Friday, January 18, 2002

Each day is filled with encounters--meetings, phone conversations, employee communications, customer service discussions, and client presentations. All such encounters require consummate skills and effective strategies to get that special important message turned into action.  Just as the client sets the requirements for work products to be delivered, the listener defines the parameters of the way they will be persuaded. Only by knowing the listener's critical persuasion factors can any communication hope to achieve results.  Communicating the message requires the harnessing of many resources, including clearly chosen words, appropriate tone of voice, punctuating gestures, effective slides, and even engaging web-based communication. Each resource can be a powerful strategy toward achieving the communication objective--persuasion!

PowerSuasion is the art of synthesizing knowledge from a variety of areas: human development, semantics, theatre, media and psychology, in order to provide an interconnected set of idea-skills that can be used to hone and sharpen the persuasive edge of communication.   The PowerSuasion players will present a scenario, "Management Nightmare", a live case enacted by professional role-players (actors).  This will be followed by a discussion about a replay of the scenario.  During the replay, session participants will give the characters advice on how to handle the situation(s) presented.  Participants will experience a wide range of "right solutions" proposed by their peers.  The replay will be followed by an interactive group discussion and question & answer period.

When leadership fails, watch the morale!
When work styles and management styles clash--watch the fireworks!
When communication stops, watch the turnover!

AGENDA

• Introduction
• Presentation of Management Nightmare--a live case enacted by professional role-players (actors)
• Discussion about the replay
• Replay of a situation--You give the characters advice on how to handle the situation presented.  (See what your peers and fellow professionals think the right solutions are!)
• Questions & Answers

• Tom, a stickler for details, manages Diane, who wants to prove that she can work independently and do the job.  Tom assigns her a new project: to arrange the marketing conference.  Excited and enthusiastic, Diane goes to work, but finds that her boss's management style creates problems for her.  Meanwhile, Diane's colleague, Bill, has Phyllis, his manager, to contend with.  Phyllis sees herself as an empowering manager practicing the latest in managerial styles.  Overwhelmed by Phyllis's enthusiasm, Bill struggles to steer a path while making sure that his own nightmare doesn't come true.
• As tensions mount, Tom and Diane finally confront each other, only to discover a new understanding.

• Facilitation in communication is the responsibility of the communicators
• Leadership requires clarity and understanding of the followers
• Management styles must be suited to the person managed and not the manager
• Indirect communication leads to misunderstanding
• Teamwork requires trust
• Project management requires clarification of objectives and goals
• Reduced turnover requires adapting to the management needs of subordinates

As a facilitator---
Do you wonder how to handle the annoying group member?
Do you wonder why you get defensive?
Do you wish you had simple, effective strategies for handling the troublemaker?

If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, you'll want to come hear Karolus Smejda explain sophisticated strategies for managing the misbehaving participant.  He will explain how facilitators get "caught" by the unconscious purposes of the troublemakers and present the appropriate counter-strategies for some of the usual purposes.  He will provide insight into the psychological game playing and how facilitators can avoid stepping into the game--a dangerous game which they will ultimately lose, if they use inappropriate responses.

THE LEARNING POINTS

• Understand that group disruption is a function of belonging
• Discover what behaviors are disruptive
• Learn the four goals achieved by disruption
• Understand how the behavior is motivated by the mistaken goals
• Discover the counter-strategies to be used

In January of 1998, 15 professionals from the United States, Canada, and the U.K. came together to begin a 1 year study program sponsored by the Innovation Network, the Innovation University Best Practices Fellowship.  Over the course of some 16 months, the Fellowship met 5 times in 6 different cities.  Each session consisted of a combination of site visits to and panel presentations by some of the most innovative organizations in the world and work sessions to process the group's learnings and to develop team projects. Site visits included Dell University (now Dell Learning), the advertising agency of GSD&M, the Smithsonian Institution’s central exhibit design group, panels from the Federal government’s “Reinventing Government” initiatives, the Cirque du Soleil,  the Nortel Corporate Design Group, American Greetings, Roberts Express, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Kraft Foods.  During the course of the Fellowship, a project team formed with the purpose of developing a concrete deliverable that could be brought back to the various organizations and sponsors.  This team consisted of Robin Cook, then Director of Local Planning for the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, currently a "dot-casualty" seeking his next opportunity; Greg Fleet and Tim Mills of the Nortel  Corporate Design Group in Ottawa; Mary Gravelle, a consultant from Connecticut; and Harold Sharples, a consultant from the United Kingdom.  After considerable discussion based on their respective experiences both in and out of the Fellowship, the group developed the “Molecular” Diagnostic Model of organizations.  This model can serve as a “lens” through which practitioners can focus their interventions to increase their effectiveness.

The site visits and panel presentations demonstrated that successful, innovative organizations share many common attributes.  First and foremost, they value the whole individual.  Virtually every organization visited encouraged its staff to explore their full potential, both at work and outside of work.  Further, they strongly encouraged their people to bring skills and experience from their personal lives to bear within the organization.  Many had highly developed new employee orientation systems that develop immediate internalization of the organization’s mission and values.  Most had very strong employee recognition programs.  Frequently, these (and other) mechanisms incorporated a wonderful level of playfulness.  Most of the organizations observed demonstrated some form of cross-functional and/or multi-disciplinary team process.  Nearly all of the organizations observed had highly developed, formal and informal processes for celebrating their successes.  Most, if not all, had clear ways of transmitting their history.  Often, these mechanisms mirrored the teaching stories used by many religions.  All of the organizations observed had strong value systems which were promoted in numerous ways, both implicit and explicit.  All displayed a refreshing level of openness with their employees about all organizational functions and indicators.  Finally, virtually all demonstrated an amazing capacity to live their customers, viewing them as partners and developing highly effective customer communication, service, and feedback mechanisms.

