Sorry! Halston Consulting is temporarily on hold... I will start blogging again soon :)
Monday, October 17, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Millennials
There is a lot of discussion these days about our aging workforce and ideas around how to 'fix' the problem. But one discussion caught my attention the other day and it was the number of young consultants that jumped ship after a few months / one year of working. Reasons given were work/life balance, not getting paid enough, and not having enough responsibility.
This age group is called the "Millennials" and defined as born after 1982. They will soon be taking over the workforce and have radically different views on 'work' than their seasoned counterparts!
On one side of the fence are the seasoned workers. Their biggest complaint is that they feel the millennial generation has a sense of entitlement or instant success. After all, they worked themselves up from the bottom, spent a good number of years making a paltry salary to establish themselves! Who do these kids think they are?
“Millennials are very optimistic in the future, and are ambitious people,” Sohal said. “Baby boomers know it takes years to climb the corporate ladder and pay scale, but younger employees don’t see it that way; they think it won’t take them years to climb.” (Source)
In support of the younger crowd - something to think about is the amount of change in the world. This younger generation never had pagers and most don't even know what a land line is... They have been brought up in a world of instant news and instant gratification. Whereas the boomers eagerly awaited the evening news for the days updates, Millennials just login to their smart phones and download it right away. Large scale events such as uprisings are on YouTube even before the government can shut down communications. So, where is the disconnect?
I think it has to do with a large scale system error, mostly with established, older, organizations. Businesses are set up in a hierarchical manor - the expectation is that someone should start at the bottom and work their way up the ladder; it is as much about putting in your time as it is about performance. Age-ism is rampant in this climate! As is the discrimination based on how many years one went to school and what experience you have in the world. Do all of these factors really matter at the end of the day?
Unfortunately the answer is yes and no. Experience is a powerful thing. How do you know that you don't know something unless you have experienced it? However, being able to think outside of the box and not having the constraints of past decisions is also equally as powerful. How else are we to learn from our mistakes?
At the end of the day we need to come up with a way to keep this generation engaged and at the same time maybe rethink the older paradigms of how our organizations are set up! Are we leveraging our full potential? How can we retain our younger workforce?
This age group is called the "Millennials" and defined as born after 1982. They will soon be taking over the workforce and have radically different views on 'work' than their seasoned counterparts!
On one side of the fence are the seasoned workers. Their biggest complaint is that they feel the millennial generation has a sense of entitlement or instant success. After all, they worked themselves up from the bottom, spent a good number of years making a paltry salary to establish themselves! Who do these kids think they are?
“Millennials are very optimistic in the future, and are ambitious people,” Sohal said. “Baby boomers know it takes years to climb the corporate ladder and pay scale, but younger employees don’t see it that way; they think it won’t take them years to climb.” (Source)
In support of the younger crowd - something to think about is the amount of change in the world. This younger generation never had pagers and most don't even know what a land line is... They have been brought up in a world of instant news and instant gratification. Whereas the boomers eagerly awaited the evening news for the days updates, Millennials just login to their smart phones and download it right away. Large scale events such as uprisings are on YouTube even before the government can shut down communications. So, where is the disconnect?
I think it has to do with a large scale system error, mostly with established, older, organizations. Businesses are set up in a hierarchical manor - the expectation is that someone should start at the bottom and work their way up the ladder; it is as much about putting in your time as it is about performance. Age-ism is rampant in this climate! As is the discrimination based on how many years one went to school and what experience you have in the world. Do all of these factors really matter at the end of the day?
Unfortunately the answer is yes and no. Experience is a powerful thing. How do you know that you don't know something unless you have experienced it? However, being able to think outside of the box and not having the constraints of past decisions is also equally as powerful. How else are we to learn from our mistakes?
At the end of the day we need to come up with a way to keep this generation engaged and at the same time maybe rethink the older paradigms of how our organizations are set up! Are we leveraging our full potential? How can we retain our younger workforce?
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Never let your fear overwhelm your desire.
This 20min speech given by the COO of Facebook is both inspirational and moving. I think she has a great message, espcially for the younger generations who still need to her it. Please take some time out of your day to listen to this and spread the message!
"never let your fear overwhelm your desire. Let the obstacles in your path be external not internal. Fortune does favor the bold and you'll never know what you're capable of if you don't try."
