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DNA Organizacji - Blog
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First meeting with a client |
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czwartek, 20 grudzień 2007 |
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The more we know about the client and his firm, the more time we save, and the meeting may be more fruitful. So today, my main source of information is Internet, and I think I can find there quite a lot. I surprised some clients with my knowledge of their firms.
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niedziela, 16 grudzień 2007 |
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Someone said there is never a second chance to make first good impression. This is why consultants should be dressed accordingly. Accordingly to the place and occasion. On the other hand, I can hardly see myself in a suit for 10 000 euro, so probably some market segments are psychologically out of my reach, I will never make any impression on them. I do not like the idea of dressing as an expression of one's personality. Probably for people like me it is better to find an expert who will do the job for us and choose our outfit. I have found such expert who does it for me and I follow her advice. If I am to show my personality it would be rather in what I write, or what and how I speak, and not in dressing in this or that way.
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Why participation and cognition |
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środa, 12 grudzień 2007 |
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As a consultant I am a cognitive psychologist. As any other specialist I can see many solutions in mental models of reality. So If everything seems fine, but the organization does not work and nobody knows why, I should be called - I like such projects best. If they know what is wrong, they should just do it and save money.
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Why a psychologist is working as a management consultant? |
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sobota, 08 grudzień 2007 |
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During my studies I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. I have even started small practice, had a first patient and a very good supervisor. I attended dynamic psychotherapy course and wrote my MA thesis in psychology about psychotherapy. In my first encounters with others in the same field I found out that they are much better than I. Still they could not perform what they wanted to do because of systematic flaws in the organizational systems of health system. Than I was in contact with many more different institutions – and I had the same feeling. Wonderful teachers do not work as they would like to, academics do not perform research they would like to, even when I was in the army I have noticed that we have a very weak army although all soldiers would prefer to make a strong army. This is when I decided to change my interest into something that is more important and where few people know what to do. For more than 20 years I was looking for a solution, and I think I have finally find one. My next book which I coauthor will be devoted to this solution.
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Our greatest mistake |
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piątek, 23 listopad 2007 |
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We work for many years. When we were starting we used „old” money. I remember lost negotiations over the price of our services in a large project. The organization said that they cannot pay such a big price. They have chosen a different company to work with. After several days I found out that I made a mistake in recalculating the budget from old into „new” money and added one zero too much. Of course it would be the best and cheapest offer. When I called them, they had already signed contract with the other firm.
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Refusal to be interviewed |
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niedziela, 18 listopad 2007 |
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If anyone refuses to be interviewed by consultants, it means they do not trust the consultant it is rather good sign which should be appreciated by consultants. Much worse is the situation, when the employees speak but they hide the truth. This may be misleading and lead to dangerous consequences. Such refusal has to be taken into account, interpreted and conclusions should be drawn. Of course this fact has to be noted in the final results.
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Domain specificity and organization consulting |
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wtorek, 13 listopad 2007 |
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Many psychologist prove that our knowledge is domain specific. Certainly an organization is a domain of knowledge. The question is which knowledge is transferable to other organizations which is not. I think there are 5 levels of transferring knowledge.
Most transferable is the knowledge in general business domain and general human relations domain. They may be said to be general and universal. Then we have the knowledge that may be universal in a business and not be applicable in other businesses. Then we have company specific knowledge, which is shared between employees of a company, but is not shared outside. Then we have team specific knowledge, and finally we have the process (or task) specific knowledge. Knowledge that is specific for each individual.
Diagnosing tool like Organizational DNA has to be tailored to work for this specific company, though for selected groups of questions, comparisons between divisions of the same company, or even between companies in different sectors are possible. We should know, however, which question have narrow applicability, which broader.
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niedziela, 04 listopad 2007 |
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I remember I had once coaching with Paul Gibbons - an experienced consultant and asked him whether I should be a freelancer or run a company. He advised me to think seriously about freelancing. It was after several years of fight for the existence of the company. I decided to continue the company, and regretted it many times in this rollercoaster market. When I think about it now I would say it depends what is the goal. If you have really big name – you may become a guru, write books and give advice here and there and earn you living, but if you want to really make some change in the company, you have to build quite a good team to do it. Today I think it is worthwhile to work in a team – you can be more effective.
