more individuals a manger supervises, the greater the span of management.

Span of management is also called the span of control, span of authority, span of supervision and span of responsibility.

The central concern of span of management is to determine how many individuals a manager can supervise effectively.

To use the company’s human resources most productively, managers should supervise as many individuals as they can best guide towards meeting the organization’s targets. Too few – wasting their capacity. Too many – losing effectiveness.

DESIGNING SPAN OF MANAGEMENT : A CONTINGENCY VIEWPOINT

As reported by Harold Koontz, several important situational factors influence the appropriateness of the size of an individual’s span of management:

• SIMILARITY OF FUNCTIONS:                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The degree to which activities performed by supervised individuals are similar or dissimilar. As the similarity of the subordinates activity increases, the span of management increases and vice versa.                                                                          
• GEOGRAPHIC CONTINUITY:                                                                                                                                                                                                                           The degree to which subordinates are  physically separated. In general, the closer subordinates are physically, the more of them managers can supervise effectively.                                                                              
• COMPLEXITY OF FUNCTIONS:                                                                                                                                                                                                                       The degree to which worker’s activities are difficult and involved. The more difficult and involved the activities are, the more difficult it is to manage a large no. of individuals effectively.                                                                      
• COORDINATION :                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                The amount of time managers must spend synchronizing the activities of their subordinates with the activities of other workers. The greater the amount of time must be spent on such coordination, the smaller the span of management can be.                                                                                                                       
• PLANNING:

              The amount of time  managers must spend developing management                   system objectives and plans and integrating them with the activities                   of their subordinates. The more time managers must spend on the                       planning activities, the fewer individuals they can manage effectively.

 

GRAICUNAS and SPAN OF MANAGEMENT:

V.A.Graicunas developed a formula for determining the no. of possible relationships between a manager and subordinates when the no. of subordinates is known.

Graicunas’s Formula is as follows:

C = n a (2^n)/2 + n – 1 b

C is the total no. of possible relationships between manager and subordinates, and n is the known no. of subordinates.

As the no. of subordinates increases, arithmetically, the no. of possible relationships between the manager and those subordinates increases geometrically.

DIVISION OF LABOUR & Guidelines on Coordination

After Departmentalization, the second main consideration of any organizing effort is how to divide labour.

Division of Labour is the assignment of various portions of a particular task among a no. of organization members. Rather than one individual doing the entire job, several individuals perform different parts of it.

Production is divided into a no. of steps, with the responsibility for completing various steps assigned to specific individuals.

The essence of division of labour is the individuals specialize in doing part of a task rather than the entire task.

 

Advantages & Disadvantages of Division of Labour:

Several explanations are available for the usefulness of division of labour.

• When workers specialize in a particular task, their skill at performing that task tends to increase.                                                                                            
• Workers who have 1 job and 1 place in which to do it, do not lose valuable time changing tools or locations.                                                                 
• When workers concentrate on performing only one job, they naturally try to make their job easier and more efficient.                                                        
• Division of labour creates a situation in which workers need only to know how to perform their part of the work task rather than the entire process for producing the end product.

Dis Advantages of Excessive Division Of Labour:

Division of labour focuses solely on  efficiency and economic benefit and overlooks the human variable in organizations.

Work that is extremely specialized tends to be boring and therefore will eventually cause production rates to go down as workers become resentful of being treated like machines.

Managers need to find a reasonable balance between specialization and human motivation.

COORDINATION:

In a division of labour situation, the importance of effective coordination of the different individuals doing portions  of the task is obvious.

Coordination is the orderly arrangement of group effort to provide unity of action in the pursuit of a common purpose. Coordination is the means for achieving any and all organizational objectives.

Coordination involves encouraging the completion of individual portions of a task in a synchronized order that is appropriate for the overall task.

Groups need coordination for maintaining productivity.

Establishing and maintaining coordination may required close supervision of employees. Managers can establish and maintain coordination through bargaining, formulating a common purpose for the group, or improving on specific problem solutions so the group will know what to do when it encounters those problems.