Monday, June 13, 2011
Competency Models
Most organizations understand the need for job descriptions and periodic performance reviews of employees. However, most organizations do not necessarily detail out competencies for their job categories and therefore lose various aspects of organizational effectiveness because they are unable to measure performance on a standardized baseline. Also, talent attraction and retention is impacted due to hiring practices that are not based on measurable competencies.
So, what is a competency and what is a competency model?
In order for organizations to be cost effective and efficient - developing a competency model such as the example energy one; is a necessary exercise in order to identify specific gap areas, measure overall performance and ensure that talent acquisition is aligned with the organizational needs.
So, what is a competency and what is a competency model?
- Competencies are the set of skills, knowledge and behaviours allowing an individual to effectively and efficiently carry out his or her role in an organization. Business Performance is achieved by building the right set of competencies in the workforce, and aligning and deploying these most effectively to the different job functions.
- A competency model identifies the competencies needed to perform a specific role in a job, organization, or profession. Simply put, a competency model helps define what people need to know and do to be successful. (source)
- Occupation Related Competencies
- Industry Related Competencies
- Functional Competencies
In order for organizations to be cost effective and efficient - developing a competency model such as the example energy one; is a necessary exercise in order to identify specific gap areas, measure overall performance and ensure that talent acquisition is aligned with the organizational needs.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Is your company fit for human beings?
Good Day!
It has been ages since I have been posting - mostly due to life (excuses, excuses...). Today as I was scrolling through some online articles this heading caught my eye "Is your company fit for human beings". It doesn't matter who I talk to - everyone has a story about Organizational Development issues within their companies. It has been written about, researched, blogged, tweeted, published etc.. to death - so why is this still a problem?
I think this mostly stems to the fact that with any human related problem there are too many variables that impact business. Therefore, I think there will always be work for OD Consultants! :)
Here is an excerpt from that article:
The good news is that there's a great deal of energy and ingenuity around experimenting with radical management practices in organizations of every stripe. The tougher news is that no organization is exempt from a daunting array of challenges:
•In a world where exponential change is the new normal, how do you build a company that can change as fast as change itself?
•In a world where no organization is protected from intense, unpredictable, disruptive competition, how do you make innovation everybody's job, every day?
•In a world where knowledge itself is becoming a commodity, how do you cultivate an environment that engages and unleashes the gifts of each person's imagination, initiative, and passion?
•In a world of increasingly limited resources, how do we rethink what it means to win so that profit comes not from gaming the system but from changing the game for everyone?
As Gary Hamel argues in the video Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment, you can't tackle those mega-challenges if you're not willing to do three things:
1.Aim high. Don't rest until you've done everything you can do to make your organization as resilient, inventive, inspiring, and accountable as it can be.
2.Challenge the status quo. Most of us work in organizations governed by principles invented before 1920 (and by individuals born in the 19th century). You have to be a relentless contrarian to peel away the operating assumptions and built-in beliefs that surround us like wallpaper.
3.Explore the fringe. The future doesn't happen in the corner office or the conference room. It starts out there, on the edges, around the bend. You have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone and venture into unlikely realms if you want to keep yourself and your organization changing ahead of the times.
Today's aspiring management innovators have a real advantage when it comes to reinventing the organization. Unlike the early management pioneers who set themselves the task of turning free-thinking flesh-and-blood human beings into semi-programmable robots, we are working with the grain of human nature. We know that the only way to build an organization that's truly fit for the future is to build one that's truly fit for human beings. (SOURCE)
It has been ages since I have been posting - mostly due to life (excuses, excuses...). Today as I was scrolling through some online articles this heading caught my eye "Is your company fit for human beings". It doesn't matter who I talk to - everyone has a story about Organizational Development issues within their companies. It has been written about, researched, blogged, tweeted, published etc.. to death - so why is this still a problem?
I think this mostly stems to the fact that with any human related problem there are too many variables that impact business. Therefore, I think there will always be work for OD Consultants! :)
Here is an excerpt from that article:
The good news is that there's a great deal of energy and ingenuity around experimenting with radical management practices in organizations of every stripe. The tougher news is that no organization is exempt from a daunting array of challenges:
•In a world where exponential change is the new normal, how do you build a company that can change as fast as change itself?
•In a world where no organization is protected from intense, unpredictable, disruptive competition, how do you make innovation everybody's job, every day?