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Personnel consulting |
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czwartek, 25 październik 2007 |
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Personnel consulting or human resources consulting is one of many specializations in consulting. I would prefer to say that we are psychologists and sociologists rather than personnel consultants. One cannot delineate personnel from strategy and operations and finance. Each organization is a complex system where all aspects and systems are interwinding and constituting a whole. I think our first goal is to understand what an organization is doing and than use our expertise to assist it. We are aware of the fact that if we miss knowledge in an important domain we should invite an additional expert. So I would rather not say we are personnel consultants. We are organizational consultants, who are psychologists or sociologists.
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Employee satisfaction |
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poniedziałek, 22 październik 2007 |
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Employee self-efficacy, employee development, employee business literacy, employee engagement, employee innovation, employee cognition, employee view of customers, employee spirituality, employee knowledge ... – I could enumerate probably hundreds of other “employee x” that would be as important as employee satisfaction. Employee sensation seeking may be stronger than employee satisfaction and such satisfied employee may decide to quit the company he or she is in. So let us measure and watch employee satisfaction, but remember at the same time that it is just one aspect in a complex system of management.
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Pay and its importance in management |
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wtorek, 16 październik 2007 |
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Pay systems or reward systems are considered by many managers to be the most important management tool. If they have problems with their employees, they usually think it is the reward system that is responsible for all evil in the company. In our tool Organizational DNA we verify the employees perception of 16 aspects of functioning of their organization. In 99% of organizations the reward system is considered the weakest system. Very often they do not complain about the level of their salaries but the distribution justice and rules of calculating the salary. I would say the pay system reflects the thinking of managers about their people. Do they treat them as resources or human beings. Most people want to do important things in their life. They want to have impact on what is the world like. In most cases they do not realize how good or bad their company is. So in practice the work on the reward system should start with the work on strategy. Reward system is a logical consequence of circumstances, business assumptions and strategies.
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Crisis intervention and long term therapy in management consulting |
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piątek, 05 październik 2007 |
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There are situations when company requires really quick action. It is called turnaround management. This is saving the existence of a company. We cooperate with a consultant who does it, and this usually means being physically in a company and making decisions for the management. The problem is that such companies usually do not have money to pay with. So they sign contracts to share future profits with the consultant. But when they are turned around and start to generate profit, they believe the same would have happened without the consultant, and are not ready to pay for the expertise. Although psychologically understandable, it does not help to perform the job. Long term work with a company is slightly easier for them, it leaves time for reflection. The mentality is being changed.
Of course there is also “pharmacological” market in consulting – miraculous medicine for anything. Ready to use systems, tools, which are supposed to solve all company's problems as long as they pay enough. We try to keep far from this.
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Can an organizational change start at the bottom? |
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sobota, 29 wrzesień 2007 |
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I would say there is no better way. I believe 30% of changes in companies may by executed without acceptance and even knowledge of the top executives. What is more, top management initiated changes will be successful only if bottom really implements them. However it is not as easy as it sounds. One Polish poet wrote that “our lords could have a lot, but they do not want to want.” So the success of organizational changes does not depend where it starts, but whether people want it or not. People want many things for certain, they want to have harmonious happy life, have a bit more than their neighbors, they want to be proud of themselves, want to have a sensible job, want to be treated fair, want to be shown what to do, etc. Now, the greatest problem with the changes is to convince people that the changes will help them to achieve all these wants while it looks it is going to be vice-versa. If you come up and say “After we lay off 30% of you, those who stay will have a better life” it does not look like what people want. But if you come and say: “ This company requires a lot of changes, you know this better than I, so we cannot secure anyone the same job you have had so far, but we want to assure you nobody is being to be laid off.” This is what buys people for changing. It also depends on who is speaking. If the one who makes this promise is famous for not keeping the promises, the effect is predictable. So trust is the problem not the place.