 

Mary Parker Follett’s Guidelines on Coordination:

1. Coordination can be attained with least difficulty through direct horizontal relationships and personal communications. When a coordination problem arises, peer discussion may be the best way to resolve it.                                                                                                                                     
2. Coordination be a discussion topic throughout the planning process. Managers should plan for coordination.                                                                        
3. Maintaining coordination is a continuing process and should be treated as such. Managers cannot assume that because their management system shows coordination today, it will show coordination tomorrow.                                                                                                       
4. Human element is important and the communication process is an essential consideration in any attempt to encourage coordination.               
5. Employee skill levels and motivation levels are also primary considerations for the coordination activity.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

STRUCTURE:

In any organizing effort, managers must choose an appropriate structure.

Structure refers to the designated relationships among resources of the management system. Its purpose is to facilitate the use of each resource, individually and collectively, as the management system attempts to attain its objectives.

ORGANIZATIONAL CHART:

An organizational chart is constructed in pyramid form, with individuals toward the top of the pyramid having more authority and responsibility than those toward the bottom.

The relative positioning of individuals within boxes on the chart indicates broad working relationships, and lines between boxes designate formal lines of communication between individuals.

AUTHORITY & RESPONSIBILITY:

The dotted line is not part of the organization chart but has been added to emphasize the chart’s pyramid shape. The locations of the positions also indicate broad working relationships.

FORMAL & INFORMAL STRUCTURE:

Formal structure is defined as the relationships among organizational resources as outlined by Management. It is represented primarily by the Organization Chart.

Informal Structure is defined as the patterns of relationships that develop because of informal activities of organization members. It evolves naturally and tend to be molded by individual norms and values and social relationships.

DEPARTMENTALIZATION & FORMAL STRUCTURE:

Department is a unique group of resources established by management to perform some organizational task. The process of establishing departments within the management system is called DEPARTMENTALIZATION.

FUNCTIONAL DEPARTMENTALIZATION:

The most widely used basis for establishing departments within the formal structure is the type of work functions (activities) being performed within the management system.

Functions are typically divided into major categories like  marketing, production and finance, etc.,

 

PRODUCT DEPARTMENTALIZATION:

Organization structure based primarily on product departmentalizes resources according to the products being manufactured. As the company grows and as their product range grows, it becomes increasing difficult for management to coordinate activities across the organization.

Organizing on the lines of products and product groups permits the logical grouping of resources across the organization.

GEOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENTALIZATION:

Structure based primarily on territory departmentalizes according to the places where the work is being done or the geographic markets on which the management system is focusing.

The physical distances can range from quite short (between 2 points in the same city) to quite long ( between 2 points in the same state or different states or countries or continents).

As market areas expand and the work locations increase, the physical distances between places can make the management task extremely cumbersome. To minimize this problem, resources can be departmentalized according to the territory.

 

CUSTOMER DEPARTMENTALIZATION:

Structure based primarily on the customer establishes departments in response to the organization’s major customers.

This structure,of course, assumes that major customers can be identified and divided into logical categories.

 

MANUFACTURING PROCESS DEPARTMENTALIZATION:

Structure based primarily on manufacturing process departmentalizes according tot he major phases of the process used to manufacture products.

 

*** FORCES INFLUENCING FORMAL STRUCTURE***

According to Shetty & Carlisle, the formal structure of a management system is continually evolving.

4 Primary forces influences this evolution:

1. Manager
2. Task
3. Environment
4. Subordinates

The evolution of a particular organization is actually the result of a complex and dynamic interaction among these forces.

MANAGER:

Each manager perceives the organizational problem in a unique way. Naturally, knowledge, experience, background and values influence the manager’s perception of what the organization’s formal structure should be or how it should be changed.

TASK:

Task includes the degree of technology involved in performing the task and the task’s complexity. As task activities change, a force is created to change the existing organization.

ENVIRONMENT:

Environment include the customers and suppliers of the management system, along with existing political and social structures.

SUBORDINATES:

Sub ordinates include the needs and skill  levels of subordinates.

Changes in the environment or subordinate dynamics can effect a change in the organization.