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Employee engagement can seem like rather a one-sided affair for many senior managers. Andrew Mayo’s article Finding the Right Balance offers a useful perspective on how to balance engagement on the one-hand and employee performance on the other. Andrew Mayo is author of the forthcoming Gower book Human Resources or Human Capital: Managing People as Assets.
BAM2011 SUMPNER LECTURE THEATRE,WED 11:00-12:30
SYMPOSIUM ON LEARNING FROM THE ASTON STUDIES
Taking the structure seriously
“What I learned from the Aston studies was to take the structure seriously using a contingency approach. This is common when studying structure, but it is often ignored when studying organization change processes. I have looked at change and organizational development processes and developed a framework (The Pugh OD Matrix) for identifying appropriate change processes in relation to structural problems. The dimensions of the matrix are: level of analytical focus (individual, group, inter-group, organizational) and degree of required intervention (behaviour, structure, context). The matrix suggests what is the appropriate OD methodology for the particular change required.
Given that the impact of contextual factors (size, technology, ownership patterns, etc.) on organizational structure have been shown to be reasonably stable across countries, I have also tried to identify (with David Hickson) how societal cultural differences affect the functioning of organizational structures.”
Pugh, Derek, Open University Business School
Derek is the co-author of Great Writers on Organizations
Peruse this book and the many others displayed by Gower at the British Academy of Management Conference 2011, stand number 9.
Anthony Landale (Editor of Gower Handbook of Training and Development and co-author of The Fast Facilitator) has a way of making the difficult challenges of leadership so much more understandable. In his piece ‘Why Big Conversations Matter’ he offers a perspective on how and why leaders need to converse (rather than communicate) with their employees.
Previous recessions, when organizations have been under financial stress, have lead to a rise in the cases of bullying and workplace harassment so perhaps it is an appropriate moment to mention this straight-forward awareness raising factsheet from the Kade Consultancy. Elaine Douglas of the Kade Consultancy is author of Gower’s Bullying in the Workplace training resource.
Mike Wellin’s short article ‘The Deal’ is a real thought provoker. You know (at heart) just how much our behaviour is driven by perception and expectations and yet, how little time do most of us devote when interviewing or negotiating with team members or work colleagues, to identify, understand and share our mutual expectations? It’s little wonder that so many employees are disenchanted or disengaged. Mike Wellin is author of Managing the Psychological Contract: Using the Personal Deal to Increase Business Performance.
Two or three years ago, I remember being struck when talking to project managers involved in the National Health Service, Connecting for Health project, that they all seemed to have a determination to deliver their part of the project, no matter what constraints and misdirections they received from senior managers. How things are changed. As Lynda Bourne (Stakeholder Relationship Management and Advising Upwards) argues very convincingly in her paper at the PMI EMEA Congress in Italy in May, the future for the project management hero doesn’t look promising. The good news is that she does offer a clear alternative but one that requires the project manager to learn how to delegate, motivate and communicate. Heroes come in many shapes and forms, but whatever role you choose to adopt for your projects, it seems that that of the Spartans at Thermopylae is contra-indicated!
One of the great aspects of the Internet are all the tools that you can access, often free of charge, that can provide a super starting point for more detailed reading or research. Have a look at ‘Questions to Assess the Psychological Contract’ on the Clutterbuck Associates website. For anyone struggling to articulate what they want from their work (or for employers struggling to understand their relationship with their employees), this offers a useful icebreaker to the process. David Clutterbuck is editor of The Situational Mentor and co-author of the forthcoming Working Without Goals.