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środa, 26 wrzesień 2007 |
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I work in three different
roles. I am a management consultant, an academic teacher and a researcher. Each
of the roles is different and requires different contacts. For many years all
of the roles were assisted by one webpage. People got lost in it. My customers
could not find information important for them, students complained about
functionality of the webpage. I decided to split the complex content into three
places. The web page www.partycypacja.pl is for my accounts in Poland,
www.totalparticipation.com is for the accounts abroad, www.stocki.org is mainly for my advances Jagiellonian
University students and
future consultants in total participation management. I also have a forums in
some web communities, the most popular is one at www.goldenline.pl with almost 500 members.
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A good consultant |
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sobota, 22 wrzesień 2007 |
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A good consultant, first of all, is a good listener. If anyone “knows better,” he or she is automatically excluded from the profession. This listening skill is particularly important to understand both internal and environmental conditions of the situation an organization is in. Second thing is to ask good questions, and to propose a solution a consultant must know and believe in the existence of a healthy, honest and prospering organization. This means that a consultant should have experienced well run organizations, and thus knows what it is like. The greater the variability of such experience the better, because the greater potential fitness of the presented solution. The third feature is good manners in its traditional meaning - sensitivity. In any organization one group may win at the cost of another. The consultant has to detect the loosing parties and offer them something to compensate for their loss. Examples of such sensitivity areas are numerous, and the consultant has to detect them better than a hunting dog. Of course consultant must also be expert in the domain he is consulting, but this is another long story.
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Reliability and liar - key |
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czwartek, 20 wrzesień 2007 |
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Liar key is presuming that a person filling out a questionnaire tries to cheat us. What is particularly wrong in such statement is that we assume bad will. Psychological studies show that many a time a person may not answer you questions honestly because they want to help the company in this way, so they have absolutely good will. There are 100 other reasons why questionnaire results may be unreliable. So we first of all check for internal consistency. In other words we ask about the same thing several times and see if the answers are consistent. In the diagnostic process we also use triangulation, that is support the questionnaire results with the interviews and analysis of the documents of an organization. If the results negate one another, we are very cautious in drawing conclusions.
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The most difficult event in my career |
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piątek, 14 wrzesień 2007 |
When communication between employees and their manager fails, they may try to use the consultant to get through with their message. In one company, we were having workshop on evaluation process. The employees were confronting my every statement and any action I would undertake. I did not realize that the employees were not questioning me but the boss who hired me. The employees were opposing the company policy in general. Seeing my efforts and determination, one of the employees approached me during the coffee break and apologized, saying this the only chance they have opportunity to say anything to their boss. When finally the boss commented on what was happening, they started to cooperate and I could not believe this was the same group the same day.
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Strassen diagnose in management |
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sobota, 08 wrzesień 2007 |
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It is said, as professor Kępiński wrote about it, that a professional psychiatrist is able in the very first seconds to diagnose a patient. This is precisely called Strassen Diagnose - so called 'Street Diagnose'. The question is whether a consultant after half an hour of conversation with a chairman is able to state if a particular organization will be a tough one to diagnose or not? I believe that such a person understands and thinks about the organization a lot but his or her knowledge needs to be based on a broader context and on the research since the chairman himself/herself does not compose the company itself. An experienced consultant knows for sure where to examine and while talking with the boss he/she can see the problems of the company. After an hour of conversation it may turn out that he/she has an assistant who stands in for him/her brilliantly and all the assumptions are useless. Consulting is not a psychiatry indeed.
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Can a scientist be a good management consultant? |
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wtorek, 04 wrzesień 2007 |
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Being a scientist myself for about 20 years now, and observing my colleagues in the academia, I would say rather not. Personally, I wouldn't let a scientist into my company. There's one simple reason: management and business are arts, while science requires a mixture of freedom of thinking and methodological rigor. My experience of hiring scientists for working with clients are far from encouraging. They usually discover a huge gap between what they did as researchers and, well, reality. They might discover interesting phenomena while doing a research, but what's in it for the client? A lot of time must pass untill companies will be capable of directly using scientific research in their practice.
Some might say: "But prof. Stocki, with this entry, you are undermining everything you do, with the entire concept of your company employing promising PhD students etc." Well, not necesserily, as I consider myself a consultant doing science and not the other way round. Once, as I was taking part in MATRIK program, a president of the program asked me: "What would you choose if you had to, consulting or academia?" - without hesitation I replied: "Consulting". As a consultant, I feel I have direct influence on reality. I come here not to learn the truth that might prove useful someday in the future, but to use it for the good of people, here and now. Doing science is extremely helpful, but under condition that we stay in the domain of applied science.
