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	<title>Comments for Dr Geoff Wells</title>
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	<link>http://www.geoffwells.com</link>
	<description>Sustainability &#38; Sustainable Business Advisor/Mentor, Certified Management Consultant (CMC)</description>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 6: Performing Seals by Stacey Bradley</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/12/fractured-workplace-chapter-6-performing-seals/comment-page-1/#comment-8612</link>
		<dc:creator>Stacey Bradley</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:11:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=1049#comment-8612</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Another great chapter geoff! I especially liked how you picked up on the impact of work on people&#039;s lives and the impact of people&#039;s lives on their work. As you&#039;ve noted, these cannot be seperated from &#039;the worker&#039;, so all of these need to be addressed as a package. It&#039;s already been noted above, there is a limit to support that can be provided by the organisation, but if performance management were abandoned in lieu of a more ongoing supportive exchange, I exect it would not cost organisations any more but result in longterm savings and other additional benefits. Whilst it seems to be such an obvious, logical notion, it is often not put into practice! Keep up the great work - looking forward to Chapter 7!]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Another great chapter geoff! I especially liked how you picked up on the impact of work on people&#8217;s lives and the impact of people&#8217;s lives on their work. As you&#8217;ve noted, these cannot be seperated from &#8216;the worker&#8217;, so all of these need to be addressed as a package. It&#8217;s already been noted above, there is a limit to support that can be provided by the organisation, but if performance management were abandoned in lieu of a more ongoing supportive exchange, I exect it would not cost organisations any more but result in longterm savings and other additional benefits. Whilst it seems to be such an obvious, logical notion, it is often not put into practice! Keep up the great work &#8211; looking forward to Chapter 7!</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 5: Working for life by Geoff Wells</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/10/the-fractured-workplace-and-its-remedies-chapter-5/comment-page-1/#comment-8561</link>
		<dc:creator>Geoff Wells</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jan 2013 06:05:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=970#comment-8561</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thanks for the reference, Rob.  Respect is of course the opposite of, and in many ways the antidote to, Taylorist assumptions and practices.  I&#039;ll be interested to read the book.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thanks for the reference, Rob.  Respect is of course the opposite of, and in many ways the antidote to, Taylorist assumptions and practices.  I&#8217;ll be interested to read the book.</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 5: Working for life by Rob Crocker</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/10/the-fractured-workplace-and-its-remedies-chapter-5/comment-page-1/#comment-8560</link>
		<dc:creator>Rob Crocker</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jan 2013 04:20:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=970#comment-8560</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I would recommend you look at Richard Sennett&#039;s book, Respect. It emphasises the role of technology and innovation in manufacturing and service work in furthering the Taylorist agenda. This puts new technology in another light, which is as yet poorly explored.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I would recommend you look at Richard Sennett&#8217;s book, Respect. It emphasises the role of technology and innovation in manufacturing and service work in furthering the Taylorist agenda. This puts new technology in another light, which is as yet poorly explored.</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 6: Performing Seals by Geoff Wells</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/12/fractured-workplace-chapter-6-performing-seals/comment-page-1/#comment-8536</link>
		<dc:creator>Geoff Wells</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:16:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=1049#comment-8536</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Wise comments, Sam.  I love the idea of turning performance management back onto the manager.  And the commonsense in asking whether everything is ok--just the kind of natural learning that arises in everyone&#039;s life--if they are at all reflective about it--and which I think needs to be part of the workplace.  This leads naturally into a discussion of leadership, which I&#039;ll try to cover in the next chapter.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Wise comments, Sam.  I love the idea of turning performance management back onto the manager.  And the commonsense in asking whether everything is ok&#8211;just the kind of natural learning that arises in everyone&#8217;s life&#8211;if they are at all reflective about it&#8211;and which I think needs to be part of the workplace.  This leads naturally into a discussion of leadership, which I&#8217;ll try to cover in the next chapter.</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 6: Performing Seals by Sam Wells</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/12/fractured-workplace-chapter-6-performing-seals/comment-page-1/#comment-8534</link>