•In a world where knowledge itself is becoming a commodity, how do you cultivate an environment that engages and unleashes the gifts of each person's imagination, initiative, and passion?
•In a world of increasingly limited resources, how do we rethink what it means to win so that profit comes not from gaming the system but from changing the game for everyone?
As Gary Hamel argues in the video Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment, you can't tackle those mega-challenges if you're not willing to do three things:
1.Aim high. Don't rest until you've done everything you can do to make your organization as resilient, inventive, inspiring, and accountable as it can be.
2.Challenge the status quo. Most of us work in organizations governed by principles invented before 1920 (and by individuals born in the 19th century). You have to be a relentless contrarian to peel away the operating assumptions and built-in beliefs that surround us like wallpaper.
3.Explore the fringe. The future doesn't happen in the corner office or the conference room. It starts out there, on the edges, around the bend. You have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone and venture into unlikely realms if you want to keep yourself and your organization changing ahead of the times.
Today's aspiring management innovators have a real advantage when it comes to reinventing the organization. Unlike the early management pioneers who set themselves the task of turning free-thinking flesh-and-blood human beings into semi-programmable robots, we are working with the grain of human nature. We know that the only way to build an organization that's truly fit for the future is to build one that's truly fit for human beings. (SOURCE)
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Uncertainty
Lately it seems that the hot topic in my life is the element of uncertainty or ambiguity. Things that are out of your control... So what do we do about it?! Here is some food for thought:
Tony Schwartz, HBR Blog, Monday May 9, 2011
A few weeks ago, I found myself in a conflict with someone in my work life. I felt he had clearly violated an agreement we'd made. My first reaction was righteous indignation.
It was a familiar feeling. I was raised by a powerful mother who saw the world in stark terms: black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. She devoted her life to fighting for social justice and prided herself on uncompromising honesty. Her worldview deeply influenced mine.
In this case, I believed the person at work had acted badly. I was right, and he was wrong. My goal was to get him to see it my way.
A few days later, we had a chance to sit down together. Not surprisingly, the conversation was awkward at first. Then, to my surprise, as he explained himself, I felt myself beginning to understand why he made the choice he did.
It wasn't so much that I felt he was right, as that I felt less righteous. This was complicated. There was more than one way to look at it. It wasn't about good and evil. If I looked at the big picture, it still made sense to go forward together, even under the new terms.
I felt good about our resolution in the moment, but over the next day, my mood plummeted. At first I suspected it was some sort of repressed anger. As I reflected, however, I realized I was grieving a loss. It wasn't about him or our relationship. It was about me. I was grieving the loss of certainty.
What I felt slipping away — as it has been for some time in my life — was the sort of security and clarity that comes from believing you've got the answer. It feels good to know things for sure. It makes us feel safer, at least in the short term.
But certainty has its limitations. Very rarely, I've discovered, is certainty the outgrowth of careful consideration and deep understanding. Far more often, it's a primitive instinct — a way we defend against uncertainty, which understandably feels unsettling and even dangerous.
The problem is that certainty often oversimplifies and trivializes, especially in a world that has grown so immensely complex. "I don't do nuance," the notoriously unambivalent George W. Bush once said. But is there much doubt that Bush's easy certainty, lack of introspection and narrowness of vision served neither him nor our country well?
What we need from leaders (and ourselves) is greater capacity to see the big picture — to embrace nuance, subtlety and paradox rather than racing to choose up sides. Certainty creates a zero sum world in which my gain is necessarily your loss, and my being right means you must be wrong.
Just a simple example: Take out a piece of paper and make a list of the qualities that characterize you at your best. Next, make a list of the qualities you exhibit at your worst. If possible, do this before reading any further.
OK, so which one of these lists describes you? Plainly, the answer is both, opposite as they likely are. "Do I contradict myself?" Walt Whitman asked in "Song Of Myself." "Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."
This is no argument for moral relativism or for anything goes. Some qualities are obviously more virtuous than others. But would you rather have a leader who recognizes, acknowledges and honestly struggles with his limitations, or one who pretends not to have any? Which person would you rather be?