As both consultants and researchers, our perspectives are wide, we are familiar with the most recent literature on the subjects of management, organizational science etc., we go to international conferences, we know what are the development trends in other countries. By mastering a given knowledge domain, we still have our feet on the ground; we know the practical limits of even the most sophisticated research.
There is also one important issue at stake. Had my priorities focused on knowing the truth or reality itself, I wouldn't have hesitated and left abroad. Science transcends borders and the US is probably the place that is fit the best for practicing it.
Of course, one can ask a legitimate question: how to distinguish a scientist practicing consulting from a consultant practicing science. I think that the answer is simple: by looking at their results, both scientific and pracitical.
I don't want to sound too critical about science and scientists. There's nothing more practical than a good theory, as Kurt Lewin once said. Scientists are those who make the work of people like me possible. Sometimes I envy their freedom but on the other hand I feel sorry that in Poland it is sometimes hard for them to make the ends meet. Finally, there is third category: teachers, couches and trainers. They seem to stand across the gap, but this is a different topic.
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How long does the complex organizational diagnosis take? |
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niedziela, 02 wrzesień 2007 |
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It always takes more time and involves more resources the first time, as the research tools must be calibrated to organizational needs. Later on, the diagnosis process is far less expensive. This is why we usually offer our clients long contracts with the possibility of instalments.
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When shall we call for a consultant? |
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piątek, 31 sierpień 2007 |
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It is like
with repairing a car or medical examination. You can have periodic examination
or you can end up in the hospital during your holidays or get stuck in a broken
car in the middle of the road. It is very similar in companies. You can place
diagnostic process and consulting in your management system or you can call a
consultant when the company is almost a bankrupt or when half of the employees
quit and there is nobody to work. The choices are quite rational.
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When international companies need Polish consultants? |
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środa, 29 sierpień 2007 |
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There are many
situations like that, but instead of making theoretical presentation I will use
an example. When a company builds the distribution network, its sales
representatives and regional managers are being thought to build as close
relations with clients as possible. And it happens indeed. In many branches
relations between dealer or distributor and sales representative are so close
that they are almost like family members. They talk with one another about love
affairs or holiday plans. But what is interesting and symptomatic they hardly ever
talk about business. Friendship and
personal commitments build up this gentle bond that is being strengthen by different
small “sins” committed during the business trips or other events prepared for
business partners. But at the same time a sales manager expects business
effects. Closeness between a representative and a dealer makes it more
difficult to look at the sales process in the objective way. Smart sales
managers in such situations are hiring external consulting company. To monitor
sales system a consultant can use a shadowing method (what consists in
assisting representative in his everyday work activities and making
observations), he can interview distributors, dealers or crucial clients. A consultant
who does not understand Polish culture well can not carry out such
conversations. In this case foreign companies almost do not have any choice.
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czwartek, 09 sierpień 2007 |
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If you take
a strip of paper and join both ends with a single half-twist you will receive Möbius
strip. It is a geometric figure with interesting characteristics. One of them
is that when you take a small sector of the strip it seems to have two sides:
head and bottom. But when you try to draw a line around the strip by your
finger you will notice that you can touch both sides and the line that meets
the starting point will have double length of the original paper. For me Möbius
strip is a symbol of a holistic approach. I think, that if we see some
contradictions it is because we take too narrow perspective. In a broader
context everything is sensible and makes sense. While diagnosing organizations
we try to look at them from a holistic perspective.
Ryszard Stocki
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Questionnaire research on the employees’ emotions |
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środa, 01 sierpień 2007 |
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Organizational DNA
questionnaire belongs to so called introspective methods which means that
people to answer questions need to look inside themselves. The question is
whether thinking about our emotions and thoughts to answer a question prepared
by somebody else gives us anything or not. Actually, the question is if any
text can evoke (recall) emotions that are inside of us? And whether all people
react the same for the same question? If we recall our emotions risen out of
reading a book we do not have any doubts that a written text can evoke emotion,
fury or anxiety. There are books that have been blamed for outbreaking a war
(ex. ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ is supposed to be the reason of Civil War). Questionnaire
is also a literary genre. The difference is that as opposed to novel, poem or
remembrance, in questionnaire we ask people to describe their feelings about a question
we ask on a certain scale. Questions like: ‘Does your boss treat you as a man?’
or ‘Do you like people you work with?’ evoke employees’ emotions. Our job as
researchers is to measure their answer adequately and interpret them.