One of the team members. Greg Fleet, had the foresight to bring a digital camera along on all the site visits, and was able to capture examples that led the group to its conclusions.  Some of these illustrations will be included the model is presented.  Since organizational innovation was the focus of the fellowship program, the examples are in that context.

Robin Cook is a seasoned organizational development/organizational innovation/culture change professional with 26 years of experience.  He received his B.A. in Philosophy at 19 and his M.A. in Human Relations at 21, both from the University of Oklahoma.  He worked for 6 1/2 years for the city of Chicago, where he designed, and implemented the first effective CETA program monitoring system in the history of the program’s operation, supervising up to 60 staff. He then founded his own solo consulting practice specializing in organizational development, training, methods and procedures analysis and design, and implementing the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit for employers.  After 11 years in private practice, Robin became Director of Local Planning for the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago where he was part of a 2-person department spearheading a massive, successful turnaround/culture change for the organization.  He was instrumental in the organization’s receipt of the 1998 George Land World Class Innovator Award.  While at the Y, he redesigned and facilitated a sophisticated strategic planning process which took an organizational development approach working with each individual Y in the Association.  During his tenure, the organization’s budget more than doubled to over $100,000,000/year, and its numbers of people served more than tripled to over 1,000,000/year.  Robin also co-designed and facilitated innovation/ creativity/visioning workshops which led to the establishment of a permanent Imagineering function within the Y.  In 1999, Robin completed the Innovation University Fellowship Program.  His project for the Fellowship was the creation of a new diagnostic tool for organizations, which he calls the “Molecular Model”.  In September of 1999, he was invited to present this model at an American Management Association forum on innovation.  Robin most recently worked as an Organizational Development Gonzo at JigZaw, Inc., a startup Internet software development and organizational consulting firm focusing on Work/Life Balance.  In this capacity, he was responsible for developing the internal culture and providing external organizational culture change/innovation consulting services.  He recently became one of very few people in the world trained in implementing Dee Hock’s Chaordic Theory.  Robin has performed in several improv groups and choirs, and has often applied improv techniques to group process and workshop settings.  Robin has always been a change agent, from his earliest years.  At the age of 8, he received the Key to the City of San Diego for petitioning to place a traffic light on a hazardous corner in his neighborhood.  Throughout his life, he has continued to be extremely active in a wide variety of social and political action organizations and activities, including the Chicago Chapter of New Jewish Agenda and his Alderman’s committee to design the structure for the community side of the initial Chicago Community Policing (CAPS) pilot.
 
 

For most complex problems only teams can bring together the several kinds of knowledge needed (such as engineering and marketing and law and production).  But the kinds of teamwork that win in sports or improve production efficiency are simply not enough to help these teams integrate their conflicting perspectives. This session will review some of the concepts on understanding complexity and approaches to effective teamwork on these kinds of projects.

Some of the basic creativity approaches of divergent thinking, brainstorming, nominal group technique, groupware, and pushing for "out of the box" ideas seem lacking in effectiveness as problems become more complicated in their dynamics and complex in the interplay of goals, values, and stakeholders.  Basic teamwork approaches of communication, group process, common vision, and team spirit are also strained by the complexity of teams needed to address these more complex problems, especially as diversity and globalism provide team members who respond quite differently to the same leadership.  This session will offer some concepts and constructs for coming to grips with more complex situations and will provide time to discuss ways to use both new and existing tools to help teams more effectively deal with these problems.

Chris Barlow has been facilitating cross functional teams since before the term was put into use.  He has lead Value Engineering and creative problem solving teams in a great variety of technologies, industries, and countries.  He has worked both as an internal and external innovation consultant.  His studies and research have been focused on trying to make sense of the real world dynamics of complex teams solving complex problems.  After earning an undergraduate degree in Psychology, he served as a high school math teacher, business software systems developer, and manager of a Corporate innovation program.  After extensive practice facilitating complex team creativity he earned a Masters in Creative Studies and a PhD in Organizational Behavior for a dissertation on the success factors of cross functional teams.  He currently teaches MBA students at Stuart School cross functional team leadership. business strategy, and organizational leadership, continuing his research and writing on this area, and continuing his consulting practice through "The Co-Creativity Institute".  For more information, visit: www.cocreativity.com, or http://www.stuart.iit.edu/faculty/barlow/.
 
 
 

What do you do when your meeting sponsor gives an ambiguous statement of need, such as: “I would like to hold a session in which we get a better idea for where we are going.” ? What questions do you ask to better understand the purpose and desired outcomes?  What additional information do you need to prepare a workable agenda and a more detailed guide for facilitation?  This workshop will provide a structured process for understanding your client’s need and transforming the need into a detailed facilitation guide. This session will be relevant to beginners and advanced group facilitators.  Experienced facilitators who find themselves constructing custom agendas will also find the workshop especially valuable. After completing the workshop you will understand:

• The Five P’s – the critical topic areas to cover with the sponsor
• The six key questions that define the client need
• The principles of agenda building
• A four-step process for translating the client need to a customized agenda
• The test to ensure you “know your process cold”