		<dc:creator>Sam Wells</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 01:58:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=1049#comment-8534</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As you say, Geoff, nothing better reflects the assumptions at the heart of our toxic workplaces than their notions of &#039;performance&#039; and &#039;performance management&#039;.  Even beyond Taylor, I would suggest that we see at work three centuries of immersion in the mechanistic, &#039;Newtonian&#039; paradigm, with its emphasis on certainty, linear causation, control and, perhaps most tellingly, reductionist principles.  The whole is just the sum of the parts, so in &#039;performance management&#039;, the organisational performance is just the sum of individual performances.  It follows that if the organisation is not performing as desired, it&#039;s because one or more individuals have &#039;let the side down&#039; and need to be &#039;performance managed&#039;.  And there follows the whole process of blame, threat and the diminishing of the person that you describe, Geoff.  It was not on a whim that W. Edwards Deming included performance appraisals among his Seven Deadly Sins, to be expunged from the face of the earth.  He saw that the damage they do to people and to work is not because they are done badly, but because there is no way to do them well - they are fundamentally flawed in so many ways.  I recommend 
Scholtes, P.R. (1987).  An elaboration of Deming’s teachings on performance appraisal.  Madison, WI:Joiner Associates Inc.
- an oldy but a goody.

I love your notion of storytelling, Nicholas.  I think it goes to the heart of matter.  The mechanistic view of performance management focuses on the parts and, of course, deprives itself of the very element that makes the whole whole - that is, the relationship between the parts. Organisations are complex, &#039;living&#039; systems.  They stand in stark contrast to the Newtonian view of things - they are characterised by uncertainty, unpredictability, non-linear causation and emergent behaviour.  Management that does not appreciate and learn how to engage with this complexity will, ultimately, fail.  The great traditions of knowledge in human history have been sustained and transmitted, in part, through storytelling.  I am certain that one reason for that is that stories inherently do justice to complexity - without even trying, they encompass the countless connections, across space, time, and different levels of being, that constitute our experience of life.  Storytelling honours those connections, without having to unravel them.

So an approach to performance based on storytelling is an effective antidote to the shallow, mechanistic, controlling norm.  The question remains, &quot;Whose performance should we be considering?&quot;.  

Taking a lead from your focus on health, Geoff, it&#039;s worth noting that the Old German and Old English origins of our &#039;heal&#039; and &#039;whole&#039; don&#039;t distinguish between those words.  To heal is to make whole.  To be healthy is to be whole.  Healthy performance management is about enabling individuals to become everything they are, in the service of the organisation.

Rather than the mean-spirited, oppressive focus on whether individuals are meeting their KPI&#039;s and on &quot;Who is letting the side down?&quot;, healing, wholesome performance management requires the manager to ask a very different question: &quot;Have I done everything I could possibly do to set this person up for success?&quot;  Have I understood and managed the systems or processes within which the work is performed - which often contributes the bulk of the outcome and over which the individual often has little control?  Have I ensured that the individual&#039;s fundamental behavioural capability enables him to excel in this role - is he a good fit?  Does the work provide one outlet for the individual&#039;s passion - does it make his heart sing?  Does this person have all the necessary technical skills - have I provided the required training?

It turns out that the manager has a direct influence on many things that have an impact on the individual&#039;s &#039;performance&#039;.  Rather than turning the spotlight (or the blowtorch) on the individual, the narrative at the heart of healthy performance management should start with the manager looking in the mirror - Have I done everything to set this person up for success?

And when systems, role fit, passion, skills have all been addressed and still something seems wrong, the manager gets to ask another question, this time of the individual concerned: &quot;Is everything OK?&quot;  The chances are that everything is not OK.  Perhaps the person has money worries; perhaps he is physically unwell or depressed; perhaps he is caring for someone at home.  Certainly there is a limit to how much healing an organisation can provide, but a great deal can be done...if we know there&#039;s a problem.  And providing this support for wholeness is also part of setting the person up for success.  (Of course, this contrasts with the fragmented, mechanistic approach: &quot;We don&#039;t bring our home worries to work - park them at the gate!&quot; -  the ultimate expression of controlling, depersonalising unconnectedness!)

