I just finished reading ?Agent of Change: My Life, My Practice?, Richard Beckhard, one of the founding practitioners of Organizational Development.

My most valuable takeaway from the book was the following insight:

?From earlier work, I had learned about the hourglass theory of energy: under stress, individuals or organization systems experience high negative energy. Because energy is ?neutral?, you can reduce stress by quickly converting the energy direction from negative to positive. Then the negative energy becomes an asset. The challenge is to turn the energy 180 degrees in the opposite direction. The best action is not to cool the energy by working on morale and discomfort but to create short-term goals that must be met?

He offers a methodology for creating these action plans for improvement though ?an activity that allows a total management group, drawn from all levels of the organization, to take a quick reading of its own health and ? within a matter of hours- to set action plans for improving it. I call this activity a confrontation meeting.?

In leading groups, in initiating change, our skill would be to be able to get this right.

According to IBM?s CEO, Sam Palmisano, ?In a hyperconnected world, IBM’s clients needed to become “on-demand” companies, their every business process exquisitely calibrated to respond instantly to whatever got thrown at them. And to help them, IBM would have to do exactly the same thing.

In a survey done to find out the competencies required by the leaders to meet this new strategy, it was found that almost a third of the competencies identified were entirely different. Competencies such as ?Collaborative Influence?, ?Thinking horizontally? are among them.

To find out what the leader?s at IBM are going to be graded upon, read about ?IBM?s Management Makeover? in this month?s issue of Fast Company.

It?s all about being able to differentiate.

Check out this r?sum? of Alexandre Gu?niot.

Via Tom Peters website.

Mattson and company, a US based food and beverage development company enabled one of its long term employees, Kristie to attend the Athens Olympics where her daughter was representing the Greek Softball team by combining it with a work related tour. Kristie, on her own would not have been able to afford the trip.

What stood out for me was not only that it was a great gesture on the part of the management but also how the members of the board called her in to share the news with her personally. A genuine participation in another person?s happiness.

Read the story as shared by Davis Masten, Cheskin who is a board member of Mattson and company.

Here is a post I have been wanting to blog for a while now.

Working in organizations should also be about having fun which in the mad rush to meet the ever pressing deadlines gets forgotten.

Here is how Cheskin, a consulting and research firm tries to combine meetings and have fun. They try a day of meetings with a day of skiing. Read the entire post in Christopher Ireland?s own words. (BTW, whose perspectives I enjoy reading)

I particularly like the title, ?This day owes us nothing? and on why it should be done; ?Yes, we could have added about $500 to our bottom line if we didn’t do this. And yes, it’s hard to find a way to be fair and inclusive with this type of activity. But neither of these costs compare to the benefits of a day when work and play combine effortlessly.?

Consider the following situations:

Steve Gomo, a mid level manager was asked to present the capital budget to the Hewlett-Packard Board of Directors because the executive who normally did it was not available at that time. Both Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard were known to be tough taskmasters. During the meeting, while Gomo did a great job, he also ended up disagreeing with Hewlett on a process followed in handling financial data. At the end of the presentation, the only thing Gomo wanted to do was gather his papers and exit as quickly as possible. Just before he left, Packard stood up and said “I want it recorded in the minutes of the meeting
that this was one of the best presentation on capital budget that this board has ever received,” shaking Gomo’s hand.

Gomo, glowing inside, made his exit, shares this about that incident. “There was no reason for Packard to do that- except to make a young kid feel good. I will never forget that as long as I live.”

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks got a call in the middle of the night that three of his employees had been murdered in a botched robbery in Washington, DC. Stunned, he immediately chartered a plane and arrived in DC before nine that morning. He personally took charge of the situation, stayed for a week, visiting the store, working with the police, meeting with the victims’ families, attending the funerals.

Sridhar, CEO of XID Technologies Pte Ltd has this to say about one of his former bosses at Siemens in Germany, ?he used to speak with each and every of his 800 employees between 1st December and Christmas to understand them holistically ? and solve a few of their personal problems during the year. People were ready to go through troubled times with him due to the ?trust? he had created, always accepting if he made a mistake and working towards a common goal. From the gate-keeper to CEO, all the employees were IP focused and created more than 3800 patents and commercialized about 1000 of them.?

Read More here

• Deepa