From a neurological perspective, our pull to certainty is a byproduct of overtraining and over relying on the left hemisphere of our brain at the expense of the right. Choosing up sides between the two — privileging the left over the right, as we do — makes us narrower. Cultivating both hemispheres gives us access to a whole and far more powerful brain — both the rational, deductive, goal-driven capacities of the left, and the openness and big picture orientation of the right.
It's the same with even the most virtuous qualities. Overuse any one of them and they become destructive. Confidence untempered by humility turns into arrogance. Tenacity without flexibility becomes rigidity. Courage without prudence is recklessness.
Above all, certainty kills curiosity, learning, and growth. True confidence requires the willingness to give up the need to be right, the courage to say "I'm not sure," even when the pressure for answers is intense, and the hunger to forever learn and grow.
Here's a threshold question I now ask myself when I'm in conflict and convinced I'm right. "What would the other person say is happening here, and in what ways might that be true?"
Tony Schwartz, HBR Blog, Monday May 9, 2011
A few weeks ago, I found myself in a conflict with someone in my work life. I felt he had clearly violated an agreement we'd made. My first reaction was righteous indignation.
It was a familiar feeling. I was raised by a powerful mother who saw the world in stark terms: black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. She devoted her life to fighting for social justice and prided herself on uncompromising honesty. Her worldview deeply influenced mine.
In this case, I believed the person at work had acted badly. I was right, and he was wrong. My goal was to get him to see it my way.
A few days later, we had a chance to sit down together. Not surprisingly, the conversation was awkward at first. Then, to my surprise, as he explained himself, I felt myself beginning to understand why he made the choice he did.
It wasn't so much that I felt he was right, as that I felt less righteous. This was complicated. There was more than one way to look at it. It wasn't about good and evil. If I looked at the big picture, it still made sense to go forward together, even under the new terms.
I felt good about our resolution in the moment, but over the next day, my mood plummeted. At first I suspected it was some sort of repressed anger. As I reflected, however, I realized I was grieving a loss. It wasn't about him or our relationship. It was about me. I was grieving the loss of certainty.
What I felt slipping away — as it has been for some time in my life — was the sort of security and clarity that comes from believing you've got the answer. It feels good to know things for sure. It makes us feel safer, at least in the short term.
But certainty has its limitations. Very rarely, I've discovered, is certainty the outgrowth of careful consideration and deep understanding. Far more often, it's a primitive instinct — a way we defend against uncertainty, which understandably feels unsettling and even dangerous.
The problem is that certainty often oversimplifies and trivializes, especially in a world that has grown so immensely complex. "I don't do nuance," the notoriously unambivalent George W. Bush once said. But is there much doubt that Bush's easy certainty, lack of introspection and narrowness of vision served neither him nor our country well?
What we need from leaders (and ourselves) is greater capacity to see the big picture — to embrace nuance, subtlety and paradox rather than racing to choose up sides. Certainty creates a zero sum world in which my gain is necessarily your loss, and my being right means you must be wrong.
Just a simple example: Take out a piece of paper and make a list of the qualities that characterize you at your best. Next, make a list of the qualities you exhibit at your worst. If possible, do this before reading any further.
OK, so which one of these lists describes you? Plainly, the answer is both, opposite as they likely are. "Do I contradict myself?" Walt Whitman asked in "Song Of Myself." "Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."
This is no argument for moral relativism or for anything goes. Some qualities are obviously more virtuous than others. But would you rather have a leader who recognizes, acknowledges and honestly struggles with his limitations, or one who pretends not to have any? Which person would you rather be?
From a neurological perspective, our pull to certainty is a byproduct of overtraining and over relying on the left hemisphere of our brain at the expense of the right. Choosing up sides between the two — privileging the left over the right, as we do — makes us narrower. Cultivating both hemispheres gives us access to a whole and far more powerful brain — both the rational, deductive, goal-driven capacities of the left, and the openness and big picture orientation of the right.
It's the same with even the most virtuous qualities. Overuse any one of them and they become destructive. Confidence untempered by humility turns into arrogance. Tenacity without flexibility becomes rigidity. Courage without prudence is recklessness.
Above all, certainty kills curiosity, learning, and growth. True confidence requires the willingness to give up the need to be right, the courage to say "I'm not sure," even when the pressure for answers is intense, and the hunger to forever learn and grow.
Here's a threshold question I now ask myself when I'm in conflict and convinced I'm right. "What would the other person say is happening here, and in what ways might that be true?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)