Very early in my corporate career, as a raw Human Resources cadet, I told the Group Managing Director that we should implement a performance appraisal program.  He asked me why.  &quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;it would mean that all our people would get to talk with their manager at least once a year about how things are going&quot;.  He looked puzzled - &quot;Are you telling me that there are people who wouldn&#039;t, otherwise, get to talk with their managers about how things are going?&quot;
&quot;Well...yes&quot;  I was feeling that my position was strong...until he turned it on its head - &quot;We don&#039;t need your performance appraisal thing.  We need to give some serious thought to how we select our managers!&quot;  It took me another 15 years to appreciate the wisdom in that simple insight.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As you say, Geoff, nothing better reflects the assumptions at the heart of our toxic workplaces than their notions of &#8216;performance&#8217; and &#8216;performance management&#8217;.  Even beyond Taylor, I would suggest that we see at work three centuries of immersion in the mechanistic, &#8216;Newtonian&#8217; paradigm, with its emphasis on certainty, linear causation, control and, perhaps most tellingly, reductionist principles.  The whole is just the sum of the parts, so in &#8216;performance management&#8217;, the organisational performance is just the sum of individual performances.  It follows that if the organisation is not performing as desired, it&#8217;s because one or more individuals have &#8216;let the side down&#8217; and need to be &#8216;performance managed&#8217;.  And there follows the whole process of blame, threat and the diminishing of the person that you describe, Geoff.  It was not on a whim that W. Edwards Deming included performance appraisals among his Seven Deadly Sins, to be expunged from the face of the earth.  He saw that the damage they do to people and to work is not because they are done badly, but because there is no way to do them well &#8211; they are fundamentally flawed in so many ways.  I recommend<br />
Scholtes, P.R. (1987).  An elaboration of Deming’s teachings on performance appraisal.  Madison, WI:Joiner Associates Inc.<br />
- an oldy but a goody.</p>
<p>I love your notion of storytelling, Nicholas.  I think it goes to the heart of matter.  The mechanistic view of performance management focuses on the parts and, of course, deprives itself of the very element that makes the whole whole &#8211; that is, the relationship between the parts. Organisations are complex, &#8216;living&#8217; systems.  They stand in stark contrast to the Newtonian view of things &#8211; they are characterised by uncertainty, unpredictability, non-linear causation and emergent behaviour.  Management that does not appreciate and learn how to engage with this complexity will, ultimately, fail.  The great traditions of knowledge in human history have been sustained and transmitted, in part, through storytelling.  I am certain that one reason for that is that stories inherently do justice to complexity &#8211; without even trying, they encompass the countless connections, across space, time, and different levels of being, that constitute our experience of life.  Storytelling honours those connections, without having to unravel them.</p>
<p>So an approach to performance based on storytelling is an effective antidote to the shallow, mechanistic, controlling norm.  The question remains, &#8220;Whose performance should we be considering?&#8221;.  </p>
<p>Taking a lead from your focus on health, Geoff, it&#8217;s worth noting that the Old German and Old English origins of our &#8216;heal&#8217; and &#8216;whole&#8217; don&#8217;t distinguish between those words.  To heal is to make whole.  To be healthy is to be whole.  Healthy performance management is about enabling individuals to become everything they are, in the service of the organisation.</p>