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Controversialism in Using Focus Group Interview (FGI) |
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poniedziałek, 30 lipiec 2007 |
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Conducting focus group
interview both with business partners and employees requires a moderator that
fulfills several difficult conditions – he needs to love people, accept them as
they are, be curious about their opinions and way of thinking. That is the way a
moderator as a listener can gain confidence and makes people say what they
think. A good moderator can achieve this goal in 10-15 minutes. If a moderator
works only to earn some money and does not have positive attitude toward others
the material he will collect during FGI is not worth much. Using FGI also
requires ensuring that participants will not loose their jobs due to their
honest opinions. It may happen that even if the board supports our activities,
the middle level manager has a grievance against employees for what they said
about his doings. Of course interview has to be prepared well and you can read
about it in my book.
Ryszard Stocki
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Organizational DNA - whence the name? |
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sobota, 28 lipiec 2007 |
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Our motto "Organizations are humans" has its advantages, as people are the most important element of organizations, but it is not entirely true. As for the "genetic" nature of organizations the motto should sound something like "Organizations are animals". When I try to explain this joke, I usually compare the work of a diagnostician to that of a veterinarian (and not that of doctor!). Why? Because every company is not a member of the same species - it IS a different species. My intuition born out of experience with many organizations has been confirmed by people like Prahalad i Bettis or Drucker. In Poland, at least Obłój and the author of these words have focused their attention on this basic fact.
It that's the case, this genetic character of organization must be studied every time. Organizational DNA is a questionnaire that provides with all the basic information we need about what is going on in the company; this is our way of reading its code. But the DNA metaphore has its limits - while you cannot change the genetic code of living organisms within their lifetime, it is absolutely possible in case of organizations. Organization is more of a process than matter, but that is a different story.
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What are the benefits of Organizational DNA Report in a conflicted company? |
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środa, 25 lipiec 2007 |
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First, people don't really like to argue and live in a permanent conflict. Offering employees the questionnaire is like inviting them to conversation. It gives the management the opportunity to communicate: "We would really like to know your opinion" or "We would like to talko to you".
Second, people must be presented with the results. It usually takes a while, as the results should be followed by providing solutions: "In this matter, we will do something, and this issue will be addressed differently, and here there's nothing we can do etc." People in companies think. If they see our honesty and good will, we shall have them on our side. The most difficult part of the process is the time between the report and the ideas of what and how to resolve the problems. Sometimes, this period takes as long as a couple of moths. It might be a good idea to use this time for introducing changes that are self-evident, eg. cleaning the workspace or buying an extrea coffee machine. In the eyes of the management those changes may appear superficial and trivial, but for the employees they are a sign of commitment. After developing the transition plan, employees must become fully informed and engaged in the change process - especially, they must know why does it have to take so long.
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Employees' satisfaction research and trust |
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czwartek, 19 lipiec 2007 |
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When conducting research on employees' satisfaction, very often people do not take into consideration the importance of employees' trust who need to take part in research. It may happen that in spite of the fact that they keep up with the rules the employees do not respond honestly but in accordance with their naive theory of what the research results should be like.
This kind of phenomenon was discovered in social research some time ago. It turned out that the respondents suspected what was the hipothesis posed by the researcher and later on they tried to confirm this hypothesis (if they like the researcher) or to deny it (if they find him or her suspicious).In the research on employees' satisfaction we face similar effect. I can see that very often when business practices and the general atmosphere in the company are different than those seen in the results. Then we wonder where these low or high results came from. For example, when the questionnaire is conducted within the framework of some competition the employees may have a tendency towards overestimating the results just to improve the position of the company. What may be troublesome later on is to use the same results in the internal purposes.
It is good to make sure before conducting any research whether the employees look kindly on the board actions. If they do not it is useless to start the research but to focus on trust building.
Ryszard Stocki
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