organisational culture

CIO magazine reported on a research piece done by The Burton Group on why large organisations find it difficult to adopt social networking internally when their employees use it so easily outside of work.

Some of the key issues identified are the same ones that have hamstrung many KM initiatives.

Here's an excerpt from the article, I especially like the quote in bold towards the end of the final bullet point ...

I'm not sure precisely what make this organizational phenomenon work, but I have a fairly good guess.

I am talking about the Smoker's Balcony. Notice how I have even capitalized the phrase - this is not simply part of the building designated for those who use nicotine products. It is far more than that.

Here's my argument: we need to move from methods of measuring organisation culture that are static, towards methods that allow for dynamic assessment. This argument comes out of experiences where static approaches have failed to provide relevant information during the life-cycle of a change management project. 

When embarking on an organisatinal intervention project, one can normally anticipate the inclusion of a "discovery" phase as the first of the project. This is where an "as-is" assessment/audit of ­the context in which the intervention needs to take place is captured. While this important step is often dealt with as a mere step in the process, and not as a key indicator of the context and how that context may inhibit or support the broader project, I am finding a more perturbing assumption about the discovery phase made by project sponsors, managers and many facilitators.

Original post published on Cognitive Edge Guest Blog.

I sometimes wonder if business leaders know what they’re missing out on by not embracing narrative techniques within their businesses. I remember facilitating an Anecdote Circle that drove this point home for me (which also caught the business by surprise a little). It was the first time this business had engaged in a narrative process when dealing with a problem. The issue at hand was a particularly bad run of resignations that had gutted the business of talented individuals during the course of a 12 month period.

When asked how I would approach the problem, I suggested that a narrative enquiry, in the form of an Anecdote Circle, be used to elicit narratives on the problem.