<p>Rather than the mean-spirited, oppressive focus on whether individuals are meeting their KPI&#8217;s and on &#8220;Who is letting the side down?&#8221;, healing, wholesome performance management requires the manager to ask a very different question: &#8220;Have I done everything I could possibly do to set this person up for success?&#8221;  Have I understood and managed the systems or processes within which the work is performed &#8211; which often contributes the bulk of the outcome and over which the individual often has little control?  Have I ensured that the individual&#8217;s fundamental behavioural capability enables him to excel in this role &#8211; is he a good fit?  Does the work provide one outlet for the individual&#8217;s passion &#8211; does it make his heart sing?  Does this person have all the necessary technical skills &#8211; have I provided the required training?</p>
<p>It turns out that the manager has a direct influence on many things that have an impact on the individual&#8217;s &#8216;performance&#8217;.  Rather than turning the spotlight (or the blowtorch) on the individual, the narrative at the heart of healthy performance management should start with the manager looking in the mirror &#8211; Have I done everything to set this person up for success?</p>
<p>And when systems, role fit, passion, skills have all been addressed and still something seems wrong, the manager gets to ask another question, this time of the individual concerned: &#8220;Is everything OK?&#8221;  The chances are that everything is not OK.  Perhaps the person has money worries; perhaps he is physically unwell or depressed; perhaps he is caring for someone at home.  Certainly there is a limit to how much healing an organisation can provide, but a great deal can be done&#8230;if we know there&#8217;s a problem.  And providing this support for wholeness is also part of setting the person up for success.  (Of course, this contrasts with the fragmented, mechanistic approach: &#8220;We don&#8217;t bring our home worries to work &#8211; park them at the gate!&#8221; &#8211;  the ultimate expression of controlling, depersonalising unconnectedness!)</p>
<p>Very early in my corporate career, as a raw Human Resources cadet, I told the Group Managing Director that we should implement a performance appraisal program.  He asked me why.  &#8220;Well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;it would mean that all our people would get to talk with their manager at least once a year about how things are going&#8221;.  He looked puzzled &#8211; &#8220;Are you telling me that there are people who wouldn&#8217;t, otherwise, get to talk with their managers about how things are going?&#8221;<br />
&#8220;Well&#8230;yes&#8221;  I was feeling that my position was strong&#8230;until he turned it on its head &#8211; &#8220;We don&#8217;t need your performance appraisal thing.  We need to give some serious thought to how we select our managers!&#8221;  It took me another 15 years to appreciate the wisdom in that simple insight.</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 6: Performing Seals by Geoff Wells</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/12/fractured-workplace-chapter-6-performing-seals/comment-page-1/#comment-8528</link>
		<dc:creator>Geoff Wells</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2013 22:41:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=1049#comment-8528</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thankyou, Nicholas.  It&#039;s interesting that your points come out of the field of health. I suppose what I&#039;m trying to do here are two things: (1) attack the foundations and practices of the conventional approach to people taken by modern management, which seem to me to be intellectually negligible and ethically scandalous; and (2) start with the idea of health, rather than of work outcomes, and build up an understanding of the healthy workplace from there. That is where the link to your observations becomes directly relevant. I want to argue that healthy workplaces come first, in their own right, as a basic ethical commitment; with the side benefit that they will be the most productive and creative workplaces.  This involves a discussion of health and healthy workplaces; and there I&#039;m arguing that the things we know about how people work best outside the workplace must be the guiding principles--that things don&#039;t suddenly change to an alternate reality when you cross the work threshold to the standard unhealthy and unethical one driven by &#039;it&#039;s just business&#039; mentality.

