Last night’s discussion about ethics and the shadow side of consulting could easily be repackaged into a be a better person lecture. If you think about it, we were pointing out all of the characteristics of those people who do well because they think about others first.

• Forgiveness–for yourself and others
• Reflection-think about what you’ve done and how to improve
• Understand how you fit in-you aren’t above or below anyone, you are valuable to the whole
• Acknowledge tension and work through it
• Play to your strengths and allow others to play to theirs
• We could all stand to change; it’s not someone else’s problem
• Care about others

The above, and others we talked about in class last night, really can act as our golden rules when consulting. For that matter, they can be thought of as golden rules for any interaction we have.

This morning I walked down the hall to ask the manager of the other group of curriculum developers if her ears were burning last night. She laughed and said she wanted to hear why and also had something she wanted to run by me. I explained we talked about our cultural analysis progress and I had mentioned her group as being quite receptive and how thankful I was that I could come down to her office to talk.

Then she asked me, with much hemming and hawing, how I was going to treat my manager in the cultural analysis paper. She said she felt awkward in mentioning it to me since they are peers in the hierarchy. I told her I’d keep our conversation in confidence and then we proceeded to talk about how difficult it will be to separate, if such a thing can be separated, a person’s style from the culture that allows the behavior.

How much of what my manager does is a personal style and how much is because the culture allows the behavior? We also talked about the idea that what a leader does really effects how employees behave (Mr. Schein was mentioned more than once in our conversation). If the leader of a unit behaves in a certain way, the unit develops a style that sets it off from the rest of the organization. My unit is definitely a subculture and it is one of the darkest subcultures in the organization (Behold the Snark! Long live the Snark!). I mentioned how difficult it has been for me lately because as I move through the Adult Learner program the more I want to be a fully engaged member of the larger organization but feel pulled back into the, for lack of a better word, morass.

As we talked about the conundrum of how to look at a particular management style versus a larger cultural milieu, it was nice to hear how this other manager, and apparently others, see me as standing apart from my unit. That was good to hear because as I personally and professionally develop the more I face an internal conflict and hearing those words made the conflict die down a little this morning.

The trick now will be how to fit all of these thoughts into a paper. I have a feeling I’ll be doing plenty of editing.

Yesterday Mike and I held our feedback meeting with our clients. We followed the steps outlined in Block’s Flawless Consulting and we met with little resistance. I think we were both surprised to find one of our clients to be so pleased with our findings. We were quite concerned (maybe Mike was only concerned, but I was quite concerned) that one of the clients was going to resist and make things hard for us to present feedback. As it turns out she was more open than the client we thought was a shoo-in.

In fact, it felt like the clients had switched roles from our contracting meeting. I’m not going to spend too much time now considering why this may have happened because I need some fodder for my analysis paper, but I do wonder if one of the clients was never that concerned about the problem. Something for me to explore.

As we talked about briefly last night, everything is an intervention and I know this is especially true for our consulting project at my organization. Our clients said they’d try some of our solutions–intervention #1. Intervention #2 came earlier today as one of the people we interviewed, as part of our data discovery process, stopped me in the hallway to find out what was going on with the problem. I told her we presented our findings yesterday and that the meeting went well. I also told her they had committed to trying some of the solutions and to stay tuned. (Disclaimer: I don’t think I broke any confidential information as I didn’t get into details.) She said she was looking forward to seeing what’s next. I think we’ve done some good work here and I also look forward to seeing how this will unfold.

Well Christina, here’s the rant you’ve been waiting for…

If you haven’t noticed we’re being bombarded by ads on edublogs now. I noticed they began appearing today on several blogs.

I, for one, am sick to death of being of being sold something. I realize edublogs needs to have income but to unleash content links without telling users is abhorrent. To follow more of the story, click this link (will probably turn into an ad any second now).

I’m going to miss reading Dixon. Of course, I can always go back and begin again or dip in and out of chapters.

I found chapter nine to be a bit of a wake-up call and would like to share it with other members of my organization. I’m not sure that would do much good. As we talked in class on Thursday some folks may be so embedded in their culture or so removed from OD work that they wouldn’t “get” it.

I shared chapter three with our new director and we are going to have a consultant come in to help the organization talk through some things but instead of everyone being involved, it’s just for managers. Methinks the point was missed.

Here are my top three sections of chapter nine:

1. (Page 184) Having the language available to describe people in the organization. I think Dixon makes a good point about what we call people are they employees or members or what? What does employee mean anyway? If I’m called an employee is the director of my organization also an employee? Is there anything that sets the two of us apart if that’s the only word we use to describe each other? There are many organizations that call employees something other than employee—cast member, associates, minions, etc. I know when I first started working as a contractor for the Virginia Department of Social Services I was confused by the word worker being thrown around. I really thought they had taken the word social a little far if they were calling everyone workers (I had pictures of Mao Zedong in my head). Then it dawned on me that worker is just short-hand for social worker.
2. (Page 190) Organizational members can act in the best interest of the organization only when they have complete and valid information. When I worked in a management recruiting office for a bank, I felt like I was allowed to see the big picture of what we were trying to do (hire very successful and productive people). By knowing the big picture I was able to function at a high level. Our entire team behaved in this way.
3. (Page 195) The idea that everyone in the organization has a shared commitment to the way the organization is governed. This point is so very interesting to me because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this in action. I think this requires a special brand of leadership and I’m not sure many people in top positions would be able to relinquish the amount of control needed to make this reality. Maybe this happens in small non-profits or start-ups where everyone is so involved in the common goal that the organization actually functions as a group without levels of hierarchy.

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Dixon, N.M. (1999). The organizational learning cycle. (2nd ed.). Hampshire, England: Gower Publishing Limited.

Sometimes I’m asked about adult learning theory and it’s usually in the sense of “we think this is stupid and would like to point to a theory to prove our point”. I usually like to use my power for good so I speak in generalities and try not to get involved in someone else’s petty argument (now, my petty argument? That’s another story).

This question keeps coming up and I’d like to know your opinions.

Is it appropriate to have doodads on the table during a training if the doodads have no direct correlation to the training? I am calling the following items doodads: pipe cleaners, bendy animals, anything you could buy in bulk from Oriental Trading Company. I’m not including pens, sticky notes or stress balls into the doodad category because those items may actually be used throughout the course of the training session.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you provide items to trainees in addition to handouts? If so what do you give away?

As we move through the presentation portion of our semester, I’m finding it to be quite beneficial to practice the concepts we’re reading about. I was especially glad to practice our feedback meeting on Monday night. I’m not sure how we ended up sounding as a group but I know the discussion we had prior to delivering our skit was quite valuable to me.

When we present our findings and offer recommendations to our clients, I’m thankful that I have a partner in this. I think we’ll be able to use each other’s strengths and, of course, we’ll have a clear game plan before we go into the meeting. I hope I’ll be able to use silence and not say anything that gets the client off the hook. As I’m acting as an internal consultant on this, I’m becoming more aware of how careful, professional and flawless I’ll need to be. Prior to our starting this consulting project, I wasn’t worried about the outcome. I think I even said I have no real stake in what that side of the organization does. Ha! I must stop reading so much Schein this semester.

Of course I’m tied to that side of the organization and now that an intervention has occurred I’m talking more to the two clients. I’ve changed their relationship to me and I’ve changed my relationship to them. We’re all in this together now. I won’t be able to go back to my silo after this.