The timing of your comment is excellent!--in the next chapter I want to begin laying out in detail the notion of a healthy workplace.  In that approach things like exchange and process become central.  The role of narrative and storytelling, as you describe it, may indeed be a new perspective on this--I don&#039;t know of anyone who has looked at this way.  So I hope you&#039;ll stay with it and bring your very experienced and knowledgeable comments to bear on this material as I enter upon that venture.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thankyou, Nicholas.  It&#8217;s interesting that your points come out of the field of health. I suppose what I&#8217;m trying to do here are two things: (1) attack the foundations and practices of the conventional approach to people taken by modern management, which seem to me to be intellectually negligible and ethically scandalous; and (2) start with the idea of health, rather than of work outcomes, and build up an understanding of the healthy workplace from there. That is where the link to your observations becomes directly relevant. I want to argue that healthy workplaces come first, in their own right, as a basic ethical commitment; with the side benefit that they will be the most productive and creative workplaces.  This involves a discussion of health and healthy workplaces; and there I&#8217;m arguing that the things we know about how people work best outside the workplace must be the guiding principles&#8211;that things don&#8217;t suddenly change to an alternate reality when you cross the work threshold to the standard unhealthy and unethical one driven by &#8216;it&#8217;s just business&#8217; mentality.</p>
<p>The timing of your comment is excellent!&#8211;in the next chapter I want to begin laying out in detail the notion of a healthy workplace.  In that approach things like exchange and process become central.  The role of narrative and storytelling, as you describe it, may indeed be a new perspective on this&#8211;I don&#8217;t know of anyone who has looked at this way.  So I hope you&#8217;ll stay with it and bring your very experienced and knowledgeable comments to bear on this material as I enter upon that venture.</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 6: Performing Seals by Nicholas Procter</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/12/fractured-workplace-chapter-6-performing-seals/comment-page-1/#comment-8524</link>
		<dc:creator>Nicholas Procter</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 22:48:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=1049#comment-8524</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thanks so much for this Geoff. As always you write so clearly! My thinking around what you are advocating for in some respects is a narrative approach that invites dialogue, information exchange and the needs of the employer and employee as a joint enterprise, client rather than the needs of the manager. At a deeper level narrative at work is a means of storytelling about feeling valued in the workplace. 

Recently I have been working on the topic of engaging with people in suicidal crisis. From these interviews and my reading around the topic (particularly the work of Konrad Michel and David Jobes, in Building a Therapeutic Alliance with the Suicidal Patient – ISBN 13: 978-1-4338-0907-1) I have come to appreciate the importance of storytelling. The authors are working in the field of suicidology and have deep knowledge and interest in the forming alliances with a person in suicidal crisis as a co-collaborator in the therapeutic process. So in the section below will adapt their frame of thinking (raw and preliminary) as insights to the area of work/ employment. 

Michel and Jobes argue that storytelling is a profoundly human capacity told to a listener. Meaning is accomplished interactionally, between the teller and the listener. A listener enters into the world of narrator - constructs and helps in the telling; thus work narratives are jointly accomplished, according to shared knowledge and interaction. And the discourse surrounding stories told and lives revealed becomes a joint action by itself. 

The counterpoint to a narrative approach at work is application of a structured or mechanistic style of employee-employer engagement. The approach is largely monologic and monocultural. In a workplace dialogue situation (for example) the employee becomes interviewee: subjected to a list of questions. Responses are mechanical, and issues are expressed by case study - or some similar framework defined primarily by the employer. Within this interaction personhood is lost. Employees in this situation feel subjected to being impersonally processed, dealt with and managed with little or no opportunity to contribute any perspective on what actually lies behind their situation, experience, need or aspiration to live and work as a healthy and socially engaged employee. 

So your new thinking makes a lot of sense when we think of the narrative approach. This is because a narrative approach in the context of the employee and employer engagement must be seen as something that has special meaning for those involved. It signals a change in the context of workplace learning and thinking by promoting alternate points of view and the lived experience of being at work. Best wishes Nicholas]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thanks so much for this Geoff. As always you write so clearly! My thinking around what you are advocating for in some respects is a narrative approach that invites dialogue, information exchange and the needs of the employer and employee as a joint enterprise, client rather than the needs of the manager. At a deeper level narrative at work is a means of storytelling about feeling valued in the workplace. </p>
<p>Recently I have been working on the topic of engaging with people in suicidal crisis. From these interviews and my reading around the topic (particularly the work of Konrad Michel and David Jobes, in Building a Therapeutic Alliance with the Suicidal Patient – ISBN 13: 978-1-4338-0907-1) I have come to appreciate the importance of storytelling. The authors are working in the field of suicidology and have deep knowledge and interest in the forming alliances with a person in suicidal crisis as a co-collaborator in the therapeutic process. So in the section below will adapt their frame of thinking (raw and preliminary) as insights to the area of work/ employment. </p>
<p>Michel and Jobes argue that storytelling is a profoundly human capacity told to a listener. Meaning is accomplished interactionally, between the teller and the listener. A listener enters into the world of narrator &#8211; constructs and helps in the telling; thus work narratives are jointly accomplished, according to shared knowledge and interaction. And the discourse surrounding stories told and lives revealed becomes a joint action by itself. </p>
<p>The counterpoint to a narrative approach at work is application of a structured or mechanistic style of employee-employer engagement. The approach is largely monologic and monocultural. In a workplace dialogue situation (for example) the employee becomes interviewee: subjected to a list of questions. Responses are mechanical, and issues are expressed by case study &#8211; or some similar framework defined primarily by the employer. Within this interaction personhood is lost. Employees in this situation feel subjected to being impersonally processed, dealt with and managed with little or no opportunity to contribute any perspective on what actually lies behind their situation, experience, need or aspiration to live and work as a healthy and socially engaged employee. </p>
<p>So your new thinking makes a lot of sense when we think of the narrative approach. This is because a narrative approach in the context of the employee and employer engagement must be seen as something that has special meaning for those involved. It signals a change in the context of workplace learning and thinking by promoting alternate points of view and the lived experience of being at work. Best wishes Nicholas</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 4: Participation and consultation&#8211;token and real by Geoff Wells</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/09/the-fractured-workplace-and-its-remedies-chapter-4/comment-page-1/#comment-8496</link>
		<dc:creator>Geoff Wells</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:50:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=927#comment-8496</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Yes, you&#039;re right, there is a lot of fear in letting go of control, as a manager.  It&#039;s not rational, of course--why does retaining control and isolating yourself increase the chances of organisational success?  It does expose, however, the fundamentally contemptuous view many managers have of employees.  If a health organisation is defined as one in which subordinates (however identified) are seen as &#039;mature, intelligent, forward-looking associates&#039; it&#039;s evident that modern managers, by and large, have a long way to go.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Yes, you&#8217;re right, there is a lot of fear in letting go of control, as a manager.  It&#8217;s not rational, of course&#8211;why does retaining control and isolating yourself increase the chances of organisational success?  It does expose, however, the fundamentally contemptuous view many managers have of employees.  If a health organisation is defined as one in which subordinates (however identified) are seen as &#8216;mature, intelligent, forward-looking associates&#8217; it&#8217;s evident that modern managers, by and large, have a long way to go.</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 4: Participation and consultation&#8211;token and real by Geoff Wells</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/09/the-fractured-workplace-and-its-remedies-chapter-4/comment-page-1/#comment-8494</link>
		<dc:creator>Geoff Wells</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:32:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=927#comment-8494</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[That&#039;s most interesting, Sarah.  It really provides a fine-grained analysis of the process of developing participation, with all of its human complexities and nuances.  And of course it rings true with anyone who has tried to put this kind of process into effect.  I suppose the obvious question for you (and for all of us) now is: what makes for the most effective pariticipative process?  For example, what do you do about people who would like to make a contribution but are too diffident or too convinced of their own inadequacies (or who have been told too often that they are inadequate) and who would therefore not be likely to put themselves forward?  Or about people with special agendas?  Part of the answer to the second, in my experience, is the importance of developing together the terms of reference and ground rules of the work at the beginning of the project; and then instituting a process by which you audit yourselves against them, or modify them as needed (a second loop approach).  But the first is the important and most difficult kind of question: how do you get the right people in in the first place?  Or do you simply accept that some people will want to be in many groups, some people in a selected few, and some people in none; and that you simply may not end up with the right group and have to accept it?  
Again, I think it&#039;s possible to have the group evaluate its own membership as it proceeds, and make changes together.  In other words, I suppose I&#039;m responding to the questions raised by your perceptive comments in a processual (terrible word, but the only one around), adaptive and emergent way, with the whole process of adaptative management being run by the group itself.  I have seen that work.  But it&#039;s not an easy solution, and there needs to be real commitment of the group to process as much as to outcomes--not a strength of modern management theory.  But thankyou for your thoughts, much to consider in them.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>That&#8217;s most interesting, Sarah.  It really provides a fine-grained analysis of the process of developing participation, with all of its human complexities and nuances.  And of course it rings true with anyone who has tried to put this kind of process into effect.  I suppose the obvious question for you (and for all of us) now is: what makes for the most effective pariticipative process?  For example, what do you do about people who would like to make a contribution but are too diffident or too convinced of their own inadequacies (or who have been told too often that they are inadequate) and who would therefore not be likely to put themselves forward?  Or about people with special agendas?  Part of the answer to the second, in my experience, is the importance of developing together the terms of reference and ground rules of the work at the beginning of the project; and then instituting a process by which you audit yourselves against them, or modify them as needed (a second loop approach).  But the first is the important and most difficult kind of question: how do you get the right people in in the first place?  Or do you simply accept that some people will want to be in many groups, some people in a selected few, and some people in none; and that you simply may not end up with the right group and have to accept it?<br />
Again, I think it&#8217;s possible to have the group evaluate its own membership as it proceeds, and make changes together.  In other words, I suppose I&#8217;m responding to the questions raised by your perceptive comments in a processual (terrible word, but the only one around), adaptive and emergent way, with the whole process of adaptative management being run by the group itself.  I have seen that work.  But it&#8217;s not an easy solution, and there needs to be real commitment of the group to process as much as to outcomes&#8211;not a strength of modern management theory.  But thankyou for your thoughts, much to consider in them.</p>
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		<title>Comment on &#8216;Fractured Workplace&#8217; Chapter 4: Participation and consultation&#8211;token and real by Sarah Mott</title>
		<link>http://www.geoffwells.com/2012/09/the-fractured-workplace-and-its-remedies-chapter-4/comment-page-1/#comment-8478</link>
		<dc:creator>Sarah Mott</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:51:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geoffwells.com/?p=927#comment-8478</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Terrific chapter, Geoff! I am really interested in your comments about the general principles for participative, collaborative thinking. I have participated in more teams, groups and working parties than I can poke a stick at; I have taught building and managing teams for many years. What never fails to surprise me is the idea that if a manager puts a random group of people together and tells them to solve this or fix that, the chance of success is pretty low. Even in these more enlightened times, despite an abundance of research findings, managers continue to lack the skills of team building and development.  When calling for volunteers to assist with a project, one finds that there will be some who are keen and have the appropriate skills. Others comprise those who have been told to take one step forward and, therefore, bristle with hostility; others will consider this a good way to avoid work responsibilities and look forward to an easy ride; and those who lack the insight to realize that they do not have the expertise to offer very much at all.  Is it any wonder, then, that groups so often fail because the work to develop the team is absent or minimal, at best? I wonder if the development part of group work is seen by managers as an unnecessary time wasting effort? If that is the case, it is very much false economy as if one costed the expense associated with failed groups, poor outcomes and lost work time, surely this would run into millions of dollars.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Terrific chapter, Geoff! I am really interested in your comments about the general principles for participative, collaborative thinking. I have participated in more teams, groups and working parties than I can poke a stick at; I have taught building and managing teams for many years. What never fails to surprise me is the idea that if a manager puts a random group of people together and tells them to solve this or fix that, the chance of success is pretty low. Even in these more enlightened times, despite an abundance of research findings, managers continue to lack the skills of team building and development.  When calling for volunteers to assist with a project, one finds that there will be some who are keen and have the appropriate skills. Others comprise those who have been told to take one step forward and, therefore, bristle with hostility; others will consider this a good way to avoid work responsibilities and look forward to an easy ride; and those who lack the insight to realize that they do not have the expertise to offer very much at all.  Is it any wonder, then, that groups so often fail because the work to develop the team is absent or minimal, at best? I wonder if the development part of group work is seen by managers as an unnecessary time wasting effort? If that is the case, it is very much false economy as if one costed the expense associated with failed groups, poor outcomes and lost work time, surely this would run into millions of dollars.</p>
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